The Fae Princess (The Pacific Princesses Book 2) Ektaa Bali (free ebook reader txt) 📖

it was a small window, and only one could get through at a time. Soon, unconscious Bunyips were hanging out the window, plugging it so the others couldn’t get through. The kids turned their attentions to their surroundings.

A whoosh and burst of bright light behind her told Vidya that the Bunyips had tripped the booby-trap of flames that would stop any Bunyips from leaving the palace. The last thing Vidya wanted was Bunyips entering the Fae city and finding the secret hiding spot the babies and adults were sleeping in. They had used the last fire flower and oil from the marshes that Lily had brought back. They had dribbled a tiny line of oil all the way down the length of the back palace wall and laid the fire flower in the middle. Vidya had spoken to the Fire flower firmly, ‘if any Bunyip should step onto the line of oil, she should light up immediately’. Looks like the little black flower had listened, because she heard a couple of Bunyips screaming. But the fire would not stop them from flying over, so Willow and Vidya stationed themselves next to the short wall of flames and shot any flying Bunyip immediately.

“Help!” they heard a cry, followed by another.

“It’s Lobey!” Vidya said to Willow.

Willow and Vidya darted into an open window that led to an empty room. They touched down and sped out into the corridor against the second story railing, looking left and right. Down in the entrance hall, a group of perhaps twenty Bunyips were struggling against a magnificent blackwood rope net made by Lily. It was their biggest booby trap. They had lined the ropes with venom and stink flower sap and weighed down the edges with heavy rocks in the hopes that once released by Lily from the palace ceiling, it would keep the Bunyips in place. But it wasn’t working. The Bunyips were flailing around, one escaped out from an edge. Willow promptly shot him in the face with a stink flower bulb.

“Shoot!” cried Lobey, running around the net, shooting at the contained Bunyips.

“I’m running out of arrows!” cried Willow.

“Timmy!” cried Lobey to the Devil’s Finger tree bend her. “Deliver more arrows to Will and the queen!”

Timmy, the fat tree, stomped up the palace stairs, and the two Fae kids ran to meet him. He handed them a bunch of arrows each, and the kids loaded up the quivers on their backs.

But they were too late, because a second later, Lily let out a scream.

“Argh!!” shouted Lobey. “Run!”

The Bunyips had torn apart the net and were rising into the air, snarling, jeering faces locked on the kids.

Vidya and Willow didn’t waste time. They ran back down the corridor, into the room they had come in, and flew straight out the window.

Under them, at the back palace entrance, with a last splutter, the wall of flames went out. The oil had all been burnt up. The Bunyips were free to roam the city now.

“Vidya!” screamed Willow, as out of nowwhere, a Bunyip flew straight into him, grabbed him, and flew off into the night.

19

The Final Stand

“The Flower of Awakening knows the Darkness like an old friend. She feels it in her roots, sees it in her mind’s eye, and listens to it with her heart. And then she sings to it. And merrily, joyously, excitedly, her light glows, and the Darkness, overcome with tears, nods its weary head and retreats, admitting defeat.

—The Legend of the Flower of Awakening

Vidya immediately shot after them, a brown snake arrow knocked and ready to go. But the Bunyip was flying backward, and Vidya realised who it was as they squared off in the sky.

“Let him go, Bunyip King!” cried Vidya. Her bow quivered in her hands.

A group of Bunyips swarmed around them in a loose circle. Vidya looked around her and realised she was surrounded. The Bunyip King titled his head back and laughed.

“Do you surrender, Fae Queen?” he roared.

Vidya bit her lip hard. Willow held on to the Bunyip King’s arm, which was secured firmly around his neck. His navy wings were squashed against the beast’s chest, and his eyes were wide with terror. Vidya’s heart beat unevenly in her chest, and her mind raced.

Was this it? Was this how it ended? Would the end of the Eastern Bushland Fae be marked by this very moment, where she surrendered to save the life of her dear friend? Willow’s voice reached her mind’s ear. From the day he had answered the Wollemi Pine King’s question for her.

‘It means to see all living things as yourself. To be Fae means to see all plants and animals and beings as one.’

A hot tear trickled down Vidya’s cheek. This was wrong. It was all wrong. She looked around the at the circle of Bunyips, with their sleek black coats and sharp teeth. The raspy voice of the Leaf Master entered her mind:

“I’m foolish and I’m selfish.

I till the soil and dig the land

And will fulfil your every wish

All the earth I do command

Come at me with your best

And I’ll chop you up

Good and fresh”

She went over the words in her mind over and over again, like a song she just couldn’t get out of her head. She had been foolish and selfish. The answer to the riddle had not been Bunyip King at all, the answer to riddle had been her. The realisation struck like an arrow to the heart, and the backs of her eyes burned. This entire time, she had encouraged Lotus and Lobey and the others to fight back, to not only defend their home, but take down the Bunyips. She had even told that weird little mushroom in the Fae forest that’s what she was going to do. There had been so much anger and fear bubbling away in her. She had just wanted to do things right. Just keep Mahiya and the other kids safe. But was she even setting