Her heart pounded as she raced through the forest. How had Rafe passed the night? Had he been able to sleep? What was he thinking now? What was he thinking of her?
She would have barrelled straight into the clearing if a strong arm hadn’t caught her around the waist, a hand coming down over her mouth.
She swung her leg, ready to kick back at her captor, but a familiar voice whispered in her ear. “Don’t! It’s me.”
She stilled instantly.
Rafe let her go, and she spun around to see his finger on his lips, a warning in his eyes. He met her confused gaze and pointed into the clearing.
A voice suddenly sounded over the noises of the forest. The clearing was already occupied.
“Tracking you down was never part of our arrangement. What’s more, I’ve had to leave my new recruits just as they were arriving at camp.” R sighed and gave a small shake of his head. “This isn’t the first time you’ve veered off course either. You were a little, ah, let us say, enthusiastic in leading the assault on Greenwood. As it happened, it all turned out for the best, but it wasn’t what I had in mind when I asked you to gather supplies.” Marie moved quietly to one side, trying to get a view of who R was talking to.
She almost gasped aloud when she saw his companion.
“In spite of all this, you show great promise,” R continued. Despite his words, Marie recognised the dangerous light that had come into his eyes. “I would hate to see such promise wasted, but I will not have you make a move against Marie.”
“I don’t know why you give her so much authority.” Peter sounded sulky.
“She is my daughter and any disrespect to her is disrespect to me.”
As much as Marie disliked Peter, she hoped he could read the warning in R’s face. She hated to think how he would respond if Peter kept pushing him.
“Your daughter?” Even from a distance, Marie could see the forester’s amazement.
“Yes indeed, and she’s Princess Marie of Northhelm as well. Is she not marvellous?” The glitter in R’s eyes issued a challenge.
Rafe shifted beside Marie, and she could almost feel his discomfort about her connection with R. She placed a calming hand on his arm.
“Yes,” Peter mumbled, his confusion clear on his face, “marvellous.”
“One day soon, she will take the throne and all my plans will be complete.”
Marie could hear the gloat in R’s voice. He sounded very sure of himself. She only hoped he was getting overconfident enough to make a mistake.
“The throne?” Peter shifted his weight. “But surely you will be the one to rule.”
“Of course I shall.” R giggled. “But look at me, boy. Surely you can’t imagine that anyone in Northhelm would let me take the throne.”
Peter bristled at the implied insult to R. “Of course they would!”
Peter’s defence made sense given his thrall to R, but Marie knew better. R was right, he couldn’t bewitch the entire kingdom.
R giggled again. “Take my word for it, there would be problems. My lovely daughter, on the other hand, will be accepted. Don’t worry, I have plenty of experience working from the shadows. I shall rule by proxy.”
“And if she doesn’t comply?”
“Oh, she will. And if she tries to be difficult…” He shrugged. “I have four centuries of experience with turning situations and people to my advantage. Do you have any idea how many bargains it took to set up this moment? Every piece had to be perfectly orchestrated, the royal family manipulated, the supplies and weapons gathered, the camp prepared. I won’t be outwitted by a teenager, I assure you. Not even my own flesh and blood. Everyone has a price. There is always a bargain to be made.”
“But what of the king?” Peter seemed to be struggling to keep up with R, which Marie thought was fair enough given he only had half the story. “Even if you eliminate him, aren’t you worried people will rally around the crown prince?”
“Ah, dear William.” R’s false affection made Marie grit her teeth. “I’m still deciding what is best to be done with him. The king and queen will have to go, of course, but it’s possible the prince may still prove useful. It is unfortunate that he’s resistant to the effects of my charm, but there may still be ways to use him. It’s why I’ve kept him alive.”
Marie sucked in her breath.
“That’s the crown prince you have in that cave?” Peter shook his head. “I wondered who your prisoner was, but it never occurred to me… Hopefully you found someone else to take him food and water since I left camp.”
“Yes, your disappearance was most inconvenient, I trust it won’t happen again.” The subtle warning was back in R’s voice.
“It was that Rafe.” Peter’s indignation oozed off him. “I didn’t want to leave, but he forced me away. I feared for my life! I’ve been trying to tell you, there’s something strange about him. No one is that good a fighter.” His voice sunk to a sullen murmur. “But I suppose he’s under your special protection as well.”
“Not at all,” said R “In fact, I agree with you, there is something odd about him…” Marie stiffened as R’s voice trailed off, and he stroked his hand across his chest where she knew the enchanted jewel lay under his clothes. “I think we may indeed have to do something about young Rafe.”
Marie’s hand, which was still on Rafe’s arm, tightened. She glanced across at him, but his gaze was fixed on the pair in the clearing. His expression gave nothing away. She looked back at R.
His eyes had turned intense as he stared Peter down. “But don’t try anything on your own; you must wait for my guidance. The matter requires some consideration.”
Peter looked reluctant, but he nodded his agreement.
“For now, I must get back to camp, my new recruits will be needing my guidance.”
“And me?”
