Midnight in Everwood(84)

Marietta halted, listening to the voices wending through the forest. It sounded as if several persons were headed in their direction. Pirlipata eased her sword from its hilt, holding it before her as they grew closer.

The forest came alive with the sound of marching.

‘The king must be making his own exit tonight,’ Pirlipata said grimly. ‘He must have fled before the rebellion took the palace.’

Dellara pointed her wand before her. ‘I shall eliminate him and his guards until there is nothing left for the stars to claim.’

Marietta felt helpless. In such a situation she was a liability. Her nerves swelled as the sound of marching swelled, filling the forest before it eerily vanished. She braced herself for what was to come, Dellara and Pirlipata standing before her as she was the sole woman without a weapon.

Yet it was behind her that King Gelum stepped out of the firs.

Faceless guards began to materialise one by one, vultures clad in livery, appearing between the silent trees. Until the king’s entire contingent of guards formed a ring around the three women.

Dellara shoved Marietta aside as King Gelum stared at her. ‘To think you believed I had not known of your transgressions.’ A film had descended over the king’s eyes as if he were surveying them through a thin layer of ice, hard and impervious. As conscience-deprived as his frozen heart.

Marietta’s pulse skittered with fear. Suddenly she felt silly for ever believing they could escape the king’s clutches, flee his sugar-rotted palace and dance with freedom.

Dellara’s eyes were a solid wall of black, one hand clenching her wand as she slowly raised it.

Tension hardened and swords pointed. Faceless guards circled Dellara, their wariness plain to see. She emitted a guttural snarl, reminding them all she was cut from a fiercer world, held a power as ancient as starlight.

‘No, I was aware,’ the king said. ‘You and the captain ought to have known the extent of my reach. It is not just the Crackatians I hold in the palm of my hand.’

Pirlipata drew herself up to her full height, her anger a tangible blaze. ‘You shall never hold Crackatuck,’ she said, ignoring the guards surrounding her.

King Gelum’s smile was warped. Cruel. ‘I know, too, of why you acquiesced to wed me. Yet it is of no matter; I shall obtain your vow if I have to carve it from you myself. This shall not be the first rebellion I have quashed. Everwood has never known such a powerful king as I. With all the military might and riches at my disposal, I shall reclaim my kingdom before winter has ended its reign.’

‘What riches?’ Pirlipata asked. ‘Everwood has never suffered such an economic deficit since you murdered your way onto the throne. Toying with the economy, funnelling ever higher taxes into your extravagant affairs. Citizens can no longer afford the imported water from Mistpoint or the ever-rising prices of melting charms and are succumbing to the mineral sickness in droves. Children are dying. Your rule has been a long dark winter but the sun is finally rising. Even your soldiers have deserted you in favour of the rebellion.’ She raised her broadsword.

King Gelum suddenly wrenched Marietta away from Dellara and Pirlipata. A blade she hadn’t known he’d carried was pressed against her throat. ‘I can slit her throat faster than you can draw that wand,’ he growled at Dellara. ‘Throw it down.’ His blade sliced deeper and Marietta stifled a gasp. Blood slid down her neck in a slick path. ‘You too, my little princess,’ he told Pirlipata.

Pirlipata laid her sword on the forest floor.

‘No,’ Marietta whispered as she was restrained.

Still Dellara refused to yield. Her eyes a seething tangle of shadows, she held her wand and raised the tip. The point of the king’s blade pierced deeper, coaxing another flood of bloody tears from Marietta’s throat. Gritting her teeth, she arched her back against the king in an evasion of his knife. He the Von Rothbart to her Odette, their pas de deux a dance of bloodlust.

Dellara relinquished her wand. She was the last to be seized and when she fell to her knees, something deep within Marietta guttered and died.

King Gelum’s blade inched deeper. Marietta’s last breath withered. She knew he would kill her and she longed to close her eyes against it yet the notion of her last sight being an all-consuming blackness before she slid into the great unknown was one which she could not abide. She kept them open and locked on Dellara and Pirlipata. Watched their anger swell and spill over into helplessness. She stifled a sob.

‘That palace belongs to me. Everwood belongs to me. Soon the entirety of Celesta shall be ushered under my rule, too.’ King Gelum’s voice was tinged with madness, his breath cool on Marietta’s ear. He had murdered the last obstacles to his throne in an icy rage. It seemed she was to be next. Her death ushering in a new age of his rule.





Chapter Forty-Two


Pinned against the king at dagger-point, Marietta couldn’t draw breath, couldn’t contemplate what to do. Panic welled, deep and limitless.

With a crunch of snow, three figures burst from the forest, entering the fray.

Marietta’s eyes immediately fell on Legat. She had not thought she would ever see him again. Her heart splintered; was this what he had meant by it being in the stars for them to meet again? For him to witness her death? What unspeakable cruelty that she could not reach out to him, to feel his touch one last time. Flanked by Claren and Fin, he slowed, taking measure of the situation at once.