I’m a little surprised by my success. For all their power, this pair seems…juvenile.
“Ariane, behind you!” Lucien shouted—having rid himself of his shadow gag a second time.
Ariane turned around and felt her blood turn cold.
At least two hundred hairy spiders the size of Ariane’s palm crawled across the garden grounds. Their limbs moved jerkily—as if they were manipulated puppets—but the angry click of their teeth was audible over Ariane’s gasps for air.
The male mage used her distracted shock to grab Ariane by the throat with a shadow, cutting off her air and dragging her to the ground.
She tried to scramble away from him, but he used shadows to hold her arms and legs flush against the soft grass, though he eased up on the shadows squeezing her throat. Wait, does he mean for me to… Ariane lifted her head up and felt her bones chill as the spiders continued to scuttle in her direction.
He was securing her to the ground for the spiders to finish off.
“Release her!” Lucien demanded as he hopped back in their direction.
Ariane tried to shout at the idiot—who was choosing an awful time to show off his honorable side—but it was still too hard to breathe.
The male mage sneered as he scooped Lucien up with his shadows, then squeezed him.
Lucien’s head bulged as the shadows tightened around his body like a noose, until the pressure was too much, and he popped out of the snaring magic and was sent flying through the air. He hit the male mage on the side of the head and bit his ear.
The rogue mage shouted and flung him away.
Lucien landed on the ground with a splat, but he peeled himself off the ground with a cough. “Ariane!”
“Lucien!” Ariane screamed as the first of the spiders reached her. She could feel them crawling across her ankles, and she picked her head off the ground to watch several hairy, bloated spiders climb on top of her arms, the coarse hair of their bodies prickling her skin.
Ariane could handle dirt, rogue mages, and being flung around like a ragdoll. She couldn’t handle spiders. She screamed and writhed, trying to pull free of the shadows that anchored her to the ground.
Sharp, stinging pain rippled up her arms as the spiders bit her, drawing more screams.
Lucien tried to hop in her direction, but the male mage had recovered enough to grab Lucien by a back leg. Lucien thrashed wildly. “Ariane! Blast it—where are the guards?!”
“Here, Your Highness.”
The male mage turned around, but he was too slow, as a guard nimbly glided forward and jabbed the pommel of his sword into the mage’s throat. The guard expertly caught Lucien when the mage dropped him to grasp his throat, and two other guards lunged forward. One planted his foot on the mage’s chest while the other crouched and held a sword to his throat.
Ariane’s fear would have lessened with the guards’ arrival, but the spiders kept coming. She screamed as they bit her, starting to move up her legs now. Guards moved around her, trying to stomp or spear the creatures, but they were fast and angry.
“Get the mage controlling them!” Lucien snapped as he tried to crawl out of the arms of the soldier who was struggling to hold him.
“Hold up there, the twins are on the case!” A merry male voice called.
“Clear!” Mage Firra leaped from the chateau window, her hand extended and her eyes glowing.
Blue flames roared to life, spreading whenever the spiders crawled, instantly incinerating them.
The fire mage flicked her fingers at Ariane, and precise little balls of flame smashed into the spiders that crawled over her, gathering the spiders up and burning them to a crisp.
“Don’t burn her!” Lucien called. He wriggled in a soldier’s grasp.
The bug mage snarled and took a breath, but Mage Donaigh appeared behind her and held a sword against her throat. “Ah-ah,” he said. “We can’t have you attacking with more nasty creepy crawlies.”
Mage Firra jogged to Donaigh’s side and shoved a balled-up handkerchief in the bug mage’s mouth. She then used the bandage the mage had over her eyes to tie the gag in place. “That’s one pest sorted,” she said.
“All thanks to us twins,” Mage Donaigh said. “Wouldn’t you agree, captain?” he called to the leader of the guards.
“You two aren’t twins,” the captain grumbled.
“How can you say that?” Blonde-haired Donaigh demanded as dark-haired Firra recoiled.
“Your Highness, stop squirming,” a soldier said.
“Then someone check on Ariane!” Lucien snapped.
The shadows holding Ariane to the ground dissolved when a guard slammed his hilt into the mage’s head, and he instantly fell unconscious. She groaned. The spider bites stung worse than expected, and her muscles felt heavy and gelatinous. I don’t think I can get up…
A soldier knelt next to her. “She’s been bit. At least a dozen times.”
“Donaigh—get one of the healing mages. I’ll handle this.” Mage Firra grabbed the bug mage by the back of her neck and held up a hand that was engulfed with flames as she smiled unpleasantly at the mage. Donaigh nodded and was gone in an instant.
“Perimeter is secure, Your Highness!” Another soldier reported.
“Put me down!” Lucien demanded.
Ariane shifted on the ground and groaned.
Lucien abruptly hopped into view, settling a finger’s width away from her head. “Ariane, are you all right?”
“These bites hurt a lot,” she said. “And I feel a little numb.”
“Donaigh has war magic—the speed kind. He’ll be back in a moment,” Mage Firra said, though the pitch of her voice still sounded concerned.
“Why didn’t you run away, you little idiot?” There was no sting to Lucien’s words. Instead, he sounded almost pained.
“They could have hurt you,” Ariane said.
“I’m an indestructible frog!”
“You don’t have to be anymore.” Ariane raised her arms to inspect them. The bites speckled her skin and were already swollen. “The threat has been caught.”
“Are you feverish? I think she’s feverish!” Lucien shouted as he planted a foot on her forehead.
Ariane slightly shook her head. “I’m not that bad, yet.” Her mind was a little scrambled—most likely a mixture of the spider bites and the adrenaline that still coursed through her system.
She was glad Lucien was safe—and not just safe for the moment, but safe enough to become human again. “I’ll miss dragging your frog carcass around.”
“You’re not going to die!” Lucien said in a tight voice.
“Of course, I’m not,” Ariane snorted. “Do you know how inglorious it would be if I was killed by a bunch of spiders? I chase spiders out of the palace as part of my duties! I meant when you’re human again.”
“That still won’t be for a while. I have to wait for Angelique to get back to amend that,” Lucien said tightly.