Pollyanna strode to Kori’s side, readying her blade with a flourish—holding it high in the air. Kori locked eyes with the seven-foot-tall woman fearlessly, trying to summon a fireball, but she was too exhausted. It fizzled out.

With a yell, Pollyanna began driving the sword downward, but stopped when Eory dashed in front of his caretaker and screamed, “Stop, stop! She’s my friend!”

Pollyanna looked enraged. “You fool! She’s held you hostage all this time—you were her prisoner!”

“Eory, get out of here! If you go with her, you will almost certainly fall victim to your heritage!” Kori said weakly.

Eory did not budge an inch, however. He looked Pollyanna in the eye as the woman’s hands shook on the hilt of her sword. She growled, but then reluctantly lowered her blade. “Guess I’ve killed enough for today. I’ll leave her alive but you’re coming with me, Eory.”

Pollyanna seized his wrist and dragged him out of the broken carriage and into the snow.

Kori weakly sat up and said, “Leave him! You will take him nowhere!”

Eory struggled against Pollyanna, but she was a strong and tall human woman—seven feet and muscular.

“Let me go!” He demanded. “You’re supposed to obey me! I want to stay with Kori!”

Pollyanna turned her nose up at how pathetic he was. None of his relatives were ever so sniveling. Eory breathed harshly, his heart pounding wildly. He’d never been so scared in his life. This woman could easily kill him. “You really are a stupid fool if you think you’re going to go to that ball and have anything good come out of it.”

“T-then… Come with us to the ball! If something goes wrong, you can protect me!” Eory suggested.

Kori yelled, “Eory! Escape while you can!”

Eory shook his head. “N-no…”

The fairy looked up at Pollyanna and thought that her watery blue eyes looked just as beautiful as they did in his imagination—even if they did simultaneously terrify them with their derisive coldness.

Pollyanna didn’t return his look of fear or adoration. She only had a scowl on her face.

Gershom leapt out of the carriage and barked as he ran to Eory’s side, whimpering. Eory picked him up and stroked him nervously.

Holding his dog brought Gershom to mind. Eory was reminded of his brother, and he remembered a very important secret that his family kept about Pollyanna that nobody else on the whole face of Yharos knew. They had repeated it to him often, and he had never forgotten.

I order you to...

Eory whispered so that Kori couldn’t hear him, “I order you to take us to the castle. Right now. You’ll die if you don’t, right?”

Pollyanna’s face lit up with shock mixed with fury. Her face twitched with barely-restrained rage. She snarled, cutting up a nearby tree in her rage.

Eory was taken aback by her rage, clutching the dog to his chest fearfully.

Pollyanna turned to the pair after a moment of panting and then smoothed her hair back with a sarcastic grin. “Very well. I shall shepherd you both to the castle. Come now, waif, don’t give me that look. I call a truce.”

Kori’s eyes glistened with tears. She knew there was nothing she could do to keep Pollyanna from her surrogate son. She knew the warrior maiden would kill her at the first opportunity and take her son away, and her eyes were drowned in tears when she thought of it.