of them were exiled. No other shimmer will take exiles. Some are in hiding. Some of them arrived…” he paused and threw a look behind him. “Not quite all there.” He tapped his head.
“Or if they were mentally stable once,” Jim offered, “The harshness of their arrival kicked it out of them.”
He grinned at Rune’s look of surprise. “I’m not just a clown, Princess.”
Once in camp, the woman who seemed to be the leader of the little group pointed to the ground and her people didn’t hesitate to sit.
“May we help with anything?” she asked Rune.
Rune pointed her chin at Ian and Jim. “Ask them. They’re doing the cooking.”
“Nothing,” Ian said. “Just sit with your friends and I’ll get something ready.” He didn’t sound happy about it.
The woman crouched beside her people. “Those guards,” she said, motioning at the zombies. “They look like you. Which shimmer lord do they belong to?”
“That doesn’t concern you,” Ian growled. “Don’t be getting nosy.”
Rune lifted an eyebrow. “The fuck’s wrong with you?”
“You can’t trust the shimmerless, Princess. You—”
“Princess,” the woman screamed. “Princess?”
Ian slapped his forehead. “Oh hell.”
“Calm down,” Jim said. “Just everybody calm down.”
“Princess?”
The entire group of shimmerless began yelling, disbelief, anger, and hope all mixed together in their screams.
They stumbled to Rune, who drew back in alarm, and then dropped to their knees before her, sobbing, begging, reaching.
She stared over their heads at Ian and Jim, dismayed. “What the fuck?”
“Every single person in Skyll has hope, Princess,” Ian said. “And they believe you are going to give them lives worth living.”
“You can free my sister,” one of the men cried. “You can free her from the witch.”
“You can free the world,” their leader said, her eyes shining. “You will.”
The group of shimmerless changed before her eyes.
With bright eyes, they became the light of Skyll as she watched.
One of the women grabbed Rune’s hand and kissed it, then rubbed her covered face against it, over and over. “It was all worth it.”
The man who’d had his head punched raised his arms to the sky and waved his hands wildly. “We are no longer shimmerless,” he said. “We belong to the princess and to the shimmers she will take! To the new reign,” he yelled.
“To the new throne,” another added.
“To the daughter of Skyll!”
And they tore the veils from their faces.
The leader was startling in her beauty, with thick, white hair, ice-blue eyes, and bone structure almost too perfect to be real.
Rune saw nothing but strangers staring out at her, but Ian must have seen something else.
His eyes blazed with hatred as he lifted his shotgun and pulled the trigger.
He shot the leader in the chest.
She didn’t fall, or bleed, or do much more than take a step backward.
As her people screamed in horror, the leader raised her hand and returned Ian’s shot.
Ian’s body exploded—his blood, guts, and bone flew through the air.
Rune released her claws and went for the group, confusion battling with anger.
But the woman held up both hands and created a barrier Rune could neither see nor cross.
“Who the fuck are you?” Rune asked, raking at the invisible barricade with her claws.
“Please,” the woman begged. “I am not your enemy. I will help you.”
“You killed my guard,” Rune said. “You fucking bitch, you killed Ian.”
Jim pulled at her arm. “Back away, Princess. Come away.”
“I am not her enemy,” the woman screamed, helpless rage and frustration in her voice. “I am not her enemy.”
Rune shook Jim’s hand from her arm. “Who are you?”
Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. Confusion and frustration made her legs tremble and her hands shake with fear. “Tell me who you are.”
“Princess.” She lifted her chin and stared at Rune with eyes dark and fierce and somehow familiar. “I am the witch’s daughter. And I have come to help you kill my mother.”
Part Three
No Fear
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The witch’s daughter dropped the imperceptible wall and walked to Rune.
“I didn’t believe it when I heard Sorrow’s message,” she said. “Not really. I knew it was time, but I…” She covered her eyes with her hands and whispered, “I didn’t have faith.”
“I thought I was…” Rune couldn’t finish her sentence. Couldn’t voice the horror of what she’d thought. Not out loud.
But the stranger knew. “You thought you were the witch’s daughter.” She gave Rune a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. You are—sort of—the witch’s daughter. But you’re more than that. You’re the princess.”
There might have been a hint of bitterness in her voice, but it was there and gone so quickly Rune thought she