Knight's End: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Tangled Crowns Book 3), page 23
I swallowed hard. I was half-relieved and half-annoyed at the outcome. But at least we had her leave to ask the undead instead of an outright refusal. “Well, that could have gone worse.”
Declan bit his thumb at Shenna’s back. “It could have gone a shiteload better. The undead army is known to kill anyone who approaches without an escort from Shenna’s fairies.”
I took a deep breath and climbed back onto Pony. “Well, if they kill us, we can just head underwater ourselves, I suppose.”
Quinn climbed on behind me and snuggled up to me.
Don’t worry, Dove. We’ll find a way to survive. And if we don’t, I’ll still love you if you end up undead. He sent me a horrific image of me stumbling around as a desiccated corpse. Suddenly my arm popped off and rolled away. Imaginary undead Quinn winked at me and picked it up. ‘Mind if I borrow this?’ he asked. Then he shoved the severed hand down his pants with a look of bliss.
Everyone’s faces contorted in horror then laughter—apparently, Quinn had sent the thought to the entire group.
“You’re awful,” I shook my head even as I reached backward and hugged his neck. He kissed the top of my head.
I was grateful for the moment of levity.
But as the laughter trailed off, my mind whirled: What could possibly convince an undead army to help us?
Chapter Twenty-Two
We rode through the sky toward the desert. Quinn's arms wrapped around my waist, and I reveled in the luxury of his touch. It was something I never wanted to take for granted again. I kept my hand over his and I stroked his skin, just reassuring myself that he was still here. Pony kept our pace smooth and even, despite the storm clouds gathering in the distance.
Declan was the first to bring up the display we’d just witnessed. “Did anyone else find that little orgasm display completely awkward?”
Connor shrugged and called out, “Personally, I thought it was hot. Might be something we should recreate sometime.”
Ryan shook his head. “Forcing us to watch three orgasms was a bit much.”
Blue laughed and added, “She only went to three because Declan told me she faked the first one. I called out her mind speaker on it. When she heard that, she forced them to give her two real ones.”
I nearly fell off Pony, I laughed so hard. “That’s what that was? Sarding hell, why didn’t you tell me? It was the most uncomfortable experience of my life!”
“Because your face, the tiny twitches you couldn’t control, your attempts to control your thoughts—it’s a moment I’ll treasure forever.” Blue held his hands up to his heart, mocking me.
“If I could throw something at you right now, I would,” I said.
You have your coin purse, Quinn reminded me.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “I’ve left the palace without coins before—when I was an eighteen-year-old hothead. I don’t have time to work my way across this country. Now, I need you cabbage heads to be silent so I can think.”
I turned my mind to the undead army. Donaloo had seemed so certain I could help them. But would they help me? Would they know what we could do to stop Mayi?
We might need to wish for their help, Quinn thought.
No! Absolutely not. I just got you back. That wish was even worse than the last one.
We can survive whatever comes, Dove.
I don't want to survive whatever comes, I thought stubbornly.
Well then you need to figure out another solution.
Shut your mind so I can, I snapped.
Quinn laughed. He sent me a mental image of himself stitching his brain closed.
I only had about an hour to think. But by the time Connor pointed at the ant-like figures marching in the distance, I had a plan. I hoped it would work.
As we descended, I told Blue and Quinn, look for Posey. I had to send them both mental images of Donaloo and Dini's daughter—and then explain my meeting with the wizard, before they grasped what I meant.
"You mean he did get it on with a flower?" Declan asked.
I rolled my eyes. "I thought we went over all of this when we started discussing the sea sprite.
"Must've left out that very important detail —a detail that allows me to win a bet with these knob-noggins.” Declan crowed. “You lot are gonna have to organize the new library per my exact instructions.”
Quinn leaned around me to give Declan the obscene fig-hand gesture.
I pushed Quinn back as I rolled my eyes and said, “Can we please save this for after we survive a war with the entire ocean?”
