“Sounds very exciting,” Lorelai said in a tone that implied the exact opposite.
“We’ll pity those other princesses and send them our condolences for their boring, ball-filled lives later.” Gabril pressed a fist against his left leg as they began to climb the steep incline that would bring them back to the road that dipped and curved around the Falkrains, joining the eastern edge of the range with the lands in the west.
“Now, the princess in our story didn’t live in a castle anymore. She’d lost her home, her family, and her kingdom to a wicked queen who wanted the world at her feet more than she wanted anything else. This wicked queen destroyed the princess’s life and broke her heart. For some princesses, all that pain, all that loss, would break their strength of will.”
The ache in Lorelai’s chest spread, and she wrapped her arms around herself.
Gabril leaned forward and captured her gaze with his. “Not this princess. For you see, it was the princess’s extraordinary strength of will that had first caught the attention of the wicked queen. The queen thought to bend that will to her own. To tempt that will into believing a lie. But the princess was not so easily deceived, even when everyone else was. Though she was a child, and though she had no allies, no one to help her face the evil queen, she found the strength to do so on her own.”
Lorelai bent her head and studied the leaf-covered ground as she walked.
“She almost succeeded, and that terrified the wicked queen, for nothing scares the wicked so much as the realization that someone has chosen not to surrender, even when the cost of defiance is almost too much to bear.”
“The cost was too much for others to bear too,” Lorelai whispered.
“Who is telling this story?” Gabril demanded.
“You.”
“That’s right. Now, as I was saying, the wicked queen was terrified of the princess’s strength, and she did everything she could to break the princess’s will, but the princess refused to be broken. She stood up to the queen, revealed her for what she really was, and escaped the castle—”
“Because you helped her.”
“Interrupt me one more time, and you will have both cooking and cleanup duty for a month.”
Lorelai pressed her lips closed.
“The princess could’ve let her grief turn into bitterness, but she turned it into kindness instead. She could’ve let her terror turn into paralysis, but she used it to fuel her courage. She learned how to climb walls, how to fall without being injured, how to disguise herself, how to sprint through the forest without leaving a sign—she learned how to survive, but she never allowed her own survival to mean more to her than the survival of others.”
His voice grew husky. “She’d been trained to flee at the first sign of trouble, but instead, she stayed. She fought an entire group of soldiers because she didn’t look at her odds of winning, she looked at her reasons for fighting. She trekked through the forest to Nordenberg with her brother even though the entire northern army was looking for her because she didn’t look at the reasons not to risk the trip. She looked at her reasons for going.”
Lorelai flinched at the mention of Nordenberg.
“And when the princess realized that she and her brother were in terrible danger, she didn’t freeze. She didn’t surrender. She fought to save her him, leaving herself open to attack.”
Lorelai’s pulse pounded, and her palms burned as the wound where the vine had sunk its teeth into her chest throbbed faintly.
“And when tragedy struck once again, the princess didn’t wallow in it. Didn’t let it break her. No, she came back to her mentor, saw that he was about to die, and”—his voice broke, and he cleared his throat—“she disobeyed his most important rule, knowing it might bring the wicked queen straight to her to finish what she’d tried to do nine years ago. The princess healed her mentor, at great cost to herself, because she didn’t look at her odds of survival. She looked at his.”
Slowly Lorelai looked up to meet Gabril’s gaze.
“Now you tell me, Lorelai Rosalinde Tatiyana Diederich, does that sound like a courageous warrior to you?”
She couldn’t speak.
He took her hand again as they neared the top of the steep rise. “Thank you for saving my life, Lorelai.”
“You’re welcome.” Her voice was small. The spot beside her that Leo would’ve filled with joking about what costumes they’d wear as they took the fight to Irina or with congratulating himself on surviving the seriousness of Gabril and Lorelai was achingly silent.
Gabril’s voice was strong and sure. “I believe in you, and I’ve fought for you, because in a world full of people who crumble before an evil too terrifying to comprehend, you put up your fists and fight.”
Before she could reply, a strange sound shook the forest—a steady thump-thump that reverberated from the air above and caused the trees to shiver. A shadow blocked the sun, and Lorelai looked up to see Irina’s red and gold dragon—longer than a horse-drawn carriage and twice as tall—fly over the top of the hill and plunge straight toward her.