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After removing the beast’s corpse from the Bower, Barry and Arturo returned from the honest dark of night covered with persistent rain. Arturo took Trevor’s place tending the Prince’s wound.
The Knight shook his head, whispering, “He’s hanging on by the tips of his tentacles. I’m not sure he’ll ever wake up.”
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A crash of lightning followed the shape into the bower. Miranda lay senseless beneath the invading mass of muscle and rage.
Colored spots before Elliot’s eyes throbbed in rhythm with his pounding head. He gritted his teeth against the agony in his side. Thinking only of shielding his daughter, he sank into cold, black emptiness. Cassandra’s voice called to him from far, far away.
“Elliot!” Her cry surged and expanded to a scream of desperate cramping lost in the thunder’s drumming.
The beast’s voice rumbled its own thunder. “Where is General’s Assassin?”
Arturo winced as he moved to stand between the Prince and the invader. Clark followed him.
“Mama!”
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“Ohh… help me!” Cassandra writhed on the mat, panting, sweat seeping from her forehead to drip with her tears onto the floor.
Arturo moved the cup from Elliot’s lips. “Do you need me over there?”
Miranda looked from the baby in her arms to the Princess, and turned back to place the infant next to the Prince. “No, Ambassador. The Prince needs you here. Clark? Are you all right?”
Clark peeked over Elliot’s shell. “Yes, Mama. Uncle Elliot needs me here, too.”
Elliot’s tentacles shook as he reached to pull his daughter close. His face ashen from blood loss, his voice was dry and shriveled. “Please…” he asked the midwife, “help her…”
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Trevor lay face-up in the mud, peering through the deluge splattering in his eyes at the scaly, barbed creature holding him down.
Bending his knees, muck squelching at his heels, the Knight jabbed the stinger into the belly hanging over his face while he thrust his hips up, flipping the attacker over his head. As he sprang to his feet, another electrifying bolt gleamed off each scale of the spiky creature scrambling to right himself. If they’d had fur, it would have been standing on end. Blood dripped from the fang’s gash.
For a heartbeat, their eyes locked. “What happens to me matters not,” the Knight’s foe declared. “We are many and we are here.” He lunged at Trevor and grabbed his arm, twisting till it popped, as he spun to slice across it with the barb at his elbow, tearing at muscle.
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Lying in wait for the next contraction, Cassandra stretched her eyestalks to see around Miranda. “What’s wrong with my husband?” Miranda and Arturo exchanged looks, but neither answered. “Tell me.” The Princess bit back tears. “Why hasn’t he moved?”
Arturo touched her shoulder. “He’s still alive, Cassandra, but he’s very badly injured. The Assassin’s stinger went through his shell, into his body. He’s still bleeding.”
The Princess turned to Miranda. “You have to help him. Please,” she begged.
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“But, Mother,” Andre implored, “what was I supposed to do? Samantha’s team wouldn’t leave her alone with us, and when she took us to the front, I watched her kill two wasps with a single move — like it was nothing.” He stared hard at her as if that would communicate the full horror of what he’d witnessed. “There’s no way I could have forced her to do anything.”
Covering her face, Queen Madalena tried not to begrudge her son the senseless deaths and injury his friends had suffered. She tried not to blame him for the head-strong willfulness of his sister, even as anger, disappointment, and remorse tried to tear her heart apart. Her silence lasted longer than she knew.
“Mother?” Andre pressed.
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Late afternoon scents of mint and lavender drifting from the cup Miranda held, resisted mixing with earthy undertones of rainy dirt and blood. The Bower’s mushrooms lit the raging storm’s false night, glinting green on tears Vernon wiped from his cheeks. Standing behind Arturo didn’t shield his heart from the sight of Cyrus sponging away the blood still flowing from the gash beneath the jagged breach in the Prince’s shell.
The Princess, unconscious at her husband’s side, stirred and moaned a growing growl. A glimmer touched the emptiness in Cassandra’s mind like a child’s hand warming a frozen rock. It grew into a vice grip forcing a web of cracks from its center, leaking her last waking memories into the once merciful oblivion: the Assassin falling at her foot… his bulging eye… his burbled dying breath… his legs scrabbling in the dirt… Arturo struggling to shove the spasming Stinger off him… throwing herself past them, trying to get to Elliot, falling instead into an abyss of nothingness that now squeezed her toward its surface, extruding her insides out.
The first contraction since her collapse flooded panic through her, straining her eyes open, heaving her lungs, and pushing her to her foot. Elliot! Where am I? The room began to spin.
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Arturo strained to talk as he flew. “A Hive Elite team found us… when they saw Lieutenant Terrance’s body… I had them carry the Prince and Princess… back to the Bower, and deliver… the body to the Queen.”
“What about the Assassin’s?” Vernon asked. “It was your triumph. How do you wish to dispose of it?”
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Patience is the most precious jewel in Virtue’s crown. Surrounded by a pavé of sparkling anticipation, its light enhances all other virtues and gleams in the hearts of high and low alike.
Andre had never been patient. Conniving, yes, and sneaky. Buzzing ahead of his pack, he anticipated only snatching his half-sister’s glory for himself. This time, I’ll finally win.
His little gang was almost sober when it crossed into Fen, so the four Freelands bees slipped undetected through one of the wide spaces between the few remaining southern border Guards. In fact, they reached Central Fen before anyone stopped them.
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Arturo stopped to investigate a dark stain on the path. From what Barry told me, this must be where the Assassin attacked King Arnie. The Frogs’ prints had been washed away, but Elliot’s trail overlaid a Stinger’s. I hope the Prince knows what he’s headed into.
A scream slashed the air. Arturo picked up his pace.
~~~
The Assassin limped closer. Elliot faced his rising tail, calculating his own odds of survival. If I die now, Cassandra and the baby will be next.
Space, Time, and Raspberries 
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