Right?
“Then where is he?” Rosier demanded.
“I don’t know—”
“That’s not good enough!”
“What do you want me to do, Rosier?” I asked, turning to look at him.
“Get down!” he screeched, full in my face, making me jump.
And to wonder how he expected that to help with three tornadoes suddenly twisting together in the skies above us.
The only saving grace was that they were high, very high. Giving us a perfect view as three savage coils of destruction braided together, becoming a single strand of hell. A boiling mass of fury that ripped through the air a moment later, stabbing down like a great spear, straight at Nimue—
And was absorbed.
I blinked water out of my eyes, thinking maybe I was seeing things. But that was undoubtedly what was happening. The almost colorless shield over her turned black and brooding, taking on the hue and pattern of the violently swirling maelstrom feeding into it. The one it finished swallowing a moment later, the surface of the shield bloating to maybe twice its already considerable size.
And then throwing it all back.
The princess took a flying leap to another hill as the storm’s rage sheared off the crest where she’d been standing, sending a mighty blast of mud and dirt skyward. She also threw a whirlwind behind her, to counter the larger storm, I guessed, and try to slow it down. And it worked—sort of. A dozen small funnels peeled off the larger one, spiraling crazily out over the surrounding hills, ripping apart tents, chasing down groups of guards, and causing a hundred little shields to bloom against the night.
But it wasn’t enough.
Because the main force of the storm hit a moment later, still more than capable of knocking her off her latest perch and sending her flying—
And me ducking, although I didn’t need to. Her body spun through the air in our direction, but well above my head. And then splashed down in one of the lower parts of the camp, hard enough to cause a burst of water to fountain up at least a story high.
It splattered down on me like thick rain as I waded forward, trying to reach her before she drowned. While dodging the mass of people who were suddenly splashing through the water toward us. The previously disorganized crowd had just gotten their shit together in a big way, and were headed out of camp, battle be damned, and threatening to mow me down in the process.
“What the hell?” I asked Rosier as they passed us in a stream of hard elbows and churning water.
But he didn’t answer. I glanced at my shoulder and found him with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide, staring past me. At the dark-haired princess who was somehow back on her feet, throwing off the world-shattering blow with nothing more than a snarl.
I pushed a fall of soggy hair out of my face, and even through the pelting rain, I could see her better this time. A beautiful brunette with slanting blue eyes, ivory skin, and wicked red lips, who was doing a double take of her own. I thought that was a little odd, just at seeing me again.
Until I realized: she wasn’t looking at me.
For a long second she and Rosier locked eyes, and the fierce expression she wore slowly changed into something else. Something
I couldn’t quite read, even when her face cracked and her lips curved, because it was just too bizarre. Until she burst out laughing, a sound of pure hilarity chiming over the chaotic scene like a peal of bells, and so incongruous in that setting that I could only stare.
And then stare some more when she leaned over and tweaked Rosier’s little cheek.
“You should have stayed in the tree,” she told him breathlessly.
Then she was gone, running back across camp as easily as if there was no flood, because for her there wasn’t. Little patches of water solidified under her feet, like paving stones in a creek bed, catching her footfalls before she could make them. Like the wave that rose on cue, surging toward a remaining bit of palisade, up and over and carrying her with it, straight at—
“Oh,” I said, staring stupidly.
And finally realized why everyone had been headed this way.
Because Nimue had caught another storm.
I had a moment to see lightning crackle off the surface of her shield, to see something catch fire inside it, to see an inferno spiral across the formerly colorless exterior, turning it into a raging disk of red flame—
Before it came pouring out, the twister exploding from the surface like a tongue of fire from a dragon’s mouth, one that just kept coming, growing into a massive thread of fiery death that strained for the heavens—