Page 32 of Wicked Prince of Shadows (Wicked Princes #2)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The massive stone block slammed into the marble steps with a bone-jarring crack, fractures racing outward.

I skidded to a halt, nearly pulling Osric off his feet as I yanked him back from the crashing debris.

The archway chunk was easily the size of a hut, blocking our path completely.

Another arch crumbled, raining smaller stones that bounced down the steps toward us.

“KLAK-KLAK-KLAK-KLAK!” Two deathbeaks landed on the stairs about twenty feet beyond us, talons gouging marble.

Two more dropped up higher and toward the right. Seven more circled in the sky above. "KRAAAAK!"

"No, no, no!" I spun around, searching for another route. The dark bulk of the behemoth loomed over the outer wall. My stomach plunged, and bile coated my tongue. Even as the guards attacked it, they barely seemed to slow it.

The behemoth slammed against the outer wall. I could just make out the top of its rounded, horned head. Stone shrieked as it split, a section collapsing inward in an avalanche of blocks that shattered across the ground. The watchtower several dozen feet away trembled as if it were made of blocks.

Terror pulsed through me. It was as if the magical protection of the palace no longer held any strength at all.

Thunder cracked, wind lashing my hair into my eyes. The air stank of lightning and rot, sharp and dry, like the breath before a storm.

The behemoth slammed against the wall again. Stone shrieked as it split, a section collapsing inward in an avalanche of blocks that shattered the lower garden wall.

The ground beneath us tilted and shook. I staggered, pulling Osric against me as another tremor rolled through the garden.

My mind raced, running through our options.

None were good. The deathbeaks prowled closer, heads jerking, croaking low as their talons scraped across the marble. Their long necks swayed, hunting.

We were still half-hidden in the rubble’s shadow—but not for long. The entire palace shook again. I crouched down, pulling him with me as one of the deathbeaks strode toward us.

Osric clenched my arm, eyes wide. “We can run really, really fast. Head down. Just go fast. I know where we need to go.”

“Osric,” I started, but his gaze shot past me, widening.

I spun around.

The behemoth's massive form rose higher above the crumbling wall to our side.

It charged at the garden wall, the ground shaking under each of its footsteps, a monstrous creature of ridged muscle and grey flesh, its skull alone the size of a small house, more terrifying than I remembered.

Empty eye sockets glowed with sickly grey light.

Its jaw hung open, revealing rows of jagged teeth that looked like they'd been carved from granite.

Then it charged—slamming into the wall with bone-splitting force.

Stone shrieked and crumbled beneath its claws, collapsing like brittle clay even as warriors rained down from above.

Massive beetles the size of horses clambered over the rubble, their carapaces gleaming like polished obsidian.

Behind them, centipedes writhed through the same gaps, trunk-thick bodies undulating with thousands of legs that churned over the shattered stones.

Their mandibles snapped with a wet, metallic click that twisted my stomach.

The tremor beneath us deepened, different from the behemoth’s assault. My knees wobbled. The hair on my neck prickled, rising with warning.

I clamped Osric’s hand tighter and whipped my head toward the sound. The ground throbbed with rhythm now—deliberate, heavy. Footsteps. More of them. Like something else was charging.

"Sabine!" Osric's voice trembled as he yanked at my arm. “We have to go. We’ve got to get to the northern courtyard. That’s where we go when there are attacks.”

My instincts locked my feet. Something was different. Wrong.

Above us, warriors launched themselves from the battlements, their wings slicing through the pale noon air.

Then shadows shot out like blades, lashing and cutting into the behemoth.

Vetle’s skeletal wings flared as he dove, hurtling with terrifying speed toward the behemoth.

The beast snarled and thrashed, but did not stop as it continued ripping into the wall and letting more creatures inside.

The deathbeaks fanned across the garden, corralling toward the landing, cutting us off from the palace.

The opposite wall trembled harder.

A guard's voice rang out from somewhere above, raw with terror: "Second behemoth! There’s a SECOND BEHEMOTH!"

Osric’s eyes widened, and his hand clenched so tight against mine his fingernails cut into my skin. “A second? There’s never been a second!”

We were trapped. The garden had become a death trap, and we were standing in the center of it.

