Should she tell Chance and Trevor? Yes, yes, they needed to know, and she wasn’t sure she could handle all the new information on her own. Time travel, no matter how you looked at it, in the Dark Prince’s hands would be the worst kind of nightmare.
“Chance—stop!” she called to his retreating figure
He turned to frown a look at her. “What is it, lass?”
“Pestale … Pestale … I was just with Pestale!”
Ho-ho, she thought when he came charging towards her at full attention, and it occurred to her that he was magnificent. No, more than magnificent. He filled up the air all around him and blotted out all else. He pulsated with vibrant life and gave off a current that went inside her and pulled her to him. She had to blink and shake herself free from the sensation.
Trevor was there as well, his voice full with excitement. “What do you mean, you were just with Pestale?”
Royce realized something in that moment—Pestale was more than a force to be reckoned with: he was a threat to life as everyone knew it.
Chance and Trevor’s hatred of the Dark Prince had to be turned into a living, breathing force, controlled and brilliant, if they were going to be as ruthless, as cunningly efficient as he was. They had a determined foe on their hands.
It would take their combined might to destroy him.
~ Five ~
EYES WIDE WITH impatience, it was Chance who put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a little shake. “What the bloody hell are ye saying, lass?”
“I was at the water’s edge when all of a sudden, this thing … a dark mist … or a cloud enveloped me, and then the next thing I knew I was in Pestale’s arms, and he—”
“Damnation, hell and fire!” shouted Chance. “Did he hurt you? Lass, are you hurt?”
“No, no, and you forget, I am not a lass—I am a princess of the House of Nimrough,” she answered, her chin well up. Once again he was discounting her worth, and it was getting old. “Besides,” she conceded, “I don’t think he wanted to hurt me, but never mind that. There’s something you need to know—”
“Pestale takes you—you get away, and you tell me there is something I need to know?” Chance looked at her as though she had two heads.
And then Royce felt as though the world around her had frozen into the moment.
Chance and Trevor followed her gaze and went silent as they looked around. It was as though a hand had waved itself over all living things in their vicinity and obliterated their sound and movements.
Royce looked around with an awful feeling. The birds had stopped their chirping. The breeze had turned into stagnant air, but the lake, which had been gently lapping, much like a quiet mill pond, had turned into a raging series of swells any surfboarder would have thrilled to see.
What by Danu is happening? she asked herself.
She couldn’t speak as she watched something unnatural emerge out of those sudden waves. It swirled tightly—wildly screwing itself into a foam of water and dark mass much like a tornado. It was on a clear path, the tour boat overloaded with passengers its single goal.
Royce knew that the Lakes of Killarney were subject to strange and intensely spontaneous weather changes because of the mountains that surround them, but this, this had nothing to do with the normal weather patterns. This was sorcery at its most potent!
She pointed but felt like an idiot because both Chance and Trevor were already gaping at the horrifying scene.
Without warning, she heard Pestale’s voice in her ear. “Next time, Princess, you will think twice before disrespecting me.”
This was on her? Those people in the boat were going to die because she had been rude to the Dark Prince? She couldn’t allow that to happen. She had to do something, but what did one do when faced with evil so powerful it could command the elements? If she had doubted Pestale’s pure wickedness before, she no longer did.
She felt a choking sensation in her throat as she tried to answer him, and then whatever magic had brought his words to her was gone. He was gone.
Do something, she told herself. This was her fault. Pestale was punishing her by destroying innocent people. He was using his Dark Magic to control a wind force that would overturn the boat. People would be severely injured; many would perish …
She cried out even as she racked her brain for the spell to destroy the force stalking the tour boat. “We must do something!”
Trevor frowned and said, “We may not—interference is forbidden!”
She didn’t have time to argue with him so she punched him hard in his belly, and then her world did a tumble as logic froze with utter horror.
A young girl became separated from her parents by the commotion and rush of people. She dashed madly and haphazardly about as people tried to hold onto anything they could within the large cabin of the tour boat. She looked no more than eight or nine.