Chapter Eight

 

“You’re sure this is safe to carry around?” Isa asked, looking down doubtfully at the small box full of fuses and wires.

Vinny laughed. “Yup, it’s safe to carry. I’d just recommend against dropping it.”

Isa winced. She didn’t think that joke was all that funny. She’d rather not think about the possibility of accidentally blowing herself up.

“I can’t thank you enough, Vinny,” Leo said as he too looked down at the box. “I knew I could count on you to rig together something at the last minute.”

Vinny laughed again, his loud guffaws filling the room. Isa had no idea how he could sound so jolly in the middle of such serious times. But all of the shifters in Bear Hollow seemed to be much more relaxed than Isa would have expected. They were frustrated, sad, and angry, of course. But they were also hopeful and optimistic about the future. It was another reason Isa wanted to move to Bear Hollow. This place felt so much more alive and more genuine than Gilt Hollow.

Not to mention, Isa now had a shifter lifemate.

Lifemate. She turned the word over and over in her mind, relishing the sound of it. She had never believed true love would find her. In fact, she had wondered if true love actually existed. But she had no doubt in her mind that what she felt for Leo, and what he felt for her, was real. He was her destiny. How had she gotten so lucky?

Now, all she had to do was help the shifters end the Gilt Hollow regime, and she and Leo could live together happily ever after.

Easier said than done.

Isa and Leo bid goodbye to Vinny, and Isa turned a worried eye up to the sky as they started walking back toward the tunnel that would take them back to Gilt Hollow. It was about four in the morning. The sky was still dark, for now. But it wouldn’t be too long before streaks of dawn started to blaze across the sky. Isa had to get to the palace and set off the explosion before everyone in the palace woke up. If she did this while everyone was still sleeping, she could avoid accidentally killing anyone. No one ever slept in the west wing of the palace, and since everyone was short on guards these days, the west wing was not even patrolled at night. The Emperor’s guards who had managed to survive the poisoning fiasco all concentrated on guarding the east wing, where the royal family slept.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. Isa’s thoughts grew troubled as they crossed the tunnel and entered the Gilt Hollow forest. The bag that held the bomb Vinny had made was slung across her back, and it felt ten times heavier than it should have. Even though Isa knew she was doing the right thing, she couldn’t help but feel guilty. Her parents would never understand why she would do something like this. Her father truly believed that shifters were little more than animals, and he would never be able to understand why Isa would want to fight on the side of the animals.

Isa knew that trying to explain would be useless. The best she could hope for was that her father would never discover that it was her who had planted the bomb. The Emperor had talked about leaving Gilt Hollow and Bear Hollow behind if things got too bad. He’d suggested moving to another country far away, where he and the family could start over with a quieter life, far away from any shifter towns. Isa hoped he would flee, because then the shifters would finally be safe from him. But she knew she herself would not be fleeing. No matter how this war played out, Isa knew one thing for sure: she wasn’t leaving Leo behind. As long as he was alive, she would stay by his side. And she hoped he was going to be alive for a very, very long time.

“Are you ready?” Leo asked, his voice gravelly with exhaustion.

Isa looked up and nodded. “Is this where we part ways?”

“I think it’s for the better. You’d have to backtrack too much to get to the Arena with me. The faster you can get back to the palace, the better.”

Isa nodded wearily. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay, breaking into the cages all by yourself? I know the guards there aren’t that great, but still. There are a lot of them.”

“I’ll be fine. I promise. Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself. Promise me you’ll get in and out of that palace as quickly as possible.”

“I promise.” Isa had originally planned to plant the bomb and then sneak over to her room in the east wing to act like she’d been sleeping, but Leo had begged her not to do that. He didn’t want her to take any chances that the bomb would do more damage than they thought, and she might get caught in the explosion. Vinny had assured them that the explosion shouldn’t be that big, but Leo was still worried. Isa had agreed to hide in the woods at least until the initial blast was over. Then she would try to sneak back into the crowds that were sure to be gathering outside the palace, acting like she’d been there all along. She wasn’t sure how well this plan would work, but there was only one way to find out. She took a deep breath, and stood up on tiptoe to give Leo a kiss on the lips.

“You be careful too,” she said.

“I will. I’ll see you soon. Don’t worry. And I love you.”

She sighed. “I love you, too.”

And then, he was gone, disappearing into the forest as silently as a shadow. Isa forced herself to turn and walk toward the palace. Every step she took felt like it required an enormous amount of effort. Her shoes might as well have been full of lead, and she wondered if she really had the strength to do what she needed to do.

“I’ve come this far,” she whispered to the forest. “I can finish this.”

A few minutes later, the palace came into view up ahead. It loomed large in the pre-dawn sky, and Isa thought for a moment about how strange it was that if everything went as planned, this was the last time she would ever see the outline of the palace against the sky like that. Somehow, that realization gave her courage, and she quickened her step.