“You must return as well, of course. You can hardly take your place at the head of my army if you’re cowering in the forest.”
Peter muttered something that might have been a protest at the word ‘cowering,’ but it was too quiet for Marie to hear.
“Now that we have gathered so many youth from the capital, we can begin to make our move. A good portion of the royal guard will stand down rather than attack their own children. And as for the rest…” The sound of his giggle was starting to make Marie feel sick. “Once enough of the youth have been killed, there will be an outcry from the kingdom. The king will be forced to step aside or risk civil war. And how much easier the decision will be when he is making way for his own daughter.” R actually rubbed his hands together in his glee.
Marie shivered. His lies never ended. Once again, she felt ashamed to think she had ever been taken in by him, even a little.
She looked across at Rafe, and this time he was looking at her. He gestured with his head for her to follow him, and they carefully began to ease back from the clearing. As they moved away, R and Peter also left, heading towards the camp.
“We can’t go back now,” said Rafe, his expression grimmer than Marie had ever seen it. “We need to warn the king, and we need to get you out of R’s reach. His plan needs you to succeed. Once he realises you aren’t going to support him, he’ll have to resort to force. Or threats.”
“No threat would make me give him the slightest bit of help!” Her outrage made her pause her flight through the forest.
Rafe stopped also, looking back at her with raised brows. “Really? Don’t forget, he apparently has William locked up somewhere.”
“William!” Marie paled. She should have seen it herself. That was the sort of usefulness R envisioned for him. “We can’t flee now. We have to rescue him!”
“We will,” said Rafe, “or at least, the guard will. But not unless we have a chance to warn them about what’s going on. If we go back to camp now and something happens to us, no one will ever know where he is. Everything could be lost.”
Reluctantly, Marie acknowledged the wisdom of his words and began moving again. “We sho
uld go back via Greenwood,” she said. “My father might have left a message for us. And we can leave a report there. Just in case…” She didn’t think anything would happen to prevent them reaching the capital, but neither did she want to take any chances.
Rafe nodded without looking back and led them on through the forest.
Chapter 25
When they entered Greenwood, Rafe looked around and let out a low growl. “That cur!”
Marie couldn’t help but agree with him. She had already disliked Peter, but knowing he was responsible for the destruction in Greenwood only strengthened her repugnance. And he had been helping to imprison William.
She kicked out at a broken chair, sending it flying into the wall of the closest house.
“Feel better?”
Marie looked at Rafe and actually managed to return his smile. “A bit,” she said.
She didn’t want to admit that seeing his familiar grin did more to ease her tension than the physical outburst had done. “I hope you know that I meant what I said last night. I had already decided not to help R, even before finding out his true plans.”
Rafe looked at her, and the warmth in his eyes made her blush, her mind racing back to their kiss in the cave.
“I know,” he said. “You can’t help who your father is. And it’s natural enough that you would have felt confused when you found out the truth so suddenly. I’m only sorry that you didn’t trust me with the whole story from the beginning.”
Marie looked down. “I know. I should have. In fact, I was going to, but then…” She bit her lip. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you!” She looked back up at him quickly. “The truth is that I’ve trusted you from our first conversation in the palace. It’s that I didn’t want to lose what we had, back there in the camp.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper, her eyes dipping down again. “I didn’t want you to look at me differently.”
“Hey.” Rafe had approached while she was talking and now put a gentle hand under her chin, pulling her gaze back up to meet his. “I can hardly blame you for that. I’ve been guilty enough of the same thing myself.”
Marie’s breath quickened and her eyes dropped to his lips.
Rafe gave a ragged laugh and stepped back. “I think I told you once before not to tempt me,” he said. He took her hand and pulled her towards Lisa and Danny’s old cottage. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”
Standing in the doorway of the abandoned home felt surreal. Marie found it hard to believe she was the same person who had stood there mere weeks ago. She scanned the small space, trying to determine if the floor looked more or less trampled than she had left it.
Before she could decide, Rafe called her name. He held a sealed piece of parchment. She hurried over to his side and looked on as he broke it open.
Together they read the contents, and then stared at each other in horrified silence. Matters had progressed further than they had anticipated.
Marie read it again, struggling to wrap her mind around the full import of the words.
R’s last trip had been to the capital, and word of his presence had reached the palace. Her father had sent a squad of young guards to capture him. Instead of returning with R, they had joined the rebels.
Concerned that the longer they waited, the bigger R’s army became, the king had decided it was time to march against the rebel camp.
Apparently the Rangmeran delegation were still in Northgate and had advised the king that a quick attack, in force, was the only answer. The attack needed to be swift and decisive since the longer the soldiers were exposed to R, the more likely they would fall under his enchantment.
“This is all my fault!” Marie began to chew on her tongue as she read the missive for a third time, wishing the words would reform into a different message. “If I’d just found a way to leave camp and tell my father about the jewel’s limitations, he could have sent older veterans to seize R in the city.”
“Of course it’s not your fault! You had no way of knowing what was happening in Northgate. There’s only one person at fault in this situation.” Rafe also looked back down at the parchment. “My concern is this Rangmeran contingent.”