Ryan scoffed. “I can handle a few fish, Dearling.”
Declan teased, “I thought you only liked to eat fish, not catch them.”
Even Connor joined in the banter. “He loves the taste of Bloss’s—”
“Oh! Hello there. Lady in your presence,” I tried to remind my hare-brained husbands.
“Pretty certain you’re glad we all like the taste of trout,” Blue retorted.
“Bloss certainly wiggles that tail of hers like a fish,” Ryan added.
I know I have her hooked, Quinn said to all of us as he wrapped his arms around me.
Ugh.
They were insufferable. But as this was the last bit of banter they might ever get, I simply rolled my eyes and let them top one another’s cleverness with fish pun after pun.
I tried to close my ears as I steered Pony into a descent toward the undead. They marched along the same stretch of desert I’d seen in the scrying stone. The beach crashed into the shore only footsteps from where they trailed across the sand, patrolling the border of Gitmore.
I dismounted, the legion stretching out in front of me for at least a mile.
My knights hovered above me, and I held up a hand. “Wait there,” I commanded, even as the undead archers nocked their arrows and took aim.
I held up my hands in a gesture of goodwill as I took a solitary step toward the undead general. I didn’t wait for him to approach, worried he’d draw his sword and ask questions later, after turning me into an undead soldier.
The general stood at the head of the formation, a feather in his cap. His eyes were still in their sockets, but his grey-green skin was weathered, and a loose flap of skin on his cheek (that had been sliced open at some point so that the muscles of his mouth were exposed) gently smacked against his jaw in the wind. Surprisingly, the undead didn’t smell. Thank goodness. Or I might have ruined my introduction by puking on the general’s boots.
I nodded toward him. "Good afternoon, General.” I realized Shenna hadn’t given me a name. Dammit. I raised my head to look him in the eyes. “Queen Shenna has given me leave to speak to you. And as a gesture of goodwill I offer you peace magic." I shot green peace magic at the general just as an arrow sliced through my shoulder.
Holy sarding shite!
A burn like I’d never felt before ripped through my arm as the arrow pierced my muscles.
Dove! Quinn mentally yelled.
Bloss! Blue’s mind-voice cracked like a boy’s.
I’m fine, my thoughts back to them were shaky. But if this is an arrow, I have no desire to feel a sword wound. It feels like a sarding ax chopped me open.
I refused to look down at the arrow that protruded from my shoulder, though the shaft stuck out in the corner of my vision.
I shot another jet of peace at the general and another arrow flew toward me. This time, Pony blocked it with his wing.
The general held up a hand to stop his archers.
He took a step forward, his black and white, undead eyes blinking. “What is this magic?”
I sopped up some of the blood on my wrists with my sleeves. “Peace magic.”
“I feel it. I have lived so long, and seen so much, that most things do not affect me. But this magic .... It feels … good.” The general took another step toward me.
“Would you like more peace, sir?” I asked him.
He nodded, and my palms lit again with green light. “May I?” I gestured toward his chest.
The general stared at me for a long moment, then nodded. I pressed my hand gently against his jacket. Green peace magic soaked into him and surrounded him. Behind him, the other undead shuffled and muttered but he held up a hand to silence them.
“I am Enderson,” the general said.
“I am Bloss, Queen of Evaness,” I replied.
“And Bloss of Evaness, what is it you seek?”
“I want to end Mayi, the witch of the sea. And I want to recover my sister from her underwater prison.”
Enderson’s eyes gazed steadily at me as I let my peace magic fade. He took a step back and gestured toward my hands. “What do you offer my people if they fight for you?”
“Peace.”
Enderson glanced down at my wrists and shook his head. “Your magic makes you weak. You cannot offer it to all of my soldiers.”
I nodded. “That’s true.”
Ryan called out from above. “I can learn to do what Declan did—”
But I held up a hand to stop him. I stared up at the general. “I heard a sad story. That many of you were tricked into joining this army. How many of your soldiers would rather have eternal peace?”
