I grimaced again and pulled out another one. “Help me?”
She raised her eyebrows in an excellent imitation of Daria but came over and began to pick foliage from my tangled curls. “You should come in, or Louis will eat your breakfast. Mine too, probably.”
Despite myself I smiled. Poor Louis. He didn’t really eat that much more than everyone else. But the smile quickly dropped away as the memory of Alexander’s face filled my mind.
I cleared my throat. “I’m actually not hungry. But you should go.”
Danni eyed me skeptically, but when I shooed her away with my hands, she shrugged and left. I trudged down to the stream for a wash, pretending I wasn’t intensely aware of the clearing, tensed for any sign of Alexander.
I didn’t hear anything, but I must have sensed something anyway because I suddenly felt his presence behind me and spun to find him holding out a bowl of porridge.
“You need to eat.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and said nothing.
“We’re going to be training. You need to keep up your strength.”
“So nice to know you care.”
He winced. “You know I care, Snow.” His voice was low. “Of course I care. You’re my oldest friend. And my queen. But we can’t…” His jaw clenched. “We can’t care like that.”
His obvious pain stabbed at me. I was being unfair, lashing out in my rejection, and I knew it. Of course Alexander cared for me. He had never done anything else. Could I really hold it against him that he didn’t love me? That he insisted on being the most loyal and protective of my subjects? He didn’t owe me anything—the scales were tipped far the other way.
Slowly I took the bowl and forced myself to eat a bite. I gave him a small smile although his eyes told me he knew it was false.
“Very well, then,” I said. “I’ll see you at training.”
“Snow, I…” He reached out a hand toward me before quickly dropping it again.
“I’ll see you at training,” I repeated, and wound around him to head toward the cottage. He deserved the same loyalty and care from me that he so freely gave. But my heart hurt too much to face him now. I needed space.
As he oversaw our morning training, giving praise where it was due and correction where it was needed, I discovered I was to have as much space as I needed.
“I have to leave immediately,” he told us all. “I was only able to get away for a short hunt.” His eyes found mine as he spoke, carrying a wealth of unspoken meaning. Eyes of suspicion were on him, and he couldn’t risk giving them reason to doubt.
“I just wanted to check on you all. And let you know I was safe.” Again his eyes dwelt on me, although he spoke the word all. He had wanted to check on me. Of course he had. Because while I was thinking about my heart, and admiring his muscles, he was focused on my future and my throne.
I sighed. It was hardly any wonder he didn’t love me. The only surprise was that he found me a worthy queen to follow. I squeezed my eyes shut briefly. Was he blinded by a lifetime of friendship? Who was I fooling when I thought I could rouse the court to follow me?
A breath against my ear made my eyes whip open again.
“Farewell, Snow. I’ll return within two weeks to report on my progress.” His voice, already a whisper, dropped even lower. “If I can.”
His final three words robbed me of speech, my limbs already paralyzed by his nearness and the warmth of his breath on my face. When he stepped back, the cold air that rushed in made me sway, and it took all of my poor strength to lock my limbs in place.
By the time I had schooled myself enough to risk speaking, he had disappeared. I looked around frantically, but I couldn’t even see the place where he had entered the trees.
“Wait. Is he gone? Already?”
Daria hurried over to give me an awkward hug. “Don’t worry, Snow. He said he’ll be back soon.”
Her sympathetic eyes made me want to cry. She thought she was consoling me on the absence of my lover. But Alexander didn’t love me. Not like that, at least. And I had once again failed as a queen. Somehow he had been and gone, and I had been so preoccupied with myself, I had failed to even get the names of the nobles who had replied. Let alone the replies themselves. How could he have left without giving me a proper report?
Did he think I had nothing to contribute? And, if so, why did he think I would be a good ruler? Was it merely loyalty to my father that made him seek to put me on the throne? Or hatred for Alida, who didn’t even have my mostly good intentions?
The thought of my stepmother made me grit my teeth. For all my failings, I couldn’t be a worse queen than her. Could I?
None of the children commented when I threw myself into my training with a new ferocity. I could run for longer and climb noticeably higher now. And I could easily break the hold of all three of the older children. But still I pushed myself harder.
I volunteered each week to do the circuit of traps on my own, pushing myself to run between them, slowing only when I needed to read the forest signs we had used to mark their locations. And I always tried to come back with some extra greenery I had foraged on the way.
Several times Daria attempted to bring up Alexander, but I turned her away with a look and a word and—true to form—she didn’t pry. Her eyes seemed sad when they rested on me now, though. And I often had to stop myself from defiantly declaring that I was fine. Just fine.
But when two weeks turned into three weeks, I had to admit—at least to myself—that I wasn’t fine. And, far more importantly, it was possible Alexander wasn’t fine either. His final three words continued to haunt me. He had promised to return by now—if he could. So what did it mean that he obviously could not?
Except I knew what it meant, of course. It meant nothing good.
As the fourth week began, I abandoned my training one day and walked through the forest. It had scared me once, this place—I hoped it would soothe me now. But the solitude only reminded me that I had stayed safe and hidden here while Alexander strode into danger. I forced my mind to stop endlessly playing through the possible calamities that might have befallen him, and to consider instead something far more practical. What did I intend to do about it?