Marie sat down hard on the floor as the full ramifications burst through her mind. She had been too focussed on the timeline to consider the additional news about the Rangmeran soldiers.
Queen Ava, upon hearing about the situation, had decided to show her support by sending a large contingent of her guard to stand with the Northhelmian forces against the rebels. Apparently, she felt some responsibility for allowing the jewel to escape into Northhelm.
“The Rangmerans have no connection to any of the rebels.” Marie worked it through out loud. “So they won’t have any reason to stand down or to go easy on them. They may not even answer to my father – it doesn’t say what the chain of command is. They may have their own commander and be under orders to see this jewel destroyed no matter what the cost.
“And the rebels won’t surrender while they’re under R’s enchantment. Which means this attack isn’t going to end until they’ve all been killed!”
“Lisa and Danny and Robbie and all the rest will be slaughtered unless we can prevent it.” Rafe’s grim tone didn’t suggest he felt a lot of optimism about their chances. “And who knows what the consequences will be. R suggested civil war, but if it’s the Rangmerans who do the killing, the grieving families may demand a war with them.”
“We need to get to my father at once! Tell him to stop the attack!”
Rafe shook his head. “Look at the date on this report,” he said. “The attack force will have already left Northgate. We don’t know what path they’ll take or how far they might have gotten. The attack could start at any moment.”
“Well, we can’t do nothing.” Marie leapt back up to her feet.
“No, of course not.” Rafe ran his hand through his hair and paced the short length of the cottage. “Even if we could find the armed forces, we would have to convince them to listen to us. Your father may not be with them personally. No, I think we need to return to camp. If we hurry back immediately, hopefully we can arrive before the attack.”
“And what will we do when we get there?”
“Somehow or other, we’ll have to break the enchantment, convince the foresters to disperse before the attack begins.”
“And how will we do that?” Marie’s desperation wasn’t producing any bright ideas.
“I don’t know yet, but we don’t have time to stop now and work it out. We’ll have to think while we move. Come on, we need to hurry.”
The trip back through the forest felt like a nightmare. Marie pushed herself as fast as she could, aware that despite her newly increased fitness levels, she was slowing Rafe down. She suggested at one point that he go on without her, but he refused to leave her behind.
By the time they neared the camp, she was close to exhaustion, and her mind felt as empty of ideas as it had when they started. Despite keeping a close eye out, they had seen no sign of anyone else in the forest.
Marie had almost suggested hopefully that maybe the attackers were further away than they feared, but one look at Rafe’s dark expression convinced her to remain silent. He clearly didn’t share her optimism.
When they reached the edge of the clearing around the cave entrance, they paused. Marie’s breath was coming in short bursts, and Rafe looked at her with concern.
“I’m fine,” she said.
He turned to survey the clearing. There was no sign of any movement. Marie tried to calculate where the rebels would be in their schedule. Her stomach growled, telling her it was well past lunchtime. It reminded her of her first arrival at the camp, and she felt a small swell of pride to think that she had made it all the way to Greenwood and back again in less time than it had taken her to go one way the first time.
“The training session can’t be over yet,” she said. “It’s not that late in the day. Perhaps they’re all spending the free time after the meal
resting.”
“Maybe.” Rafe didn’t sound convinced. “Given the king’s reaction, R must have brought back a large group from the capital. I would have expected to see someone outside.”
“Well, I guess we go in and look for them then,” said Marie.
Rafe watched her with concern. “R must be wondering where you are. He would have been expecting to see you when he got back. He might be angry at the state of the camp.”
Marie shrugged. “That’s a risk we have to take. You heard him talking to Peter. He’s confident he can control me. I refuse to believe that’s true, but as long as he continues to believe it, that gives us an advantage. He seems determined to see me as his perfect child – a carefully-prepared cog in his brilliant plan. We just have to hope his overconfidence blinds him to the truth.”
Rafe reluctantly nodded.
“It’s you I’m worried about,” added Marie. “I think he suspects that you’re immune to his enchantment. Who knows what he’ll decide to do about it.”
Rafe shrugged. “I can take care of myself.”
It was Marie’s turn to reluctantly agree.
They looked at each other for a long moment, neither moving.
“So… do we actually have a plan?” Marie asked.
Rafe frowned back out at the empty clearing. She took that as a no.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “Something’s changed. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
Marie sighed. “But we don’t have a choice. One of us at least has to go in. I can go on my own, though. Of the two of us, it’s safest for me.”
“No!” Rafe spoke quickly. “Absolutely not.”
Marie hadn’t really expected him to agree, but she didn’t want him going near R after what they’d overheard in the clearing.
She knew that she and Rafe had no future together, she also knew she would have to tell him the truth about that as soon as this crisis was past. But she still couldn’t bear the idea of him coming to any harm. As long as he was safe and happy, she would simply have to learn to bear her own disappointment and loss.
The Princess Pact: A Twist on Rumpelstiltskin (The Four Kingdoms Book 3) Page 17