The general studied me for a long moment. “You have no such magic. Only the most powerful magic can put us to rest. A wizard once tried to end us and failed.”
For some reason, in that moment, I knew he spoke of Donaloo. My hand went to the little potion on my neck and clutched at it, feeling connected, even though he was gone. “I’m sorry he failed. I’m fairly certain he was sorry, too.”
I pulled out my coin purse and took out the single red flower that Dini had given me. I handed it to the general. “One of your captains is named Posey. Her mother is a flower sprite. And she’s currently guarding a cache of death amulets for me. If you and your soldiers help, I promise to take you there. And any of your soldiers who want eternal peace shall find it.”
General Enderson raised a hand and had one of his lackeys march down the line to find Posey. When she came toward us, I couldn’t help the small smile that crossed my face. Though she resembled her mother, there was a skip to her step that was distinctly Donaloo’s.
Enderson handed her the flower and Posey clutched at it. He whispered softly to her. She glanced at me and nodded.
Enderson clomped forward. “I have a hedgewitch here. If she scries these amulets, then we will help you.”
I nodded, my heart leaping in my throat. It took all my years of castle-imposed self-restraint not to whoop like a banshee. Instead, I stood calmly, while my claim was confirmed.
Connor descended and pulled the arrow out of my shoulder, healing me as we waited for the hedgewitch to scry the truth. As soon as she nodded, whispers spread down the line of the undead faster than the wind. A torrent of words whipped around the army.
Captain Enderson gave me a full smile, revealing several teeth had fallen out of his rotting gums. “Queen Bloss, it appears we are yours to command.”
The undead could march under the sea, they’d magicked their troops, so they didn’t float on the water. They could move through it as easily as the air. So could our gargoyles. We couldn’t. They had spent years preparing for undersea warfare. We hadn’t.
They had harpoons and spears to use against the magical sea creatures. Half of them had ripped off their own ears to become impervious to the sirens’ songs. The other half did so as we watched.
I had to turn away. The sight made my stomach churn as ears were tossed to the ground like peanut shells and seagulls swooped down en masse to snap them up.
General Enderson and his captains spoke excitedly, over one another. They’d only been allowed to protect Gitmore, never to full on attack the sea. But they’d sent out scouts and prepared for attacks. Practiced. They knew exactly where Mayi was located. And they knew about a concentration of sea-ghosts as well.
So, we had a direction.
But then we had to determine how exactly my knights and I could join the undead underwater.
Our solution made my stomach cramp with fear.
My hands trembled as we walked into the sea. I watched the waves part in front of us, not touching us, swishing and splashing as Ryan leaned on his cane and multiplied the air, reducing the water in front of us. The air cut a path through the waves. They were held back by walls of air, but I could see the currents wavering on either side of us.
“Sard it all, Ry, are you sure about this?” Connor asked as we took another few steps forward. The rocky ocean floor dipped beneath our feet. We reached the edge of the continental shelf. We were about to walk down a ridge into the middle of the sea. The walls of water on either side of us grew hundreds of feet high as that ridge descended. If Ryan lost his concentration, we’d all drown.
“Shut it,” Ryan growled.
“He needs to focus,” Declan pushed Connor lightly. “Be quiet. You have no idea how hard it is to be specific with this magic.”
Quinn hopped down a boulder and reached a hand back to help me climb down in my idiotic dress. Perfect for meeting with foreign queens, it was constantly getting hung up on the coral. He could just switch out the whole ocean for air.
“And what, condemn a whole kingdom to die?” Declan scoffed. “Great plan.”
“I’m with Dec,” Blue joined in the argument. “Besides, think of the smell of all those dead fish.”
I took a deep breath, to gather my temper. We were all on edge. “One step at a time,” I told my knights. “First step, calm the hell down.”
