Page 50 of In Rising Tides

“So we’re doing this?” Ridge asked one more time. “We’re just going in with no plan?”

It reminded Wilder of Lyra asking the same on their tour of the kingdom.

“Sometimes the plan is no plan,” Wilder said, repeating his words once more.

Maelys rolled her eyes and pushed her hair out of her eye as she brushed her thigh against Ridge. His frown tugged the corner of his mouth down, and he sucked his lips into his mouth.

Wilder knew he was doing his best to keep his thoughts inside. But Otto’s eyes swirled with smoke.

“Keep it to yourself, Otto.”

His face paled as if he had seen a ghost, and his mouth opened and closed as if he were fighting for breath.

“Wilder, listen to me?—”

“Not now,” Wilder snapped.

“Maelys,” Otto began, turning pleading eyes to her.

“I can’t force him to listen,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t force him to even speak to us.”

Fresh-baked bread wafted out of the open windows of the bakery, and the blacksmith’s quarters smelled of iron and coals.

Wilder focused on his surroundings, on the place that had once felt like home, that had been as much a part of him as the briars on his head.

It didn’t feel that way now that she wasn’t within the city walls, that she wasn’t even on the same soil as him.

The upper district had always smelled cleaner than the lower district. Another of the wrongs on the long list of things he needs to right. Lyra had poured salt in that wound when she had been here.

If tonight went the way he thought it would, that problem would soon be his to solve. All the problems in this kingdom would be his.

That was a weight Wilder struggled to hold.

He wanted only to save her.

Everything else could wait.

Wilder flexed a hand and used his magic to blow the scents away. If he could use his magic to clear her from his mind, he would, if only for a moment’s reprieve.

A servant opened the castle doors as they approached, and Wilder slid from his mount. He didn’t even wait for the stable boy before he bounded up the steps, taking them two at a time.

The throne room was alive.

“Father!” Wilder’s voice boomed over the chatter of the milling crowd.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes were in attendance at tonight’s feast. Pixies fluttered around the chandeliers and landed on the towering trees. Their iridescent wings cast tiny rainbows upon the leaves that mimicked flowers.

Trolls lumbered about, blending in with the moss that draped from branches as they found their way to their seats.

Elves with moonlight-colored skin and elegant, rich robes seemed to float about, while others were draped in nothing but jewels and cobwebs.

The nobility were in attendance.

Wilder couldn’t work out if that was helpful for his plan or not.

“Wilder,” Queen Aine crooned from beside the High King. Her ornate silver gown resembled sunlight upon the ocean and matched the circlet around her brow. “We didn’t expect you back so soon!” Her gaze raked across the four of them before darting to the door. It was then she took in their raggedy travel clothes and the shadows under their eyes. “Where is the princess?”

A pathway opened up before them as the crowd parted, and he strode towards the dais.