I could sense that a crucial moment had come. I had—to all appearances—lost my only ally. Without him, I didn’t even know which nobles I might safely approach. If ever there was a time to abandon this foolhardy attempt to take my throne, now was the moment.
Yet that option I discarded without further consideration. I had made a promise to my hosts—even if they didn’t know it—and I would not abandon them or the rest of my people with so little effort. But even without all that, I knew with every part of me that I could never abandon Alexander. Just as he had never abandoned me.
Without conscious thought, I turned my steps back toward the clearing, following the trail I had left as I wandered in the other direction. A small animal skittered through the underbrush behind me, but I didn’t flinch or turn. As I continued on my way, I shook my head at the thought of the fear and desperation that had consumed me the first time I stumbled into the clearing.
As the last of the trees fell away, I paused to survey the cottage. It looked friendly now, familiar. My eyes traveled down to my own arms, hanging beside me. They, on the other hand, looked new and different. The line of new muscle reshaped them, and the calluses on my fingers gave them a new feel.
I was not the same person who had nearly died as I fled blindly from danger. I had worked hard to grow strong, and while the changes might only be skin deep, they still counted for something. I would pretend. Pretend my insides were as strong as my new outside. I would travel to the capital, and I would find Alexander. And together, we would find a way. I was done with hiding.
Jack and Poppy protested my departure loudly and long, which touched me more than I cared to admit. Louis and Danni clearly didn’t think it was a good idea but didn’t want to align themselves with the younger two, while Anthony looked
almost relieved. I’d never quite managed to win him over.
Ben made no attempt to prevent me leaving, but his eyes looked worried, and I wanted to hug him for his concern. I carefully refrained, however, for the sake of his dignity.
I had expected Daria to be the most against the idea, but to my surprise she made no demur. Instead she merely embraced me tightly, whispering in my ear, “Don’t worry, you’ll find him.” She pulled back to look into my eyes. “And if you don’t, well, you know where to find us.”
“Thank you, Daria,” I said, wishing I had better words. “For everything.” Why did it feel as if I were the thirteen-year-old and she the mother seeing me off into the world?
I left the cottage with many backward glances and waves, taking with me the same satchel I had arrived with. Only this time it held a number of practical items I had been missing before, the most important of which was a large water skin. But I knew that this skin wasn’t the most valuable of my new acquisitions. As I walked steadily and swiftly beside the stream, I knew that my new strength and skills were far more valuable.
I had spent some time with Ben while he described everything they knew of the surrounding area, especially the path they had taken on their single trip to Lestern on the coast. I had studied enough maps of the kingdom to bring them to mind now with relative ease, and Lestern was the only point on those maps the children knew relative to their own home. Given their position in comparison to the small city, along with the stream, I was fairly confident I had worked out roughly where the cottage lay within the forest.
And so I had plotted a course back to the capital. I couldn’t be sure how long it would take me, although I suspected it would be several days of walking. As long as my path led me beside the stream, I would make better progress than I had coming into the forest. Then I had been weakened by hunger and fear, my muscles not trained as they were now. But once I was forced to leave the stream, I would move much more slowly than I had done in my wild flight with Alexander. Then I had only needed to follow—or even be carried. Now I would be responsible for finding the way.
In the end, the two balanced each other out, and it took me nearly three full days of travel to retrace the steps that had taken me a night and two days. And despite my training, my muscles ached from the nights on the hard ground and the endless repetition of the walking. Nothing to the pain I had felt in the other direction, however.
And my full stomach and knowledge of the forest had given me confidence, chasing away any skittishness at being on my own. Except that by the afternoon on the third day, my old fear had returned, an all-too-familiar friend. Even with my training, I couldn’t walk silently through the forest as Alexander could. And every crack of a twig or rustle of leaves made me wince. Because this patch of forest was familiar and far too near the capital.
In the end I gave up and found a dense bush to crawl into to await nightfall. I couldn’t risk running into someone who would recognize me, and I didn’t trust that I had the ability to avoid anyone else in the area. I was glad for the decision when a huntsman passed my hiding place not long after, heading toward the city with a string of game. And two guards passed not long after that.
Their presence—even though they had shown no sign of detecting me—left my heart racing for long minutes after they had disappeared. What were they doing so far out here? Had the search for me resumed? Or for Alexander, perhaps? Was he on the run and hadn’t wanted to risk leading someone to the cottage?
The wait for the last of the light to fade seemed endless.
Chapter 13
When darkness finally fell, I crept back out and resumed my progress toward the castle. I knew it better than the city, and Alexander had a room there, as all the huntsmen did. If it seemed safe, I would check his room for signs of him first.
I had made it perhaps half of the remaining distance when flickering light through the trees ahead sent me scrambling for cover. When I peered out from inside yet another patch of bush, I saw a second pair of guards pass by. At least the lanterns they carried had made them easy to avoid. Still I waited until long after the light had disappeared to reemerge.
