by Lisa Daniels
“Only Iliya and I come from kingdoms that are constantly fighting. Does that mean you are taking Iliya north? If so, you won’t find her very helpful. Sweet as she is, Iliya is not much good when it comes to negotiations.”
“I don’t know the names of two of the princesses, but Filip has Myra. She was the first one here, and they have already had some brief communications. She didn’t trust us enough to help her out, but she was more than willing to use some of our suggestions.”
“And she criticized me for being paranoid,” Fayina muttered.
“Filip took a gamble and told her that he was a bear shifter. In her kingdom, they see us as no different from shape shifters.”
“O0ooh,” there was understanding in Fayina’s voice. “That makes sense. She struck me as being really proud and controlling. I don’t really know that much about the Kingdom of Sebia.”
“For people who claim to be enlightened and forward-thinking, they have a lot of traditions and superstition is pretty much baked into those traditions. They are entirely closed-minded when it comes to shifters.”
“That’s because they have been at peace for centuries. I know that my father is wrong about a lot of things, but I think Sebia is proof that there is such a thing as being too peaceful.”
Adrik gave her a strange look, “It isn’t peace that is the problem. Since she is from a kingdom that has managed to maintain peace with all of their neighbors for so long, including our own, Filip is working under the idea that he will be able to persuade her to work with our kingdoms.”
“So you plan to use her,” Fayina said, the idea not sitting entirely well with her. She may not have cared much for Myra, but she loathed people using the offspring of royalty as bargaining chips. There was something very wrong with trying to use people against their parents, even if Fayina didn’t much care for her own.
“I don’t think that is an accurate way of portraying his idea, though I agree that it isn’t the right way to go about this.”
“Then how would you describe what he is doing?”
“Considering their understanding of our people is based on something that happened several hundred years ago, he is hoping to show her how wrong their perception is. We don’t go abducting young people and forcing them into marriages. That’s almost strictly a human issue. Well, human and dragon shifter. But those guys are really not like the rest of the shifter world.”
“Why would they think that bear shifters abduct women and force them into marriage?”
“It isn’t just women, but a few centuries back, several members of the Sebia royal family fell in love with bear shifters. For the safety of my people and any offspring they had, the couples had to move to the bear shifter kingdoms. No one was abducted, but no matter what the humans said, their family wouldn’t listen. Instead, they turned it into an incident that would decimate their population. It’s why they don’t fight today. I suppose there was some good that came from that whole thing.”
“I never heard about any of that,” Fayina whispered.
“It was a few hundred years ago. That is a lot longer for human generations than ours. Filip was hoping to introduce Myra to some of the couple’s grandchildren. It is impossible to undo the past, but Filip thinks that by showing that things are not as they were portrayed, Myra might be able to provide a more accurate history of events.”
“It’s hard to imagine her people being dead set against anyone.”
“That’s because your perception of the people of Sebia is about as accurate as their understanding of us. Not that I blame you. When you live in a kingdom that is constantly at war, it’s very difficult to understand much about the world outside of the struggles. Any other questions?”
“Where are we going?”
“I have not decided yet. Until this morning, I had planned to take you home, but that’s really not something I am willing to consider.”
Fayina gave him a thoughtful look. “Even if I wanted to go back?”
A smile graced his lips. “Do you want to go back?”
“No.”
“Then the question isn’t necessary.”
“But would you take me back if I did?”
“This is a thought experiment we can have later. For now, please restrict your questions to ones that are relevant to our current predicament. We really do need to leave soon.”
“Okay. I don’t think I have anything else to ask.”
“Alright.” He moved closer, warning her, “I’m going to carry you through on my back in case there are people on the other side.”
“Why would you need to carry me for that?”
“I can quickly change shape and bowl them out of the way before they have a chance to call for help. As long as you lean low on my back, you should be perfectly fine. Then we can run to the nearest exit to the castle.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be in my bear form, so there are slim odds that they will be much of a threat for long. Take them by surprise, keep them from calling out, and voila! We will be out of here before you know it.” The beaming smile on his face made Fayina feel almost confident in his plan.
Giving him a nod, she wrapped her arms around his neck when he knelt down in front of her. He was so warm and his muscles so taut, Fayina’s mind began to wander as he headed toward the cluttered area in the back. The warmth of his body was nearly as warm as his personality. Feeling that things might actually turn out alright, she allowed herself to hope for the first time in years. “Thank you, Adrik. It’s not normal for me to trust someone, but I feel safe with you. Is that strange?”
“I believe that is a question, and right now we need to be quiet,” he whispered back.
Placing her head against his back, Fayina nodded.
The way his muscles moved under her gave her plenty to consider as Adrik worked to remove the barrier to a small door. It didn’t look like the kind of door made for a regular-sized human. Then again, Adrik had said it was for spies, which meant that they likely kept the door small so that it was not obvious on the other side. It seemed like the kind of thing that would be built in her kingdom, if they didn’t destroy large swaths of it every couple of years.
