Page 60 of To Ride the Wind

Charlotte nodded. “Good point. Even if his name has changed, it’s a unique enough situation that people should remember him.” She frowned. “But are you really going to travel through Rangmere alone?”

Gwen shivered. “What other option do I have? It’s not that I want to be alone, but I have no one. As it is, I feel terrible for imposing on Harold and his family just because he’s the local official.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Charlotte said as cheerfully as she could. “I’m sure they’re glad of the company. Society is so restricted out here that all newcomers are a matter of interest.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying, so I’ve allowed myself to be talked into staying this long.” Gwen didn’t sound happy about that weakness on her part.

“They’re not making excuses,” Charlotte said. “They really mean it.”

Gwen gave her a tremulous smile, and Charlotte wanted to give her a hug. How quickly her feelings toward the other woman had undergone a complete shift.

“You also haven’t heard of an Easton,” Gwen said after a pause. “So that might be another valley I can cross off the search. Which valley are you living in now with your husband?”

It was an innocent question, but it sent a surge of longing through Charlotte. Her thoughts and emotions had been trapped inside her, in such intense turmoil, and she hadn’t been able to speak of them to anyone. Even now that she had returned home, she couldn’t talk about the truth with her parents and sisters. Her husband had asked her to remain silent, but she would have known it was a bad idea anyway. Her relationship with her family was tangled enough, and they had only just reached a new place of peace.

But here in this secluded clearing, real life seemed distant. She had made a friend, and impossible as it had initially seemed, one who felt like a kindred soul. For the first time, she felt it was possible to talk about the incredible turns her life had taken since her wedding, and she couldn’t help wanting to be honest even though she had known Gwen for less than a day.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Charlotte felt a twinge of discomfort. Henry had only told her not to speak of their nights to her parents, but surely he had meant to keep it private in general. He knew her history, and he wouldn’t have thought there was anyone else she would be tempted to tell. He couldn’t possibly have guessed she would run into Gwen.

Charlotte ignored the small voice of caution. She was so full of emotions, she was going to burst if she couldn’t get them out.

Or do you just want to make sure Gwen knows Henry is yours? a less pleasant voice asked.

Charlotte brushed that one aside too. Of course it wasn’t jealousy motivating her. Gwen had Easton.

“Actually,” she said, her voice trembling with a heady mix of excitement and nerves now that she was finally telling someone the truth of her strange situation, “my husband doesn’t come from the valleys. I don’t know where he comes from originally, but we have a castle in the nearby mountains.”

“A castle? In the mountains?”

Before Gwen could ask any more questions, the story poured out of Charlotte. She told how the white bear had approached her family and about the wealth and escape he’d offered in exchange for marriage. When she mentioned his name, she watched Gwen closely, but there wasn’t so much as a flicker of recognition or curiosity.

Charlotte’s hope surged afresh. Gwen didn’t appear to even know a missing man named Henry. If his love for Gwen was not only one-sided but had developed from afar, then surely such a hollow emotion might have already been supplanted by the wife he spent all his days with? Now she knew Gwen was the mountain princess, it seemed more than possible that Henry—who must also be from the mountain kingdom if he knew Gwen—might have loved her from a distance.

Charlotte had been too hasty in leaving him, and now the hours before his return stretched out far too long.

But in the meantime, she’d found a new and completely unexpected friend. Buoyed up by her relief and the heady excitement it created, she continued on with her tale. She described the castle he had taken her to, and the building provoked more questions from Gwen than the revelation that Charlotte had married a bear.

The more detail she gave on the castle, the deeper Gwen’s frown grew. But now that Charlotte had begun, she couldn’t stop. The rest of the story followed, culminating in her discovery that Henry was really a man and the way they spent their nights lying side by side in the pitch darkness.

When she finished, silence fell on the clearing. It lasted until Gwen spoke in a voice that trembled slightly.

“You’re married to a man who turns into a white bear every day?”

GWEN

Fear nearly immobilized Gwen, but she wasn’t sure if it was general dread or fear for Charlotte, who seemed so bright and lovely. Gwen had allowed herself to be swept up in excitement at the unexpected discovery of a friend and in their exchange of confidences. The feeling—however brief—of being part of a team, united in the search for Easton, had been heady. But reality fell far too quickly.

From the bright, almost tender, expression on her face, Charlotte had no idea of the danger she was in. Gwen guessed she even felt affection for her husband, despite his transformations. But Gwen couldn’t brush aside the coincidence.

Away from her mother’s sleeping drafts, Gwen had been forced to endure her own transformation every night since her escape. She hid in the forest, away from the valley folk until the sun rose each morning, and she had yet to meet another bear of any sort, let alone one who was actually human.

If there was a man in the mountains who turned into a white bear, he must be part of the same enchantment as Gwen herself. And the only people trapped in the enchantment were her mother’s people—the mountain court and the queen’s guards.

Bile rose in her throat as she put it all together. She had been swept up in their talk of Easton and forgotten where she had first seen Charlotte. It hadn’t been in this clearing but in her mother’s bedchamber—in a portrait that had also featured Charlotte’s husband.

At best, Charlotte’s husband was a member of her mother’s court, loyal to someone unspeakable. But her friend claimed he was a bear during the day and a man at night—the opposite of the enchantment on the mountain court. The more she considered the strange anomaly, the stronger grew an even more horrifying possibility. What if this man wasn’t a member of the court but the original owner of whatever object her mother had used to create the curse?

Was he even a man at all, or was he some creature of nightmare who had managed to assume the trappings of a man by night? It was entirely believable that her mother would be allied with such a creature.

---