The air shifted—charged, buzzing, my skin crawling with a static that made my teeth ache. Every hair on my body stood on end. Something vast and terrible was gathering.

“Sabine!” Osric slapped at my face, panic sharp in his voice. “Don’t freeze on me, Mahlda. Move!” He leaned back as he tried to move me with his whole weight.

“I know. I know, sweetheart.” My arm wrapped around his shoulders, holding him close even as my mind spun for escape. “There’s a way out. But we have to be smart.”

“Being smart isn’t standing here!” His body twisted, trying to force me to move. “I’ll distract them—you get to the courtyard!”

I yanked him back and dove to the side hard as a shattered marble column screamed through the air and shattered against the steps where we would have been if we’d just started running. Had the behemoth thrown that? Shards sliced my cheek. Osric’s hands flew up to shield his face.

“You aren’t distracting anything!” I shouted. “You’re staying with me.”

Another slab of stone plummeted, crushing the apple tree in an explosion of splinters, marble, and fruit.

The beetles scuttled across the broken marble, mandibles clicking. One seized a toppled planter in its jaws, crushing it to pulp. Soil and roots burst out, spraying across the marble. Spiked legs punched through zucchinis and apples as if they were dry leaves.

A centipede reared at the arrow buds, its front half rising taller than me.

Countless legs writhed, venom dripping in viscous threads from its fangs.

It sank into the largest bud with a wet tear.

The others shrieked and then bit down. The centipede wailed in response, thrashing and struggling.

Most of the swarm scuttled toward the sound.

Thunder ripped across the sky, the hazy grey clouds turning boiling black. Lightning forked in jagged white veins that split the clouds. But no rain fell.

The ground lurched sideways. I crashed to one knee, marble scraping my skin raw as pain shot up my leg.

I curled over Osric, shielding him, my heart hammering.

My mind whirled through impossible calculations—how fast we could run, which direction gave us the best odds, how long before the predators reached us.

Not long enough.

The wall to our left buckled inward with a grinding shriek, massive cracks racing upward like veins of lightning etched in stone. Horror locked my throat as the whole section tilted. The garden itself seemed to force us toward the collapse.

“This way!” I hauled Osric upright, dragging him as another chunk of wall thundered down.

I wrenched him toward a section where the fissures spread but the behemoth wasn’t directly attacking. If we were lucky, we could squeeze through—climb—hide.

Above the din, over a dozen deathbeaks prowled and tore through the front garden, ripping plants from the earth, trampling fruit, shrieking as they struck down guards. Beetles and centipedes surged after them, drawn to the feast, mandibles snapping through stems and bark alike.

The western wall gave way with a sound like the world breaking.

Towering blocks of stone plummeted into the terraces, smashing planters and stairs and even crushing a few beetles unlucky enough to be beneath.

Through the jagged gap, I glimpsed the second behemoth.

It was even larger than the first. Horns crowned its skull like jagged scythes curving toward the sky.

Lightning split the air, thunder exploding immediately after. The sting of ozone filled my nose, mixing with choking dust, the iron tang of blood, and something fouler—the death-stench that clung to everything the behemoths touched.

My gaze darted frantically across the devastation, clawing for any escape. The walls were collapsing. There had to be something—

DRRRAKKK-VOOOMM.

The first behemoth smashed fully through, its head swinging like a battering ram, jaw splitting wide in a roar that rattled my soul and marrow.

The impact sent shockwaves racing through the ground, new fractures spiderwebbing outward.

Stone groaned, marble shrieked, terraces crumbled.

A whole front section collapsed into ruin as a jagged fault ripped from the front down the center of the garden.

Two more terraces cracked apart, revealing earth and stone beneath.

The second behemoth bellowed, shaking its skull, horns gouging the wall as it forced its way inside. “BAAARRROOOM!”

Osric cringed and covered his ear with one hand while ducking the other against his shoulder.

To the right, stone split with a teeth-rattling crack, a fissure tearing open wide enough to glimpse the wasteland beyond—endless salt flats stretching toward the hungry chasm. The black weeping forest was in the opposite direction.

"There!" I pointed at the crack, already pulling Osric toward it. "We can get through! We get into the forest, and then we get help." The burning sap might serve as a weapon against the creatures.

Osric nodded, his face pale.