“That isn’t possible. I would have seen—I would have felt what was happening,” she snarled. But she knew that wasn’t true even as she said the words. This body was frail and its power dwindling, no longer a good receptacle for magical power. It trickled from her like a leaking pot.
“Your command, Your Majesty?”
“Let her have her little rebellion. For now. I shall deal with her later. She hasn’t faced the true army yet, and when they arrive, nothing will please me more than to watch them rip her pet to pieces.”
Chapter
Dry, cold winter air whipped Rapunzel’s bangs away from her face. She rode alongside Muir on one of Lord Emberlene’s prize stallions. The silver steeds were bred for power and stamina and made ideal mounts for the leaders of the rebellion. Muir had declined, citing there was nothing wrong with his feet.
Her army marched behind them. Word of the rebellion’s victory in Floren had spread across the countryside and brought more cries for help over the following days. She had been faced with two choices—remain in Floren to wait for the inevitable arrival of the queen’s army, or go out and take back her country one region at a time.
Growing up, she had always expected to assume the throne one day, but she’d never dreamed it would come down to a civil war, their once great nation divided by deceit and trickery while everyone trusted her to guide them from tyranny.
In Crofton, a small village west of Floren known for its cobalt dyes, twenty men had joined them, and the local tailors spent all night fashioning blue tabards to outfit their growing army. From there, they’d marched farther inland to Ostwin and routed the small contingent of guards assigned by the local baron, Lord Gergain.
Wherever she went, more rebels joined their side. Whenever a man showed concern regarding the old tales of her insanity, resistance fighters from Floren assuaged his worries. She only hoped she didn’t let everyone down, that her tenacity and compassion squashed the treacherous rumors.
“We’re coming up on Verais,” Rapunzel said to Muir.
“A large town, if I recall correctly, yes?”
Sometimes it startled her that he’d researched Eisland so thoroughly before sailing to the kingdom. “It is, yes. Some of our finest silks come from Verais. The largest silverwood forest in Eisland lies at their border. That’s where they harvest the silkworms. And there’s a grape native to these hills that hasn’t been successfully cultivated anywhere else, making the vineyard here unique. Lord Gergain’s family has owned the winery and overlooked the town for generations.”
“Will he support us?”
She bit her lip and considered Muir’s question. “Once I would have said yes, but after seeing the conditions of the last two villages, I don’t think so. This whole region is under his care.”
“Then we will see Verais freed, as we did Floren. Look behind you, look at all who follow you because they believe in your cause.”
At his gentle insistence, she twisted in the saddle and looked back at the long line of men, and even a few women, marching behind them. There weren’t enough horses for even a quarter of their numbers, but no one complained.
“We still can’t hope to outnumber the forces the queen has,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Maybe numbers isn’t what will win this war.” Muir nudged her with the edge of his beak, and those soft down feathers covering his face brushed against her cheek. She closed her eyes and relished the moment of contact, the warmth of him even in his griffin form. That one touch lit a spark in her heart. He truly was a gentle giant, as large as the horse she rode. “Believe in yourself, Rapunzel.”
“Thank you.”
He canted his head. “For what?”
“For being here. For helping me when you could have been sailing home. I—”
“Princess!”
Captain Milo trotted toward them. Earlier that morning, he and a small group had ridden ahead to scout in Verais. The old war hero had wanted to assess the situation with his own eyes.
“What is it, Captain?”
“I’m sorry, Princess, but it seems as if Lord Gergain is prepared to battle. Soldiers have fortified their position in Verais and around the estate.”
“Were your spies able to confirm the presence of slaves in the vineyards?”
Milo nodded curtly, his wind-chapped lips pressed into a thin, dissatisfied line. “I did so myself. I wasn’t able to free anyone, as I was spotted by his guards. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. How many will we be facing?”
“I don’t exactly know. Verais has a standing militia of around a hundred or so, but there’s no telling how many men Lord Gergain has in his pocket. We can’t get into the city to see.”
“You can’t, but I can.”
“Your Highness?”
“I have a gift I’ve kept secret for far too long, and if you’ll grant me one moment, perhaps I can put it to fair use for our side.”
Rapunzel reined in her horse and maneuvered the animal closer to Muir. She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and reached out for the snow with her mind and magic. One with the snow and ice, she swirled up from the ground and streamed forward.
No one at the gates so much as blinked at her passing, her incorporeal form lost amid flurries kicked up by the wind. She swept through the town, all the way up to the vineyard estate.
And then she released the spell and awakened to find Muir and Milo both looking at her—Muir with approval and Milo with awe.
“Two hundred men would be my guess,” she told them before sharing all else she’d seen.
Milo blinked but recovered himself. “An even match to our own forces, Your Highness, though I daresay they shall be better trained and prepared to repel invaders. They’ve no doubt heard of our thunderbirds and will be prepared for magic as well.”
“Then spread the word down the line. We attack Verais at once. The sooner we arrive, the less time they’ll have to mount an adequate defense and ward us off.”
* * *
The moment Rapunzel reached the gates of Verais, the modest militia holding its gates stood down and practically pleaded to join her side.
