Twinchantment

by Elise Allen

  “And gorgeous,” Sara said, following her down. “I wonder if Mitzi let that slip to Princess Blakely. She’d lose her mind. She wants to marry Rafleston. Talks about it all the time.”

  “So, what,” Galric said. “You like this guy or something?”

  Sara followed Flissa to a large hollow stump—a single tunnel in a wall of tangled branches.

  “I don’t know about this.” Flissa bit her lip. “It’s the clearest path through, but I don’t like that it would surround us. It could be a trap…but it could also get us out faster than any other way…but if it’s a trap that doesn’t matter…”

  Sara couldn’t see Flissa’s upper lip clearly in the dim forest light, but she knew it was damp with sweat. “The coin. You flip it. I don’t want to lose it here.”

  Flissa nodded. She tugged out her locket, and in the split second her attention was elsewhere, a bullet of a spiny-thorned branch shot through the air. Sara screamed, and Flissa looked up and flicked her sword at lightning speed to deflect the barb.

  “Nice try,” she called to the forest, and tucked the locket back into her shirt. “Can’t flip the coin. Let’s find another way out, just to be safe.”

  They were very close to the edge of the forest now. Its light seeped through the branches. All Flissa had to do was find the right spot, and they’d be into the actual Twists. Even after the carnivorous, vindictive forest, the idea gave Sara a thrill.

  “So, this Rafleston guy,” Galric said. “You’re, what, royally promised to him or something?”

  “What?!” Sara said.

  “Ew!” Flissa said, never taking her eyes off the forest around them. “What is wrong with you? Is that how you think royalty works?”

  Galric blushed. “I don’t know! How would I know?”

  “He’s just some duke,” Sara said, “and no, we’re not ‘royally promised’ to anyone. I mean, we’re not even twelve yet. And we’re pretending to be one person. Not even sure how that could work.”

  Flissa must have heard the edge to Sara’s voice, because she glanced her way just long enough for a vine to take advantage and wrap around Flissa’s ankle. She immediately sliced it with her scimisword and kept moving, and Sara moved to a less distracting topic.

  “You didn’t answer my question, though,” she said to Galric. “Do you know who was who when you met us?”

  “You were the one I met first,” he said. “By the stables.”

  Sara’s heart soared. She’d wanted him to get it right. She couldn’t explain why, but it was really, really important to her that Galric knew her for her. But she had to know for sure if he did, so she played it coy. “You think?”

  “Sure. You slammed right into me and fell.”

  “Oh,” she said dully. Of course. The klutzy thing. That didn’t even count. It was too easy.

  “Plus we’ve already established that Flissa was the one who was supposed to tell me I was coming along to the Twists and didn’t,” Galric said pointedly.

  “Please do not give me a hard time while I’m protecting you, Galric,” Flissa called without turning around.

  Sara had forgotten that they’d already established who was who. She was starting to regret this whole line of questioning—it was only making her feel bad.

  “Never mind, then,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as deflated to Galric as it did in her own ears. “It was a silly question.”

  “It was a good question! And even without that stuff I could answer it. I mean, yeah, the falling thing helps me know for sure and all, and Flissa’d have to be the one who rode up on Blusters—”

  “Balustrade,” Flissa corrected him.

  “—but now that I know you, I could tell you apart more by the way you were, you know?”

  Sara scrunched her face, but inwardly her heart skipped. “How was I?”

  “I don’t know, just—impressive, I guess. I mean, you seemed really interested in who I was and what I had to say. And you didn’t even know me, except that my dad was the guy who cursed your mom. I mean, honestly? I thought the minute you figured out who I was you’d throw me to the Twists.”

  Sara giggled. “I would never throw you to the Twists.”

  “Actually,” Flissa said. “We most certainly did. Here’s our way through.”

  She pointed with her sword. It was a clear path out, canopied by curved branches—an archway leading them right where they wanted to go. “I don’t know if this is a trap or the Brambled Gates are simply tired of defending themselves against us, but I can get us through either way. One of you on either side of me. We can do this.”

