Page 22 of Lily of the Valley

Lily smiled. "That sounds perfect."

"This way, Your Highness." He winked. "There are a couple of others at camp who will be happy to see you."

Frowning at that peculiar statement, she nevertheless followed him through the trees with Scout close behind leading the horses.

As they broke through the trees, movement caught her eyes—and then she screamed, legs giving out from the shock, and the screaming turned to sobbing, hands over her mouth in a belated effort to muffle the noise.

Then Alice and Penelope reached her, and the three women clung to each other, the other two soothing Lily as best they could while letting her cry.

"I thought you were dead," Lily managed. "I thought they'd killed all of you."

"They tried," Penelope said grimly. "If Alice hadn't gotten to me in time, I would be."

She hugged them over and over, before eventually accepting the kerchief that Penelope offered and letting them help her up and lead her to the campfire. "Clarissa? Leigh?"

"Leigh, I'm not certain, but she wasn't a threat to anyone and she has powerful connections throughout the continent." That was true, Lily had completely forgotten that. Scholars got overlooked, so people tended to forget that some very powerful people were scholars, and those scholars talked to each other.

So Leigh might just still be alive.

"Clarissa…she has powerful friends, too, but she was also one of the most dangerous of the four of us. I could not get to her before they hauled her away, and then my priority had to be getting Penelope here, where we could be relatively safe and wait for you."

"You already knew about this place?"

"I'm your bodyguard and personal assassin, of course I did." She glanced at Josiah, who shared her rueful smile. "I also knew his secret."

Lilly threw up her hands. "Everyone knows everything except for me. Some leader I'm proving to be." She couldn't deny it hurt. All her friends, all the people she trusted, people she'd thought were dead, had never entirely trusted her. "Excuse me please." She rose and strode off into the woods, until she came to a pile of stones that looked like they'd once been a large column or something, and sat down on them, staring off into the trees.

She was tired. She couldn't grieve her father, her people, couldn't recover from the hurt of the betrayal, and now it seemed it was just one thing after another. Scout was related to the wolves who'd stolen her kingdom, killed her father. People she trusted had been keeping secrets from her, important secrets. A sanctuary for times of emergency. That Josiah wasn't even human. She felt like a fucking fool, the naïve little princess flitting about oblivious to the realities of the world, when she'd always felt like she'd done so well at not being such a tiresome stereotype.

Shows what she knew. Maybe everyone was better off without her as queen, if even the people she cared about most didn't trust her.

What other secrets hadn't they told her? What else did they talk about, laugh at her about, behind her back? Damn it, she didn't need this right now.

She stifled a sigh at the sound of a familiar tread, and scooted over so Scout could sit next to her.

"Here," Scout said, handing her a steaming bowl. "You need to eat."

"Thank you."

"For what it's worth, they all look like kicked puppies right now. Don't think they were keeping secrets because they didn't trust you. Josiah has always been cagey about what he is, as too often when he reveals it, the wrong people always manage to find out. They rarely hurt him, but they've hurt people he cares about to get to him, more than once. Got a nice scar myself, from helping him drive back hunters one night. If I had to guess, I'd say Alice found out by mistake, and it wasn't her secret to share."

"They could have told me about this place. What else haven't they told me?"

"I think they would do whatever they felt was necessary to keep you safe and, where possible, happy." Scout nudged her shoulder. "Bodyguards always keep things like this a secret. The fewer people who know, the safer you are, even you."

"I didn't where it was or how to get there. How is that safe?"

Scout sighed. "Fair enough, though I'd wager they trusted the forest would show you. Certainly it has shown itself to favor you." She cast a Lily a playful look. "Troublemakers stick together, I guess. Come on, finish your soup and then, if you're inclined, give your friends a chance to apologize. You don't have to, obviously."

"No, I will. At the very least, there are bigger concerns than my hurt feelings."

"My mother used to say that the world does not stop for a broken heart, but neither does a broken heart step aside for the world to pass. Small things don't stop just because of big things. There's no line."

"So very wise, Lady Farahild. What would I do without you?"

"Oh, shut up."

Lily laughed and finished her soup, letting Scout take the bowl even though she could have carried it herself just fine.

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