I threw my magic on a row of trees, blanketing them in silver as I put out the fire. “Why don’tyoutake a break?”
“Ready when you are, love,” Krew grinned, throwing a blast of his magic over where I had been working, our magic combining midair, his powerful added breeze pushing the smoke away.
As I took another step forward onto crispy ground, I decided I had never been more in love with his man.
Finally, we met up with the crew working the opposite side of the fire. We pushed and pushed, and just when I felt that dull pounding in my head which was a tell of burnout settling in, Krew sent out a large blast of magic, and the last of the flames flickered out.
There was a moment of eerie silence as we all took in the fact that we finally had the fires out. And then came the cheers. It started with the Enchanted next to us, as we all hugged and clapped each other on the back.
“The horses?” I asked one, imagining the horror of the stalls on fire.
“Are fine, never got the barns, Your Highness,” the man said with a tired smile. “We made sure of it.”
“Thank goodness,” I sighed. I wrapped my arms around Krew’s waist and clung to his side while he continued thanking people by name.
And then once we finally settled down, we heard the cheers coming from the direction of the meadow.
Bone tired, Krew, Owen, Keir, and I headed back toward the meadow. The forest had always been black, but now it was burnt to a crisp. It was going to take me weeks, if not months to begin to repair this damage.
Just before we reached the meadow, I felt my first tear fall. I was too tired to bother with a sound barrier. “Why?” I gasped out. “Why would he do this?”
Keir shook his head. “Some sort of test, but a horrible one. The entire castle could have gone up in flames.”
I looked down at myself. There was soot and ash everywhere. My light pink dress was torn in places, and even had small holes in it here and there. My heels were covered in ash, and the tops of my feet were black where they had not been covered with my shoes. I was a wreck. Remembering the crown still on my head, I reached up to feel it, and found as my hand came back black, it also had ash and soot clinging to it. It would likely take the royal jeweler a week to get it cleaned.
After the longest trip back to the meadow, we finally saw the people all waiting there. As soon as they saw us, they started clapping again despite all being tired in their own rights.
I smiled. We were all tired. It’d taken all of us, and we hadn’t saved all of the forest, but we had done what we could. And it wasn’t even dinner time, but the haze leftover from the fires made it feel like it was later than it truly was.
“Thank you,” I said as loudly as my hoarse voice would carry. “Thank you.”
“Long may she reign,” one of the staff called as he continued clapping.
My shoulders tensed as I spun in his direction. Everyone seemed to go silent, waiting for what I would do.
And I was just too exhausted to mince words. “This night was not about your sovereigns,” I began, “it was simply about doing the right thing. It was my honor to fight alongside you all. Thank you.” My voice cracked. “Thank you for doing what you could to save the forest I have worked—” I had to stop to swallow. Krew’s hand at my back felt like it was the only thing holding me upright. “I have worked so hard to heal,” I finished.
As I made it back to where we’d left the wolves, Rafe and Shadow still standing to protect the others, the baby wolves started yipping as if feeling restless.
“I know, guys,” I offered. “But I’m so glad you made it out of there.”
They’d been so entirely close to getting suffocated with smoke. I would never forget this day, the image of those wolves trapped in smoke likely staying with me forever.
Rafe let out a single, loud howl that made every hair on my arms stand up. And then he laid down before me.
Like the night of our wedding, the others followed suit.
Was this their way of thanking me?
Krew leaned into whisper in my ear, “I suppose you can be their queen too.”
By the time we made it up to Krew’s wing, we tried to eat something, changed out of our destroyed clothes, quickly showered the stench off of us, and fell into bed. Tomorrow we would process this evil. For now, the wolves and as much of the forest as we could save were saved. For now, our magic and our souls needed rest.
* * *
I wokefrom a deep sleep to my magic blinding me in the darkness. It was too soon. I was shot after fighting the fires. My magic needed to recoup, not wake me in the middle of the night. But I had been dreaming about the fire, being trapped within so much smoke, never able to blow enough of it away.
I took a deep breath to remind me my lungs were finally free of the smoke and rolled over. I looked out the windows, realizing the curtains were drawn but from what I could see around them, it was still night. Or very early morning.
