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Opal
“We’ve got him this time,” came from one of the soldiers who spat at us.
His saliva hit the orb, sliding down it as though it were a sheet of clear glass. I knew without touching it that it wasn’t. It hummed with a power I couldn’t name or recognize.
This time.
The blood on Dade’s wrist.
He’d said nothing had happened—hadn’t wanted to alarm me by stating someone had tried something. I turned to look up at the beast beside me, who lowered onto his stomach, bleeding in varying places yet gazing at me as though he were worried I’d injured myself.
“You fucking moron,” Elhn said, pushing to the front of the crowd and staring at the orb in evident dismay. His eyes closed, and he cursed, shoving at the male next to him. “Clean that filth off before her majesty arrives.”
The soldier frowned, as did some of the others, shifting on their feet. A few were bleeding in places, others howling in pain beneath the awning of the most popular bakery in the city. I couldn’t see them to gauge how injured they were, and I didn’t care.
I stuck my beak in the air when the soldier said, “Are you a traitor, captain? I’ll spit at the monster if I so please.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, dipshit,” Elhn growled into his face and stabbed a finger our way, “there is also a swan in there.”
“So what?” the ignorant ass said. Meanwhile, various sets of eyes widened around him. Perhaps they knew of our history enough to know or remember that although one of my kind had not been seen in a long time, every single one of us had been a Gracewood royal.
“The princess,” Rodney, a soldier five years my senior who’d sometimes brought me fresh seedlings when he visited the Spring Forest, said upon a rushed breath. I stared at him, seeing no point in doing otherwise. It wasn’t like I could talk to refute it, and if I shifted back, they’d know for certain. “It is her,” he said, blinking.
The male who’d spat at us cursed, then raced forward, studying me through the orb. “But it’s just a swan.” Giant dark brown eyes widened and blinked. “A huge fucking swan, but still a swan.”
I honked, and he flinched, rousing laughter from the soldiers who’d tried to hurt Dade just moments before.
The king grumbled behind me, then pawed me back closer to his side even though no one could touch me if they dared. My webbed feet tangled in the chains he’d snapped free from, and he flicked them at the clear barrier. It hissed, and I stared as the iron began to melt.
There was a collection of curses as the soldiers noticed, and then there was shrieking, the male quickly swiping away his saliva as my mother arrived. The orb zapped him, and his hair rose high on his head. He yelped, snatching his hand back and putting a healthy distance between us as he slunk between his brethren.
“Move,” my mother shouted, the soldiers all parting as she raced toward me, and her hand rose to her mouth. My heart sank with her knees as she stopped before the orb…
And screamed.
The silence that followed her ear-shredding agony was nearly as deafening. Dade grunted, tense next to me, and I felt my chest hollow with dread at the fear shining in her eyes. I tried to shift back.
I couldn’t.
Moving as close as she could get, the wind knocking her honeyed hair back from her shoulders to reveal the entirety of her stricken expression, my mother reached out as though she’d place her hand upon the orb.
It hummed with the approaching warmth as though calling to it, and she lowered her hand. “What have you done?” she cried. “Oh, stars, Opal, what have you done?”
Dade growled when Deandra approached, sword raised as though she’d slice through the orb. His feathered wing hauled me closer, nearly shielding all of me. I swung my neck around, but his gaze moved between the female soldier and the queen, muscles flexing and tensing behind me.
I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t shift. I could only nudge the feathers of Dade’s wings from shielding my view and stare back at her.
The soldiers at her back stayed quiet, watching, awaiting orders. Yet her attention stayed fixed on me and the wolf she’d trapped. It seemed to settle in her then, her face falling. Her mouth trembled as she released a resigned breath. “Fetch Silver,” she said, then repeated herself, her voice raised. “Someone fetch the sorceress now.”
As a small group peeled and raced away, we continued to stare. My heart thundered. The warmth of the bubble surrounding us seemed to increase with each passing minute.
Silver arrived, wreathed in snake-like shadows that evaporated right before the fifty-odd soldiers. The males and females eyed her as she neared, that serpentine smile in place.
Eyes glued themselves to the snakes twining around her upper arms, some daring enough to drift over her lithe, supple frame outlined by a tight long gown of glittering rubies.
She tutted. “Oh, Nikaya.” A pleasure-roughened groan accompanied her next words. “This is too good.” Her hands rubbed together, the glee in her voice evident in those red eyes. “My stars, just look at them.” Stopping before the orb, she dragged a fingernail down it. Nothing happened. No charge. No recoil. “Aren’t they quite the pair?”
The gown bent with her like water over a rock as she crouched, whispering, “Yes, quite the mated pair.”
My mother’s eyes shuttered, then reopened on the sorceress as she rose to her feet. “Fix it.” Silver’s eyes flashed, and my mother urged, “Please.”
“You asked me for an impenetrable cage for a beast.” She sketched a hand our way. “So that is what I gave you.”
“There has to be a way out.”
Silver’s smirk made Dade stiffen. “There’s always a way out.” Floating closer to my mother, she brushed some of her golden hair over her shoulder, her smirk falling while a long crimson nail traced my mother’s cheek and jaw. Her voice melted into a softer tone I’d have never thought the overconfident sorceress capable of. “And as we already know, it will always cost you something priceless.”
My mother’s wet eyes flared wide when Silver said quietly, “I’m all out of favors now, my love.”
Watching them, something murky began to clear, but then she was gone, my mother left snarling at fading dark air.
Her hands swept into her hair. “Shit.” Elhn wisely told the soldiers to back up, allowing her a modicum of privacy. “That fucking female and her fucking riddles.”
Dade huffed, and I swung a glare at him that said this wasn’t fu
He licked his lips, then sniffed and smiled with his eyes.
I had no idea how he could remain so calm, how he could find any shred of humor in this situation. Then I remembered he’d been subjected to worse. He’d been on battlefield after battlefield. He’d been raised and conditioned for violence and brutality.
Which was why we were here, trapped and beholden to a riddle-loving sorceress and a queen out for revenge.
I shifted on my feet, swinging my neck downhill to where Silver’s lair was.
When feather meets fire, vengeance will expire.
My mother called my name, and I turned back. “Listen to me carefully, okay?”
I had no place else to be. She knew I could understand her just fine from the many times she’d chased me around the castle when I’d accidentally shifted as a youngling and couldn’t figure out how to shift back.