“You seemed to have done well on your own,” she called down over the crashing fall’s stream.
He had, hadn’t he? Phillip puffed out his chest. That was right! He wasn’t some naïve little kid anymore, trailing the knights around with a dulled dagger for a sword. He didn’t get tricked by lying, little fairies set out to ruin everything.
He glared up at the fairy, remembering that day in Morning Valley castle, feeling all the humiliation and sense of failure all over again. He straightened as she stood, ready to finally face her after all these years. After all these years of planning and practicing for this precise moment, he knew exactly what to say and do.
“Look out!” she shouted, pointing behind him, her face paled and her eyes wide.
Instinctively, he turned, feeling almost instantly stupid, sure this was just another of her tricks. Sure that the minute he turned back around, she would be gone.
Until he saw the river beast, once again awake and angry, charging toward him at full speed.
Well, fig.
Phillip froze, too late for him to swim or splash out of the way. He shut his eyes, lifting useless arms up in a fragile defense. He sucked in a breath, waiting for the inevitable.
Air wheezed from his lips as he felt someone grab him from behind and heave him up. His body tensed as he opened his eyes and blinked up at the gritting, grunting fairy. She cursed foully under her breath as her translucent, delicate-looking wings flapped madly under the strain of carrying both their weight. “Elves’ ears, princeling, if I’d known how heavy royals were, I’d have sat back and watched the bull trample you.”
He grimaced. “Thanks,” he muttered.
“Please,” she insisted as she lumberingly fluttered further toward shore, “don’t mention it.” Dropping them both onto the rocky sand, she heaved.
They both turned as the raging bull snorted, turning around and around in the river, splashing wildly as it searched for the absent prince.
“I know river bulls aren’t known for their gentle natures,” the fairy huffed, trying to catch her breath, “but what the frogging pond did you do to this thing to make it so mad?”
Phillip flushed a bit as he pushed himself to his feet. “I woke it up.”
Pix turned to gawk at him. “It was asleep when you found it?” she asked, slapping at him as he tried to help her to her feet. “Why in the tipping toadstool would you wake it up?”
He flinched away from her stinging hits. “I wanted to defeat it.”
She screeched. “You wanted to defeat the sleeping beast?” She shook her head, her wings twitching irritatedly. “You royals,” she muttered to herself, “have a twisted sense of fun.”
“Look,” he growled as the bull’s head popped up at her raised voice, “can we talk about this later? Maybe after we escape the rampaging monster?”
“The rampaging monster that would still be asleep, if you’d left it the elf alone?” she shouted.
“You can either help me defeat the beast or you can,” he paused, spitting wet strands of hair out of his mouth, “buzz off; I really don’t need the lecture right now.”
“Buzz off?” she scoffed. “Buzz off?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine,” she said with a hitch of her hips before she rose up in the air. She gave him a mock salute. “Best of luck, princeling,” she said. “You’re going to need it.” And then she turned, putting her fingers to her lips, and whistling loudly before zipping up and away.
Great! She’d left him. Not that he expected anything more from a treacherous, little pest like her. Her true colors showing.
He grumbled as he gripped his sword in his fist and turned back to see the bull stomping in the river, his head lowering as he aimed his lethal-looking horns.
Phillip gulped and turned to run.
But on the shoreline of the rocky cove, there weren’t exactly many places to run. The long, stacked wall of stones lining the shore was tall and, while climbable, still looked intimidating. But it looked like his only option. So he jumped to reach a handhold high up, wedging his hand between two huge, sharp stones. With a groaning strain, he pulled himself up onto the wall, cutting his hands as his feet scrambled for a foothold—any foothold.
The bull charged the wall, slamming furiously into the stone, causing the unsteady stones to shake and slip beneath his grasp. Troll’s teeth! He clung to the stones as tightly as he could, jamming his hands and feet between the unforgiving rocks. But the harder he grasped, the more his blood seeped slippery onto the stone.
Just as he was about to fall, his grip on the wall faltering, he heard the bull cry, a screeching, yelping squeal of pain.
Phillip looked down, seeing agony burn in the bull’s dark fathomless eyes. He saw it crumple, stumbling backward. It mewled, sending him one more sad, sorrowful—almost regretful—look before its legs gave way and it fell away from the wall and onto the sandy shore.
That was when he saw her. Pix’s face was so set—the lines and angles of her face held so rigid and fierce—that he hardly recognized her. Her black eyes glittered, alight with emotions too tumultuous to name. Like hunger and desire with a violent edge. And pain and regret seeping into resentful anger.
He watched in unspeakable awe as she pulled her arm back, her wand—that long, hard shaft of silver—sliding out from between the stone-hard scales on the bull’s underbelly. The bull tensed, its back bowing with the pixie’s movement, a screeching howl slipping from its throat.
She’d pierced its heart. Clean and precise. Water bled out the wound as she pulled her wand free. The beast collapsed on the shore in the dark, muddy mess that seeped from its body into the ground.
For a second, she stared at it, her face a blank mask, hard and emotionless. Phillip couldn’t see her downturned eyes from where he was. A part of him was grateful for that, afraid of what he would see there as she met the pleading, pain-filled eyes of the dying creature at her feet.
She nodded as if in response to something the beast had said. Then she cooed and touched its bowing head that cuddled her palm like an overgrown kitten. It moaned one last time, shuddering as it shut its already cloudy eyes, before the fairy girl swung her arm, slashing her wand down, fast and hard.
Phillip winced as the silver slice through the bull’s neck, magic—he was sure—making it easier. The armor of its scales shattered beneath her tiny, fragile form’s strength. The creature’s head—its entire form—sunk in on itself before melting away into a wave of water. It soaked her, crashing over her still, stoic form before washing away into the river.
She stood there, still as a statue—not so much as a flutter of her thin, glass-like wings. The only movement at all, was the water that dripped sad and sorrowful down her face and form.
He slid down the cliff’s wall, ignoring the pain in his palms and soles. He swallowed hard as he walked up to her. “Pix,” he said, the sound choked in his throat.
She didn’t look up at him. Didn’t so much as move to acknowledge him.
He wanted to thank her. Felt like he needed to apologize. Though for what exactly he wasn’t quite sure. “I,” he started. He swallowed again. “You saved my life.”
He didn’t understand why—could hardly believe how—but she had. He opened his mouth to thank her.
She glared up at him. “I didn’t save you,” she growled, her voice low and menacing.
He stepped back, shocked and instantly wary. “What?”
She followed him, stalking forward as he moved back, step after step. Fiery glitter sparked off her, drying away the water bull’s remains, before falling to ash behind her. “I,” she repeated, “didn’t save you. I didn’t kill that bull.”
He looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“I may have stabbed it,” she said slowly with an eerie, frighting calm, “may have slit its throat.” She turned her face with a vicious scowl. “Bled it out and let the sand soak up its life. But I didn’t kill it.” She stared pointedly—accusingly—at him. “You did.”
READ PART TWO HERE
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