Page 70 of To Ride the Wind

“But what are you doing out here?” she asked. “Surely you can’t be foraging so far, and so early in the morning?”

Gwen looked away. “As to that. Well…” She drew a breath. “I was worried about you. I wanted to come and check on you.”

“You were coming to our castle?” The possibility hadn’t occurred to Charlotte. How happy she would have been to receive her friend’s visit if only she had never lit that candle.

How different everything would have been if Charlotte hadn’t acted like a fool from start to finish.

GWEN

Her friend fell into silence, lost in her own reflections. They were unhappy ones from the look of her, and the familiar sensation of guilt wrapped itself around Gwen.

She had been worried for her friend—worried enough to attempt to find the castle on her own. But she had never dreamed of the damage she herself had done. Charlotte must blame her parents, but that was only because she didn’t know it was Gwen who had spurred them on to it. She had purposely maneuvered them outside without Charlotte or her sisters so she could tell them her concerns about Henry.

They had still believed him a mountain prince until she had told them there was no such person. She had even been the one to suggest the candle. She had let her fears consume her, had spread those fears to others, and now this was the result. How many lives had she ruined?

The thought of her mother’s plans of conquest seized Gwen’s throat, threatening to close it over. There were still so many more people who could be hurt as a result of her misjudgment.

Should she confess everything to Charlotte? Even as the thought occurred to her, she was already rejecting it. She wanted to help her friend, but would Charlotte let her do so once she knew the truth?

And under that, the uglier reality. She didn’t want to see the hurt and disgust that would surely fill Charlotte’s eyes once she heard what Gwen had done behind her back. Gwen had finally found a friend, and she couldn’t lose her already. She couldn’t be alone again.

“We’ll go together,” she said instead, the words surprising her. “Together we’ll find both Easton and Henry.” The thought of going back home, in reach of her mother, terrified Gwen. But she couldn’t abandon Charlotte after causing her suffering. And if she was honest, the mountain kingdom was the most obvious place to look for clues as to where Easton had gone. She would have started there already if her fear hadn’t gotten in the way.

“Yes!” Charlotte leaped up, her earlier despair evaporated, her face alight with purpose. “We’ll go together and find them both.” She paused, her brow creasing. “So where exactly are we going? You’ll have to lead the way.”

She flashed her friend a smile, and Gwen took strength from it, even managing a smile of her own.

“Actually,” she said, “about that…” She drew the golden halter from her pocket. “I didn’t walk here when I escaped, I rode the wind. And I think that’s our best hope of getting back.”

“You…rode…the wind…” Charlotte startled her by letting out a loud whoop. “That is far more amazing than I was expecting. You are amazing, Gwen.” She shook her head. “You escaped your mother on the back of a wind horse. I think I picked the right ally.”

She eyed the halter in Gwen’s hand. “Although the horse that would fit that might be a little small to carry both of us.”

Gwen chuckled in spite of herself. She didn’t deserve Charlotte’s admiration, but she couldn’t help being swept up in the other girl’s enthusiasm.

“It gets bigger,” she said.

Charlotte laughed. “Of course it does. So how do we use it?”

She looked at Gwen expectantly, and Gwen’s heart sank. “Um…that might be the hard part. I’ve only used it once, and then it sort of…well, it caught me while I was falling from a tower.”

“You fell from a tower?” Charlotte eyes widened. “Someday you really need to tell me your whole story. But for now…” She looked around them. “Do you think that would be tall enough?”

Gwen followed the direction of her finger to a tree. “Tall enough for what?” she asked, her heart sinking.

Charlotte flashed her a challenging smile. “To fall from, of course.”

“Of course,” Gwen repeated weakly. She wasn’t sure if she had the courage to throw herself purposefully from the top of a tree, but she also didn’t know another way to activate the halter. “What if it doesn’t work this time?”

Charlotte was already walking toward the base of the tree. “It’ll work.”

Gwen wished she had half her friend’s certainty, but she could sense Charlotte was in no mood to be dissuaded. She would take any risk to rescue Henry, and Gwen owed it to her to offer what assistance she could.

When they stood on the highest branch, however, she was no longer so sure she could do it—even for Charlotte.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, her voice coming out a squeak.

Charlotte threw her a mischievous glance. “No.” She already had one arm wrapped firmly around the bark, but she wrapped her other arm around Gwen. “I think we’d better be connected, though. Do you have the harness ready?”

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