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The two young women embraced. The princess looked solemn. “Have no fear that I will abandon you. I will return to rescue you, Elani.”
Clambering to the casement, Tressalara yanked on her rope, testing its strength, then took a deep breath and began her perilous descent. One wrong move and she would be dashed to death on the rocks below. Thank Saint Ethelred that this wall was hidden from the view of anyone inside the castle and that the tall trees of the woods across the river screened her from view of the village.
She reached the end of the rope and let go, springing into a crouch to absorb the shock of impact. She rolled into a tangle of brambles and came up cursing and winded, with dirt on her face and burrs on her ripped smock. Her knuckles were scraped, and a hole was torn in her breeches. All in all, Tressalara was pleased with her appearance. She looked a proper ragamuffin now. No one would suspect that the young urchin, Trev, was actually a princess in disguise.
A princess with a price on her head.
As she slipped into the shadows of the Mystic Forest, Tressalara stopped for one final look at the turrets of the castle. “I will return, Father,” she said, the words both vow and prayer. “I swear it on my life. I shall rally the people and lead an army to reclaim your kingdom.”
Despite Elani’s opinions, she would not need the help of any man to do so.
Niniane paced the Caverns of Mist, snagging her floating white robe on a protruding quartz crystal. She yanked it away impatiently. Her fellow apprentice was supposed to be working on a spell to help Tressalara, but there’d been no sign of him for hours.
The sorceress projected her voice until it filled the caverns. “Illusius, I have grown tired of waiting for your magic to work. I believe you aren’t conjuring at all. In fact, I believe you are just off sulking somewhere!”
“Not so!”
In a puff of dark smoke the apprentice sorcerer appeared not two feet from where Niniane stood. With another wave of his hands, they were both transported to the entrance of the Caverns of Mist in a twinkling. She was very impressed but worked to hide it. “Swaggering coxcomb!”
Illusius glowered. What a tiresome girl she was. Well, this would convince her of his superior powers. “Help is on the way.” He clapped his hands, and the thunder of hooves echoed through the forest. “I ‘called’ Lord Cador, and he has returned from the borderlands! He is meeting with Brand, leader of the rebels.”
A great band of men rode by the hidden cavern mouth. They were not decked out as splendidly as Lector’s men in their black and silver livery emblazoned with the scorpion emblem. Truth to tell, they looked a bit disreputable in their shabby leather jerkins, their humble tunics and cloaks. But here and there the gleam of armor shone beneath their weathered garments, and their eyes were those of warriors.
Niniane huffed. “These are your noble heroes? They look like common brigands!”
“These men are soldiers to the core. Here is Cador of Kildore, their leader.”
Although his clothing was as worn as that of his companions, Cador wore it like a badge of royalty. His bronzed and windburned features were intriguing, with more than a hint of the hawk in them. His hair caught the late-afternoon sun, gleaming like gold. There was fire in his dark sapphire eyes, determination in the set of his firm mouth, strength and authority in every line of his bearing.
Niniane sighed romantically. Here was the very man for Tressalara. A king among warriors.Well done, Illusius!Aloud she spoke differently. “If that is the best you can do, I suppose we are stuck with him. At least he is experienced and willing to fight to restore the princess to her throne.”
Illusius chewed his lip. That was something he was still working on.
It could prove a bit tricky, and he wasn’t quite sure if he could pull it off. The highlander might not want to risk throwing his lot in with the Amelonian rebels. That didn’t bear thinking of. If he failed, Niniane would rub it in for the next hundred years.
He felt a nervous flush rising up his face and vanished himself before she could notice.
3
“Mmm! Roast dumplingsand onions.”
Tressalara inhaled deeply. After failing to obtain a horse and taking many detours to avoid Lector’s troops, she had needed five days’ to reach the edge of the Mystic Forest. She was cold and tired and hungry. She hadn’t eaten since the previous afternoon, when she’d tumbled into a stream and lost her last morsel of bread and cheese, and her empty stomach grumbled. To make matters worse, her boots were still not dry.
The glowing lights of the tavern at the edge of the woods, and the tantalizing smells emanating from it, drew her closer than was wise. The forest was ancient, and little sun penetrated through the thick leaves, but there was scarcely any vegetation to camouflage her movements here.
The tavern was filled with men in leather vests and worn clothing. Their prominent cheekbones and light eyes marked them as strangers to Amelonia. Highlanders from the border, if she was any judge. Dangerous men, like the outlawed Cador of Kildore, who raided the borderlands and whose name was used to frighten mischievous children.
Tressalara hugged her arms to herself against the chill. Toward morning she might double back to the castle’s stableyard through one of the secret ways. Old Philbin would surely outfit her with a cloak and blanket, saddle and tack and one of her own horses. Meanwhile, she had to find a safe place to sleep for a few hours and some food to warm her belly.
She had thought that she might find shelter in a farmhouse, exchanging chores for a night’s food and snug lodging in the hayloft. Instead she was turned away time and again: too skinny, too soft, too young. Of course her dirty and disheveled appearance didn’t help the situation.
But those were not the true reasons, she knew. Lector’s spies were everywhere, and strangers were suspect in these unsettled times. It was not so much the doors slamming shut in her face that had wounded Tressalara to the quick, but seeing the fear and suspicion in her subjects’ faces.
Amelonia was not the happy kingdom she had always thought it to be. She realized that her people’s troubles had not grown in only five days. As her father had aged and withdrawn into his personal spiritual quest, Lector had abused his authority. Now that he had usurped control of the kingdom, fear of his retribution had placed a stranglehold upon the land.
Tressalara ground her teeth. She would do everything in her power to vanquish him, even at the cost of her own life. If only she could have reached the Andun Stone before she’d had to flee! With it she would be invincible—if she could only learn the secrets of its powers. Unskilled attempts to use them would result in a terrible death. One of her first objectives would be to get the magic crystal into her possession before Lector found its hiding place. Tressalara’s determination was strengthened by her discoveries of his wickedness.
She had gleaned enough information from the various bits and pieces she’d overheard to know that a ragged group of rebels lived in the Mystic Forest, and that their numbers were growing. If she could reach them, all her immediate problems would be solved. But if she meant to gather a true army to lead against the usurper, she must first see to herself. That meant food now and shelter later.