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Barry wrung his hands. “What’s wrong, Princess? What should I do?”
“I think the baby’s stuck,” she gasped. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to pull it out.”
“Yer Elegance!”
“Look,” she panted, “I’m not feeling particularly elegant right now. I’m just an orphan from the Deep Woods, and I need a Knight’s help. I need you to do this.”Continue reading “Rising to the Occasion”
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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.
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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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Photo credit: Elvis Kennedy
“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.
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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 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.
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The Runners left and Lilian sobbed into Vernon’s chest. “How could this happen? They were under my protection and I failed them!”
The Queen’s fiancé held her. “Bog’s finest healers are working to keep the King alive. Lieutenant Terrance continues their search for the Princess, and Hive Elite teams are helping. They’ll find her. We’ll get her back.”
The Queen’s Guard announced, “Deputy Minister of the Alliance, Freelands’ Ambassador Arturo, requests an audience, your Magnificence.”
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Photo credit: Joel Sartore
General Hai’s glowing wings flared, igniting the fumes trapped against the ceiling of the little cavern he claimed as his field headquarters. “What do you mean, ‘all the prisoners are gone’?” His icy tone shivered the hapless soldier who’d been ordered to fulfill the demand Queen Lilian had relayed through her mouthpiece.
His breath shallow and shaky, the young wasp stared at the ground and elaborated. “I’m sorry, Sir. We found the same thing at every holding area: dead guards and no prisoners.”
Melting into the shadows, Anthony was familiar with their leader’s tone. Unless this young soldier was a lot smarter than he looked, the Assassin knew what would happen next. It was always a shame to throw away one of their own, but there was no reasoning with Hai when he got like this.
Space, Time, and Raspberries 
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