Page 62 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

“ O wen.”

If Kessara was sending me a message with these stones, there wasn’t a thing Miles could do to stop me. I was going. I didn’t give him the courtesy of telling him where I was going either. My focus was on one thing and one thing only. Kessara.

I jumped off the balcony and headed for the forest, sword still in hand.

I felt and saw Miles next to me as he followed. “This could be a trap,” he breathed out as neither of us slowed.

“I don’t care if it is,” I told him. “It’s better than nothing.”

So we ran, using our magic to push us there faster. We had a narrow window to get to The Dead Lake. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.

I ran past a man standing guard outside the hedge of the courtyard and into the meadow without slowing. He tried to speak with us, but I didn’t dignify him with a response. When I met a few members of Team One in the meadow in charge of watching the forest for the night, I ran right past them too.

“ Owen ,” Miles bit out. “We need to take backup. ”

“I don’t know that we need a thing yet,” I argued over my shoulder. Like hell would I be slowing down. For anything. This could be yet another dead end. Or it could be everything.

A wild unadulterated hope surged me forward.

Miles quickly barked a few orders before following.

With every step toward The Dead Lake, I willed this to be it. That after three days of hiding out and no news, finally there would be news. Good news. That I wasn’t running right into a trap, rather I was running toward my wife to finally bring her home.

Please.

I didn’t know who I was begging or asking, but I was.

I took the fork in the path toward the lake at record speed. I had to get there. And I hoped like hell that she’d be there. If she wasn’t.. . I would be wrecked. Wrecked beyond repair.

It was still so dark out we used the power in our veins to light our way. It was only a few hundred yards off that Miles whispered, “We need to stop. Our glowing will give us away. They’ll know we’re there before we even arrive.”

It went against my instincts to not get there as fast as possible, but even this focused and hellbent on arriving at The Dead Lake, my training couldn’t be totally ignored. Miles had a point, dammit.

So we shut our Enchantments down, forced to slow to a walk beneath the darkness of the forest around us. It would be dawn soon, and that sunlight couldn’t come a moment too soon.

We came into view of the lake first, moonlight reflecting around the branches and reaches of darkness. We took it in a moment from around a tree, not seeing anything amiss.

But as I looked toward the hydrangea tree, all blood fled from my face.

I ceased breathing but not moving.

“Owen,” Miles hissed, grabbing my arm. “It could be a trap. ”

Something beyond my understanding was going on with the purple hydrangea tree which housed the former queen’s magic.

But it was the limp body next to it on the ground that had all of my attention.

“Owen,” Miles tried again.

I pointed, raising my voice slightly when I whispered back, “That is my wife .”

Miles must have felt the pure determination emanating from me as he wisely let go of me.

Every step toward her, my heart threatened to leave my body entirely, increasing in speed, increasing in panic.

She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be dead.

I would not allow it.

My magic flared with my next step toward her. It lit me up and gave away my location, but making sure that Kessara had a pulse seemed infinitely more important.

As it did, she jerked, turning her face only slightly toward me. “Owen,” she rasped.

Relief flooded every cell of my body as I finished closing the gap between us, dropping to the ground before her. “Hi, sweetheart.”

She tried to push herself up to sitting but failed. I caught her as she propped herself up on her forearm. And that was when I noticed the blood. Even in the dark, it glistened on her skin. Down her ears, her nose, and from a slight slice on her neck.

Add that she had evidently used her powers to burnout, and I vowed hers would not be the only blood spilled this night. My power I had been attempting to push down to keep us in the dark refused to remain hidden anymore. It was ready, as was I.

I moved to put my hands on her, finding her skin cold to the touch. Just when I thought I couldn’t reach another level of pissed off, here it was. Beckoning to me .

I moved to her neck, the injury that wasn’t from burnout, one that had been done to her body.

“Just a nick,” she explained. “The sword is right here.”

My eyes went to find the weapon she was referencing. “What happened? Where are they?”

“I—” she swallowed. “I’m so tired, Owen. I will try.” She took a steadying breath, as if fighting the urge to sleep. “They are in there.” She tried to point her finger, but it didn’t go far.

