CHAPTER TWO
We screamed. We yelled with all the power of our lungs, knowing the wind, hills, and distance plucked our nervous freedom from any ears that might listen. We screamed with giddy abandon and a primal need to believe in our flight. If we didn’t believe, fear would overtake us. I already felt it nipping at my back as I pushed harder.
We headed north, aware that the stable boy would watch us until we vanished into the forest. When we were well within its cover, we found the streambed that I’d seen on hunts with my brothers and doubled back through the trickling waters, walking in the shallow stream until we found a rocky embankment on the other side to use for our exit, leaving no prints or trail behind us for others to follow.
Once we hit firm level ground again, we dug in our heels and rode as if a monster were chasing us. We rode and we rode, following a little-used path that hugged the dense pines, which would give us refuge if we needed to duck in quickly. Sometimes we were dizzy with laughter, sometimes tears trickled backward across our cheeks, pushed by our speed, but most of the time we were silent, not quite believing we had actually done it.
After an hour, I wasn’t sure what ached more, my thighs, my cramping calves, or my bruised backside, all unaccustomed to anything more than a stiff royal gait because these last few months my father would not allow more. My fingers were numb from gripping the reins, but Pauline didn’t stop, so neither did I.
My dress streamed behind me, now wedding me to a life of uncertainty, but that frightened me far less than the certain life I had faced. This life was a dream of my own making, one where my imagination was my only boundary. It was a life that I alone commanded.
I lost track of time, the rhythm of the hooves the only thing that mattered, each beat widening the divide. Finally, almost in unison, our gleaming chestnut Ravians snorted and slowed of their own accord, as if a secret message had been spoken between them. Ravians were the pride of the Morrighan stables, and these had given us all they were worth. I looked to what little of the west I could see above the treetops. There were still at least three hours of daylight. We couldn’t stop yet. We pressed on at a slower pace, and finally as the sun disappeared behind the Andeluchi Range, we searched for a safe place to camp for the night.
I listened carefully as we rode the horses through the trees and scouted for what might be a likely shelter. My neck prickled when the sudden distant squawk of birds pealed through the forest like a warning. We came upon the crumbled ruins of the Ancients, partial walls and pillars that were now more forest than civilization. They were thick with green moss and lichen, which was probably the only thing still knitting the remains upright. Maybe the modest ruins were once part of a glorious temple, but now ferns and vines were reclaiming them for the earth. Pauline kissed the back of her hand as both blessing and protection from spirits that might linger and clicked the reins to hurry past. I didn’t kiss my hand, nor hurry past, but instead surveyed the green bones of another time with curiosity, as I always did, and wondered at the people who had created them.
We finally came to a small clearing. With a last glimmer of daylight overhead, and both of us sagging in our saddles, we agreed silently that this was the place to camp. All I wanted to do was collapse on the grass and sleep until morning, but the horses were just as weary and still deserved our attention, since they were our only real way to escape.
We removed the saddles, letting them fall with an unceremonious clunk to the ground because we didn’t have the strength for more, then shook out the damp blankets and hung them on a branch to dry. We patted the animals’ rears, and they went straight to the stream for a drink.
Pauline and I collapsed together, both too tired to eat, though neither of us had eaten all day. This morning we had been too nervous over our clandestine plans to even have a proper meal. Though I’d considered running away for weeks, it had been unthinkable even for me, until my farewell feast last night with my family in Aldrid Hall. That was when everything changed and the unthinkable suddenly seemed like my only possible choice. When toasts and laughter were flying through the room, and I was suffocating under the weight of the revelry and the satisfied smiles of the cabinet, my eyes met Pauline’s. She was standing in waiting against the far wall with the other attendants. When I shook my head, she knew. I couldn’t do it. She nodded in return.
It was a silent exchange that no one else noticed, but late in the evening when everyone had retired, she returned to my chamber and the plans poured out between us. There was so little time and so much to arrange, and almost all of it hinged on getting two horses saddled with no one the wiser. At dawn, Pauline bypassed the Stable Master, who was busy preparing teams for the royal procession, and spoke quietly with the youngest stable boy, an inexperienced lad who would be too intimidated to question a direct request from the queen’s court. So far, our hasty, patched-together plans had worked out.
Though we were too weary to eat, as the sun dropped lower and the light grew dimmer, our exhaustion gave way to fear. We scavenged for firewood to keep creatures that lurked in the forest a safe distance from us, or at least allow us to see their teeth before they devoured us.
Darkness came quickly and masked the whole world beyond the small flickering circle warming our feet. I watched the flames lick the air in front of us, listened to the crackle, the hiss, and the rustle of settling wood. These were the only sounds, but we listened for more.
“Do you suppose there are bears?” Pauline asked.
“Most certainly.” But my mind had already turned to tigers. I had faced one eye to eye when I was only ten, so close I felt his breath, his snarling, his spit, his utter immensity about to engulf me. I had waited to die. Why he hadn’t attacked instantly I didn’t know, but a distant shout from my brother searching for me was all that saved my life. The animal disappeared into the forest as quickly as he had arrived. No one believed me when I told them. There were reports of tigers in the Cam Lanteux, but their numbers were few. Morrighan wasn’t their natural realm. The beast’s glassy yellow eyes still haunted my dreams. I peered past the flames into the darkness, where my dagger was still inside my saddlebag, just steps outside our safe circle of light. How foolish I was to think of it only now.
