Penelope did not. We touched down onto the land in one of the most pitiful landings I’ve ever had—even as a child. My pegasus’s left legs landed first, her right legs still kicking wildly into the air. As one, we tipped over, utterly not graceful, her neigh of fright and my shriek of fear blasting the air all around. Penelope yanked her wings in at the last minute, protecting my upper body as we hit the unforgiving ground with a solidthunk-thunk.
“Ow!” I screamed. My eyes grew wide as I lay in dazed pain and draped in black and red feathers. With my fingers tangled in my Fae-gift’s mane, I started tapping on her neck in a frantic beat. “Up, Penelope! Stand up!”
My leg was fucking broken, trapped under her.
She shook her head hard, clearly shocked herself at this snafu, and swiftly tilted her body up, managing to get her legs back under herself. In one massive heave, she was standing back on her blood-red hooves, tall and proud.
“Trixie!” Father shouted. “Are you all right?”
Javon’s black and red wings beat heavily in the air ten feet above us, holding them off the ground, causing the blackness on the lawn to stir and lift into the air.
I grimaced as the bone in my leg snapped back together, mending itself, but caught a piece of the blackness that flew right in front of my face. I rubbed it between my fingers and brought it closer to my eyes, studying it carefully.
Oh my Fae.
“I am fine, Father. But you need to land!” I tilted my head back to look up at him and held the object high into the air. “It’s a flower petal!”
And it was black.
Father’s expression completely blanked. “Javon, land now.”
Mother’s elven power was with flora. Flower petals falling from her hair was a regular occurrence, especially when she was overly emotional. But never before had I seen a black petal plunge from her seafoam green locks. Black like death. The castle floors were always littered with colorful hues of petals, but this was extreme in the amount if the servants were sweeping them onto the front lawn.
Plainly, she hadn’t taken Father’s time in the Blood Forest well, her heart in horrible agony from the severed Fae-spark link between them.
I dropped the black petal and began unstrapping my body from the flying saddle. “At least, she made it back here for this. If she were still in Jarisbur shopping, this would be problematic.”
Our people would have thought their king was dead.
Father grunted but didn’t speak. His emerald green eyes were hard on his straps as he released his waist and legs. His chest pumped laboriously, although his features remained empty.
“You said she’s happy right now,” I stated quietly, jumping down next to him. Black flower petals crushed beneath our boots. “Take comfort in that.”
Father simply grunted again.
Oh…he was upset.
I decided now was an excellent time to be quiet.
We started marching to the castle’s doors at a punishing clip, our traveling bags bouncing against our hips, and our swords tucked tight against our backs.
I stayed at a safe distance from his fury—three feet behind him.
King Traevon took ahold of the castle’s door handles and threw the large wooden doors open wide. At the top of his lungs, he bellowed inside the vast space—covered with black petals, “Where the fuck are my servants?”
A scraping stopped in the room to our right.
Lo and behold…
A pig trotted out. It…stared at us.
“What in the Fae fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
The pig’s nose twitched, and then its mouth opened.
Oink.
Thank the Fae above and below servants raced into the grand foyer from all angles at that moment. I was reasonably sure Father was about to unleash his royal firepower—and not because he planned it. The air was boiling around his body with deadly heat, the simmer visible to the eye. The servants, with cleaning tools in hand and as harried as the intruding pig, all stooped low into nervous curtseys.
