As soon as it’s gone, Aurora closes her shutters quickly, tears pricking at her eyes, mortification stinging her cheeks. Is she losing her mind, or did a starling really just speak to her—and not just speak, but tease, call her useless, and compare her to a scarecrow?
She gets back into bed, either to sleep and dream, or else to wake up from this eerie nightmare, but neither happens. Instead she lies awake, the starling’s words lingering in her ears. Useless.
She sits up and pushes back the covers. She goes to the hearth and lights a lantern, then wraps herself in her robe and hurries into the secret passageway to Isbe’s room. She has to tell her about the bird—maybe her sister can help her understand what it means. But when she flips open the tapestry, she sees wind rattling the open shutters. The fire is out. The room is empty. Isbe has gone.
Aurora adjusts the heavy cloak around her shoulders and lifts her lantern higher as she steps into the thick, moon-bright snow, reminding herself why she’s doing this. She forces herself to think of the talking bird. She will not be useless. She will not let Isbe go. She has always needed her sister. Now her sister needs her. She’s not going to let her just run away like that. She’ll find her, bring her back, fight for her to stay.
Suspecting Gilbert’s aid, the first thing she does is look for hoofprints, which are easy enough to find in the new-fallen snow. She traces them past the stables and along the dark woods at the edge of the castle village. She passes the unruly thicket where she and Isbe used to imagine that evil monsters dwelled at night, the branches twisted into an ornate latticework glistening with frost. The path of snow prints leads her to the main southerly road, which first winds closer to the shores of the strait and then curves west, veering toward the vast expanse of land beyond the royal grounds. Peasants sleep later in winter, and the area appears deserted. She rapidly loses the meager set of hoofprints amid the mud and slush and chaos of horse tracks in the road, all silvered in a predawn haze.
She turns, half tempted to go back. Though she has only gone a few miles, she is as far as she’s ever been from the castle.
Sneaking away had in fact been easy, which gave Aurora an uneasy feeling. She’s never considered simply leaving the palace before—why would she?
Now she’s hoping that there will be so much to do in the morning in preparation for her birthday feast that it will take everyone a little while to realize that the princess herself has vanished, and the bastard sister too. She knows the council members will be quite busy doing their best to hide their fears about the princes’ murders, while dispatching soldiers and guards to fortify the LaMorte border.
And if all goes well, she’ll catch up to Isbe by the afternoon, and they’ll return safe and sound in time for the celebration.
A horse-drawn cart clops toward her, and she moves to the side of the road as its giant wheels shoot mud up her ankles. She’s partly hoping that its driver will stop and ask if she needs help, but she can’t bring herself to wave him down, fearing she could be recognized and sent home as soon as the driver realizes she doesn’t speak.
She keeps her head down and continues walking.
The road is disturbingly quiet. It occurs to Aurora that she really has very little sense of Deluce as a nation, of what it’s really like to live here. She’s been introduced to a variety of lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, noblemen and noblefaeries alike, but she’s never once been invited to their homes, nor seen the great population of peasants at work.
There’s a rustle in the trees, and a bird darts out of the underbrush, flapping into the sky. Could it be the same starling? Worry blossoms inside her. There are so many things lurking in this world about which she knows so little: magic that has the power to give birds speech, tensions that drive men to murder. Her heart races as though trying to speak for her, to tell her to stop, to turn back. This is no way to spend a sixteenth birthday—wandering alone.
Another bird shrieks.
A distant scream rings out—maybe an owl.
Or could it be the howl of a killer, covered in the stale blood of two princes, hungry for more?
To be safe, Aurora steps off the road and into the soft thickness of the surrounding woods. Even with her lantern, it’s dark—so dark. It’s too late, or too early, for a girl—a princess—to be out alone.
This was a mistake. She’ll turn home and demand that the council send out a proper search party to discover Isbe’s whereabouts and bring her back. She’ll find a way. Perhaps she can refuse to marry Prince William—the third and youngest son of the late king of Aubin—until this one wish has been granted.
Yes. That’s what she’ll do. She’ll double back, sticking to the woods, which are speckled slightly with the last dregs of moonlight.
But even upon turning around, pushing past underbrush and dodging the low-hanging branches of the trees, many still covered in snow, she begins to find herself disoriented. She’d been only a few feet from the road, hadn’t she? But the road, of course, isn’t lit, and so she can’t quite tell. Better to chance bandits on the road than wolves in the forest. She moves a few feet in what she is sure must be the right direction, but only finds herself surrounded by more woods. Is this the royal forest? She begins to run, urgency pumping through her veins. Her dress tangles in roots and branches, and she hears a tear, but she doesn’t care. She trips and falls onto her knees, dropping the lantern. The flame sputters out. With no way to relight it, she leaves it on the ground and gets up quickly, her fear spiking. She runs toward the road.
The road isn’t there.
She turns around again and sees a glimmer of light. That must be it: the moon against a frozen puddle. Pulse hammering in her temples, she runs harder. She finds herself not beside the road at all, but near a cottage. Its windows are shuttered and completely covered in ivy. It must be one of the many old homes the royal families of the past used to summer in—ideal for hunting excursions. There are several of these throughout the royal forest, Aurora knows, many now long abandoned. Her father enjoyed hunting when he was young and decreed that all the deer in the forest be reserved for his use alone—but he apparently gave up the sport when he married her mother. Since then, the royal forest has become thick with foliage and busy with game that no one is allowed to hunt.
This cottage is large but extremely humble in comparison to the palace, with only two levels and not a single tower. The light she thought she had seen is not the moon but a strange cluster of fireflies huddled at the base of the front roof. As her eyes adjust, she can make out the shape of a small wooden swing tied with two ropes, lightly swaying in the wind.