by Jody Hedlund
“You’ll not be so glad if it means I’ve regained my strength and energy so that I might more easily get away.” As I took in our surroundings, I startled at the realization we were in the open heathland, with hills spreading as far as the eye could see. Majestic rocky crags, purple heather, and crowberry added splashes of color to the pale green. The sky above went on endlessly in all directions, the streaks of lavender and sienna telling me the sun had just made its descent in the west.
For my whole life I’d been surrounded by dense trees. Consequently, I was speechless at this splendor, so unlike anything I’d ever seen.
“The land is a fierce beauty, is she not?” the prince whispered, tugging me close again.
“She is.” I had not the will nor desire to resist and found myself reclining against his chest. “My geography books did not do her justice.”
“Perhaps I might help in that regard.”
While we weren’t riding as fast as we had previously, our pace was still steady and hard. Even so, for a short time, I forgot I was a prisoner as the prince answered my questions about the land and the species of plants and brush I didn’t recognize, along with the wildlife and fowl that lived in the heathland.
“You are very knowledgeable of the terrain,” I said at last, “for one who has not lived in Mercia for long.”
“Father Patrick taught me as much about Mercia as he did Warwick.” He cocked his head toward the priest who lagged behind with Magnus. “And you. You are knowledgeable as well.”
“My parents made sure I was educated,” I answered. “And I very nearly memorized every book we owned.” My thoughts strayed to the books dumped onto the grass by the prince’s men, the pages fluttering in the breeze as though waving good-bye. They’d been my only treasure, and I’d miss them sorely.
For a moment, I prayed Father and Mother had made their escape. If I’d harbored any hope they might be able to catch up to us and help free me, I realized now the futility of such thinking, especially since they had no mounts, and our travels had been too swift, the prince too wise, and the forces too great.
Around us, dusk had settled. The last of daylight was fading, leaving in its place the widest sky I’d ever seen, where the first stars had already made their appearance.
“Do you know the stars?” he asked, tilting his head back to gaze above us as I had.
“A little. Enough to find my way at night.”
“Can you name the constellation directly to our east?”
I studied the dark eastern horizon, drawing a mental picture of the few stars I could see. “Is the large constellation Cygnus, the Northern Cross?”
“Yes.” His tone registered both surprise and admiration. “And the bright star to the southeast of it?”
As he listed the names of the constellations I didn’t know, I soaked in the knowledge, delighted to learn, studying the shapes in the sky and drawing the patterns as he taught them to me.
When he shared everything he knew about the stars, I plied him for information about the galaxies, the sun, and even the moon. Finally, well after dusk, he whistled for his men to stop and make camp. We’d reached a small brook, a perfect place to water the horses and provide refreshment to ourselves.
As my feet touched the ground, the prince steadied me. I was stronger now, having grown more accustomed to the riding, and although still sore, I stood on my own. Through the dark, I eyed the area and mentally sketched my getaway route. I’d go once most of the men were asleep.
“Do not try it, Emmeline,” he warned.
I wanted to release an exasperated sigh. How could he read me so well?
“I would not hesitate to chain you to my side whilst we slumber.” His fingers circled my arm.
I bristled. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He leaned in so that I could feel the warmth radiating from his body in the growing coolness of the night. “I would dare it. So do not tempt me.”
I didn’t need to see his expression to know he was serious. His tone told me enough.
Since it appeared my previous strategy of breaking away and running wouldn’t work, I needed a new plan. A campfire was soon blazing, and I joined Father Patrick in front of it. My mind spun with options even as I made small talk with the kindly priest and did my best to avoid Magnus.
We ate and drank and stretched our stiff limbs. It wasn’t long before the priest, Magnus, and most of the soldiers spread out their bedrolls around the fire and fell asleep. The prince and several others had taken the first watch, positioning themselves in strategic locations around the perimeter of our camp.