She walked straight to the front entrance of the palace and nodded politely at the guards. The expressions on their faces told her that they were surprised to see her out and about at this hour, but none of them said anything. They were used to Isa doing weird things, and knew better than to annoy the princess with questions.

Isa made her way into the expansive front hall of the palace. Looking around quickly to make sure no patrolling guards were watching her, she scurried down the hallway that led to the west wing of the palace. She’d made it several yards when she realized that she should probably change into pajamas or a nightgown of some sort. If she was still wearing these clothes, which the guards had all seen her wearing when she came in a few minutes ago, it would look suspicious. They would think she had come in, planted the bomb, and run out. But if she was wearing pajamas later, she could claim that she had gone to her room to get a little bit of sleep after coming in.

Grunting in annoyance, Isa turned and headed toward the east wing. She scurried up three flights of stairs and down the long hallway where her bedroom was located, then gingerly put the bag with the bomb down on her bed. It made her nervous to even carry it over here, but she wasn’t going to leave it unattended anywhere, not even in the deserted west wing. With her luck, someone would find it and either report it as the bag Isa had been carrying, or accidentally set it off before they got the chance to report it. Isa honestly wasn’t sure which option was worse.

She tore off her clothes and then pulled on a frilly, sparkly nightgown. Almost all of her Gilt Hollow clothing sparkled, which she thought was ridiculous. She often felt like a disco ball in her over-the-top outfits, but her mother thought fashion was important and insisted that the royal family be dressed in all the latest trends.

Isa looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. “Maybe after tonight, I’ll never have to wear clothing from Gilt Hollow again,” she said to her reflection. Then, with hands that were shaking more than she’d like, she picked up her bag and carefully swung it over her shoulder. Dawn was coming quickly. Time to get this done.

She walked as quickly as she dared back to the west wing, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds in fear that she was being followed. She went all the way to the far end of the west wing and into a magnificent library where shelves of books went from floor to ceiling.

“Sorry, books,” she muttered up at the shelves. “I hate to ruin all of you, but it’s either destroy you or kill my family.”

With hands shaking so badly that she could hardly get the bag off her shoulders, she moved to the far corner of the library. She set the bag with the bomb down, took a deep breath, and then hit the button that Vinny had told her would activate the device. A soft beep sounded, and suddenly a five minute countdown appeared in red numbers on the side of the black box.

“Ok. Time to get out of here.”

Isa ran out of the library, down several flights of stairs, and out a side door. She hoped that no one would see her running, but she was too scared to slow down and check to see whether there were any guards around. She ran through the side gardens, which suddenly seemed ten times bigger than they had always been, and finally made it into the woods. There, she stopped to catch her breath for a minute, panting and gasping for air, before continuing to run. She didn’t know how many minutes it had been, but she was suddenly terrified that the explosion was going to be much, much bigger than she’d thought. What if she didn’t get far enough away?

She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, until she tripped over the stupid frilly edge of her nightgown and fell face first onto a big, prickly bush. Before she could even pull herself up again, the explosion came. It rocked the silence of the early morning, and Isa felt her eyes going wide.

What had she done? Had she killed anyone by accident? In a panic, she turned to run back toward the palace. For a few moments after the explosion stopped, everything seemed eerily quiet again. The only sound was the crunching of leaves underneath Isa’s feet. And then, the shouting started. Isa could hear guards yelling out orders, women crying, and the general hysteria as a crowd of servants gathered outside the palace. By the time Isa made it back to the huge front yard of the palace, everyone from inside had evacuated. The lawn was full of people staring up at the half-ruined palace.

“Holy shit,” Isa whispered as she slipped into the crowd, trying not to be conspicuous. “Vinny really knows his stuff.”

The explosion had done exactly what he’d said it would. The entire west wing of the building had collapsed, while the east wing was still standing, completely intact. The east wing wasn’t going to be standing long, though. The fire that the explosion had caused in the west wing was quickly spreading to the other half of the building.

The guards were yelling out desperately, trying to get water to stop the flames. But Isa knew they wouldn’t be able to keep a fire that size from destroying almost everything. The palace would be totally destroyed, and the Emperor would have no home.

Isa looked around for her father, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw him. At least she knew he’d made it out. She might hate the man, but she could never have lived with herself if she’d killed him. He was still her father, after all.

Isa started to walk toward him, intending to shed a few tears and act as distraught as everyone else. But before she made it all the way to him, strong hands gripped her by the upper arm.

“You!” an angry voice yelled. “It was you!”

Isa looked up to see that one of the palace guards had grabbed a hold of her.

“Unhand me!” she shrieked. “I am the Princess of Gilt Hollow!”

“Not anymore! It was you who set off the bomb! I saw you sneaking over to the west wing and then running away to the forest a few minutes later. Your Highness! I have your daughter! She’s the one who did this!”

Isa watched in horror as her father turned to look in her direction, his eyes cold and angry. “Is this true, Isadora?”

Isa swallowed hard, then tried to speak. But no words came out of her mouth. Only a long, terrified scream.