  They walked three across, and Flissa had her scimisword brandished the whole time, but the forest didn’t make a move. Maybe the Brambled Gates figured that if anyone wanted to get into the Twists that badly, they should be allowed to do it.

  The second before they took the last step out, Flissa froze. “The cloaks,” she said. “There are Keepers in the Twists, remember? We need to put on the cloaks and wear the hoods. You first. I’ll get mine when we’re out and I can lower my sword.”

  Sara put her hand in her pouch. “Cloak!” she called, and grinned as it smacked into her grip. “It’s dry. And warm, like it was out on the line.”

  “Good,” Flissa said. “The rest of me is still soaked, so it’ll be nice to have a dry cloak.”

  Flissa waited until Sara had slung it over her shoulders—backward, at first, but then she spun it around—and fastened it, then they all took deep breaths and prepared for their first step out of the Brambled Gates and into the Twists.

  Flissa leaped out in a fighting stance, then gasped and winced in the harsh glare from the sun. She kept her scimisword brandished as she squinted and blinked, and gradually the world became clearer. She pivoted left and right, but didn’t see any yellow-robed figures. Or anyone else, for that matter.

  “Keep an eye out,” she told Galric and Sara, who flanked her. With them on guard duty, Flissa returned the scimisword to her pouch, then called out her cloak and put it on. The combination of the hot day, her wet clothes, and the warm cloak made her feel like a human rain forest, but she supposed there was no way around it. Safety first.

  With her eyes now fully adjusted, she glanced around and gaped in awe.

  After the dim sameness of the forest, it was as if she had stepped out of a black-and-white world into one that was full color. Katya had told them to look for a marketplace, but there was nothing even remotely like that around. Instead she saw a wide vista of lush grasses, surrounded by mountains. Flissa wasn’t positive, but she thought she saw little homes dotting the mountains too. A river flowed through everything, disappearing between mountains and out of Flissa’s sight. But the most remarkable thing…

  “The colors,” Sara said breathlessly. “Are you looking at the colors?”

  “They’re incredible,” Flissa said.

  The sun was purple, and it sat in a lemon-yellow sky. The grass was orange. Not a burned, dried orange, but the orange of the fruit, vibrant and healthy. And while the water flowed blue, it was the most stunningly clean, clear blue Flissa had ever seen. She thirsted with the need to dive in and feel its refreshing chill drench her body. Only the boulders scattered about seemed like ones they’d find at home, but they were larger and in bulbous, rounded shapes that looked like fantastical creatures themselves.

  “I thought the Twists were supposed to be horrible,” Sara said. “This is…magical!”

  “I think that’s just it,” Flissa said. “There’s so much concentrated magic here, it affects everything. Whether the Keepers wanted to make the land strange and beautiful or not, that’s what happened.”

  “Okay, but yes, listen to what you just said,” Sara noted. “If magic was bad, lots of magic would make everything awful. But it didn’t. It made it beautiful. Just on its own, that’s what it did. So maybe that means magic is actually good. And good mages like Katya use it that way. But when bad mages use magic, they’re using it wrong.”
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  “Or maybe it just proves the Keepers’ magic is good,” Flissa said, “since their magic built this place.”

  “Magic might be good, but the Keepers aren’t,” Galric said firmly. “We should—”

  Sara gasped and grabbed Flissa’s arm. “Dragons! Oh my universe, Flissa, dragons, for-real dragons. Dragons!”

  Flissa followed her gaze. Countless magical beasts—dragons, it seemed, though since she’d always assumed those were fiction she couldn’t be sure—came around the side of one of the mountains and gathered alongside the river to drink. Some were the size of the entire palace, with tiny wings that had to be only for show. Others were as small as Primka, and fluttered around the larger beasts, landing on their backs and snouts and flittering in and out of the water. Still others flew on wings that sprouted from their shoulders, their bodies hanging large and limp below them, but when they landed, they ran nimbly on their two back legs, with their front hands poised in the air like a spaniel begging for a snack. And the colors—like everything else in the Twists, the colors on the animals spanned the entire rainbow.

