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“You will have someone tomorrow morning.”
He bows as if bowing for the king, staying down longer than he should. “Much obliged, Commander.”
“Mmhm.” I flick my fingers, shooing him away. “Stay out of trouble.”
Benoit rises and turns then slides away from the door at the same time that my guards rush inside my office. They bow slightly before shouting simultaneously, “We have a breach.”
From the wall behind me that displays most of my favorite weapons, I snatch my girlfriends, Olivera and her twin, Veronica, before pocketing Francesca and staring longingly at Bernadette, whose blade I polished only yesterday. I leave her be and hope I don’t regret not bringing her as I march out of my office.
“Tell me.” In the courtyard, the sergeants are assembling the trainees and marching them inside the military stronghold adjacent to the palace. In the event of a breach, trainees won’t engage, for they are not ready.
“Unidentified portals are opening all over the shore,” the male on watch says.
I pick up my pace, my kinetic magic tingling at my fingertips. “Collapse them.”
“There’s hundreds of them.”
I run and burst through our portal, which spits me out on our shore. The beach swirls with green and blue portals that aren’t ours and are most certainly unsanctioned litter. They’re populating in a pattern that leads toward the palace gardens. While the fae use portals to travel, they must use our own portals to come and go this close to the palace. Nobody is allowed to create their own, and while I forgive a few here and there, this many signals the transport of an invading army.
I issue an order. “Lock the civilians indoors. All units take up defensive positioning alpha g number one seven oh four. Hold for command. Benoit?”
“Yes, Commander?”
“Get out of here.”
“What’s alpha g number one seven zero four?” he asks.
“My beach entertainment.”
The valet and the guards disperse. Kinetic magic bursts from my fingertips and grabs the iron fence buried under the sand. The old metal groans as I bend it to my will, calling it up with a tiny flick of my wrist.
The iron fence spurts out of the sand, scaring the merfolk who perch on the rocks and bridges of our court. The popping-up portals are moving swiftly and threatening to swallow the people who are scrambling toward safety.
“Hurting defenseless people”—I shout, hoping to draw out the villains to me—“will make me want to kill you first and ask about you later.”
The portals stop swirling. As in all of them stop swirling at once. Is this the work of a single person? Impossible. Nobody can erect over a hundred fully functioning portals at will and still mount an attack on my court. But even if they could, they’re mine now, trapped within the iron fence I erected in a perimeter around us. Iron hurts us, weakens us without exception.
I search the area and pick out what I believe is the original portal that started it all. It’s the one that holds the most density, and as I walk to it, my magic lifts the iron birds nested in the palm trees all around the court. The old iron in them groans like the fence did, having never been used. The iron objects, which resemble birds to a passerby, are part of my defense in case of an invasion from the sea.
A thousand iron birds form a dense flock above me, hovering, waiting for my magic to disperse them.
“Come out, come out,” I taunt the enemy as I stand at the portal.
Suddenly, the portal activity halts. This tells me the foe heard me, and he’s inside the densest portal. I have the perfect opportunity to extend my arm and thrust toward him.
I grab Olivera and toss the blade from one hand to the next, licking my lips as the portals around me start collapsing in a new erratic and distracting manner, making me twist and turn and jab the sword into the air, trying to catch the intruder.
I can’t see the enemy.
I stab left and right as portals flicker all around me as if trying to nip at me. One portal engulfs my sword arm and pulls. Oh no, you don’t. Olivera stays with me. I poise my blade to slice right through the enemy’s middle, which is forming inside the portal. I want to gut this one, spill his blood all over my boots, make him kneel and beg me for mercy.
A female with large, green, fear-filled eyes appears before me, and I recognize her right as I thrust the sword toward her.
6
D’ARTARON
Normally, a fae princess arrives in a carriage or through a secured single portal with staff and trunks reaching the destination either before or after her. Since the Spring princess arrived in this manner, she is a threat, and if I can’t eliminate her, then I must secure her, for she might be a murdering lunatic.
