Page 13 of To Ride the Wind

“We have to hurry,” he said, not speaking to her.

“Whatever for?” she asked brightly. “I don’t feel at all sleepy yet. And I know the way well. I wouldn’t lose my way even in pitch black.” She smiled from one to the other. “And you two brave soldiers can accompany me to keep me safe.”

They appeared not to hear her, too busy conducting a silent conversation comprised of their eyes and several expressive grimaces. At the end of it, they seemed to reach a consensus.

Still not addressing her, the other guard took her remaining arm in an equally firm grip as they hustled her along the path. When she exclaimed and tried to break free, they only tightened their hold, almost lifting her feet from the ground to hurry their passage.

Gwen managed a single glance back over her shoulder and caught sight of the girl slipping out of the bushes and running for the castle boundary. At least she had succeeded in distracting the guards. But she was going to have bruises to show for it in the morning. She had never expected castle guards to dare manhandle the princess in such a manner.

She swallowed down a lump of actual fear. Whatever had spooked them, it had to be more serious than she had realized. Just what happened in these grounds at nighttime?

She ceased struggling, but they didn’t slow or even loosen their grip. Her fear increased, and she wondered if they meant to haul her straight to her mother. If so, she would need an excuse for going outside that was more believable than a sudden desire to see the roses.

But Gwen’s mind had stopped working, frozen in a state of confusion and fear, as it had done in the closet. The morass only lifted when it became clear they were heading for her bedchamber. By the time they shoved her inside, she had gathered herself enough to at least recover her balance before she fell.

She turned, meaning to protest, but the door was already being firmly closed behind her. Angry, she stomped over and pulled it back open. The guards, already part way back down the corridor, didn’t pause or even look back. Despite their cowardly retreat, Gwen didn’t risk stepping out of the room. Instead, she contented herself with glaring fire at their backs.

When they had disappeared around a corner, she reluctantly closed the door. At least the trip outside had used up much of the wait before she could enact her plan. But it was still too early to leave her room—especially given what had just happened. The guards might yet be fetching her mother.

She waited, sitting bolt upright on the edge of her bed in expectation of the queen sweeping into the room at any moment. But as the minutes passed without the door opening, she couldn’t maintain the alert expectancy.

She tried to hold onto the earlier thrill of creeping through the palace, but it had faded beyond her reach. She pulled up her anger instead, gently exploring the burgeoning bruises on her arms. But even the anger felt distant and hard to reach.

Her blinks became longer, the weights on her eyelids making them harder and harder to open. Her thoughts grew muddled, no longer following logical threads but jumping erratically and chasing down nonsensical tracks. Several times she jerked, her whole body jumping as she pulled herself back from the verge of sleep.

Defiantly, she forced herself to her feet, crossing over to open the curtains as wide as they would go, letting in a wash of moonlight. She pressed her cheek against the cold of the windowpane, the shock of it driving back the heaviness for a moment.

But the sensation lost its effectiveness too quickly, her limbs growing as heavy as her eyes. The sweet lure of sleep was harder and harder to resist with each passing second. Giving in to it would feel so blissful.

She slipped down to curl on the broad window seat, her hands reaching instinctively for one of the cushions and putting it under her head. Despite everything she had tried, she couldn’t fight the sleep that always overtook her. It was a river, and she was drowning.

She woke with a start and the certain knowledge that something was different. It took her a moment to realize what it was. She had slipped off the window seat, landing on the floor with enough force to pull her out of sleep before the sun rose. Gwen couldn’t remember the last time she had woken when it was still dark.

Excitement flooded her, fighting against the pull that tried to drag her back beneath the waves of sleep. There were still hours of the night left. She could still seek out the captives.

It was difficult to keep her eyes open, though, and she let them drift most of the way closed as she wrestled her sleep-heavy limbs into compliance. She felt as if she were fighting for control of her own body, but her determination drove her forward, and she crawled toward the door on all fours. By the time she reached it, her eyes had drifted shut again, but she was still forcing herself to move. It was too warm in her room. If she could just get out into the cold corridor, she would wake up enough to get to the captives.

Feeling blindly up the wood of the door, she found the handle. But it wouldn’t turn. Her door was locked.

She slumped against the floor, despair filling her. Had the guards returned to lock her in? Was this the result of her small defiance?

A worse thought flashed through her mind. Had her door always been locked, and she had simply never noticed?

Following on its heels was another thought that rapidly grew into certainty when she combined it with the strange behavior of the guards. She had feared that everyone was keeping a secret about her, but whatever was happening was bigger by far. Something dangerous was happening in the palace at night. Something big.

She tried to hold onto the thought as sleep claimed her again.

CHARLOTTE

In the end, Charlotte did cut her foraging short but not because of her encounter with the bear. As the day wore on, gray clouds rolled in, and the afternoon became darker and darker.

She turned for home much earlier than usual, unnerved by the way day appeared to be descending into night hours too early. She was glad for her forethought when the heavy clouds released their wet load just as she ducked through the front door.

To her relief, her father was there ahead of her, although he had also planned to be out all day. He had probably read the change in the weather more quickly than she had and known what was coming. Even after five years, the sudden storms in the valley still took Charlotte by surprise.

“Charli-bear!” he exclaimed. “I was about to put my jacket back on and go out to find you. It looks like this will be a bad one.”

She slipped her own jacket off and hung it on the hook by the door. “I should have turned back sooner, but I’d just found a pocket of wild mushrooms, and I wasn’t sure I’d remember where to find it again.”

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