Twice more I had to duck for cover before I reached the castle wall. By the last time, it had become apparent the guards were on patrol through the sections of forest nearest the castle. I chewed my lip as I made the final approach to the wall. They had never done so during my father’s reign. Was Alida afraid? Did she have reason to expect an attack? Or was this somehow part of her search for me?
I kept a careful eye out for further guards as I followed the wall, looking for the drain Alexander and I had used as children. I had mused on our way out that I might still fit through it. I could only hope I was right. And that no one had fixed the loose grate.
When I finally found the tiny creek that had necessitated the drain, I took a moment to steady myself before getting down on my hands and knees and crawling through the water. My eyes strained against the darkness, and it took all my willpower not to imagine the sorts of crawling creatures that might be lurking in such a place.
A brush of something soft against my face made me gasp, a scream only just stifled in time. When my questing hands at last felt the grate, I sagged in relief to feel it give way beneath my hands. No doubt it had been many, many years since anyone had checked on it.
Setting it to one side, I drew in a breath, sucking myself in as small as I could as I squeezed through. For a heart-stopping moment I thought I might get stuck, but with a scrape and a tearing sound, I pushed through.
When I popped out into the castle grounds, I looked quickly around, but no one was in sight. Closing my eyes, I allowed myself a brief moment of relief before turning and thrusting my arms and head back into the drain to replace the grate.
As I crept through the trees, I wished they were as thick as out in the forest. If I had been twitchy out there, it was nothing to my constant state of alert now. Memories of my initial flight so many weeks ago kept racing through my mind. I had been afraid then, but it had been a vague, nebulous fear. And one alleviated by Alexander’s solid presence. Now that I walked the same path alone—knowing that not only my safety, but Alexander’s as well, might rely solely on me—everything looked different.
By the time I reached the actual castle, I knew that my thought of visiting Alexander’s room had been nothing but foolishness. He slept in a busy wing, his room a single one among many occupied by various huntsmen and servants. And all of them would recognize me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come into the castle grounds at all.
But even as I was thinking it, my feet led me to a familiar stretch of wall. I looked up at the distant window. Did I dare? Surely no one else had taken my rooms in my absence. My stepmother must at least be feigning grief at my disappearance…Mustn’t she?
I was sure my own servants wouldn’t turn on me, if I could just find one of them. I needed information, and I didn’t know where else to turn.
I gripped the satchel, tugging at the strap to check it sat securely across my shoulder and chest. I didn’t want it swinging free and unbalancing me on the climb.
Stop procrastinating, said my bothersome internal voice. Get on with it!
I drew a deep breath and reached up to grip a sturdy handful of vine. I could do this.
And by the time I had ascended to the height of the first floor, a warmth filled my chest. I could do this. It wasn’t so different from climbing a tree, really. In some ways it was even easier, since the vines grew more thickly than most branches. I began to move more quickly, the memory of my last nearly disastrous descent overtaken by older ones. Memories of clambering up and down these vines as a child. When had I stopped being adventurous and become so afraid?
But I didn’t have to think long for the answer to that. When my father became ill and fear had started to consume my life. I pushed the thought of him away. Being back here at the castle brought him all too forcefully to mind, but I couldn’t afford the distraction. Not now.
> When I reached the window, I let go with one hand and dug a stray hair clip from my tangled curls. Sliding it through the gap between the window panes, I moved it upward, popping the catch up and open. Another technique that had once been familiar to me.
When I swung myself over the sill and into the room, I allowed myself only a single moment of triumph. Creeping to the dressing room door, I pressed my ear against it. Silence. I eyed the gap by the floor, but no light shone through.
My hand trembling slightly against the handle, I slowly opened the door a crack before pausing again to listen. Still nothing. And more than nothing. A heavy stillness—almost a mustiness—overwhelmed me. I pushed the door the rest of the way open with more confidence. No one had been using this room.
The curtains remained open, and the moon provided enough light for me to survey the empty room. Nothing looked out of place, although someone had tidied the mess I had made before my departure. I ran a hand along my desk. It came away dust free. So my maids must still be at work here, although their mistress had disappeared.
I looked a little longingly at my comfortable bed—one I would have all to myself—before turning resolutely away. It had turned out well the last time I had been startled awake in a bed where I didn’t belong, but I couldn’t risk it here in the castle.
I let my hand run across the book that still rested on my bedside table and then crossed to the door that led to the corridor. But I hesitated in front of it. The late hour meant the passageways should be empty, but where would I be going? I knew where the servants’ quarters were located, of course, but I didn’t know each of their individual sleeping places. And I could hardly go bumbling through them at this time of night. No doubt some of the servants were loyal to my stepmother, just as the guards seemed to be.
I bit my lip and stepped back from the door. Better to stay here and wait to see who came. Clearly someone still cleaned here, and I could only hope it was my own maids. I glanced again at the bed and decided I could safely remove one of the pillows. I would settle myself in the dressing room. There I would be out of sight but able to hear anyone who entered my main room. And if it turned out to be someone who was less than friendly, then my exit would be close at hand.
A Dream of Ebony and White: A Retelling of Snow White (Beyond the Four Kingdoms Book 4) Page 11
