As Duchess Aurelia “Bree” Makena’s legs sank deeper into the brown, slushy quicksand, the first thought to run through her mind was, Well, this is ironic. She’d taken leave of her dinner guests, the Estian emissary Sonsag and her husband, Monsic, and had left the confines of her castle for the relative peace and quiet of the forest to think.

As a Duchess of the Kingdom of Anacafria, Bree’s loyalties were to her cousin, King Leopold. Knowing the kind of sway Bree had with him, the Estian king had sent Sonsag to “visit” her childhood friend, Liris, who resided with Bree in her palace in Orinshire, one of the major cities in Anacafria.

Not only did Liris live with Bree, but she was also her lead guardswoman, her personal bodyguard, and had recently become her lover. Through no fault of her own, Liris had been forced from her home country, branded as a coward, and had landed on the Anacafrian shores with a small band of loyal followers. Now suddenly, the king of Estia wanted what Liris, and by extension, Bree, could provide and was willing to forgive and forget Liris’s disgrace for the sake of “good interkingdom relations.”

During Sonsag’s visit, Bree had been walking a tightrope between Liris’s overt hatred of her uncle and her former kingdom and Leo’s admonition to find out all she could about the state of affairs between Estia and the neighboring kingdom of Organdy. The irony was that tonight at dinner, Bree had begun to feel that the courtly dance of manners between the emissary and herself was similar to what it must be like to sink into a quagmire of quicksand.

Looking down at her legs, which had sunk mid-thigh in the cracked, soupy mud, Bree suddenly had a burst of insight into why the locals affectionately called the place, The Dragon’s Sneeze. She’d known about the bog from the time she was a child running through the forests surrounding her father’s castle. “Tane’s blood.” She muttered angrily to herself. “You’ve lived through two major wars, been near death or dead twice, and you can’t even keep yourself from stumbling into the discarded snot of a dragon’s sneeze.”

Hoping for a way to pull herself free, she searched the trees that lined the edge of the irregularly shaped bog. The only ones in the immediate vicinity were aldermarrows—shorter, sickly-looking cousins to the tall Finegold trees that grew throughout Danforth. The aldermarrow’s spiky trunks, with their dark grey bark crisscrossed with deep, vertical grooves, were useless to her. And vines wouldn’t grow in their thin topknot of sharp, blue-green needles that looked like some mad barber had run through the forest, giving each tree a soldier’s short burr cut.

Without thinking, Bree moved slightly to ease the pressure on her legs. She immediately regretted letting her mind wander since she’d discovered early on that any slight movement, however inadvertent, allowed the quicksand to rush into the space previously occupied by her legs, thus constricting the flow of blood to an ever more painful extent.

Fear rushed in along with the mud, and she immediately tamped it down. How many times had her weapons master drilled into her that fear and panic were the weapons of the bog? Those two enemies would kill her faster than an arrow shot from a bow.

Having never been caught in quicksand before, she’d scoffed whenever she heard his analogy. Of course, the sand couldn’t drag her under faster than an arrow could fly. She’d come to think differently when she’d briefly panicked at the sucking sensation she’d experienced when she first stepped from solid ground onto the deceptively solid-looking bog.

Pulling in a deep breath, she looked down at her legs. The mud was up to her crotch now. That slight movement had caused her to sink another hand’s length, and that was definitely not a good thing. “Okay, Bree. You’ll get out of this. Breathe.” She regretted telling Liris and the other guards to stay behind when she’d left the castle. She needed to think and couldn’t do that with men and women watching her every move.

Thinking hard had been the reason she’d gotten into this mess in the first place. The emissary hadn’t obtained her rank through stupid luck. The woman was the sharpened end of the Estian king’s spear and knew that an alliance with Anacafria would guarantee victory for her country over the invading forces of Organdy. Every time Bree had spoken, Sonsag had taken her words and twisted them to her own ends.

Bree had come out to clear her head, and as she’d walked through the forest, her mind had been on her dinner guests and their veiled agenda. She hadn’t realized she was in the bog until she’d taken two or three steps into the viscous goo. By then, it was too late. Wanting to kick herself for her inattention, she came close to shaking her head but stilled herself before she moved.

