Page 42 of Renegade Kingdom
The gangplank hit the sand and the sound of it seemed to echo across the entire beach.
I stood at the top, staring at the treeline. The Spring Court’s forest rose before us like a living wall, ancient trunks wrapped in moss, canopy so thick it turned the world beneath it into perpetual twilight. Birds I could still recognise called to each other in the branches, their songs layered and complex, as if they were having conversations I couldn’t quite follow. The air smelled of wet earth and wildflowers and something sweet I couldn’t name.
It almost didn’t feel right that everything looked the same.
The last time I’d stood on this beach, the world had felt so different. Now I was back with an army of freed soldiers at my back and a dead man’s magic burning on my mate’s arm, yet the trees looked exactly as they had before. The sand was the same sand. The sky was the same sky. As if nothing had changed when everything had.
Behind me, the ship emptied. People streamed down the gangplank in a steady flow, gathering on the beach inclusters. Rhidian’s crew moved with purpose, securing the ship, unloading supplies with the efficiency of men who’d done it a thousand times. The freed Endless moved with less certainty, some of them stepping onto the sand like they expected it to swallow them whole. Others stood frozen at the bottom of the gangplank, staring at the forest with wide eyes. For some of them, this might have been the first time they’d set foot on solid ground in years.
I didn’t blame them for their fear. I could sense the nervousness in Rhidian’s remaining crew too. The way their eyes kept darting to the treeline, hands resting on weapons that probably wouldn’t help them here. The last time they’d been on this shore, the court’s defences had been picking them off one by one. The forest itself had been hunting them. That kind of memory didn’t fade just because the political landscape had changed.
But as I stepped off the gangplank and my boots sank into the sand, I felt it.
The same feeling as last time, except now I knew what it was. A pulse of recognition, rising up through the ground and into my bones. Warmth spreading through the soles of my feet and up through my ankles, my calves, my thighs. The land knew its queen had returned. And this time, it wasn’t a whisper. It was a welcome. It was the realm sayingthere you arewith something that felt dangerously close to relief.
Tank fell into step beside me without a word. He felt it too. I could see it in the way his shoulders dropped, tension bleeding out of him like water from a cracked vessel. His bear was close to the surface, I could feel it through our bond, but it wasn’t agitated. It was content. Settled into itself in a way that I’d never sensed from him before. At home in a way that Tank himself might not fully understand yet.
The twisting marks on our arms, the ones that marked us as Spring royalty, began to glow. A soft, golden light that pulsed in time with the heartbeat I could feel rising from the earth beneath us. I glanced down at my arm and watched the marks shift and writhe, the patterns rearranging themselves as if the magic was stretching, waking up, remembering what it was for.
Behind us, the others fell into step. Dean, Maddox, Ryder. I could feel a hum of magic at my back, their power answering the call of the land even if it wasn’t their court. We were bonded. Where I went, they followed. And the realm recognised that connection, honoured it, drew strength from it.
Tank reached for my hand.
The moment our fingers touched, the treeline moved.
It started slowly. A shudder running through the closest trunks, bark creaking and groaning as if the trees were stretching after a long sleep. Branches lifted, leaves rustling in a wind that didn’t exist. Then the trees began to part, their massive roots pulling free from the earth with a sound like deep breathing, trunks leaning away from each other to create a pathway that cut straight through the forest. Wide enough for ten people to walk abreast. Perfectly straight. Carpeted in soft moss that glowed faintly in the shadows.
I knew where it led. To the palace. To the heart of the Spring Court.
Gasps erupted from the beach behind us. I heard the whispers start immediately, spreading through the crowd like fire through dry grass. The freed Endless pressed forward, craning their necks to see. Rhidian’s crew had stopped working entirely, standing slack-jawed at the edge of the sand.
Then the guardian stepped out of the trees.
It was exactly as I remembered and nothing like I expected. Taller than any person, easily twelve feet, its body formed from living wood and woven vines that moved with the fluidity ofmuscle beneath skin. Flowers bloomed in the hollow of its throat and along the ridges of its shoulders, opening and closing in a slow rhythm that matched the pulse of the land beneath my feet. A show of vitality that had been missing before. Its eyes were dark pools of ancient green, deep enough to drown in, and when they found mine, I felt the weight of centuries in its gaze. Centuries of watching. Centuries of waiting.
The dryad looked at me for a long moment. I held its gaze, aware that every person on the beach was watching this exchange with held breath. Aware that this moment meant something far bigger than just a queen returning to her court.
Then it bowed.
Not a small inclination of the head. A full, deep bow that brought its massive form low enough that the flowers in its hair brushed the ground. Petals scattered across the moss at its feet, tiny spots of colour against the green, and I felt a tremble run through the earth as if the land itself was acknowledging the gesture.
Behind me, the crowd had gone utterly silent. I could feel the shock radiating from them, a physical thing, like the air itself was holding its breath.
Guardians had been relegated to things of fables. Stories told to children. Myths from a time before the courts fell and the magic faded. Many of the people standing on this beach had probably never believed guardians were real. And here one was, ancient and vast and undeniable, bowing to a girl who’d spent far too many years in the human world and still wasn’t entirely sure she deserved any of this.
I bowed back. Not because protocol demanded it, but because this creature had waited for me. Had protected this court in my absence, had kept the land alive when everything else was dying, and it deserved my respect more than almost anyone I’d ever met.
When I straightened and met the dryad’s eyes again, I could have sworn I saw it smile. The expression was brief, barely there, a slight shifting of the bark and moss that formed its features. Warmth flickered in those ancient green depths, something that looked remarkably like pride. Then it nodded once, turned, and disappeared back into the trees with a grace that seemed impossible for something its size. The forest swallowed it whole, branches and leaves closing behind it like curtains, and within seconds it was as if it had never been there at all.
Except for the flowers it left scattered on the moss. Those remained.
I realised I was smiling too.
There was a lightness in my chest that hadn’t been there on the journey here. Despite everything we’d been through, despite the grief and the fear and the impossible weight of what still lay ahead, coming back to the Spring Court felt different this time. It felt like returning, not retreating. Like stepping into something rather than running from something else. Not to mention there was far less threats of death than the last time I’d come face to face with the dryad.
“Well,” Ryder said from behind me, his voice slightly strangled. “That’s not something you see every day.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Tank murmured, and I could feel his amusement through our bond.