  “Remind me of the plant that ate me,” Sara said, “because I really want to go pet them.”

  “No petting,” Galric and Flissa said at the same time. But then they heard another voice.

  “I don’t even know about the plant and I don’t want to,” said Primka as they all looked up to see her flutter toward them. She held Nitpick by the scruff of his neck with her feet, but swooped low so she could drop the kitten into Galric’s arms.

  “Meow!” he said, and purred as Galric hugged him close.

  “He won’t admit it, but he was awfully frightened,” Primka said. “I told him he shouldn’t worry and of course you’d find a way to make it through, but you know how kittens are. There was just no comforting him.”

  Nitpick cocked his head questioningly. “Meow?”

  Flissa laughed. She had no doubt it was Primka who’d been worried about them, and she was glad to be reunited with someone who could take charge again. Flissa was more than happy to give up that mantle.

  “Katya said we have to get to the marketplace,” Flissa said to Primka. “Do you know the way?”

  “I do,” she said. “I flew up high so I could see. There’s a path on the other side of the river, and it gets small enough that we can cross. It happens to be far downstream from the dragons, so we can keep our distance, but—”

  A low, impossibly loud rumble made them all look up. A mountain in the near distance shuddered, and as the rumble grew even louder, dust rose off it and hung in the air like a wispy cloud.

  Flissa’s instincts screamed danger. She knew they should run, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. The entire mountain was shaking wildly now…until suddenly its huge bulk imploded into itself, collapsing down to nothing but rolling dust.

  Sara grabbed Flissa’s arm. “Flissa,” she said breathlessly. “That mountain…it had homes on it.”

  Flissa was too stunned to respond. She had been thinking the same thing. There were people on that mountain. And now it was dust.

  Spreading dust. The cloud from the imploded mountain spread in a wide circle, moving toward the dragons. Flissa saw them snort and sniff and roar, then—

  “Earthquake!” Galric cried.

  Flissa felt it too. The ground shaking under their feet.

  “It’s not!” Sara cried. “It’s the dragons!”

  Spooked by the dust cloud, the sea of dragons had scattered in all directions, with the entire herd of two-footed beasts headed directly toward Flissa, Sara, Galric, Nitpick, and Primka. They moved blindingly fast, wings pointed behind them, green scales shining and red bellies flashing.

  “They’re coming this way!” Flissa wailed. “What do we do, Primka?”

  “RUN!”

  Primka took off, and Flissa grabbed Sara’s hand to pull her along as fast as she could. “Galric!” she cried, but he already knew what she wanted.

  “Got it!”

  He tucked Nitpick into his shirt and grabbed Sara’s other hand. Together they raced at top speed for all of two seconds before Sara screamed and reared back, pulling Flissa and Galric with her.

  “No,” she mewled. “I can’t. Please don’t make me.”

  Flissa stared ahead of them in complete disbelief.

  All across the ground, as far as the eye could see, holes as round and wide as a dinner table opened in the ground. Like fish mouths, they circled open, then closed again, each time revealing an angry red abyss lined with sickly black dots. The holes popped up randomly, dozens at a time, like an endless array of diseased throats.

  Flissa wheeled to look behind them, but the holes were there too, opening and closing. As she watched, one opened up beneath a dragon. It screamed as it fell, but the screams ended with a horrible swallow as the pit devoured its meal.

  “No,” Sara said, her lips white with fear. “No-no-no-no-no…”

  Flissa herself couldn’t make a sound. The dragons were getting close, with one so far ahead of the others Flissa could count its teeth when it opened its mouth to roar.

  If they stayed still, they’d be dead. But if they ran into the minefield…

  Just then, a flash of color caught Flissa’s eye. When she looked down, she saw a circle of grass beneath them had changed from bright orange to carnation pink. Flissa’s heart pounded.

  “JUMP!” she screamed.

  Galric and Sara listened. The three of them leaped away, and the circle opened into another giant maw…just as the lead dragon pounced hungrily on the spot and fell to his howling demise.

