Page 10 of To Ride the Wind

Miriam stared at her, looking more like a startled rabbit than ever, except now she was caught in the gaze of a predator.

Gwen had the grace to feel ashamed, but she wouldn’t let the dropped hint go. She couldn’t. She needed answers, even if she had to press Miriam into giving them to her.

But footsteps around the corner shattered the moment. Their approach was rapid, and she barely had time to throw herself back into her chair before the newcomer appeared. Gwen smiled and nodded to the courtier, even as she watched Miriam out of the corner of her eye. Miriam had resumed polishing the glass at a feverish pace, her back to the princess, but Gwen still caught the telltale flush in her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed. Miriam definitely knew something she didn’t want to tell the princess.

But the courtier paused, shifting uncomfortably as his eyes flashed from Gwen to Miriam. He might not have been comfortable in the princess’s presence, but he clearly knew his duty. He obviously wasn’t going to continue on, leaving the princess adjacent to such low company.

Gwen tried to wait it out, but as the man blustered through a series of increasingly terse attempts to get her moving, she gave up, putting all three of them out of their misery by agreeing to accompany the man in search of her mother. But once they found her, Gwen couldn’t free herself again, and before she knew it, the evening meal had begun.

This time they ate in the presence of a select group of courtiers, including both the man who had rescued her and Count Oswin. Since the count was her mother’s most senior advisor, he was always present at such affairs, but the other man was a surprise. Lord Rafferty, as he was apparently called, was a junior enough member of the court that Gwen couldn’t remember ever meeting him before, although his face was vaguely familiar.

He had certainly never eaten with them before, and she could only assume his sudden inclusion was a reward for his meddlesome surveillance of her. The thought stung, although it shouldn’t have come as a surprise given what she now knew about how her mother had been using the court against her. It wasn’t much of a step from alienation to surveillance.

Gwen stuffed down her resentment, squishing her feelings away until there was no outward sign of them, as she had so often done before. She had no desire to attract her mother’s attention, especially in the presence of guests. At least with the others present, she would be excluded from the conversation and could thus avoid having to converse with her mother.

As the meal progressed, her mind turned to more helpful topics, and she found herself extra grateful to be left to her own thoughts. In the corridor, she had been focused on Miriam’s mention of a rumor—a topic she intended to pursue again at first opportunity. But in the time since, something else had occurred to Gwen, and as she ate, she was free to consider it from every angle.

Miriam had said they were both captives at night, and she was right. For the hours of darkness, neither the queen nor her courtiers watched them, believing both the princess and the valley folk to be safely shut away behind doors. But what if they were shut behind the same door?

If Gwen snuck into the storage rooms with the captives for a night, they could help keep her awake. Behind a locked door, they would have hours to talk freely without fear of discovery or notice.

The idea captivated her. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? All she had to do was stay awake past sundown when the captives were locked away. Once darkness fell, she could creep through the palace to their prison. Given she and Easton had secretly appropriated a master key for the palace—to enable them to roam it freely—getting past the locked door shouldn’t present a problem. Even if she eventually fell asleep—which she inevitably would, she was sure, even with assistance—Alma or Miriam could wake her before dawn so she could sneak back into her own room.

The hardest part of the plan would be staying awake long enough to sneak through the palace. She sometimes remained awake for a few minutes past her normal bedtime, but to succeed with her plan, she might need to last as long as half an hour.

As she considered the difficulty, she pushed her food around on her plate. How little could she get away with eating? A full stomach always made her drowsy, so perhaps hunger pangs would help keep her alert.

It wasn’t as simple as not eating, however. She had long ago learned that her mother wouldn’t permit her to boycott a meal altogether. She needed to walk a fine line—consuming just enough to satisfy her mother without coming close to filling herself.

Thankfully the guests took enough of the queen’s attention that she didn’t notice her daughter’s tiny mouthfuls or how much of her movement was just shifting food around on her plate. And somehow the small amount she ate only made Gwen hungrier than she had been when the meal began.

She even limited the amount she drank, knowing the rich drinks favored by her mother would fill her stomach as easily as food. In a further stroke of luck, Alma was serving that night, and she seemed to pick up that Gwen was eating lightly on purpose. She whisked each plate and glass aside quickly before the queen could notice how full they remained.

Gwen wished she could whisper something of her plan to Alma, but she didn’t dare try even the most subtle communication when she was at her mother’s table.

Her fingers tightened around the handle of her fork, squeezing until her knuckles whitened. It didn’t matter how many years passed. She might be a woman in her twenties now, but she was still trapped as a child beneath her mother’s watchful eye.

But the surge of anger was accompanied with a familiar impotence. Her mother wasn’t merely Gwen’s parent but the queen, and there was no one in the mountain kingdom who would gainsay her. The princess really was just as trapped as the captives, hemmed in by the same mountains that restrained them.

When the meal finally reached its end, Gwen surged to her feet and gave the necessary curtsy to her mother. The queen’s eyes narrowed slightly at her daughter’s hasty exit, but she let her go unchallenged. Gwen made it two corridors over before she put her back against the wall and sucked in several deep breaths.

Closing her eyes, she continued to breathe slowly, reminding herself that the walls of the palace weren’t closing in on her. They remained exactly where they had always been. And her mother wasn’t all-seeing. It might feel like it on occasion, but Gwen had successfully kept her connection to the captives a secret from her. She could keep other secrets too. She could defy her mother’s iron reign.

A tug on her dress made her eyes fly open, her heartbeat skyrocketing with the irrational fear that her mother had somehow sensed her thoughts. But the girl tugging on her was unfamiliar, and she immediately fell back when she saw Gwen’s wide-eyed expression, her own face flushing a deep red.

“I…I’m sorry, Your Highness,” the girl stammered. “I didn’t mean…That is, I didn’t…” Her words grew so tangled that she stopped altogether.

“Who are you?” Gwen asked as her heart returned to a more normal rhythm.

The girl didn’t look much older than fourteen, and Gwen didn’t think she’d ever seen her before. She wasn’t one of her mother’s courtiers, but neither was she one of the captive servants.

With a start, Gwen realized she must be one of the mountain kingdom citizens—an inhabitant of the city who lived in one of the houses surrounding the palace but was never invited inside it.

Curiosity spiked inside her. The queen sometimes paraded through the city streets, her daughter in tow, and the populace obediently lined the streets to see their ruler pass by. But Gwen had never been permitted to walk through the city or interact with any of its inhabitants. Often she forgot about their existence altogether, except as a vague concept.

The girl shook her head, swallowing visibly as she began to back away. “I’m sorry,” she said in a tumbled rush. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. Of course I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean any harm. I—”

“Stop!” Gwen surprised herself by producing the same commanding tone her mother employed so effectively.

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