When the final emblem was carved, I tossed the dulled arrowhead aside, and drew my sword from the scabbard. Before I could think too much about the pain, I was about to inflict on myself, I grabbed the tip of blade in my fist and drove it into my chest.
Fucking hell that hurt. The cold blade burned as it sliced through my skin and muscle. My enhanced shifter healing wouldn't take long to heal me, but that didn't mean I liked the pain in the first place. I pushed the blade in even further until it slipped past my sternum on the right and pierced my heart.
I dropped to my knees and had to grit my teeth not to cry out. Finally, the blade hit the metal of the crown inside and repelled it back out of the wound. The magic of the Land of Animals seeped from my chest along with my blood. I needed that magic, yes, but what I needed more was the curse mixed with it that compelled me to follow the Mouse Queen's commands.
I swiped my fingers through the blood and scrabbled to my feet, lumbering over to the marks I'd carved on the walls. The blood I smeared across the carvings seeped in, sealing the magic and the curse in with it. The moment the crowns she wore on the chain around her neck reached out to find the crown they thought was buried in the stone, just a touch of the curse I carried would be Clara's as well.
She would be compelled to follow my commands.
I spoke the words aloud, groaning them out. "The sleigh is safe, and it will save you time. Use it to find the Sweet Fae crown. Then bring it to me."
My curse was set into motion. I stumbled back out into the light and over to where my animal friends were working. They'd done so much better than I ever could have imagined myself. The reindeer had arrived and the mice with them had used the local grass to tightly weave cushions, blankets, and even a full set of reins.
thank you, my friends. We will be ever grateful, and I am in your service.With that I sent them all back to their homes and found a place among the rocks to hide and wait for Clara and the Nutcrackers.
Tonight, she would be mine.
A STOLEN PRINCESS
CLARA
The pull to walk down the dark passage, toward the place that I was born, yanked at my heart. I didn’t remember anything about it. I didn’t even realize until this moment that I had even been there before. Up until this very moment, I’d been under the assumption this was my first time in the Winter Realm.
That wasn’t correct. This place was my home and something long ago had happened to steal me away from it.
I wanted to know when, why, how, and who’d done this to me. Right off the top of my head, I could think of three people who might know and none of them were standing here with me. Sure, my men probably had some insights and perhaps there were even stories, but they’d been babies when it had all happened too. They’d called me a lost princess, but I wasn’t.
I was stolen.
As much as I wanted answers and to see what remained of my birthplace, Tau was right. The best way to get all the answers I wanted to the litany of questions that kept coming up each day I spent here, was to find those crowns.
I touched the symbol Tau had carved into the stone and engraved it on my heart. Somewhere deep inside, a new bit if magic unlocked and I could feel the spirit and magic inside of Leb, Nuss, Zucker, and Tau mixing with mine.
And one other.
We’d been running from the dark warrior, the Mouse Prince Konig, since my arrival, but I felt him in my heart just as I did the others. Someday soon, I needed to run toward him, not away.
In the sparkle of magic where I could feel their spirits, there was love, loyalty, determination, and a deep sense of responsibility. But there was also a sense of loss and betrayal. Those were old wounds, and they weren’t healed.
I took one last look into the dark and then stepped over to the passageway marked with the flower. “How far is it?”
Zucker moved into the tunnel, illuminating it with his beautiful purple inner light. “The tunnels all connect to one of the many sugar caves dotting our land. Each are about an hour's walk from the castle.
I had the stamina of a dancer who'd trained hard for years. Just because I had thick thighs, didn't mean I couldn't run. "If we hustle, we could probably make it, what, twenty minutes?"
The need to get this quest to fruition banged against the inside of my chest. Not only because of my want of the truth of what happened to me, but because with each passing moment, the craving to bond with each of my Nutcracker guards grew stronger. I could literally feel the magic in my spirit awakening, stretching, and wanting to reclaim everything I'd missed experiencing here in the Winter Realm. Falling in love, bonding, and consummating that bond were all at the top of my list.
I hoped these ballet slippers held up longer than a couple of performances because running in them would be as hard on them as the leading role in Swan Lake. I started off down the tunnel at a good jog. The men all followed along, and the further we went, the more distinctly I got the feeling I'd been here before.
"Princess, slow down here." Zucker matched my pace and drew his daggers from his belt. "The incline will go up in a moment and we will rise into the cave. There could be any number of enemies waiting for us there."
I was ready for a breather anyway. "Is this the cave you all saw in my dance?"
Tau shook his head. "No, we still need to journey to the border. We could camp in the cave tonight, but I'd rather we continue on now before anyone has a chance to catch up to us. We have the advantage right now since only the Sweet Fae at the party have seen the dance. But news will spread fast."
"I want to keep going. The sooner we find the crown, the better."
Leb drew his axe. "Let me go first. I am enemy only to the mouse army. If there are Flower Fae waiting for us, I'll just knock them down with a stiff blow of Kuchenir."
