Page 54 of To Ride the Wind

“Do you really do nothing but read all day?” Elizabeth exchanged a look with Odelia. “What’s the point of a fancy gown like yours if your only audience is books?”

Charlotte smiled, pleased that her story of the library—incomplete though it had been—had erased any lingering effect of her earlier careless words. Neither of her sisters would feel any jealousy toward her now.

“I do read all day most days,” she said. “And so I must confess I’m longing for one of my old walks in the forest.”

“Of course you would be missing your old haunts,” her mother said. “Give your sisters a moment to change into something more practical and—”

Charlotte threw a beseeching look at her father, and he came to her rescue as he always had before on the worst days.

“Peace, my dears,” he said. “Elizabeth and Odelia need not bestir themselves. Charli won’t have forgotten her way in such a short time. She’ll be safe enough on her own.”

“Yes, indeed!” Charlotte said quickly. “I don’t want anyone put out for me.”

She leaped up and was out the door before her mother could protest. She hoped none of them took offense, but she desperately needed some solitude.

As soon as she lost sight of the house, she felt her chest expand. Breathing deeply, she turned her face toward the sun and smiled. Shut in the castle, she had registered the change of season, but she hadn’t had a chance to experience it properly. Out in the forest, the ground was a riot of color, spring filling her senses.

The pain of her love for Henry and the uncertainty of their future still sat in her heart as a constant ache. But for the moment she was content to be alone with the flowers and the forest’s new life.

Charlotte walked for what must have been hours, losing herself in the forest without ever actually being lost. She knew the ground too well for that.

She had seen no one the whole time—the one advantage of such distant neighbors—so she was shocked when she stepped around a bush and into a small clearing only to find an elegant woman sitting on the small patch of grass at its center.

The woman rose as soon as she caught sight of Charlotte, and Charlotte’s astonishment grew far greater, hitting her with the force of a speeding arrow. For the face smiling a hesitant greeting was one she recognized, although she had never met the woman before.

Here, in the middle of her familiar forest, she had found the woman from the portrait. Henry’s lost love.

INTERLUDE

QUEEN CELANDINE

Queen Celandine stared at the empty room and then down at the key in her hand. What she was seeing was utterly impossible.

Gwendolyn couldn’t have escaped. Only the queen herself had the key for this room. And, if Gwendolyn had somehow tampered with the door, she would have at least left some evidence behind. But the door had been whole and locked when the queen arrived moments before.

She had prepared the remote room years ago, thinking it would be needed. But Gwendolyn had proven more biddable than she could have dreamed. Until now, when the girl had suddenly developed a new defiant streak, only to then vanish in a way that shouldn’t have been possible.

A slight creak caught the queen’s ear, and her eyes narrowed. Striding across the room, she pushed against one of the windows. It swung open.

Celandine sucked in a breath. The girl had gone out the window. The wind must have pushed it closed again afterward, but it had failed to completely latch.

She leaned out, peering downward with an unfamiliar spike of fear. If the pathetic girl had managed to get herself killed, all of Celandine’s plans would be for nothing.

But no crumpled body lay on the ground beneath the tower. The queen’s gaze moved across the western palace grounds, but no sign of movement caught her eye. She drew back inside and clicked the window shut, scowling.

Soon she would need to return and resume a mask of calm indifference. She had already told the court the princess was recovering from an illness, so nothing needed to change immediately. But she had to get her back, and quietly.

If only that fool of a count hadn’t rushed matters. She ground her teeth as she slowly descended the flights of stairs that wound down from the tower.

When she had been pushed into declaring that only a royal prince was a suitable groom to marry the princess and lift the curse, she hadn’t expected her courtiers to actually produce one. The enchantment wouldn’t allow them to travel further than the valleys. What had the fool boy been doing there?

But it was the defiance of the action that made her seethe more than anything. After all these years, they thought they could push her?

She drew in a calming breath. Anger would get her nowhere. She had felt enough anger to drown a ship or level a village in the years she had spent in her father’s home. And after she had found refuge—thinking herself safe with one more powerful than her father—she had felt its fire again. That second betrayal had been even worse than the one by her blood parent.

But all that impotent fury had won her nothing. It had been worse than useless, in fact, since it had blinded her to the valuable lessons to be learned. She could not trust to the power of others to save her. That power only enabled them to treat her as they wished.

When she set aside emotion for clear thinking and cold revenge, the answer was obvious. She had to seize her own power. She had to rise so high that no one could ever stomp on her again.

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