Page 38 of The Princes of Stone and Steel

Steele screamed my name, but before I hit the ground, the second raven swooped in. I reached up to the prince as he reached down to me. Our hands almost missed, though at the last second, we connected. He wrapped his hand around my wrist.

Although grateful not to be dead at the moment, our fate still remained unclear. The extra weight proved too much for the second hag raven to carry and she couldn’t gain the altitude she needed to get us away from the Chimera faster.

Somehow, I instinctively knew it wasn’t just the weight of us. She’d been weakened without her sister.

Our hag raven flapped her wings hard, trying to put distance between us and the Chimera. Struggling with every flap, she dropped lower and lower until I heard her inside my head.

“I… cannot… go on…”

The raven managed to hold on long enough for my and Steele’s feet to touch the ground before she crashed the rest of the way, transforming back into a hag as she hit the compacted soil.

She lay lifeless, or so I thought, until I looked closer to see her chest rise and lower, the movement shallow, but there. A cavern mouth opened in a nearby rock. Too small for her to fit through, yet her body rolled not of her own volition, right through the opening. She didn’t appear to shrink, and it not to grow, but somehow, she fit. Then the mouth of the cavern closed slowly.

Right before she left us completely, I heard her meek voice in my head, “Go to the witch of the wood…”

A roar boomed behind us along with the snapping of trees falling to the Chimera as easily as snapping small twigs.

“We need to get out of here.” The prince voiced what I’d already thought.

He tugged at my hand to get me to run. And run we did. Tangled strands of hair fell in my face as they drenched with sweat and as I ran, I constantly had to shove the matted glob behind my ear. If I only had a hairband because worrying about seeing every step in front of me was the last thing I needed taking up headspace when a very real monster ate up steps behind us to kill me.

With each footfall I called out to the wind. Roshambo wind or his cousin, the female form, it didn’t matter. We needed a skoulikotrypa—we needed one soon.

Cracking and popping sounded behind us moments before flames ripped over our heads, igniting the trees around us burning with flames so hot, tree limbs instantly crashed down as if purposely trying to crush us. We pushed forward only now running as fast as two people could run hunched over like evil, little red caps leaving the scene after snatching a baby.

Steele tugged my hand harder and I stumbled out of the way of one of those flaming branches, which barely missed me. The smoke and ash burned my lungs because I stupidly sucked in a sharp breath.

We kept running in our attempt to outrun the Chimera fire.

Our task seemed hopeless as the rubber on the soles of my shoes melted from the extreme heat surrounding us, sticking like suction cups to the ground with each of my steps, slowing us down. The back of my blouse turned black from the forest char.

Oh, man.

And then, just when I thought for sure we were about to die, we burst out of the tree line onto a farmer’s field already tilled and ready for seed.

Ridges and valleys of dirt clods made the ground uneven, but at least I stopped sticking.

We headed toward a two-story farmhouse, unfortunately for the residents, sided in wood shingles. Though it had a metal roof. Hopefully that counted for something.

Sitting to the left of the farmhouse was an aboveground pool.

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” I said through my heavy breaths.

“What?” Steele panted, as he hadn’t allowed us to let up on our run.

“Head… for the pool.”

He looked confused, but did as directed.

“Wind!” I hollered to the sky. “Wind, I need you!”

Finally.Finally. A strong gust of cooled air pushed down on us, pushing past us, then switched directions heading for the farmhouse, beating us there.Thank you, wind.

Without answering with words, the sky over the pool swirled and grew black. A powerful wall cloud formed, shooting off gusts so strong, it literally knocked me on my butt. The prince helped me stand, and we watched in awe as the water formed that familiar whirlpool.

Neither the prince nor I had the chance to catch our breaths as the funneling sucked away the oxygen. We fought against the gale force to climb the wooden steps to the pool deck, heads ducked and our free arms bent, held in front of us as we struggled to make it to the platform. Holding hands, we plunged into the lukewarm water. And even though I could see the blue plastic pool bottom, we were sucked through. None too soon if the spray of fire shooting over our heads and the rumbling roar from the Chimera bursting out through the tree line meant anything.

Which it did. At least for me.

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