“Or worse than bears, there might be barbarians,” I said with mock terror in my voice, trying to lighten both our moods.
Pauline’s eyes grew wide, though a smile played behind them. “I’ve heard they breed like rabbits and bite the heads off small animals.”
“And speak only in snorting grunts.” I’d heard the stories too. Soldiers brought tales back from their patrols about the barbarians’ brutal ways and growing numbers. It was only because of them that the longstanding animosity between Morrighan and Dalbreck had been put aside and an uneasy alliance struck—at my expense. A large, fierce kingdom on the other side of the continent with a growing population and rumored to be stretching its borders was more of a threat than a somewhat civilized neighboring kingdom that was at least descended from the chosen Remnant. Together, the combined forces of Morrigan and Dalbreck could be great, but alone they were miserably vulnerable. Only the Great River and the Cam Lanteux held the barbarians back.
Pauline threw another dry branch onto the fire. “You’re gifted at languages—you should have no problem with the barbarians’ grunts. That’s how half the king’s court speaks.”
We broke into giggles, imitating the Chancellor’s rumbles and the Scholar’s haughty sighs.
“Have you ever seen one?” she asked.
“Me? See a barbarian? I’ve been kept on such a short chain these last few years, I’ve scarcely seen anything.” My free days of roaming the hills and chasing after my brothers ended abruptly when my parents decided I was beginning to look like a woman so I should behave like one too. I was ripped from the freedoms I shared with Walther, Regan, and Bryn, like exploring the ruins in the woods, racing our horses across meadows, hunting small game, and getting into a fair amount of mischief. As we got older, their mischiefs continued to be shrugged off, but mine were not, and I knew from that point that I was measured by a different stick than my brothers.
After my activities were restricted, I developed a knack for slipping out unnoticed—as I did today. Not a skill my parents would have prized, though I was quite proud of it. The Scholar suspected my meanderings and set weak traps, which I easily avoided. He knew I had rummaged through the ancient text room, which was forbidden, the texts supposedly too delicate for careless hands like mine. But back then, even though I’d managed to sneak away from the confines of the citadelle, there was really nowhere to go from there. Everyone in Civica knew who I was, and word would certainly have gotten back to my parents. As a result, my escapes had mostly been limited to occasional nighttime forays to dim back rooms for games of cards or dice with my brothers and their trusted friends who knew how to keep their mouths shut about Walther’s little sister, and who might have even been sympathetic to my plight. My brothers had always enjoyed the look of surprise on their friends’ faces when I gave it as well as I took it. Words and topics were not spared because of my gender or title, and those scandalous chinwags educated me in ways that a royal tutor never could.
I shaded my eyes with my hand as if I were peering into the dark woods searching for them. “I’d welcome the diversion of a savage right now. Barbarians, show yourselves!” I shouted. There was no answer. “I do believe we frighten them.”
Pauline laughed, but our nervous bravado hung in the air between us. We both knew there had been occasional sightings of small bands of them in the woods crossing from Venda into the forbidden territories of the Cam Lanteux. Sometimes they even ventured boldly into the kingdoms of Morrighan and Dalbreck, disappearing as easily as wolves when they were pursued. For now, we were still too close to the heart of Morrighan to need to be worried about them. I hoped. We were more likely to encounter vagabonds, the drifting nomads who sometimes strayed from the Cam Lanteux. I had never seen any myself, but had heard of their unusual ways. They rode in their colorful wagons to trade trinkets, buy supplies, sell their mysterious potions, or sometimes play music for a coin or two, but still, they weren’t the ones who worried me most. My greatest worries were my father and what I had dragged Pauline into. There was so much we hadn’t had time to discuss last night.
I watched her as she absently stared into the fire, adding kindling as needed. Pauline was resourceful, but I knew she wasn’t fearless, and that made her courage today far greater than mine. She had everything to lose by what we had done. I had everything to gain.
“I’m sorry, Pauline. What a tangle I’ve made for you.”
She shrugged. “I was going to leave anyway. I told you.”
“But not like this. You could have left under far more favorable circumstances.”
She grinned, unable to disagree. “Maybe.” Her grin slowly faded, her eyes searching my face. “But I never could have left for as important a reason. We can’t always wait for the perfect timing.”
I didn’t deserve a friend like her. I ached with the compassion she had shown me. “We’ll be hunted,” I told her. “There will be a bounty on my head.” This was something we hadn’t talked about in the wee hours of the morning.
She looked away and shook her head vigorously. “No, not from your own father.”
I sighed, hugging my shins closer and staring at the glowing embers near my feet. “Especially from my father. I’ve committed an act of treason, the same as if a soldier of his army had deserted. And worse, I’ve humiliated him. I’ve made him look weak. His cabinet won’t let him forget that. He’ll have to act.”
