Page 80 of To Ride the Wind

“Why am I at the back?” Charlotte complained, and Gwen smiled again. She knew the excitement underlying her friend’s words. She was finally on her way to the kingdom where her husband could be found.

They soared high over Ranost, heading for the mountains. But as soon as they hit them, the wind began to fight her.

Her first instinct was to pull against it, as she had before, trying to compensate for its lurching, jerking motions. But she forced herself not to respond on instinct.

Charlotte had shown her the way, and she would need every bit of her strength and concentration to lead them through the more difficult path through the mountains.

She had wanted to follow a low-lying valley to their right, but the wind pulled them left. She scanned the landscape in that direction, comparing it to the maps she had often studied in the palace library. They hadn’t included the trails through the mountains, but they had shown the locations of the landscape itself. And from the air, the ground below her looked almost like a map, stretched out for her perusal.

She spotted a crevice that opened into a deep valley. Leaning into the wind’s leftward motion, she sailed them into the dark gash in the mountain face. As she had expected, it opened into a valley, the high walls forcing the wind to flow down its length and giving her a chance to breathe.

But all too quickly they reached the end of it, and the wind jerked them wildly again, trying to send them spinning uncontrollably toward the ground. She let it take them downward, waiting until they caught the inevitable cross breeze that flowed along mountain canyons. As soon as it nudged their direction, she leaned into it, pulling upward again until they soared over the first peak.

Charlotte called triumphantly from somewhere behind her, but Gwen didn’t respond. Every ounce of her concentration was needed in the life and death wrestle she was undertaking.

And it wasn’t only her life at stake. She carried Easton and Charlotte with her, and a whole kingdom depended on them. She would not fail this first challenge.

Valley by valley, crevice by crevice, and peak by peak, she led them through the maze of the mountains, fighting the wind every step of the way. Sweat dripped down her hairline, and she might have slipped from her perch on their wind mount if Easton’s arms hadn’t held her securely in place.

Exhaustion began to creep in, and she was nearly out of strength when she finally spotted a final, familiar mountain.

“It’s over that one,” she cried, forgetting all her restraint and yanking the reins in the direction she wanted to go.

But she wasn’t the only one who had grown weary. The wind tried to buck, but the movement was light. It wasn’t fighting her anymore but losing force entirely. For one breathless moment, Gwen thought it wouldn’t make it over the peak.

Then they were past, and it was sinking down the other side. But it didn’t matter. They wanted to descend anyway.

She guided it in as accurately as she could, acutely aware that her mother had just battled her through the mountain range and must therefore know of her return. Gwen could only hope the queen was unable to pinpoint the exact location of their dismount.

She aimed for the edge of the city, where they could quickly lose themselves in the streets. As soon as their feet hit the ground, she pushed the miniature halter into her pocket and led the others forward. They both seemed to have realized the danger because they followed her without question.

But once they reached the first intersection, Gwen stopped. She might have spent her whole life in the mountain kingdom, but she didn’t know the city at all.

“Psst!” The hissed whisper caught the attention of all three, but only Gwen recognized the girl gesturing urgently for them to join her. It was the fourteen-year-old who had snuck into the palace to complain about the taxes.

She led the others to where the girl was lurking behind a building.

“Are you talking to us?” Gwen asked.

She nodded. “Who else would I be hissing at? I came to get you.”

Gwen stared at her in astonishment. “How did you know we were here?”

The girl gave her a scornful look. “You do know you flew into the city, right? I’ve been watching for you so I could hardly miss that.”

“You’ve been watching for me?” Gwen asked, her astonishment growing. “But why?”

“Because they told me to, of course,” the girl said impatiently. “Now hurry. We need to get off the streets.”

The others looked at Gwen, and she shrugged. They had to find a place to hide, and she would as soon trust this girl whose name she didn’t know as anyone else in the kingdom, except perhaps Alma or Miriam.

But as they followed her down a series of dark streets and alleys and finally into a dirty basement, she couldn’t resist asking.

“But who told you to watch for me?”

The girl shrugged. “He did, of course. And the others. Everyone who opposes the queen and has been waiting for your return.”

Gwen stared at her in even greater astonishment. “There are people waiting for my return?”

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