The men were malnourished, mistreated, paid poorly for their efforts, and living in constant fear of losing their loved ones. They told Rapunzel and Milo everything they knew about the opposition’s defenses because the man had robbed Verais of every protection it had and left them to die in his name.
Leaving the town behind, the rebellion pushed through to the estate in the northern hills until they met resistance. As expected, Gergain had prepared for their arrival, erecting enormous palisades around the estate grounds and reinforcing their protection with spiked barricades near every entrance. It had been done in so little time, nothing short of slave labor could have accomplished it.
Gergain’s mounted cavalry surged over the battlefield and clashed with Rapunzel’s army. While few were armed with pistols, the ones who wielded them knew how to shoot. They charged fearlessly at the rebellion’s front lines.
Two cannons fired from the upper level of the estate, but Rapunzel only had the reflexes to counter one. Dropping the reins, she thrust both hands over head and created a magical shield. The cannon skipped over it, like a stone gliding over water, and landed to the rear of her soldiers. The second barreled into their ranks on the border.
“They’ll be reloading soon!” someone cried.
Muir growled low in his throat, the sound feline and masculine, like the roar of one of the enormous mountain cats she’d once seen while on a safari of Ridaeron with her father as a child. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of that.”
He took to the air and called back to his clansmen with three shrill cries that echoed across the sky. They joined him and raced toward the estate to attack the enemy’s main defenses.
“Soldiers approaching from the west!” a rebel shouted.
Several dozen snarling men in black armor flooded the battlefield. The soldiers cr
ashed through the rebellion’s defenses and broke through their lines within seconds of their appearance.
Why hadn’t they seen their approach sooner? One moment, there were clear, snow-dusted slopes, and in the next, the army materialized among them, too close for her to dare ward them off with sorcery for fear of harming her own men.
Magic. It had to be Gothel’s magic at work.
“Hold the line!” Rapunzel yelled out. Enemies approached them from both sides and cut a swath through the rebel forces. The smell of death and gunpowder filled the air. At the estate, one of the griffins ripped the cannon from a parapet and hurled it to the ground.
A shot from a ballista narrowly missed the shifter, but that only seemed to infuriate him, not scare him, because a sizzling bolt split the sky and a flash of lightning exploded from the secured estate.
Trusting the three Oclanders could handle themselves, Rapunzel charged into the fray with the black-armored men, flanked by the six-man detail dedicated to her protection.
A combination of thunder and musket shots deafened her, and then her horse was ripped from beneath her. No, not ripped. She was the one flying as the beautiful beast crumpled beneath her midgallop before she made impact with the hard ground. Her head skipped off the soil, and she lay there stunned, dazed from the fall, tremendous pain radiating through her left hip and her shoulder screaming.
The six men who were her protective detail lay around her in varying states of injury, one trapped beneath his horse instead of thrown. Two dead from rifle fire.
A cry went up from somewhere, though her ears were ringing and she couldn’t tell where it came from. “Aid the princess!”
A rebel leapt down from his horse to help her up. He steadied her as pandemonium broke out over the battlefield, the merciless black army cutting through rebellion forces like wheat.
“Princess? Are you—” A black-armored soldier ran him through from behind, and his blood splashed her face.
Rapunzel stumbled back, a scream in her throat as magic surged from her fingertips in frosty waves. The enemy nearest her stuck to the ground as ice formed in a thick layer over his legs and lower body.
More soldiers replaced him. A second assailant lunged at her with his sword. Rapunzel batted him away with force, imbuing enough desperation into her magical attack that he was flung yards away. It didn’t matter. Enemies approached her from all sides, but for each one she froze, another took his place. She called up spears of ice between her and the attackers, but they threw themselves against her defenses and kept forcing her back. Inch by inch, she gave up ground to the black-eyed soldiers as they wore her down.
“Give up! You don’t deserve the crown, broken princess,” one snarled. He lunged forward and nearly caught her with his ax. It glanced off her faltering magical shield.
Another took her momentary distraction to his advantage. Bruising hands grabbed her left arm as she released her next spell. Light and fire exploded in the man’s face, a brief but blinding flash that sent him floundering backward.
“Down with the princess!”
The familiar voice came from her other side. She turned, too slow, and pain lanced against her ribs as the edge of a blade cut through her meager leather armor and sliced over her skin. While not deep, the excruciating pain threatened to drop her to her knees. But it was nothing compared to the pain in her heart upon seeing her attacker’s face.
“Bannic?” She had known him all her life, a nobleman’s son who took up a post in the royal guard when he came of age. He had been her first crush as a young girl. A friend to both her and Joren.
“Die!” Spittle flew from his mouth as Bannic charged her. Rapunzel fended him off with her magic, every sharp blade of ice she created to block his attacks shattered beneath his brutal assault.
“What are you doing? Stop this!” she cried.