She couldn’t disagree with this either. From the time I was twelve, as a member of the royal court, I’d been required to attend and witness the executions of traitors. It was a rare occurrence, since public hangings proved an effective deterrent, but we both knew the story of my father’s own sister. She had died before I was born when she threw herself from the East Tower. Her son had deserted his regiment, and she knew that even the king’s nephew wouldn’t be spared. He wasn’t. He was hung the next day, and they were both buried in disgrace in the same unmarked grave. Some lines couldn’t be crossed in Morrighan. Loyalty was one of them.
Pauline frowned. “But you’re not a soldier, Lia. You’re his daughter. You had no choice, and that meant I had no choice. No one should be forced to marry someone they don’t love.” She lay back, gazing up at the stars and wrinkling her nose. “Especially not some old stuffy, puffy prince.”
We broke into giggles again, and more than the air I breathed, I was thankful for Pauline. We watched the twinkling constellations together, and she told me about Mikael, the promises they’d made to each other, the sweet things he whispered in her ear, and the plans they’d made for when he returned from his last patrol with the Royal Guard at the end of this month. I saw the love in her eyes and the change in her voice when she spoke of him.
She told me how much she missed him but said she was confident he would find her because he knew her like no one else in the world knew her. They had talked of Terravin for countless hours—of the life they’d build there and the children they’d raise. The more she talked, the more the ache within me grew. I had only vague, empty thoughts of the future, mostly of what I didn’t want, while Pauline had fashioned dreams with real people and real details. She had created a future with someone else.
I wondered what it would be like to have someone who knew me so well, someone who would look right into my soul, someone whose very touch sent all other thoughts from my mind. I tried to imagine someone who hungered for the same things I did and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, and not because it fulfilled a loveless agreement on paper.
Pauline squeezed my hand and sat up, adding more wood to the fire. “We should get some sleep so we can make an early start.”
She was right. We had at least a week’s ride ahead of us, assuming we didn’t get lost. Pauline hadn’t been to Terravin since she was a child and wasn’t sure of the way, and I had never been there at all, so we could only follow her instincts and rely on the help of passing strangers. I spread a blanket on the ground for us to sleep on and brushed the needles of the forest floor from my hair.
She glanced at me hesitantly. “Do you mind if I say the holy remembrances first? I’ll say them softly.”
“Of course you should,” I whispered, trying to display a modicum of respect for her sake and feeling a twinge of guilt that I wasn’t compelled to say them myself. Pauline was faithful, while I hadn’t made a secret of my disdain for the traditions that had dictated my future.
She knelt, saying the holy remembrances, her voice hypnotic, like the soft chords of the harp that echoed throughout the abbey. I watched her, thinking how foolish fate was. She’d have made a far better First Daughter of Morrighan, the daughter my parents would have wanted, quiet and discreet of tongue, patient, loyal to the ways of old, pure of heart, perceptive to the unsaid, closer to having a gift than I would ever be, perfect for a First Daughter in all ways.
I lay back and listened to the story she chanted, the story of the original First Daughter using the gift the gods gave her to lead the chosen Remnant away from the devastation to safety and a new land, leaving behind a ravaged world and building a new, hopeful one. In her sweet lilt, the story was beautiful, redemptive, compelling, and I became lost in its rhythm, lost in the depth of the woods surrounding us, lost in the world that lay beyond, lost in the magic of a time gone by. In her tender notes, the story reached all the way to the beginning of the universe and back again. I could almost make sense of it.
I stared into the circle of sky high above the pines, distant and untouchable, sparkling, alive, and a longing grew within me to reach out and share its magic. The trees reached for the magic too, then shivered in unison as if an army of ghosts had just swept across their upper boughs—an entire knowing world just beyond my reach.
I thought of all my hidden moments as a child, sneaking away in the middle of the night to the calmest part of the citadelle—the roof—a place where the constant noise was hushed and I became one of those quiet specks connected to the universe. I felt close there, to something I couldn’t name.
If I could only reach out and touch the stars, I would know everything. I would understand.
Know what, my darling?
This, I would say, pressing my hand against my chest. I had no words to describe the ache inside me.
There’s nothing to know, sweet child. It’s only the chill of the night. My mother would gather me in her arms and lead me back to bed. Later, when my nighttime wanderings didn’t stop, she had a lock added to the rooftop door just out of my reach.
Pauline finally finished, her last words a hushed reverent whisper. So shall it be for evermore.
“Evermore,” I whispered to myself, wondering just how long that was.
She curled up on the blanket next to me, and I pulled the wedding cloak up over both of us. The sudden silence made the woods take a bold step closer, and our circle of light grew smaller.
Pauline quickly fell asleep, but the events of the day still churned inside me. It didn’t matter that I was exhausted. My tired muscles twitched, and my mind jumped from one thought to the next like a hapless cricket dodging a stampede of feet.
My only consolation as I looked up at the blinking stars was that the prince of Dalbreck was probably still awake too, furiously jostling home on a rutted road, his old bones aching with pain in a cold, uncomfortable carriage—with no young bride to warm him.