I’d laid my bedroll somewhat away from the others, insisting to Rex that as a woman I needed privacy, but ultimately hoping my location in the shadows and near a boulder would allow me to sneak off undetected.
Once I lay down and covered myself with the woolen blanket, I shivered. I was too far from the campfire to draw its warmth. More than that, my body quivered with the fear of the unknown as I mentally plotted the quickest route to Norland.
Although Father had taught me everything he could, there was one thing he couldn’t impart, and that was courage. I didn’t know if I had the strength to push forward, especially out here away from all that was familiar.
I hugged my arms around my thin frame and closed my eyes, determined to get some sleep. After all, I didn’t dare attempt anything until Rex’s turn at watch was over, and he lay down to slumber. At that point, he’d be exhausted and hopefully wouldn’t notice me creep away.
Chapter
8
Rex
I roused with the feeling something wasn’t right. A glance at the position of the moon told me I’d been resting for several hours. I hadn’t allowed myself to fall into a deep sleep so I could keep my senses alert, especially if Emmeline tried something.
Even so, the moment my eyes opened and landed upon the empty bedroll a handspan away, my chest exploded with the force of a battering ram. The chain I’d shackled to Emmeline’s ankle and mine lay undisturbed and unmoved, except that the lock was wide open.
I sat up and unfastened the chain from my own foot, silently cursing myself for sleeping at all. I should have known when she’d offered so little resistance to the chain that she was an expert picklock. Of course, Lance would have taught the princess that skill. And of course, she was also an expert at stealth and had been able to move soundlessly away from me as well as from the guards on duty.
I berated myself again for being so foolish and underestimating her.
Minutes later, I found her trail and ordered my six fastest men to accompany me. With dawn only an hour away, we didn’t take time to saddle our horses but rode them bareback. I guessed she had a two or three-hour lead since she was a fast runner and likely had the endurance to sprint hard for hours.
On our horses, we’d easily span the distance. However, with our delay we risked the rebel search party catching up to us and intercepting Emmeline. They’d apparently discovered their tortured comrade sooner than I’d anticipated, and they’d been on our trail for the past day. While I couldn’t be sure how far behind they were, I’d sighted their harpy eagle scouting us, the same eagle they’d used during their days of searching for the princess in Inglewood Forest.
My heartbeat thundered in rhythm to the horse hooves against the heathland. From the trail Emmeline was taking, she hadn’t known about the queen’s men following us or she would have gone directly to them. As it was, she was heading north, likely planning to travel the Upper Cress River to the Iron Hills and from there hike through the Highlands into Norland.
I pushed my steed harder than I had so far, leaning in low and whispering my encouragement as well as begging forgiveness for the unrelenting pace. I willed the horse to understand my frustration and even my panic. I couldn’t lose Emmeline.
Not only would the king be outraged if I let her get away, but I couldn’t bear the thought of not having her now that she was mine, and a strange possessiveness rose up withi
n my chest.
For so many weeks, as I’d searched Inglewood Forest, I’d thought of little else but finding her, so much so that I’d obsessed over it. Once I’d finally had her within my arms and stood before the priest and said my vows, I’d pledged myself to her for eternity. I wouldn’t back out on those vows, not for anything. She was my wife now. And I aimed to keep her.
My men knew better than to speak to me as we traveled, but when we started to circle the outer edge of the Cistern Bogs, Dante whistled the signal to stop.
I pulled up abruptly and glared at him.
He nodded to a slight opening in the long grass that surrounded the marshy lowland. “She’s gone into the bog, Your Highness.”
Certainly, Emmeline had learned about the danger of bogs—the peat formed of spiky grasses and moss that trapped rain and became waterlogged. Golden grass floated like carpet and masked the dangerous water beneath. If that wasn’t bad enough, the bog was home to wild boars, adders, and even sundew—carnivorous plants that were hungry for meat.
“She knows better.” I dug my heels into my horse’s flank. “She went around.”
