Midnight in Everwood(87)

Apoplectic, his face red, his hair wind-worn, the king stormed towards Dellara. Pirlipata, Claren and Fin’s swords flew up. Dellara bared her sharpened teeth as she tutted at the king, shaking her wand at him as if he were a misbehaving child. Catching sight of it, he paled and cast an eye about himself.

Shock flitted across his face at the fate his guards had met. Ousted by raw terror as he turned back to Dellara. ‘Spare me, I beg of you,’ he whispered, slipping on a guard’s lost cog and falling to his knees with a whimper.

Dellara slowly rolled her sleeves up, revealing the torture he had inflicted on her moontide after moontide. The king backed away, sliding across his fallen army’s broken mechanisms. ‘No no no no, have mercy. Please.’

Dellara tilted her head to one side, considering his plea. She caressed her wand. ‘I shall grant you mercy,’ she said at last. King Gelum relaxed. ‘The mercy of a swift death,’ she added.

Registering her words, his head jerked up, panic setting in as he opened his mouth to either protest or scream. Which, couldn’t be determined. Before he uttered either, Dellara’s wand came tearing down and King Gelum was cleaved in two.

The forest rang with silence.

Claren and Pirlipata rushed to Marietta’s side to help staunch Legat’s wounds. His blood stained the snow. It rattled Marietta’s heart.

Fin cleared his throat. ‘I know this is not the time but I feel I must remind you that King Gelum altered the laws to allow for his murder of King Elter and Queen Altina.’

Pirlipata looked up. ‘Altered them in which way?’

‘As it happens, the individual who deposes the ruler is free to seize their crown, throne and kingdom,’ Fin said.

One by one, their eyes fell on Dellara.

Her pointed teeth glittered. ‘I do believe you mean queendom.’





Chapter Forty-Three


A soft flicker of blue ran over Marietta’s face. Pale as the frozen blue heart of a glacier. It flitted away to be replaced with shards of emerald green. She looked up. Lights were dancing across the sky, turning the forest into a cave of glimmering starlight. It tasted like magic, wild and strange and heady.

‘The Star Lights,’ Dellara said, her victory falling away to wonderment as she looked up. ‘Queen Altina is shining brighter than ever tonight. It must have been her that sent them our way.’

‘She knows we won her land back,’ Pirlipata said, laying a hand on Dellara’s arm.

Both turned to Marietta. ‘Legend has it the Star Lights are sent in times of war by the kings and queens that watch down on us. It is said that the last time the Star Lights swept over the skies, they healed an entire army in gratitude,’ Dellara said.

Legat groaned in Marietta’s arms and she looked down, her hope fragile and glitter-bright. She peeled back her cloak to check his wound. Fresh skin had blossomed over his lacerations, the skin knitting back together once more.

He opened his eyes. ‘You were hurt,’ he said, reaching a hand out to her sliced throat. His voice was husky, his eyes sliding in and out of focus.

She smiled, her heart a staccato beat at seeing him, hearing him, tangible and solid and alive. ‘You’re one to talk.’

Claren exhaled. ‘You gave us a fright there, captain.’ At his side, Fin exchanged a smile with Marietta.

Legat’s eyes lost their glassy finish and focused on Marietta. The magic that swept wild and wondrously through the forest was healing him. Above, the playful lights danced in all their rich soul-singing colours. Marietta watched them with Legat, having never thought she might attain the chance to glimpse the Northern Lights for herself since they only deigned to appear in the coldest, farthest reaches of her world. Her world. She must be close to her door now. To the end of her story in Everwood.

‘Come back to me,’ Legat said softly, his fingers encircling her hand, his steady warmth anchoring her. ‘The future belongs to us once more.’

Yet even as the words departed his lips, Marietta tasted the impossibility they contained. ‘One in which we shall not be together.’

Legat’s smile was born of sadness. She stifled his next words with her lips meeting his. Sweet and soft with a thousand regrets, she longed to lock the moment away in a snow globe where she might relive it again and again. ‘For a while there I feared you might never kiss me again,’ she said after.

He looked deep into her eyes. ‘Wherever I go, wherever this life may take me, I shall find you again, you may be certain of that. It is in the stars that we shall meet again.’



Pirlipata was the first to leave.

Claren and Fin were dispatched to fetch sleighs. While they waited, Legat handed over a purloined correspondence of King Gelum’s – which detailed intelligence of Crackatuck collecting its troops, its anger at their abducted princess and King Gelum’s looming invasion sword-sharp and on the precipice of marching up the Thieves Road towards Everwood. It was imperative she rode fast to smooth the situation down.

‘They must have received my note,’ Pirlipata had said, her smile bright as her armour. ‘They had missed me after all.’ When Claren and Fin returned with two sleighs, she took one. Then turned to Dellara. ‘Are you certain you do not require my assistance?’ she asked, taking up the reins.

‘There is much to do but I have spoken with Legat and I shall appoint Robess as my counsel and advisor. I shall be fine,’ she said firmly.