As I tripped into another side street to avoid a man selling apples from a basket, I found the corner of the outermost rim of the city. Now to reach the exit.
What would I do when I reached the gates? Continue on foot? Ambrosia had said to stay near the road and avoid wandering. But where would I go? I longed for Elizabetta’s company, her hands on my shoulders to offer comfort. A deep ache tugged at my chest.
Ahead, the gates loomed over the city entrance. The thirty-foot-tall elaborately molded iron portcullis had just been opened by the guards. I hid behind a large hay bale and waited. Would it be odd for a single peasant girl to leave the city alone?
Horse-drawn caravans carrying wares from other towns came through the gates, followed by groups of people on foot holding baskets of goods. Discreetly, I gathered an armful of hay and held it anxiously to my body, waiting for a carriage on its way out of the city. As one approached, I slipped into the small group of merchants following the wheels and passed through the iron gates without anyone taking notice.
Outside the city, I eased away from the caravan and tucked myself behind a pile of sacks filled with horse grain. Chickens busily pecked the ground for loose feed.
The Alamantia breeding stables were a short walk west from the portcullis. At this time of the morning, the stable boys would be feeding and watering the herd. Sneaking in undetected would be no small task, and successfully stealing a horse would be a miracle. Perhaps this was too bold a decision, but I felt illogically confident as I crept into the barn and peered around for anyone working in the area.
Amazingly, the grounds were empty. The fifty stalls were filled only with horses noisily munching their breakfast.
I scanned the stables, looking for one to steal. These were not the grand steeds ridden by the wealthy but workhorses and animals being boarded for traveling merchants. The first stall to my left contained a hefty palomino. The pens across from him housed Podarian stallions. Unlike Brisleia’s stocky animals, used to pull heavy loads over hills and mountains, the foreign horses were leaner and taller, bred for elegance and speed. The prestige of the distinguished Podarian mounts would draw attention— not to mention the idea of escaping this life on any form of transportation associated with my heinous fiancé was grotesque. I would not be stealing those.
I unlatched the gate of the palomino’s stall. He continued chewing his grain and sweetly nudged my shoulder while I wrapped a bridle around his nose. Saddling him would take too much time. Opting for only reins, I hoped not to fall to my death.
I pulled the horse out of his stall and towards the open door.
“Where are we going?”
I froze at the deep voice. I’d been caught. My crime would be reported. I would be taken away in chains and forced to reveal my identity. This short-lived adventure had come to an end, my small taste of independence over before it began.
“I’m sorry.” I lowered my head in disgrace. “I was just trying to—”
Astonishingly, no one was in the stables. I spun around, trying to find the voice. I looked under the horse. Inside his stall. Behind the hay bales and stacked crates. Nothing. I took a long breath and remembered: You dream and hear voices.
I really was insane, and being on the outskirts of the city proved it. Foolishly, I’d hoped the Fae symptoms were the result of the palace’s stone walls bearing down on me. Though escaping meant I was ultimately done with the Divine, my deranged mind was here to stay, and without the protection of Alamantia, I would have to be wary of Medial Alexandria’s Onyx Guard.
I shuddered.
Composing my jitters, I led the horse out of the stables. I stood on a crate by the corral and climbed onto his bare back. Holding the reins in one hand, I grabbed a fistful of his mane with the other and kicked his belly. The horse jolted forwards, immediately responding to the hard blow from my boots. The hood of my cloak fell off my head, and clouds of dust rose behind us while the dirt and grass flew by under his hooves.
Alamantia receded into the distance. I glanced back, unconvinced. I had never seen the outside of the palace. The mountain loomed high and protective around the glistening gray-and-white marble towers. The ramparts shimmered as the sun rose over the chiseled stone that could control me no longer. The stories were true; my prison was the most beautiful structure in Athera. Goodbye. Forever.
