Page 31 of To Steal the Sun

“No, she came with me from the valleys,” Gwen said. “She’s the lowlander prince’s wife.”

Another murmur swept through the room at that. The captives might not have heard of Charlotte, but they knew something about Henry.

“Have you been taking him food?” she guessed.

Alma hesitated. “We’ve been preparing it, but the queen delivers it herself.” She paused. “We’ve heard rumors that he’s cursed.”

It was clear from the captives’ faces that they didn’t know what to make of that suggestion. Gwen almost told them it was the opposite—he was the only one to have freed himself—when it hit her like a bolt.

The captives were as ignorant as she had once been. They knew something happened in the mountain kingdom at night but not what. They didn’t know about the transformations.

Gwen didn’t hesitate. If they were going to join the rebels, they had to know what they faced.

“Actually,” she said, “it’s not the prince who’s cursed, it’s me.” A gasp of surprise swept around the room. “Me, and my mother, and all the courtiers and guards. We are tied to these mountains because at night we turn into large, white bears.”

“You—what?” Alma asked in a dazed voice.

“At sundown I turn into a bear,” Gwen repeated calmly. “And at sunrise I turn back again. I’m still myself in my head the whole time, though. We don’t turn wild or anything.”

“I…” Alma collapsed into a nearby seat. “We’ve come up with lots of theories over the years, but I can’t say anyone came up with that. Every one of us was drugged for the journey across the mountains, so we never saw…”

“It does explain it, though,” the cook said. “We wondered how they made it across.”

“And some of the messes we’ve had to clean up make more sense too,” a younger woman muttered. “Remember those gouges high up on the wall of the green sitting room? None of us could work out what could have made them.”

Gwen thought guiltily of her room. “If any of you have the job of cleaning my room, please skip it today. And tomorrow. And—actually, you can forget about it all together.”

Alma raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know what you’ve done?”

Gwen smiled. “I’m going with no.”

“I thought you were going to marry that prince.” The cook regarded Gwen skeptically. “We’ve all been worked off our feet preparing for it. So how can he have a wife?”

Gwen grimaced. “My mother isn’t used to having her plans foiled. She’s determined to go through with it, and for now at least, we’re playing along.” Her voice turned firm. “I will not be marrying Prince Henry, however.”

Yet another stir ran through the crowd.

“But please continue with your preparations in line with the queen’s commands,” she said hurriedly. “We’d rather not tip our hand yet.”

Facing only Miriam, it had seemed sensible to say nothing. But with the captives massed before her, she couldn’t bring herself to treat them with suspicion. They had been stolen from their homes and turned into slaves for the mountain queen—some for almost ten years. The queen had no allies in this room.

“So this Charlotte is part of your plans?” Alma asked shrewdly. “But she’s crossed the queen somehow?”

Gwen grimaced. It was a little more complicated than that, but the sentiment was close enough to the truth.

Alma exchanged a look with the cook, waiting for him to nod before turning back to Gwen. “We haven’t heard anything about an unknown girl,” she said briskly, “but the orders for the prince’s food changed late yesterday. We were instructed to deliver a drugged drink, just as we used to do for you.”

She gave Gwen an apologetic look as she said it, but Gwen had long forgiven the captives’ role in her previous life. They hadn’t done any of it by choice.

“He was drugged all night?” she asked, heart sinking. That must mean Charlotte had succeeded in bargaining for a night with Henry. And the queen had found a way around the bargain’s terms. Did that mean she’d also found a way around the terms intended to protect Charlotte?

“There definitely hasn’t been any talk of preparing food for another captive?” she asked.

The cook and Alma both shook their heads. Did that mean Charlotte had succeeded in getting out of the palace or just that she hadn’t been fed yet?

Sighing, Gwen rose. She was going to have to find her mother after all.

Before leaving, she faced Alma and the cook. “Miriam asked what you could do.”

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