She’d never liked politics, even though she’d grown up playing with Leopold and had attended court functions as soon as she was old enough to sit through them. She could obfuscate with the best of them. Politicians disgusted her even more than politics, and the machinations and whisperings of the courtly elite made her skin crawl.

It had been the Estian king’s arrogance that had brought Organdy to Estia’s shores. King Lidup’s miscalculation had come at a time when his coffers were low from trying to invade Anacafria. His army had managed to kill Leopold’s father, King Pries, but Lidup hadn’t counted on the new, very young King Leopold’s tenacity nor on the tactician Leo had found in his cousin, Bree. Her ability to read the undercurrents of the enemy’s tactics during a battle was uncanny, and Leopold had taken full advantage of her skill to not only drive the Estians from his shores but to take the battle to the outskirts of the Estian capital city.

Realizing she needed those skills now, Bree continued to scan her surroundings. The flat, purple-red leaves of the carnivorous Crimson Snakeberry plant grew in abundance here. The tiny bladders along their stems were excellent for sucking in unsuspecting insects, but those bladders would do nothing to help her escape the bog.

As she thought of insects, she realized something with very long legs—many long legs—was making its way up her neck. She concentrated on its movement, trying to decide what type of creature might be crawling across her skin. She had to force down her first inclination to swat away the bug since movement was her enemy, but she couldn’t stop her shoulder’s involuntary twitch when a stinger plunged into her flesh.

She felt a quick burning sensation before a Trager’s Wasp flew off her neck and spiraled down into the swamp. “Serves you right, you little bastard.” Trager’s Wasps weren’t deadly by any means, but their stingers, which they leave hanging from the sting site, are full of a painful toxin that continues to seep into the flesh even after the wasp takes its final, dying gasp. They can’t survive without the stinger, and Bree fleetingly wondered why this one felt it had to die to protect—

She glanced around nervously when she realized the only reason the wasp would sting someone who wasn’t moving was that it was protecting its queen, who must be nearby. She closed her eyes and ground her teeth in frustration. “Great. Just great.” With her eyes closed, her hearing became more acute, and she became aware of a low humming coming from the right side of the bog.

Keeping the rest of her body still, she slowly turned her head and opened her eyes. The source of the sound wasn’t immediately apparent, and she studied each Aldermarrow tree from its twisted root base to its hairy topknot. It wasn’t until she saw the grey carcass of a long-dead tree pointing to the sky with the jagged, spiked remnants of its trunk that she saw the swarm buzzing around the opening to its hollow interior.

The Trager’s Wasp secretes a substance when it stings its prey, and the scent from the yellowish ooze signals danger to the rest of the swarm. Even now, Bree sensed an increase in the humming’s intensity, and she watched as more and more agitated wasps left the tree to search for their missing comrade. One or two stings were little more than a painful irritation. Getting stung thousands of times by a Trager swarm could easily end in the victim’s death.

Tane’s blood, what have you gotten yourself into, Duchess?

Bree recognized the mind voice of her irascible Spirit Guide, Ebi. She watched the ungainly waddle of the roly-poly Badger out of the corner of her eye and silently blessed the goddess that she wasn’t alone. She’d never let Ebi know how glad she was to see her, but she couldn’t resist a small sigh of relief at the sight of her cantankerous friend. “Can you go tell Liris I need help?”

There’s no time. Goddess bless, how do we get you out of there before those wasps realize you’re the one they’re looking for? The Badger stopped at the base of the dead tree and stared up at the swarm. Only you could anger a swarm of Trager wasps from the middle of a swampy, quicksand bog.

“A little less sarcasm and a lot more help would be greatly appreciated.” Bree and Ebi had an unusual, adversarial relationship in terms of Spirit Guide and apprentice bonds.

Ebi glared at her. And a little more appreciation and a lot less lip would be nice as well. The Badger, who was three times the size of its mortal counterparts, moved to the other side of the bog and tested the strength of another dead tree with one paw. It didn’t budge.