We accelerated down the road, racing past the caravan I’d used to escape and out beyond the lines of delivery wagons. Eventually the road wound into the forest, where a canopy of evergreen trees allowed only a few scattered rays of morning light to pierce the gloom.
I squealed with satisfaction and swallowed tears of joy. I was free. Free from ridicule and judgment. Free from Prince Marcus. Free in ways the Divine Princess Ayleth Rose of Alamantia had never known.
I breathed in the intoxicating mountain air: pine, spruce, and the first flowers of early spring.
Finally, I wasn’t thinking about my posture or forcing a smile. I wasn’t owned by a king or being traded to a foreign Prince. I was never meant to be royalty. This was my true nature—to run wild with the wind straightening my curls and a secret dagger attached to my ankle.
I was never going back, and I welcomed the draw to this new world.
The horse galloped from left to right without reason. We could have been going in circles, but I didn’t care. The path had long since vanished. As my horse clumsily wove through the tree trunks, I realized my fantasizing had taken us far off the road and deep into the forest.
I pulled back on the reins, but the beast raced onwards at his own will. The loud clomping of his hooves on hard soil overpowered the songs of the morning birds. Before long, he would run too close to a tree, and I would be knocked to the ground.
“Stop!” I demanded.
The steed came to an abrupt halt. I lunged forwards, hitting my chest on the back of his neck. He stomped and pranced impatiently. Something inside me hinted that he had enjoyed running free with the same unrestrained exuberance as his rider.
I searched the trees, trying to spot the road through the greenery, but all that caught my eyes was the fluttering wings of birds and the wind gently swishing the leaves. The horse tossed his head, eager to resume our run. I combed the canopy for the sun to redirect me, but I knew nothing of navigation. Am I lost already? I have been away from the palace mere hours . . . I think?
It was best to turn back, but I couldn’t make sense of what direction I’d emerged from.
A sudden rustle in the bushes brought my heart slamming into my ribcage. A blur burst from the brush like cannon fire and landed directly in our path. A cat. I sighed, relieved it wasn’t an ill-tempered criminal.
The tiny feline’s coat was a beautiful, shimmering burgundy, and her warm amber eyes held a familiar sweetness that would have comforted me had not a hideous look of disdain also been warping her brow. My horse promptly backed away from the vicious feline when she began hissing and pacing. I pulled the reins to start in a new direction, but the cat leaped in front of us once again to block our path.
“Get out of here! Go! Shoo!” I shouted. The cat’s hissing turned to savage, spitting cries. “If you refuse to move, then I’m going to ride through you!”
The palomino nickered anxiously as the cat bared her silvery claws, ready to strike his legs. Undeterred, I kicked the horse’s sides. The beast bounded over the feline in one excited leap and ran through the woods at unprecedented speed, dodging trees and rocks with inches to spare. Yet something ran next to us, matching our pace and darting in and out of the shrubbery in brilliant flashes of burgundy fur.
I hooked the reins to the right. The horse’s hooves dug into the permafrost as we swiftly altered directions. Still, the cat pursued us. I kicked harder. We gathered speed. I changed directions, but the cat moved as though she knew what I planned to do. The poor nag was sweating beneath me. I could hear his heavy, exhausted blows as he gasped for air. I would have to rest him soon.
The forest opened into a clear
ing with a large pond. Defeated, I pulled back on the reins and dismounted to walk the horse to the water’s edge, where he rapidly commenced drinking.
The burgundy cat crawled out of the brush. She sauntered to the muddy bank and dipped her head to the water.
“Relentless, aren’t you?” I said as she plopped onto a patch of freshly fallen leaves, her pink tongue drooping out of her mouth. She seemed to be silently scolding me for wearing her to such fatigue. “Satisfied? Now that you have chased me well into oblivion?”
I surveyed the area. The horse’s hoofprints came out of the brush in a place too thick for us to have broken through. They vanished just inside the tree line, leaving no trace of their origin. After the many directional changes, I had absolutely no idea where I was. For all I knew, we were miles from the nearest town or village, and I certainly was a great distance from Alamantia City.
