Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Cassius stopped talking when we all turned to a clamor happening in the makeshift horse corral close by.
In it were a number of battle mounts.
But also, Sky and Star, Cassius and Elena’s unicorns.
Both were fretting.
Star, the mare, was cantering this way and that, as a human would pace.
Sky appeared to be charging the gate, turning at the last moment before he’d break it, as if saying he wanted free.
“Open the gate, let out the charmed ones!” Cassius called to the page who it was clear saw to the corral.
The boy rushed forward to do as told, and I wondered—when the unicorns could magically leap through space, and in a trice, land hundreds of miles away—why they didn’t not-magically leap the fence of the corral.
The page let them out, swiftly running the gate closed before any of the other horses could get free.
However, the unicorns did not rush away to find exercise.
True crowded me and Mars pulled Silence close as they rushed Cassius.
The stallion paced a circle agitatedly around the five of us as the mare went right to her prince, dipped her neck and butted his hand with her nose.
“What is it, love?” he murmured, stroking her muzzle.
But it was the stallion who answered, tossing his head back and braying.
“What are you saying, Sky?” Cassius called to the stallion, still rubbing Star’s nose.
True suddenly tucked me close when Sky reared up, striking the air with his hooves.
This, just as Elena came running.
“Diana!” she shrieked to the page. “Saddle my mount!”
The boy rushed into the corral.
Cassius rushed to Elena.
“What?” he barked, instantly on the alert.
“The Enchantments,” she said, her voice naught but a pant. “Cassius, we have to get to The Enchantments!”
Oh no!
Sky came up behind her, and before Cassius, or anyone, could ask that first question, she whirled on the unicorn, capturing his jaw in her hands.
I was shocked the creature didn’t pull away at her panicked movements, but he did not.
“Will you take us to The Enchantments?” she asked.
The unicorn jerked back his head in clear assent.
“Caelus!” Cassius shouted, running toward the corral.
“Do you need us?” Mars boomed.
Elena’s head whipped around. “We need everyone.”
“Oh, gods,” I breathed.
Mars looked to True, but it was my husband who spoke.
“We cannot leave them,” he said.
“We cannot take them,” Mars finished.
They were talking about us.
Silence and me.
“Bloody hell,” True muttered, then pivoted on his boot and shouted to a loitering Dellish squire, “Saddle Majesty and Regina!” he ordered.
The squire hopped to.
Regina was my steed.
I glanced at Silence who was being dragged away by Mars.
And I received an answer to my unasked question when I heard Mars order a Firenz soldier in Firenzii, “Saddle Hephaestus and Epona. Break camp. We ride!”
Epona was Silence’s mount.
It seemed we weren’t going to Sky Bay after all.
As the purple cleared and Regina’s hooves struck land, at what befell my eyes, it felt like my heart would explode.
We were galloping full bore toward hell.
The Enchantments were under attack.
Hundreds of troops were taking aim with fired arrows shot into the forest, but instead of them soaring through the air and exploding amongst the trees, they detonated against an invisible shield.
Worse, there were dozens of catapults and trebuchets raining fire against the shield. Buckets of fuel set aflame were detonating against the Nadirii’s protective veil in great swoops of blaze. With each powerful strike, a wave would reverberate, and an opening would form, giving a glimpse of sun and green that was starkly different than the chill, gray, late-autumn day in Airen.
Our horses had barely taken two dozen strides when, as if they had practiced it, True and Mars broke off in formation, curving to the left, taking Silence and my mares with them, forcing us to the back of the phalanx of Dellish, Airenzian, Firenz and Nadirii warriors who had traveled with us.
They guided us up a hill and True’s Majesty circled me, my husband’s head whipping this way and that to keep hold on my eyes, as he ordered gutturally, “You stay here, and if danger approaches before I can get a guard to you, you flee!”
He then rounded Regina, dug his heels into his steed’s sides, and shouted, “Heeyah!”
They raced forward, with Mars following them.
Breathing heavily, Silence and I sidestepped our mounts so we were closer to each other, and we stared down at the mayhem below that our beloved husbands were speeding toward.
The others had engaged in battle and we could hear the clangs of steel and shouts of combat.
“Not to worry,” Silence decreed, her voice quiet and small, betraying she was not taking her own advice. “The Enchantments have never been broken and our husbands are the greatest warriors of our realms.”
I did not wish to worry. I knew both of these things, and they should have heartened me.
But as missile after missile struck the shield and some of the shouts of combat became noises of a different kind, I tried to keep my gaze glued to True and felt my heart squeeze when I lost sight of him in the confusion of the melee.