Looking at it, Fayina wasn’t sure if Adrik would be able to fit. The door wasn’t much bigger than the hole that the four princesses had used earlier to get out of their cell. And that had been almost too tight for her to fit through. As much as she wanted to ask how her rescuer would be able to fit through it, Fayina kept in mind what he had just said. If there was one thing she had learned from her lovers over the year, it was that when they were concentrating or trying to protect her, it was best not to disrupt them. The stakes were even higher now that they were trying to escape from bandits who planned to help undermine the monarchs around them.
With little else to do, Fayina began to ponder just what the bandits were thinking giving assistance like that to the shape shifters. They were the only people that her father hated more than the king of Glenmore. If the shape shifters managed to infiltrate the royal lineages, it could be detrimental to the bandits as much as anyone else. Shape shifters were not stable, and you never knew what would set them off. They killed each other like a pack of rabid dogs, and many of them were not adept at shifting. The few who mastered it would eventually go mad. This would be terrifying even for bandits because they didn’t have anything to counter the magic that shape shifters had.
Then again, it seemed so entirely farfetched that the shape shifters would succeed, Fayina suspected that the bandits didn’t expect the shape shifters to be successful. It wasn’t like either group was going to be loyal to the other, and it wasn’t like any of the princesses they had taken hostage had any power or chance for the throne. None of the children in line for the throne with a chance at actually assuming it were ever so easily taken prisoner.
Until recently, princesses had been little more than prisoners within their kingdoms, at least that was how Fayina’s parents had handled the
agreement made with the dragon shifter kingdoms. They had even kept her close to home, expressing a desire for her to marry one of the four princes to save them the trouble of planning the wedding. It was obvious that they had hoped to get a dragon shifter on their side to use against Glenmore. They had been incredibly disappointed after learning of the last marriage to the fourth dragon shifter prince. That was when they had resumed discussions of an arranged marriage, prompting both Iliya and Fayina to escape their homes in the hopes of finding something better.
Fayina had actually hoped to be taken away from her kingdom by one of the dragon shifters. She would have had no qualms with living far from her parents and the endless war.
A soft voice whispered back to her, “Are you ready?”
Fayina pressed close to his back and nodded, her mind fully returning to the present.
When the small door opened, there was a blinding light. Fayina squeezed her eyes shut. There was the sound of something else opening, but she did not open her eyes to look. She felt Adrik jump down, then the sensation of the air on her face.
A cold voice greeted them, “It is good to see that one of our guests hasn’t managed to escape.”
There was a note of humor in Adrik’s voice as he said, “Not quite yet. Give us a couple minutes.”
Instinctively, Fayina wrapped her arms and legs tighter around Adrik as she felt his body begin to change. His prediction for how things would go quickly proved to be accurate as she felt her body traveling much faster than she had ever managed on her feet. No one was able to let out any warning cries to the other bandits, though there were a few screams of shock. Once she felt something hit her, but Fayina didn’t open her eyes too look. With how fast Adrik was moving, she knew it would be a bad idea.
The pair barreled across the area with only a few bandits in pursuit. They quickly fell far behind, and by the time Adrik reached the small gate leading outside of the castle grounds, the bandits were no longer visible behind them.
Chapter 3
Too Close for Comfort
Fayina felt Adrik slow down, then his neck moved, indicating that he was looking around them. Feeling that things were improving, Fayina sat up and began to look around too, curious to see if there was anything that she might recognize. She knew that the odds of that were almost zero, but the idea of being somewhere entirely unknown to her was unsettling in a way that drove her to look around. If it came down to it, she wanted to try to remember which direction they had come from. Despite her distrustful disposition, Adrik inspired a sense of trust that she hadn’t had since she was a young child. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t get split up. Observing and calculating an escape were second nature—so often had she been forced to fend for herself that it was all but programmed into the way she looked at the world.
In front of them was a fork in the road, each direction entirely unfamiliar to the princess. All of the signs had long since rotted away, leaving her guessing where they were, and with even less of a guess where the four different paths went. She thought about asking Adrik where they were, but she had a feeling that in his current form he wouldn’t be able to answer her in a way that she could understand. Glancing up, she took note of where the sun was. It wasn’t much, but at least she could get a feel for what direction they were going in. The light cloud coverage was no trouble for her; in Chervil, they had months of rain. The sun kept peeking out from behind the fluffy clouds, making it easy to assess which way they were facing. She looked at Adrik, waiting for him to choose a direction.
“Which way should we go?” Despite being a ways from the castle, Fayina kept her voice low.
Instead of hearing a low growl or other response, the sound of something thundering behind them caught Fayina’s attention and she turned. To her horror, there was a small contingent of bandits riding out of the castle, which was not nearly far enough away for her not to feel a desire to flee.
“Adrik, they have horses. What do we do?”