“I wasn’t supposed to go this far from the road.” I glanced at the cat, who had stopped panting to watch my every move.
The late-afternoon sunlight reflected over the pond, making the water glisten when fish broke the surface. By now, Elizabetta would know I’d left. Would she notify the King? It would be unlike her to immediately drag my parents into this. She would search the palace or question Ambrosia first. Once my father realized I had disappeared, he would send soldiers to scour the country. Prince Marcus would aid in the search. How long would that take? Would they trace my desertion to Ambrosia? My grandmother seemed to think that after a romp in the woods, I would return and embrace life as a Divine royal. What a ridiculous concept.
I slid down a tree trunk and settled onto the leafy ground. I urgently needed to find a mountain village for safety, but with the sun dipping lower in the sky, I’d be lucky to locate the road before sundown. I had not anticipated failing to find a suitable place to spend the night.
“When you work the day from dawn to dusk, it’s fine to have a nag.”
I scrambled across the ground and darted away from the trees, frantically spinning up on the balls of my feet. Someone was singing. A man. An older man. The road? Was it nearby? I rushed up and down the tree line, peering into the forest to find the mysterious traveler, but there were no signs of human life. Nothing moved through the brush. The road had not magically appeared.
“Who will ease your cares and pull your wares for the price of one grain bag.”
I turned on my heels. The singing was close. “Hello?” I said nervously and jumped when the cat gently rubbed my ankle. “We should keep moving . . .”
I patted the horse’s mane and reached for the reins.
“Ladies are few and whores are many, but a mare will see you through.”
My legs went rigid. My eyes widened. The horse raked his hoof over the dirt to the beat of the song, bouncing his head, and I remembered the tune. It was a common folk ditty the stable boys sang while they cleaned the stalls and fed the herd. No, this is not possible.
“So keep your cows and pull your plows with a stallion brave and true.”
My sanity cracked. The frightful scream that left my lungs echoed through the forest, and I slapped my hands over my mouth.
The horse panicked, rearing onto his hind legs and kicking his hooves. I could feel his fear. He was frantically searching for the source of my dismay and scaring himself senseless in the process. One thousand pounds of Alamantia steed shook the ground and crushed sticks to a pulp. The cat dived into the tree line for cover, and I followed to escape the onslaught of the terrified beast’s power exploding in the small clearing.
When the horse found his bearings, he leaped into the brush at full speed.
“No!” I threw myself back into the clearing, hoping to latch on to his reins, but the forest swallowed him faster than I could process.
I stood frozen in a desolate state of shock. Had I really heard him? Had he really been singing? Or did I imagine it? The voices. What if they had never been in my head? What if they were real?
I hunted for the cat and found her hiding under a broken pine branch, her tiny face sneering. “And what about you? Do you sing? Can you talk?” I asked acidly.
The cat’s third eyelid moved halfway up her amber iris. She scooted out from her hiding place and shook her body free of the leaves stuck to her fur.
“Ugh, this can’t be happening.” Emotion slammed into me like a stone wall. I didn’t know whether to cry or scream. I wanted to crumble into the dirt and allow every ounce of defeat to drown me. Without a horse I wouldn’t make it out of the woods before nightfall, and the thought of traveling back to the palace caused the pit of my stomach to churn with nausea.
The temperature had dropped, yet I felt hot and clammy. I crawled to the pond before the taste of vomit could well up in my throat.
The cat gave a harsh, scolding screech just as my hands dunked into the water. The entire pond vibrated, creating a percussive noise like thunder rattling flimsy metal.
I fell back onto my elbows and gaped at the churning water. White caps smashed together, and waves rolled over the bank. I waited for it to calm. Something massive must have fallen into it. There was no other logical explanation for the disturbance.