Like the others around him, the major’s eyes shone blacker than pond water reflecting a midnight sky. His lips curled up in a snarl as he lunged again. This time, Rapunzel avoided the blade already wet with her blood and blasted him with a miniature blizzard. Ice and biting cold sprayed forth from her fingers, but Bannic didn’t slow. Even as frost crackled over his skin, turning it blue, he kept advancing on her with his sword held up and ready to strike.
She hesitated, and her spell faltered. Hard as it was to kill strangers, how did she kill someone she knew and cared for?
In a blink, in the moment she was certain her swift death would come upon the man’s blade, a golden blur threw itself between her and the descending sword. Muir released an enraged shriek and buffeted the weapon away with his massive wing, and then he tore into Bannic, snapping with his beak and ripping with his talons.
Dragged from her stupor, Rapunzel flung ice shards at two soldiers coming up from behind Muir. Her griffin spun around, his tail lashing angrily through the air.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No,” she lied.
“Then climb on.”
She grabbed double fistfuls of his feathers and pulled herself atop his back. He took off before she had a chance to secure her seat, so she held on for her life and trusted him.
“They’ve all been ensorcelled,” she gasped. “They’re like rabid animals.”
“We have to stop them, or they’ll overwhelm us. Can you bring down more ice spears?”
She closed her eyes and tried not to think about who else might be down there. Others like Bannic. “Yes, if you can bring more rain, I’ll hurl them from the sky, but we need our troops out of the way or they’ll be caught as well.”
“Leave it to me.” He snapped out his wings and soared higher into the air, releasing a screech that warbled in pitch. Two answering cries echoed back from across the battlefield. Moments later, Rapunzel watched the troops below pull back toward the estate.
Muir cried out again and circled higher. His magic danced along Rapunzel’s skin, bright and powerful, sparks igniting against his feathers. Thunder rumbled above them, clouds gathered, and the winds picked with tremendous speed. The moment the first raindrop fell from the sky, Rapunzel reached out with her magic and fashioned it into a deadly, frozen projectile. She funneled her energy into the storm, this time focusing on damage rather than smothering fires beneath heavy snowfall.
The army below stood no chance. Those who escaped her spears were cut down by the frontline of defenders until only silence reigned over the grounds. Spent, she sagged against Muir’s back and focused on breathing.
“Rapunzel?”
“I’m fine,” she wheezed.
“You’re bleeding. I can smell it.”
“Only a little.”
She’d come to recognize his native swears by the rough, low tone his voice took, and Muir uttered many of them. By the time they landed by the estate’s front veranda, Rapunzel was fighting exhaustion wrought by a combination of blood loss, injury, and magical overexertion. They were met by Captain Milo, Faolan, and Sòlas, though the latter appeared to be recovering from an injury more severe than hers while his son bound the older griffin’s wing with bandages.
“We need aid at once,” Muir growled. “The princess is injured.”
Rapunzel had no idea who helped her down, there were so many hands, but she pushed them all away and stood on her own.
“It’s a scratch. One you may fuss over later if you so wish, but not now. Now I need to know where we stand.”
“The estate is ours, Your Highness,” Milo reported. “Lord Gergain’s remaining men surrendered once we captured him.”
“Where is he?”
“He, his wife, and son are inside with my lieutenant.”
“Good, keep them there for the moment. I’ll deal with him shortly. What of the queen’s men? Do any still live?”
“Doubtful,” Faolan replied. Blood matted his tartan, and a healing pink line stood out against his right cheek. “Your magic turned the tide for us. For a moment there I wasn’t sure we could hold out.”
Milo wipe
d his brow. “I’ve never seen the like. Even when others gave up and threw down their arms, these poor sods kept coming. They fought until we cut them down, and even then some of them tried to keep advancing. As if they felt no pain. As if they didn’t care.”
“And their eyes….” Sòlas shuddered. “Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Aye,” Muir murmured. Everyone turned their gaze to him. “A mirror in the throne room had this same oily sheen. I remember thinking it odd but didn’t pay it much more mind than that since the king fell and the queen revealed herself.”
“Could it be part of the spell she cast?” Rapunzel asked.
“Magic is not my area of expertise, but I know who we can ask.”
“Your queen?”
Muir dipped his head. “Aye. But that talk will wait until you’ve been brought to a healer.”
Rapunzel nudged his hands away when he reached for her. With so many loyal soldiers needing her support, looking to her for guidance, she didn’t dare to show weakness. Muir’s stern expression only deepened. He stepped in close and lowered his voice.
“It is no failing to show you were wounded in battle,” he told her. “You will serve no one if you bleed to death or collapse from exhaustion.”
“I know that, but—”
“Please.” His palm came to rest lightly over her hip. “It pains me to see you hurt, Rapunzel. You should never have come so close to harm, and for that I beg your forgiveness.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, eyes widening. “Muir, it wasn’t your fault. You had a task of your own.”
“I should have returned to your side sooner. So I beg again, please allow your wound to be bound before you tackle anything else. For my sake if not for yours.”
His free hand cupped against her cheek, and for that moment in time, everyone around them faded into obscurity. Only she and Muir existed. His thumb swept over her cheekbone and his gaze dipped to her lips.
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