The bear under her huffed, and for a second she imagined him letting out a laugh. Without saying a word, he padded into the woods between the two forks on the right, his gait seemingly nonchalant. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was obvious that the horses would have a lot more trouble making progress through bramble than Adrik would. The further he took them, the thicker and more tangled the bramble was, until it was almost touching her feet.
Turning to look behind them, Fayina could see movement between the trees, but the horses were falling further and further behind. The shouts had begun to crescendo a few minutes ago as the horses reached the woods, but as soon as the horses reached the fork, those same raucous voices were becoming harder to hear. It was almost impossible to make out what they were saying from this distance.
What was really surprising, though, was how silently Adrik made his way through all of the bracken, almost as if he were a weasel slipping through a pipe instead of a large bear going through dry leaves and thorns. She noticed that he didn’t flinch or make any indications that he was at all uncomfortable with the tangled mess around him.
Though she wanted to speak, Fayina felt that it would be stupid to make noise if Adrik was managing to remain so quiet. Mentally setting aside the questions for later, she leaned forward just before an arrow struck a tree near them. Whipping her head around, she saw the glint of an arrow tip in the sunlight, and she knew that they were reloading. Looking down at Adrik, the princess saw no indication that he had heard the arrow. “Adrik, they are shooting at us.”
He slowed his pace and turned to look just as an arrow flew into the bramble next to him. Crouching down as much as his large frame could manage, Adrik took off at a run through the thicket. Fayina pressed herself flat against his back, both to keep from being hit by an arrow from behind them and to avoid bramble that was now high enough to hit her face.
She had no idea how far Adrik had run or how much distance they had put between them, but by the time he stopped, they were completely surrounded by trees. The canopy blotted out the sun, with only an occasional beam of light, making it impossible for her to tell in which direction they were headed. Hoping that Adrik was better able to gauge their direction without the sun as a reference point, Fayina closed her eyes for a second. The soft padding of Adrik’s feet over the dry leaves was the only sound she heard around her. Slowly she opened her eyes, and remaining pressed against his back, Fayina turned to look behind her.
There were no horses, no men, and no glinting metal.
“I think we have lost them,” the princess said in a low voice.
Adrik made a movement, and Fayina realized that he was trying to signal her to get off of his back. Being careful not to kick him, Fayina managed to swing her legs over to the side and slide down. Her torn dress moved up as she did, and the lower half of her body was momentarily exposed for a moment. Brushing it down, the young woman showed no signs of being embarrassed. When she turned, Adrik was standing up on his hind legs, his head moving around. It was strange to see a bear behaving like that. Then again, it was strange to her that any of the creatures would waste time saving her. It still seemed like a dream, if an incredibly lifelike one.
Suddenly the bear began to shift, and Fayina found herself facing the handsome Adrik in his human form. It was still dark in the forest, but she was able to see his features much clearer, including the stubble on his face which she had originally thought was grime.
Remembering what she must have looked like, Fayina moved so that he couldn’t see how dirty she was. “Which way should we go?”
“There’s a stream near here that can serve as both a place to drink and a place to lose them if they decide to chase us. Not that they have dogs that we will need to avoid.”
“I suppose that is lucky, then.”
Adrik turned and smiled, “Oh, it wasn’t luck. We made sure to… relocate them fairly early on. The few replacements that those guys managed to bring back didn’t stick around for long.”
“You se
em to think of a lot of things long before needed.”
“I wouldn’t say that we thought of that one before it was needed. The dogs were very vocal about our presence during the first day, so it was necessary to get them out of there as quickly as possible. I have a few wolf shifter friends who could take them on and train them for whatever those packs are getting up to these days.”
“Wolf shifters?”
“Yes, there are a fair number of them roaming the kingdoms, but they are much harder to spot than bears. They don’t have physiques that stand out in quite the same way.”
For the first time since being captured, Fayina smiled. “I think I can understand that one. Are they as attractive as you?”
“Who?” He flashed her a mischievous grin. “The wolf shifters, or my friends?”
Fayina paused, “I suppose either of them.”
“I’m afraid that is another question that will need to wait for another time. We aren’t exactly in the clear yet. Besides, it would probably be best for you to make that determination yourself. Come on. The water is this way.”
Fayina followed him to the water. Unable to fight what years had taught her, the poor princess looked around her, observing far more than most people her age did. The woods were nothing like what she had seen in her kingdom. The most obvious differences were the tall trees and the leaves that blanketed the ground.
“We must be a long way from Chervil. This doesn’t look at all like the kinds of forests we have.”
“You are right,” he responded over his shoulder. “We are currently in Drozar Kingdom.”
“Drozar? That’s a long way from my father’s kingdom. And I think that one of the princesses from here was locked up with us.”
“Maybe. I don’t know for certain. The only prisoner that I knew by name was Myra because of Filip’s plan. If one of you did come from here, it was rather foolish of them to set up here, even if they are in one of the remote locations. Not everyone here is as superstitious as they are often described.”