I blasted all of them with a little surge of peace. “Now focus.” I wasn’t certain if my power or my order did the trick, but they all grew quiet as we made our way down the steep ridge that was the continental rise. The water grew around us; first it became a tall blue wall, then a blue tower, then a black sky pierced only by the thin column of air and light that stretched directly above us.
I stared up in awe, heart pounding as the delicacy of our situation—the precarious line we walked—manifested before my eyes.
Ryan changed tactics. Instead of an entire path, he reduced water and multiplied air in a rotating pillar that kept pace with us. It moved as we did, swirling air funneling all the way to the ocean’s surface.
Declan talked him through every step of the way and insisted that the column was safer than just forming a bubble within the water around us. Dec’s nerves meant he spouted out calculations about how this was safer. I didn’t listen, my eyes and ears were alert for attack. But the gist of it was that if Ryan lost control, my giant would try to at least focus above us, letting the water flood below our feet and the pressure propel us upward through the column and spray us out the top, much like a whale’s blow hole.
Whatever their strategy, the glimpse at life under the water was fascinating. If we were going to die, it would be surrounded by beauty. (I ignored the undead that tromped thirty feet away through the water. I could hardly see them. And so they didn’t ruin the view.)
The water swirled around us like liquid wind. It made little rushing and rustling noises. We walked carefully, avoiding purple crabs that scuttled out of our air pocket, picking our way around bright peach clusters of stinging coral, and traipsing through the vast deserted nothingness that stretched as far as the eye could see (which was mere feet through the water). We walked by a broken shipwreck and Declan trailed his finger along the rotted planks before he turned to me, a look of wonder in his bright blue eyes.
“Think of how many questions could be answered if we could only study these ships.”
My chest tightened. The scholar in him couldn’t help but be excited. He was so adorably himself. And moments like this drew me to him. I stepped closer and latched hands with his. “Let’s end this war, then maybe Ryan can—”
“Bullshite,” Ryan called out, from where he was heaving, sweat dripping freely down his forehead as he placed his cane and took another slow step forward, concentrating on moving water taller than ten stacked castles. “I am not doing this again.”
“Fair enough,” I kissed Declan’s hand and went back to put an arm around my giant’s waist. He didn’t necessarily need me, but I wanted to be with him. And I shot him a bit of peace as we moved.
I heard a moan go through the water. And our column wavered.
I saw the undead troops duck in slow motion, the water impeding their movements. Our gargoyles simply stopped walking and sat, little clouds of sea dirt swirling around their feet.
“Something’s coming!” I shouted.
Just then, a school of silver fish swam right into our column of air. Fish after slimy fish smacked me in the face. As soon as they hit our air pocket, they flopped onto the ground. Declan tripped on a few and went sprawling, his face plunging into the water. Blue yanked him back and Declan sputtered and coughed, his face cherry red.
“Quick, quick, chequered retreat!” Ryan urged us backward in a diagonal, away from the massive swarm of fish.
We stumbled backward, holding onto one another and ducking, as if that would somehow help protect us from fish that went from swimming one moment to falling through our tunnel of air the next. The fish fell like rain, splattering us.
“Well, this bodes well for our battle plan,” Blue snarked.
“Shut. Your. Mouth.” Declan spat, still clearing his lungs.
Quinn sent an instant reply of Declan tripping and falling on the fish. He looped the image in his mind, until we all laughed.
“Ryan, you kept the column of air. Great work,” Connor said over the spat that was erupting.
I grabbed my giant knight’s arm proudly. “You did. Even while leading us to retreat. Great work, Ry.”
Ryan nodded briskly. “Quinn’s right though. We can’t fight swarms of fish. Next time we go past, see if you can blast them with peace or something.”
“On it.”
Blue took it upon himself to point out fish for me. I blasted them as we walked, lighting their silver bodies up with a green glow. Their eyes grew wide and they stopped swimming, just floated upward, blinking.