“Maybe if you go around back and push it toward me?”

Ebi glared over her shoulder. Brilliant idea. Why didn’t I think of that?

Bree bit back her retort since Ebi was her only hope of getting out in one piece. The wasps began circling their tree, and when they made straight for Ebi, the Badger disappeared into the realms. “Hey!” Bree jerked forward when she saw her hope disappear and suddenly found herself in up to her waist. She pulled in a panicked breath and yelled, “Ebi!”

When no help arrived, she whispered, “You got this. No panic. Panic kills.” The wasps flew in circles around the bog, and she amended, “And wasps. Wasps kill, too.” Looking down, she added, “Suffocation doesn’t help much, either.”

Without warning, Ebi reappeared, but this time, she wasn’t alone. The White Wolfe, Garan, materialized next to the tree, along with the Black Panther, Denabi. All of them were three times the size of their worldly counterparts.

Before they could act, the wasps dove at them, and they had to disappear.

Bree realized that the deeper she sank, the quicker the mud pulled her down. Trying to think what she could do to help the Guides, she called out, “Ebi. If you can hear me, are there any starlings, magpies, or nighthawks that are Spirit Guides? They eat wasps! Ebi!”

The wasps must have been attracted to sound because the entire swarm changed direction and flew directly at Bree’s head.

Without a moment to spare, the sky was filled with vibrant colors as giant birds of all types burst into the air above and around her. Red, yellow, and black Tanagers swooped to within inches of her head. The grey tip of a wing belonging to a vibrant blue and white Magpie brushed her cheek as it intercepted several wicked, angry little wasps intent on destroying their enemy.

In watching the frenetic flight of the feeding Birds, Bree hadn’t noticed the other Guides had reappeared. Her first notion that they’d returned came as Garan howled a warning. Heads up, Duchess!

Bree jerked sideways just as the dead tree fell mere inches from her body. The weight of the tree displaced enough sludge that she was able to throw the upper part of her body onto the trunk.

Denabi called out, Hang on, Duchess. The people in the castle are swarming, just like those wasps! They’re on their way. Hang on! The Panther dug her sharp claws into the base of the tree, trying to stop the trunk from sliding the rest of the way into the bog.

Garan put his shoulder against one of the dead branches and pushed, while Ebi climbed onto the trunk to add her weight as an anchor.

Bree felt the tree sinking and pulled herself toward the shore. At least the Guides had managed to eat all the wasps or scare them away because she wasn’t being stung while she dug her nails into the wood to keep from sliding off the slippery trunk.

Liris, followed by her second, Magnus, and one of her men, Leez, who’d had the forethought to grab a length of rope on his way out of the castle, raced to her rescue.

Leez, a thin, wiry man with short-cropped hair and a pockmarked face, was excellent in an emergency, and it wasn’t long before he’d secured the dead trunk to a nearby tree. Since he wasn’t able to see or hear the Spirit Guides, he called out, “Th’ goddess were with ya, Yer Grace, nor there’s nah uvver way this tree could ‘uv falled th’ way it done.”

Bree looked up at the three Spirit Guides that only she and Liris could see. Her face felt stiff from the mud that had splattered her cheeks and chin, but the smile she managed to give the three Guides was full of thankful appreciation. “The goddess was certainly on my side, Leez. She brought three excellent friends to help rescue me.”

Thinking she was speaking of him and the other two who’d arrived with him, Leez doffed his cap and lowered his eyes. “Ain’t niver a time we won’t be fer ya, Yer Grace.”

By then, more rescuers had arrived, and they managed to drag the fallen tree onto the shore. One of the scullery maids had the forethought to bring a blanket, and Liris thanked the woman profusely. She took the blanket from the woman and threw it around Bree’s shoulders.

As Liris was leading Bree back to the castle, the Duchess glanced back to see three Spirit Guides sitting on the edge of the bog, looking extremely satisfied with themselves. Her Guide, Ebi, even surprised her with a wink before the three of them faded into the Realms.