Happily Ever Awkward (The H.E.A. Files, #1)(42)

Flicker nodded in appreciation. “Very pretty.”

Then she launched straight up into the air with a single thrust of her wings and flung a barrage of blades at Paul. One after another, the tiny daggers grew in flight until they became large enough to do serious damage. Paul barely managed to deflect the first of them before he scrambled back.

Knives skewered each footprint Paul left behind, and then they laddered their way up a tree beside his head as he ducked for cover. To an outside observer, Paul looked like he was getting his buttocks kicked.

Pausing the onslaught, Flicker taunted, “You walk into my forest and start talking smite, you think you can just run away?”

She banked around the tree and batted Paul back into the circle with her wings. The prince hit the ground and rolled to his feet, but before he could do anything else, Flicker hammered him with a humiliating series of kicks and punches.

“Stop running!” shouted the Flitterling. “Embrace it!”

“What…?!” Paul gasped as he dove behind a giant, wrinkled mushroom.

“You can’t run forever. Running won’t save you!”

The Fierce Flitterlings jeered. Their laughter accelerated around Paul, reverberating, sending the forest spinning. He closed his eyes against the emotional vertigo of his curse, but it was too late. He couldn’t shut it out. It was happening again. The noise, the mockery — it poured over him like molten shame, crushing him under its weight.

His curse had become his Curse.

He felt so small.

He felt so worthless.

He felt—

SMACK!

Flicker slapped him hard. Paul reeled into the circle once more.

“Do you know why you’re losing?” Flicker asked, streaking back and forth beside Paul. “Every fight is a story, but you’re letting me tell it. And that’s a mistake, because in my version of the story, I win. I win and you lose! Is that what you want?”

“Stop…” Paul begged.

“Is this how you let the story end?” she asked. “You’re not very good at this, are you!”

The whole forest seemed to implode with laughter. Though Paul tried to run away, there was nowhere to go for a wall of sneering Flitterlings completely surrounded him. He clutched his head. A roaring sound filled his ears, and he wondered if it might be the rushing of his own blood.

“Stop it,” Paul said.

“This was your idea, yet you choose to flee,” Flicker persisted. “You waste my time! You pathetic coward, don’t you have anything else to SHOW ME!”

Paul realized the roaring he heard was the sound of his building rage, much like the sound of a barbarian horde charging through his head.

“Stop it!!!”

And his rage finally exploded.

Several of Flicker’s knives still protruded from the trunk of the tree beside him. Planting his foot on the handle of the lowest, Paul kicked off and launched himself high at his antagonist. The sudden lunge caught Flicker by surprise and Paul tackled the Flitterling in midair. His weight sent them both crashing to the ground.

Flicker squirmed free, but Paul plucked a knife from Flicker’s bandoleer and stabbed it through her tunic, pinning her to the earth. He jammed his sword against the Flitterling’s throat—

—and then his rage passed like a summer rainstorm that pours for one moment and is gone the next. Paul couldn’t believe what he had just done.

The gang of Fierce Flitterlings couldn’t believe it either. They stared at the combatants in dead silence.

But Flicker smiled.

“I thought you had it in you,” she said. “Of course, you almost had these in you as well.”

Nodding her head, she indicated the dagger she held at Paul’s groin, and the other poised at Paul’s heart. With a waggle of her eyebrows, she tossed the weapons aside.

“I yield,” she said.

The other Flitterlings surged forward, but Flicker’s savage voice stopped them.

“I said, I yield!”

Slowly, Paul rocked back onto his heels and stood up. Confusion creased his brow as Flicker knelt before him.

“Prince Paul of Lilypine, this night I, Flicker, Warlord of the Fierce Flitterlings, swear allegiance to you.” She bowed her head, as did the rest of the gang.

Paul looked around him in shock. Everything had happened so quickly, he didn’t know what to say, so he said, “I… thank you, Warlord Flicker.”

“What do you require of us, my lord?” Flicker asked.

“I… I seek someone to track a magic trail. I hunt a wizard.”

Without being asked, a green-and-purple-glowing Poxie swooped out of the trees and perched on Paul’s shoulder. She wore a tiny version of the Flitterlings’ leather armor, and even though she was only six inches high, she looked a bit dangerous.

“Blink is the best tracker we have,” Flicker said.

The Poxie stroked Paul’s hair.

“And she likes you,” she added.

“I seem to have that effect,” Paul said.

“It is done!” Flicker turned to her followers. “Break out the casks! Tonight we celebrate!”

A cheer cascaded through the gang and the Fierce Flitterlings scattered, but Paul held Flicker back.

“You let me win,” he said.

Flicker hovered before Paul so she could look him in the eye and said, “I sensed greatness in you, I just needed to be sure. And you just needed some help to find it.”