Even if cutting through the bog could save her hours, Emmeline wouldn’t try it. Would she?
“I could go in and examine further,” Dante said in a rare contradiction of my wishes.
“We cannot waste the time—”
A faint cry echoed from the bog. A cry that was distinctly womanly. A cry that could only belong to one woman.
“The princess,” Dante and I said at the same moment.
I had the sudden picture of her sinking beneath the peat, unable to get out, and my heart took up a new rhythm: a drumbeat of fear.
“It’s too dangerous for all of us to go in,” I shouted as I urged my horse to the bend in the grass. “Dante and Alaric will come with me. The others will stand guard.”
I was off my horse and crashing into the bog as soon as my feet landed.
“Your Highness, let Alaric lead,” Dante said motioning toward one of the other strong knights who’d come with me from Warwick.
I shook my head curtly, easily locating Emmeline’s prints in the muddy grass.
“His family’s estate borders Warwick’s central bogs,” Dante said breathlessly from behind, “and he knows the dangers—”
Before the words were out of his mouth, I slipped, then tripped, and found myself already up to my knees in watery moss, my feet sinking fast in layers of mud and thorny brambles. The ground seemed to suck at my legs like dozens of leeches, a pulling and stinging that tore the breath from my lungs.
I only had to think of Emmeline in the same situation to jolt myself out of my pain-induced stupor.
“Grab on to my belt, Your Highness.” Dante had swiftly shed his belt and tossed it out to me.
I caught it but had sunk several more inches to my thighs.
Alaric was already in action as well, tugging at the belt. “The only way to break free from the suction is to twist your body at the same time we heave you upward.”
Together Dante and Alaric pulled while I swiveled, attempting to turn like a cork in a bottle top. I gritted my teeth against the pressure, until finally the bog released me, flinging me into Dante and toppling him backward onto Alaric.
We picked ourselves up, and I motioned Alaric ahead of me.
“Your legs, Your Highness?” he called over his shoulder as this time he led the way.
I waved off his concern even though I could feel the trickle of blood beneath my breeches and boots from where sharp thorns had scraped me. For now, all I could think about was Emmeline drowning under a blanket of peat and moss, the pain she would be experiencing, and her desperation to fight her way free.
Alaric picked up his pace, rounding brush and hopping over areas of grass that looked harmless but were death traps.
Another scream resounded in the bog, this one closer and most definitely Emmeline’s. The note of agony within it told me she was suffering greatly. My pulse thundered at a frantic tempo that was unfamiliar from my usual calm.
At the edge of a particularly soggy area, Alaric stopped short. I bumped into him and had to grab him to keep him from sprawling into a patch of watery moss.
“There.” He pointed to what seemed to be an island in the middle of a lagoon. “She’s there.”
I followed his finger, and at the sight of her tangled in a mess of vines and hanging upside down by her feet from a tall spruce, my stomach lurched up into my throat. She was slashing at the vines with a dagger, which she must have pilfered from someone on her way out of camp. But with each slash she made against the tangle, the vines wrapped tighter around her.
“It’s a sundew,” Alaric said in a grave tone.
Sundews were known for catching insects and small mammals and dissolving them for nutrients. But I’d heard hunters’ tales of sundews big enough to trap boars. There were even tales of sundews tangling and killing hunters too. I had to free her now before the vines squeezed the life from her.
But how could I get to her with a lagoon surrounding her?
“Emmeline!” I called.
Her head twisted toward me. “Rex!” Her voice sounded taut, as though she couldn’t get enough air. “Help me!”
“How did you get over there?” My gaze landed upon a dozen different routes but discarded each as too risky.
She tilted the tip of her knife upward to the spruce that intertwined with a tree closer to us. She didn’t have to say anything more for me to understand that she’d thought to bypass the threat of the lagoon by taking to the trees within the bog. But in doing so, she hadn’t been prepared for the whiplike vines of the sundew.
