Page 103 of A Fragile Enchantment

“No!” Niamh shouted, her voice ragged with terror.

When Kit crumpled to the earth, her heart did, too.

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Embers and blackened bark rained onto the field. Through the smoke, Niamh couldn’t see Kit anymore. A desperate, impotent feeling welled up within her, somewhere between rage and despair. For as long as she could remember, she had been assured of death’s predictability. It was not meant to cheat or surprise her. It was not meant to come and leave her behind.

She was not supposed to outlive the people she loved.

Kit couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.He couldn’t be.She refused to believe it—not until she saw him.

Niamh did not slow her horse as they barreled into the dueling grounds, a flurry of mud and water and stomping hooves. Shouts of confusion rang out around her—none of them Kit’s. Wherewashe?

A burning branch snapped off the tree and struck the earthlike a fist. Niamh’s mare spooked, darting sideways away from the flames. She lurched in the saddle and gasped. On instinct, she dropped the reins and scrabbled frantically for the pommel as the mare danced beneath her, eager to bolt.

“Whoa!”

Her heart gave an answering lurch.

She knew that voice.Kit.

He emerged from the smoke and snatched the loose reins. The horse stilled and snorted. Her fingers slipped off the pommel, and she very slowly slumped off her seat and into Kit’s shoulder. He glared up at her in furious amazement, then all but shoved her back upright. “What are you doing here? It’s too dangerous.”

“Clearly!”

The king might have missed once, but they would not be so lucky twice. Wind gusted through the field, and the smoke parted like a curtain. Rosa stood between her father and Kit in her ruined wedding dress. Her chest heaved, and electricity still crackled down the length of her arm. Jack and Rosa stared at her and Kit with twinned looks of relief.

It was over—at least for now.

The rain lightened, moment by moment, until Niamh could hear her own ragged breathing and the ends of her hair dripping against the saddle.

“What are you doing here?” Kit repeated.

No words came. She wanted to shake him, or maybe to kiss him. She couldn’t tell at this point. A sob of pure relief escaped her. His face was streaked with ash and rainwater and his eyes were wild. But by some miracle, he wasalive.“Saving you from your own terrible decision—again! Gods, Kit. I thought I lost you.”

The anger—the panic—in his expression gave way at last to guilt. “Then why are you crying? You don’t have to mourn me yet.”

Not yet. But she could see now just how close death had come. Beneath the ruined fabric of his sleeve, a jagged scar mottled hisupper arm. Her breath snagged in her throat at the sight of it. Rosa had saved his life.

“Rosa,” the king spluttered at last, clearly as outraged as he was impressed. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

She lifted her chin. “I can’t let you do this.”

The king’s shock slowly rearranged itself into exasperation. “I know you love him. But I promise you, it is not worth it to marry a man whose loyalty lies elsewhere. These wounds heal. I will find you a much better—”

“No. Saints above, I do not love him.” She sounded a little nauseated. “He would have very much displeased me as a husband.”

Kit suddenly looked very weary.

“I have been dishonest with you for many years.” Rosa slowly dismounted from her horse. She leaned against her father, and for the first time, her lips quivered with barely restrained emotion. “I have many things I want to say to you, but not here. For now, will you please let this go?”

“That is the one thing I cannot give you,” he said gravely. “I cannot let them go unpunished for how they humiliated you.”

“Papa, I beg you.” Her voice trembled. “I am tired. Peace is all I ask for on my not-wedding day. That is all I have ever wanted.”

As Niamh took in his hard expression, she understood that he meant what he said. He could not ever truly let it go.

He studied each of them with mounting displeasure. Niamh, a common girl hardly worth his notice. Rosa, his usually stoic daughter, shivering and on the verge of tears. Kit, battered and soaked to the bone. The Prince Regent of Avaland, apparently too stunned to speak at all. For the rest of her life, Niamh would wonder what exactly he saw in their faces that moved him, or which of the Fair Ones had intervened on their behalf. But whatever it was—whether pity or exhaustion or the god Donn himself—slowly, and with great effort, King Felipe laid aside his rage.