I search the area, an idea springing to my mind.
I summon a nearby tangle of vines, hoping Orion won’t mind if I borrow some of his, and send them snaking around the stones that are too heavy for me to lift on my own. Then, with the vines slithering through the holes in the debris and pushing upon the stone from underneath, I pull.
The boulder groans in protest, but it moves. My back aches with exertion, my muscles feeling as if they might rip with the effort, but as the vines push and I pull, the stone comes loose.
With an agonized groan, I shove the rock to the side, allowing it to tumble down the heap. The rocks underneath are smaller, though I still require the help of the vines to move them.
All the while, I keep my ears trained on the children’s whimpers and the shrieks of the wyvern.
Eventually, the last of the rocks comes free, revealing a shaft of darkness below the pile.
I hadn’t realized the nursery had been reinforced with iron beams, but they’re holding strong underneath the weight of the rubble.
“You’re safe down there?” I ask. “Is anyone injured?”
“There’s a child whose leg is trapped under the rubble,” calls a female’s voice.
I grab hold of the lip of the hole and swing myself into the pit that used to be the nursery.
It’s dark, but my eyesight adjusts quickly, revealing about a dozen children and their warden, a spindly fae female with parchment-colored skin and brown eyes that I recognize, given she’s worked in the nursery for decades.
She quickly directs me to the corner, and through dust swirls in the shadows, I catch sight of a small body crumpled on the floor.
The little girl is breathing through whimpers, probably in shock from the column that seems to have crushed her knee and pinned the bottom half of her leg to the floor.
My ears attend to the fight continuing above us, but the screams of the wyvern are getting further away, like Orion is luring it out of the atrium.
To give the children a chance to escape.
His plan clicks into place in my mind, and I nod toward the warden. “Help me move this,” I say, hoping that between two fae, we can move the column.
“The child will pass out once we do,” says the warden, looking down at the little girl with pained eyes.
“Right.” Though it kills me to do so, I climb out of the hole and direct the warden to start handing me children. She does, and together we pair the toddlers off with the older ones, instructing them to take the younger children to the emergency cellars following the lead of the warden, whom I pull out last.
“Once the children are safe, find Peck and send him to me,” I say, but a dry voice clacks from the distance.
“At your service, Your Highness.” Peck strolls into the busted area with his nose curled up as if he’d walked in on me and Ellie making out rather than straight into a direct assault on the castle.
I bury my annoyance, and he follows me into the hole as the children scurry off.
The little girl’s whimpers have faded, and a sheen of sweat dampens her forehead.
Peck curses in his first language, his eyes widening with recognition at the child. “Why, Sonalee? Why don’t you ever do as I tell you and stay out of trouble’s way? This girl…” he tsks, “always stumbling into something or another, falling off precipices she’s not supposed to be climbing.”
He clucks, and I try to hold my tongue rather than pointing out that it’s not this poor child’s fault a column fell atop her.
With Peck’s help, we’re able to lift the column, though the girl’s eyes roll back into her head immediately.
“I can carry her back to the infirmary,” I say, leaning to lift her after we place the column down, but Peck shoos me away.
“Just help me get her out of this wretched hole, and I’ll take her. You don’t know which bed is hers, anyway.”
I’m left wondering exactly how often this child has ended up in the infirmary to earn her own bed, but again, I don’t question it.
Once we’ve hauled the girl into the atrium, I hand her limp body to Peck.
“Sure you don’t need help carrying her?” I ask, though somewhat reluctantly.
Peck’s voice drips with derision. “My boy, shouldn’t you be looking after your own wife and child?”
I don’t have time to respond before he runs off. I’m trying to remember if Ellie told me where she planned to be today, when the wyvern comes crashing back into the atrium.
This time, Orion is nowhere to be found. The wyvern licks its lips, blood staining its silvery maw, and I can’t help but wonder if perhaps Orion’s in front of me after all.
That thought is a bit too morbid to ponder, especially when I’m about to do battle with an Other, so I push it from my mind.
The wyvern stalks toward me, its talons clicking against the cracked marble tile.
I don’t wait for it to attack. Instead, I use a technique Orion’s been teaching me to summon several vines at once. They burst from the earth beneath the already cracked tile, wrapping themselves around the wyvern’s scaly legs.
It cries out, its shriek rattling the half-open ceiling. It tries to stomp out the vines, but they continue coiling around its legs, and though the wyvern is panicking, its efforts are spread too thin.
I use the opportunity to run toward the beast, summoning a series of vines that serve as footholds that catapult me onto the wyvern’s tail.
I was hoping for its back, right above its neck, but whatever.
The hilt of my blade glistens in the sunlight pouring through the open roof as I wield it, jumping to my feet and racing across the beast’s scaly back.