Dante was already leading the way to the base of the spruce closest to us. “You’ll need to cut her free, Your Highness, while we prevent sundew tendrils from catching you.”
I wasted no time in scaling the trunk, climbing onto a gnarled branch that led above the lagoon. I didn’t look down, but for the first time that I could remember, cold fear gripped me. Fear not for myself but for Emmeline. Fear that she could have fallen, fear that she could have disappeared without a trace, fear that she was even now suffocating and that I wouldn’t get to her rapidly enough.
The instant I stepped onto the opposite spruce bough, it sank under my weight. In the same moment, a sundew cord whipped out and would have knocked me off, except that my reflexes were sharp, and I slit the vine in two pieces before it could catch me.
I kept moving, scooting slowly along the branch until I finally reached the trunk of the opposite tree and caught sight of Emmeline’s boots and skirt twisted among vines. She was still trying valiantly to rend herself free, wielding her blade expertly, but she was already too entangled.
I slipped to a lower limb and prayed it would hold my weight. “Cease thrashing.”
She grew motionless.
Above and behind me, came the sounds of Dante and Alaric hacking and chopping, protecting me as best they could from the same fate as Emmeline. Even so, something slithered around my ankle.
From my periphery, I found the source and severed the vine in a backward thrust only to have to fight away another wrapping around my upper arm. How could I free Emmeline if I was struggling to save myself?
I followed the trail of the tendrils until I found what I was looking for. “Dante, up there.” I nodded upward. “Slit the sundew at that large knob.”
He started in that direction only to have a vine whip out at him and slash him across the back. Even with his chain mail hauberk protecting him, he stiffened momentarily against the pain but didn’t let it stop his climb as Alaric severed the vines creeping up from below.
I fought off more vines that came at me swifter than arrows in flight. Bracing myself against the trunk, I parried the climbing plant with my sword while hacking with my dagger at the strands holding Emmeline prisoner. Pieces of the sundew fell away and drifted below into the lagoon, disappearing from sight—a result that gave me pause.
If I c
ontinued to cut away the vines, how could I keep Emmeline from plummeting headfirst into the deadly waters?
As if sensing her plight, Emmeline seemed to gather her last reserves of strength. With an unladylike grunt, she twisted her body and propelled herself into motion like a pendulum on a clock. Nearing the trunk, she thrust out her dagger and attempted to stick it into the tree but only managed to scrape the bark before her momentum took her back the other way. Thankfully, on the second try, her knife stuck.
“Push it in more!” I chopped at Emmeline’s bindings and continued to fight the sundew intent upon chaining me.
She shoved harder, but with the plant wrapped so tightly around her arms, I sensed she’d reached the last of her strength and had no more left to give. Even if she could wedge the knife deeper, I doubted it would hold her weight.
Keeping an eye on Dante’s slow climb, I tried to inch closer to Emmeline. I needed to come up with a better plan. At the sight of a thick strand swinging toward me, my mind spun into action. I held out my left arm. The moment the slithering plant made contact and began wrapping around my sleeve, I released my grasp on the trunk and let myself fall. The vine acted as a rope as I swung toward Emmeline, grabbed her around the waist, and pulled myself to her, twisting around her as I slammed into the tree.
With her securely in my grasp, I shouted up at Dante. “Now! Cut now!”
Holding Emmeline, I shoved against the tree and pitched us both back out over the open lagoon toward solid ground. With Dante’s cut at the source, the pressure of the vines loosened their hold on Emmeline.
Praying the vine around my arm would hold fast a few seconds longer, I leaned forward as we swooped near the land. Then, using the last of the momentum, I leaped. The sundew finally fell away, and I slammed into the hard earth, bringing Emmeline down on top of me to cushion her.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. For an eternal second, I couldn’t breathe or move. If Emmeline had wanted to kill me at that moment, I would have been helpless to defend myself. But she only seemed to burrow into me, her entire body quivering.
