Ears still ringing, I reached out with a hand, sending my magic to retrieve those keys and bring them to me.
The guard, who was just starting to come to, was pulled along with the keys before the ring holding the keys snapped, and then in a blink of a moment they were in my hands.
Krew was sitting up next to me, his eyes on mine as I jammed the key into the gauntlet on his wrist and freed the first one.
The king groaned and rolled to his side. I still felt dizzy and out of sorts from the blast, but I had to hurry. I had to get Krew free so we could combine our magic and take down the king.
Get Keir free,Krew told me.I’ll deal with my father. We’ll need Keir for all the guards in the room.
The second gauntlet opened with a click.
One of the guards next to Krew made a move for him as we both stood up. Krew used his magic to fetch the man’s own dagger from its sheath and as soon as it reached his hand, slammed the dagger into the guard’s chest.
It’d been the man who made me bleed. And I knew through the bond that Krew had absolutely no regret about it.
The resolute truth of a promise made into fact.
Krew’s entire body was pulsing with navy magic now, ready to use at his disposal. I’d never seen him that lit up with his magic before, and that was saying something.
Krew was not just furious, his rage was absolutely unrestrainable.
My own body was no longer glowing, as I had apparently used a large blast of magic in getting the gauntlets off. But I was already moving, heading for Keir as fast as I could before all the extra Enchanted in the room got their bearings. I didn’t run straight or as quickly as I wanted, but I got there.
The guards near him were trying to stand, but I sent a blast of my magic at those three guards, focused on their hands and pinning them to their sides, wrapping my magic around them and forming a gauntlet of my own. It took a constant stream of magic from one hand, while I jammed the keys into one of Keir’s gauntlets.
My eyes were on Keir’s as the first one slid open.
He grabbed my hand and stopped me. “The sword,” he whispered. “Where is the sword? It amplifies his magic.”
One hand free, I left the key with Keir as I stood and began looking around for the sword.
“Afraid of a fair fight, Father?” Krew asked as he stood between Keir and me and the king.
I saw both Krew’s magic and the king’s were covering their skin. The first blast of black magic rattled the floor and sent me backward into Keir, who was now free and caught me.
The other guards in the room were coming around, closing in on Keir and me. I was still immobilizing the three guards I’d needed to get past to get to Keir, but we were vastly outnumbered. Keeping focused enough to find the sword, immobilize the guards, and also know when Krew needed me to send my magic to help his was going to be difficult.
It was chaos. Utter chaos. But the good news was that in this exact moment, the king did not have the sword on his person. The playing field was level. For the first time in years.
When a guard advanced on me, Keir and I both reacted, our magic combining as Keir’s magic wrapped around the guard like rope.
I paused. Though I had often combined magic with Keir, Krew’s magic had always been present too. But our magic had just combined without Krew’s. Likely because of both our bonds with Krew?
Keir gestured with his head toward the throne, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I’ll handle them. Go.”
Magic of a variety of colors began being tossed about the room. Only a few steps away, I heard a wolf’s howl just before the throne room doors burst open. In ran Maurice, Jakob, George, and Tilly. They had armed themselves with the largest kitchen knives they could find and had brought help. In the form of two wolves. Rafe and Shadow.
And just behind them was Owen. His shoulders were at an awkward angle as if he’d already had a skirmish of his own, and he couldn’t move as quickly as they were, but he’d still found us.
Of course they’d come.
They immediately moved in to attack the guards while Krew and the king continued to fight, strong bursts of black and navy magic coming from everywhere.
Knowing that Krew, Keir, and I hadn’t even had a full night for our magic to recoup, we needed to find the queen’s sword and end this. As quickly as possible.
“What do you need, Tiny?” Maurice called as he headed in my direction.
“The queen’s sword,” I admitted quietly as I poured more magic out of my hands and toward a guard who was now moving toward us, blasting him toward the wall and wrapping him in what looked like silver vines.
