Page 47 of To Ride the Wind

She felt entirely like herself, her normal mind and personality merely trapped inside a new body. But what if the instincts of a true bear lurked beneath the surface? How would she react to the sight of another person? Would she be overcome by a desire to attack them?

The sounds reaching her ears made her frown, her thick lips pulling strangely against uncomfortably sharp teeth. The footsteps didn’t sound as she had expected. The gait was off and the sound too loud.

She surged forward, peering between branches as two shapes came into view. Sight of them froze her in place, her breath stopping as her theory was confirmed.

She had suspected what she would find, but it still took her breath away to see two white bears—looking just as she knew she must now look—walking toward her, one after the other.

The two bears stopped, the one in front twisting to frown at the one behind.

“Did you hear something?” he asked in a gravelly voice that still sounded strangely familiar to Gwen’s ears.

“Just one of the other patrols,” the second bear answered, and Gwen instinctively knew their identity.

The two guards who had forced her back into her room were now patrolling the grounds in the form of bears. The earth beneath her feet felt soft and unstable, and she looked down to make sure she wasn’t sinking into quicksand. But the gravel beneath her feet was steady. It was only everything she knew of her world that was shaking.

It wasn’t just the princess who turned into a bear at night. Others did as well. Potentially the entire palace.

This was how her mother’s people had found a way to get across the mountains and why no one from the city could make use of the path they had forged. The trading delegations must have traveled at night, their frailer human forms using the day to sleep.

What had triggered such a terrible enchantment? And how long had it been in place? It couldn’t have existed for generations or some hint of it would have found its way into the storybooks and the kingdom’s lore.

Easton’s disappearance. The answer appeared in Gwen’s mind already fully formed and obvious. As a young child she had been fully human—she must have been because she had the occasional memory of waking in the night or staying up past sundown. And she had definitely been human that first night locked in the dark closet.

Gwen shivered. Memories of that night weren’t easy to forget. She’d barely slept, and the hours had felt like days. When the glass of juice arrived on the second night, she hadn’t known if her mother had given way to compassion or if she was merely prolonging Gwen’s suffering. When she slept so soundly after drinking it, she had assumed it was due to the exhaustion and weakness from her long ordeal.

But it had been neither compassion nor malice that had driven her mother. Her mother had sent the drink because she needed a way to deliver the sleeping draft that would hide the enchantment she had just unleashed. Knowing her mother hadn’t been motivated by emotion—either positive or negative—but by cold strategy made sense. Gwen should have guessed as much.

The rest of the timing fit as well. It was only after her days in the closet that she had begun to hear talk of a new mountain pass.

But was it coincidence it had happened just after Easton’s disappearance? Gwen couldn’t credit the idea. Before the court stopped speaking Easton’s name entirely, she had heard whispers about his fury as he marched to confront the queen. If anyone had seen the confrontation and heard the source of his anger, they didn’t speak of it, but he had disappeared immediately afterward. And the next day an enchantment had taken hold of Gwen and the court.

Gwen didn’t need anyone to confirm what she knew in her bones. Her mother had been the one to unleash the enchantment—her mother with her hidden room full of godmother objects. Gwen just didn’t know why.

Knowing her mother, she had reasons wrapped within reasons. Queen Celandine was a master at turning any situation to her advantage and always thinking two steps ahead of her enemies.

Whatever her intentions, she had ended up with an army of enchanted bears at her disposal. Did she send them out to patrol the city at night?

The fear shown by the girl from the city hinted at the answer. The people had to contend not only with large and fearsome beasts in their streets but with the reminder of a power that was both foreign and terrifying in its strength. What limits were there for a queen who could turn people into animals and then command their obedience?

Did the city’s inhabitants all lock their doors and windows and stay inside from first dark until morning light? A part of Gwen wanted to join them, to go back to hiding from the enormity of the truth. But there was no going back. She had to face the reality her mother had been hiding from her.

After enchanting her own people, the queen had orchestrated an enormous deception to ensure her daughter's ignorance. She had done it to preserve total control over Gwen and to keep her a prisoner at her side. She had known the truth would fuel Gwen’s escape. It had been true when she was fourteen, and it was equally true now. Whatever political games her mother was using her daughter to play, they would all end now Gwen knew about the enchantment.

But she still needed to confirm her theory that the whole palace was affected. Employing her newly heightened senses of smell and hearing, she crept through the gardens unseen. She dodged another two patrols before she reached one of the wings housing palace apartments for the courtiers. Many of the courtiers would be in their city homes, but some always remained in the palace overnight.

Most of the curtains were tightly closed, although the occasional one was rimmed in light. But finally she found one set that had been thrown open, the window wide to let in the night air.

Inside, the room glowed with warm light, making it easy to see the large white form pacing up and down. Despite her own shape, despite seeing the guards earlier, the image still sent instinctive fear through Gwen. There was something different about seeing the hulking shape of a bear inside a room decorated with fine furnishings, and it was even more unnerving to see the animal conversing with a young boy. Even knowing everything, her instinct was to rush in and pull the boy away.

She kept herself frozen in place, however, her ears straining to hear. The bear spoke in a low voice, but as his pacing brought him near the window, she caught a few words. It wasn’t enough to follow the meaning, but it was sufficient to bring the same shock of recognition as had hit her with the guards.

The voice might have been lower and rougher, but she could still recognize the words of Count Oswin. Which meant the boy must be his grandson—the seven-year-old child of the son who had led the first team through the mountains.

Count Oswin’s son was obviously a white bear as well given his mountain exploration, but apparently his son was not. Whatever enchantment existed, it didn’t affect children born after it took effect. Perhaps it hadn’t affected many children at the time either, since most of them were kept sheltered in their homes in the city.

Although Gwen had known the count had a grandson, it was her first time seeing him. Had anyone ever mentioned that he walked with crutches, one pant leg pinned up due to the loss of his right leg below the knee? His face was calm, so if it was the result of an injury, it must have been an old one.

His whole bearing suggested he was comfortable with his grandfather in his bear form, and the sight of it reassured Gwen. Surely this scene wouldn’t happen if those under the enchantment risked losing control while in their animal form.

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