The cat smashed her face reassuringly into my arm. I leaned forwards to quench my overwhelming thirst and dipped my fingers into the water once more. I cupped the cool liquid with one hand and brought it to my lips, slurping several mouthfuls before noticing something inhumanly wrong with the hand I was using for support; it wasn’t in the water where it should have been, inches deep in the pond and half-buried by clay. Instead, it rested like a spider on top of the surface, creating tiny dimples as if it were pressing into jelly, and my entire hand was outlined in a strange glittering blue.
My mouth fell open, and water dribbled down my chin.
I pushed more weight onto the resistant liquid. My hand popped through the threshold and landed in the mud. I blinked rapidly, certain I was hallucinating. Deciding to prove my theory, I pressed with both hands and balanced over the water. The puffs of unusual blue sparkles drifted away from my fingers. The horse must have knocked me unconscious when he had spooked. Fine time to be dreaming.
I stood up and placed my foot on the water; it sank to the bottom. I tried with the other, finding the same outcome. The cat rubbed her face against my shoe and tapped the leather cording in a playful swat. I nudged her away and removed Luken’s dagger to untie the boot lacing. Throwing the shoes and weapon aside, I tried with my bare foot. It rested above the water, slipping over the liquid as though on a hardened gelatinous surface.
An odd hysterical laugh tumbled out of me. I took another step, followed by another, then another. The water below me waved unevenly and felt as slick and unpredictable as ice.
When I reached the center of the pond, I looked back to see the cat sitting wide-eyed on the shore, her nose wrinkling and making her whiskers flare. “Can’t chase me out here, can you?” I mocked her.
The break in concentration caused me to lose my balance. My legs flew out from under me. I splashed into the water and sank beneath the ripples. My dress dragged me down. I kicked desperately upwards, fighting against the heavy wool, and gasped when I broke the surface. My lungs expanded until I felt my chest would rupture.
I clawed at the surface tension that acted like solid ground and emerged to lie flat on the slippery pond. I stared into the tree canopy, catching my breath. The water churned under me, yet I remained fixed, perched on a liquid mattress with the waves lapping up the sides of my face.
The sky turned ethereal shades of purple and orange, and in the air hung tiny sparkling flecks of blue, like settling dust slowly falling around me. I extended a shaking hand to catch one, but it flickered out of existence.
I sat up and tested the jelly in various locations, looking for any spot I might break through, but this time it held my weight. Walking back to shore was a more difficult undertaking, as I had to hold on to my sopping dress and couldn’t use my arms for balance.
I
tumbled onto the bank, shivering and wet, as the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the mountains. The night air settled into the forest, and I curled into the leaves, searching for the dissipating warmth. If I was going to wake up, this would be an exceptional time.
Unfortunately, I did not awaken. Being alone, in the middle of the woods, lost, and soaking wet after accomplishing the impossible was no insanity-originated Fae dream. This was real.
I could still see the trees and shrubbery in the obscuring darkness, though night had painted the trunks black and turned the shine of fresh leaves into an endless sea of forest shapes. Everything simply looked the same.
I needed to stay calm. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking something moved—a phantom hiding in the shadows waiting for the right moment.
A glacial wind chilled my core. The ground was near frozen; I could feel the cold through my shoes. My toes had gone numb and moved like ice blocks. Despite growing up in the Brisleian cold, I was woefully unprepared to handle anything like this.
The temperature continued to plummet with each passing hour. With the moon absent from the sky, the only visible light came from the twinkling of stars.
I didn’t know which direction I had come from, and I didn’t know which way to continue. The reality of being lost terrified me. Though I tried not to panic, adrenaline flooded my brain and my heart pumped with horror. I spun in frantic circles, searching for a familiar point of reference.
If only I had light. If only I knew how to make a fire. I was useless.
I took the deepest breath I could manage, filling my lungs with frozen air.
The cat sat beside my foot, watching me with glowing amber eyes. The luminescent gleam was eerie, but at least I could see her. She made me feel less alone.
Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence Page 8
