The Fae Princess (The Pacific Princesses Book 2) by Ektaa Bali (books to improve english .txt) 📗

Vidya’s skin crawled.

“I have it! I have it, my Lord!” came the Chief’s muffled cry from the dirt. He held out his hands over his head, showing him something.

“I’ve heard disturbing things, Chief of the Yarama,” said the voice a little more quickly. “I’ve heard that you have been speaking to the Bunyip King about me.”

“Never, my Lord! Never!” cried the Yarama, his face still pushed into the dirt.

The robed koala titled his head back and laughed, a raspy cackle. Vidya tried to get a good look at his face, but they were too far from their position in the tree.

“Let me tell you one thing, Yarama,” sneered the koala. “You will never be rid of me.”

The Yarama remained silent for only a moment before he spoke into the dirt once more.

“I have four noses for you this month, Leaf Master. Four!”

The Leaf Master nodded. “It will do,” he said lightly.

The Yarama chief pushed himself off the dirt, moved to stand up, and held out his hands, bowing low.

“Oh no,” Pancake whispered from Vidya’s pocket as they watched the Leaf Master scoop up their four noses and place them in a pocket of his robe.

“Now,” the Leaf Master announced loudly. “I must deal with the four Fae sitting in that tree.”

The children did not even discuss it, Lotus was first. He turned, leapt off the tree branch, and hurled himself into the forest, the others frantically following.

They fled into the forest single file, and did not look back. Lotus ran on his fast feet, propelled forward by his yellow wings. Luckily, he had remembered the direction Willow had mentioned just minutes before when he had asked where the western marshes were. The others ran as fast as they could after him until their legs and wings burned. They ran through the darkness, not looking at what they passed, not looking behind them, looking at only what was ahead.

“We should be careful!” panted Willow after about half an hour from second position, his navy wings almost making him disappear in the dark. “We don’t know what’s—argh!”

Lily, in third position, had just tripped and fallen right into him, causing both of them to fall on top of each other over and over again through the leaves and dirt.

Lotus slowed ahead of them, looking back with a startled frown. Vidya ran forward to help them both up. Willow groaned, rubbing his hip.

“Sorry, Will,” grumbled Lily, panting and covered in dirt. “I must’ve tripped over a root or—”

“No, you fell over me,” came a high-pitched squeaky voice from the ground behind them.

Startled, Vidya looked around at their surroundings for the first time. It was incredibly dark, so the four Fae and Pancake squinted around them, trying to see who had spoken and whether they should keep running. But the voice had seemed rather… friendly, if anything. It was a moment before it spoke again.

“Oh, sorry, you can’t see me in the dark. I’m over here… no, left… sorry, right… and down!”

They followed his voice, and Vidya, closest to the thing, stepped forward to find a white sturdy mushroom with a tiny mouth and two blinking human eyes staring back at her.

“Oh gosh,” she murmured.

“Gosh, yes,” it replied shyly. Then looking at Lily, “Sorry about making you fall.”

“Sorry, I kicked you, I guess,” replied Lily politely.

“Oh, no problem,” said the mushroom. “You’ll be paying me back anyhow.”

Vidya cast a wary glance over her shoulder at the others. She suddenly did not like this mushroom.

“How’s that?” she asked carefully.

“When the Bunyip King rules the Eastern Bushland, the Fae will be our servants,” said the mushroom smoothly.

They stared at him, and he stared back mildly, an odd smile on his mushroom face. A burning sensation suddenly arose in Vidya’s tummy. She stepped up to the mushroom, crouched down, and looked him dead in the eye.

“Yeah? Well, I’m the Fae Queen, little mushroom. And when I win, there will be no Bunyips left. They will forget they even existed.”

The mushroom peered back at her in silence for a moment before he spoke.

“Why, then, you are no Fae Queen at all.”

Vidya jerked back as if the mushroom had hit her. She blinked, then stood.

“Let’s go,” she said to the others. “We’ve already stayed here way to long.”

They cast wary eyes about the area but saw no sinister movements in the darkness.

Willow quickly checked the map, and they adjusted their direction and moved on.

They walked through much of the night, with the adrenaline of the scare of the Leaf Master keeping their tiredness away. Fae wings were not like bird’s wings. They were thin and delicate which meant they could not not fly far for long periods of time. So they were left with walking or branch-hopping to get around. They ate left over ripe bananas from Lotus’ backpack, and Willow gave them all Bilberries to eat, which supercharged their vision again through the dark forest.

On approach to the marshes, the forest changed. The trees thinned, and the ground became softer. They could see the sky again, and it held the blue-grey light of the coming dawn. Through the big gaps between the trees, the group could see pale wet ground that looked as if it was lit from beneath by a glowing yellow light. The land was dotted with small dark flowers that extended as far as the eye could see.

“Oooh!” whispered Lily. “So pretty.”

They came to stand by the last tree, marvelling at the sight of the glowing earth.

“How lucky are we? I wish the others could have seen this,” said Lotus. “I’ve never seen earth glow with light like this.”

But Lotus didn’t understand half their luck. Because they had no noses, however, what the four Fae kids could not smell was the strong, ever present smell of natural gas. The type that humans use in stoves. The type that explodes when you light it.

“But why are the flowers not lit?” asked Willow, crouching down to look at the closest flower. It