Page 8 of To Ride the Wind

The heat of fresh anger washed over her. What secret was so important that her mother had completely isolated her in order to keep it?

It’s because you’re too weak. It was her mother’s insidious voice in her mind. You’re too weak to be trusted.

But again, another memory swooped in to override it. Come on, you can do it! If I can do it, so can you! Easton’s youthful voice was as clear as if he was speaking the words in her ear at that moment. She could even picture his easy smile, and the challenge in his eyes as he called her to match every feat of strength or dexterity that he attempted in the castle corridors. Gwen had sometimes doubted herself, but he had never done so.

Voices swirled around her, their words indistinct but alluring. The ball, which had seemed unutterably dull only minutes before, now sparked and fizzed. How many of the conversations hinted at truths she didn’t know?

And most importantly of all—how was she going to uncover those secrets? She felt almost as alive as she used to when she ran, laughing, through the palace corridors, Easton always two steps ahead, and Nanny waiting for them with hot chocolate and warm cake. Discovering the conspiracy against her was the first step to laying it bare.

But for all Gwen’s determination, and for all the conversations she sidled close enough to overhear, she learned nothing of note. No one else let any unwise words fall, and the topics that occupied them seemed even more dull than usual. She heard conversations about the weather—spring had started to reach the lower valleys, but it would still be a while before winter released their own vast basin, ensconced as it was by the deeper mountains. And she heard more than enough about who was dancing with whom and what gowns everyone was wearing.

Frustration filled Gwen, unalleviated by the frequent comments on her own beauty of both face and dress. It brought her no comfort to know the people of her kingdom admired her physical appearance even while they were afraid of speaking to her.

For once, the end of the ball brought disappointment instead of relief. Maybe if she had been able to hear more conversations, she might have stumbled on one of note. But at the same time, she was exhausted. Attempting to listen without appearing to do so was more straining than she had expected. Especially given how closely her mother watched her whenever she was among others. Gwen had always thought the queen was afraid of her daughter disgracing her, but that assumption, too, appeared in a different light now. Her mother wasn’t afraid of Gwen—she was afraid of everyone else.

Had anyone ever tried to give her a hint? Gwen sifted back through a lifetime’s worth of conversations, but nothing came to mind. In the early years she remembered only Easton, and in the last ten, her focus had been on avoiding her mother’s disapproval. No one had broken through to her—she didn’t even think anyone had tried. She wasn’t the only one who feared crossing the mountain queen.

All through the evening meal—eaten in state with only the queen and her daughter present—Gwen racked her brain, trying to think of how she could uncover more information. Asking her mother outright was out of the question. Not only would that approach fail, but it would be far too dangerous. It had been years since she had been confined to the closet and left to starve, but she didn’t consider herself safe from such treatment. Her mother would consider questions such as the ones that burned inside Gwen to be defiance of the highest order.

Gwen knew it would make no difference to her mother that she had officially been an adult for some years now. Gwen’s age had never affected the punishments her mother meted out. And always there was the added horror of the unknown. Gwen still didn’t know what had happened to Easton, and no one in the palace had ever been willing to speak of it. The queen had punishments Gwen didn’t even know about.

No, talking to her mother was the last thing Gwen would consider.

And since the courtiers avoided conversation with her whenever possible, that left only one option. The servants.

Gwen shook her head in silent, stubborn denial of the title her mother gave to the people who served in the palace. In the privacy of her own mind, she would name them as they really were—captives.

She vaguely remembered a time when the palace had employed regular servants from families in the city. But she could no longer remember any of their faces, except for Nanny who had been more family than servant. After Easton had left—when she had emerged from those terrible days in the closet, weakened and dazed—they had all been gone.

When she asked after them—dully, and without great interest—she was told they had been sent back to the city. But the palace couldn’t function without servants, and so others had soon begun to appear. It was obvious from the beginning they were different. They spoke with unfamiliar accents, for one, and their faces shone with desperation and fear. It hadn’t taken much to discover they were captives, valley folk snatched from their lives and carried off into the mountains to work for the mountain queen.

Gwen, cowed by her days of imprisonment and lost in grief at Easton’s unknown fate, waited for someone else to protest this strange new state of affairs. But no one ever did. At least not anywhere that Gwen could hear.

Instead, the court buzzed with the news that a path had been found through the mountains. After generations of isolation, Queen Celandine’s guards had forged the way, led by Count Oswin’s youthful son. They had traded with the valley folk, bringing back delicacies and medicines that were entirely new to the mountain people, and the whole kingdom celebrated their success.

But as time passed, Gwen noticed it was only ever the guards and those most loyal to her mother who went on the trading trips, and it was only the queen who benefited from the new wealth coming into the kingdom. And every time her people returned, they brought new servants with them.

The mountain people traded with the valley folk in the open, but in secret they stole something from them worth more than goods and gold. Gwen could only assume the valley folk hadn’t made the connection, since they continued to trade with her mother’s people. Or perhaps there were so many valleys the mountain delegation could visit a new one every time? Gwen couldn’t be sure, since the distant valleys were one of the many topics she was discouraged from asking questions about.

Thankfully the number of new arrivals had dwindled over the years, and there had been no new faces for the past two. As a consequence, Gwen knew all the captives by name and personality, but she still shied away from the idea of questioning them.

As captives, they could know nothing of her mother’s secrets. There was no point in even asking. But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t true. Servants had ways of discovering information never meant for their ears. She was making excuses to herself to cover her true fear. She didn’t fear their ignorance, but rather the opposite.

It was one thing to think the courtiers had been conspiring against her—they were her mother’s people and had been for as long as she could remember. But Gwen privately thought of the captives as her people. In a life of compliance, befriending the queen’s captives was the one major defiance Gwen had managed to preserve, a secret that had escaped her mother’s watchful eye. In the unwelcoming environment of the palace, Gwen had found the only people who had more reason to hate and fear her mother than Gwen herself did. And while she never openly defied her mother, it had comforted her to know that she had allies of her own.

If she found out now that her allies had been siding against Gwen and keeping their captor’s secrets, it might break what little will she still had left.

So, even knowing the truth of her motivations, she still turned her mind to the courtiers instead of the captives. She determined to spend the whole night coming up with avenues of conversation that might trick the courtiers into revealing what she wanted to know.

But, as always, despite the most earnest resolutions, she had barely laid her head on the pillow before she was waking up to bright morning sunlight.

Groaning, she drove her fist into her soft mattress. Was the secret they were all hiding that their princess was gravely ill? She had always slept deeply, even as a child, and Nanny had assured her it was normal for children to be shut in their rooms before it even got dark and expected to stay there until morning. But what sort of adult still needed as much sleep as they ever had as a child? Was it even healthy?

She had tried raising the matter with her mother, but no topic related to nighttime was ever acceptable to the queen. She expected Gwen to sleep and to not ask questions about it. Given all the other things Gwen wasn’t allowed to question, her mother’s insistence had never seemed especially odd. But now it made Gwen even more suspicious.

On the other hand, if she really was ill—even dying perhaps—what purpose could her mother have in hiding it? If it was any other mother, Gwen might have suspected she was motivated by compassion. Nanny might have kept such a secret in the years before her passing. The elderly woman had been the kindest soul Gwen had ever met, and she wouldn’t have been able to bear delivering such news to her beloved charge. But it was impossible to consider her mother in such a light. The queen considered compassion a failing. At least, she had always seen it as such in Gwen.

Which led her back to where she started. If the whole of the kingdom was keeping a secret from her, there must be a reason for it. And if she was to discover that reason, she needed to find someone who could be tricked or cajoled into sharing it with her.

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