  “The pink!” Flissa screamed, running full speed now, and pulling Sara and Galric with her. “The grass turns pink before the holes open! Stay away from the pink and we’ll be okay!”

  “Define ‘okay,’” Galric said as he sidestepped away from a patch of pink grass, twirling Sara with him.

  “Alive!” Flissa retorted.

  “This way!” Primka cried, suddenly flapping above their heads. She pointed a wing to the nearest mountain. “I found a path up—you can get away from the dragons.”

  “Great!” Flissa yelled, tackling both Sara and Galric to the ground and rolling them away from another ravenous maw just as the orange grass turned pink. Galric got up immediately and helped her pull Sara to her feet.

  “I don’t like this place anymore, Flissa!” Sara whimpered. “I don’t like it at all.”

  “Like it?!” Primka snapped. “It’s a magical prison! You think just because it looks pretty it’s going to be nice?”

  Sara didn’t answer, but Flissa knew it was exactly what Sara had thought. Flissa had kind of thought so too, for a minute. Now she knew better.

  “Single file!” she called to Galric and Sara. She saw a route to Primka’s path, but gaping maws and pink circles lined it on both sides. Single file was the only way they’d make it.

  “No!” Sara cried. “Don’t let go of my hand!”

  She sounded so scared it ripped Flissa’s heart. “I have to! We have to move fast!”

  “I’m right behind you, Sara,” Flissa heard Galric cry. “Just run!”

  Flissa sprinted for the bottom of the mountain path, and she heard Sara’s and Galric’s pounding feet behind her. Her breath tearing at her throat, she lunged up the path, then turned and offered her hand to Sara to help her up too. Galric was next…but the second his foot hit the ground for his last step, the grass turned pink beneath him.

  “NO!” Flissa roared. She firmly pushed Sara aside and grabbed Galric’s hand with her own, bracing herself on a rock with her other one. Her arm nearly popped out of its socket when the ground went out from under Galric, but he quickly braced his dangling feet on the mouth’s edge, and propelled himself onto the path.

  “Thanks,” he panted breathlessly.

  “We can’t stop now,” Sara said. “Look!”

  She pointed, and Flissa followed her gaze. The dragons were still coming. Though many had fallen prey to the carn
ivorous ground, twenty were still running their way. Flissa saw their forked, barbed tongues and sharp fangs from which red foam bubbled and dripped. As Flissa watched in stunned awe, one of the dragons cocked back its head and spit toward her. Flissa jumped away a second before its red foam spittle hit the rock where Flissa had been leaning. It bubbled, hissed, and melted away.

  “They spit acid foam!” Flissa called to Galric and Sara. “We have to climb the path—as high as we can!”

  They started climbing, Galric and Flissa pulling Sara up between them. They made it as high as a single story before Flissa looked over her shoulder again to see the dragons still giving chase…but now they had unfurled their wings and were rising through the air. The dragons were far more agile on their muscular legs than their puny shoulder wings, but they were gaining altitude each second, and Flissa had no idea how far their poison could shoot.

  “Sara? Galric?” she began, but Sara clearly heard the warning dread in her voice because she shook her head.

  “I don’t want to know,” Sara said. “Just tell me what I have to do and how to get away.”

  “Up here!” Primka shouted, and they all looked up. Just a little higher and to the right, Primka fluttered outside a crevice. “It’s a cave! We can take cover! Just get here!”

  They changed their angle and climbed toward Primka’s voice. Flissa heard a SPLAT and a sizzle and looked down. Another dragon had spit its acid venom against the wall beneath them, knocking away big chunks of rock. Any moment now the dragons would be close enough to easily hit them all.

  In the blink of an eye, Flissa ran through her options. Grab her sword? She couldn’t possibly wield it while balancing on the steep rocks. Keep scrambling higher? They’d be out in the open for the next spit attack. Look for another weapon in her bag? She had no idea what was there, and nothing was popping into her head like before.

  “The broken rocks!” Sara yelled. “Grab them, throw them! Primka, you too—help!”

  That snapped Flissa out of it. “Yes! Great idea! You stay here, Sara.”