I had never seen my wife look so defeated, so utterly exhausted and spent. But if I focused on that right this moment, I would break. So I forced my eyes back to the purple hydrangea tree.

Roots had appeared to shoot out of the ground and formed a sort of cage.

It was... what I was seeing didn’t even make sense.

A domed cage made out of what looked like tree roots stood there steadfast as if it had always been there.

Along every strand of those roots, a gold magic crawled along it, I assumed making them stronger.

And between the joints of woven roots in the barrier, I couldn’t see in it at all.

A perfect darkness lied within. Shadows.

“It’s a trap?” I asked. Miles had been worried this was a trap, and it was, but not for us.

“Yes. Calix and Bram are also nearing burnout. None of us... have much energy... of any kind left.”

It’d been three days they had hidden and tried to best one another in this forest. If I had more than a moment to consider it, I would worry that pulling back the men from combing the forest might have hurt things, not helped.

But I didn’t have time for regrets at this moment.

No, in this moment vengeance was the priority.

I would finish this.

“My powers are keeping them down for now,” she got out. “I sent out some stones to find you and poured everything I had left into this, and then the tree just... it moved. It helped me.” Her voice caught on the last part, her eyes glistening .

After everything I witnessed in this forest, I shouldn’t be surprised. And yet.

And yet.

This went beyond words. And basic understanding.

In the moment Kessara needed it most, the dead queen’s magic had come to her aid?

The aid of the child of her husband, the man who siphoned her magic against her will.

All for a person, which had she known, would have been a daily reminder of that man’s unfaithfulness.

I gave my head a shake. I could try to grapple with how odd this was later. I needed in there. I had to get into that cage and finish this. Now.

My hands moved along her body, checking her ribs, looking for other injuries. She wasn't in good shape. There were areas where I was sure there would be bruises, but she was alive. And I didn’t want to stop touching her, even if I knew I had to. Momentarily. “Kess,” I whispered.

“Yeah?”

“I need to get in there,” I told her.

“Not without me you don’t,” Miles said from next to us. I hadn’t even heard him arrive.

“I need you to drop the shadows and let us in there,” I told her. “You trapped them, let us help. Let us finish this.”

She gave me a nod.

I kissed her, a quick hard peck which promised it wouldn’t be the last. And another I brushed to her temple, just so damn glad she was alive.

She was going to pass out at any moment. We just needed to get in there. And on the off chance her shadows wouldn’t drop when her consciousness did, we needed to be able to see what we were doing in there.

“I don’t know how to control the tree,” she rasped.

I moved toward the tree, picking up the sword which had hurt my wife.

I vaguely realized I had grabbed my own sword, it was still in my right hand, but in my haste, I hadn’t grabbed a shirt.

Two swords, one in each hand, no shirt. Minor details I could live with.

I was about to use enough power that I wouldn’t feel the cold.

At first, I wondered if this new sword was the one which housed the dead queen’s magic, but with just a glance I could tell it wasn’t. It didn’t have the thrum of magic I’d felt in that sword, nor the large gem in the hilt like that sword.

“What’s your plan?” Miles asked quietly.

“Get in. Murder.”

“Simple but efficient then,” Miles declared. “Perfect.”

Without thinking, I moved my hand to touch the bark of the hydrangea tree. A flash of the homes in Agria danced in my head. The way they built their homes into the land of the area.

With both these lands and the powers given to us, we all needed to learn to work with nature, not against. So I lightly trailed my fingers on the bark of the tree and whispered, “Please let us in. Let us help finish this.”

Almost immediately, roots began moving.

“Kess,” I hollered. “Drop it now.”

“They’ll be free,” she argued.

I shot Miles a look and couldn’t help the murderous grin which crossed my face. “Good.”

The roots moved and shifted, not entirely, but left us a small hole in which to enter the cage. I immediately stepped in, Kessara’s shadows falling the moment I did. Miles stepped in beside me, and the tree shifted back, closing us in.