Page 33

FREEDOM AND REUNIONS

“ L ook!” Kazik pointed at the castle’s distinctive turrets high above.

It took her a moment to realize. “But how can that be?”

“We escaped!” he cried, then clapped both hands atop his hatless head. “How could I be so oblivious! For the past five years, the barrier spell has always directed me back to the castle. This time it didn’t, and I just kept wandering in a happy daydream. It’s all your fault.”

“Isn’t this a good thing?” Helena asked in confusion.

His face lit up. “I was jesting. It’s a wonderful thing! Helena, you rescued me. I’m free!” Catching her in his arms, he whirled her off her feet, laughing.

She couldn’t help laughing with him. “But how are you rescued? How did we get free?”

“You!” Grinning from ear to ear, he said, “You kissed me free!”

“I did?”

Before Kazik could answer, a familiar voice cried, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Helena turned in Kazik’s arms. “Fox! You’re here!” An instant later, her smile vanished. The animal’s eyes held a murderous glint.

Before she could ask where Papa Hrabik was, the fox howled, “Answer me! Who are you? Why are you at Castle Valga? If you’ve come to wake the sleeping princess or to invade the palace and steal from the sleepers, you’ll never succeed.” He showed his teeth in a snarl.

Her guide didn’t recognize her dressed as a woman.

Snatching his dagger from its sheath, Kazik placed himself between her and those sharp fangs. “Take care, fox.”

Helena forgot about her weapons, struggling even to gather her thoughts. “Kazik, this is?—”

Before she could complete the introduction, the fox yelped. “Kazik?” Those fiery eyes looked him up and down. “You are— Are you Prince Kazimierz of Mnisztwo Castle?”

“I am. Who are you?”

“But . . . you are a man ! You’re tall!”

Kazik wryly observed, “And you are a fox . You’re small.”

The fox’s stare traveled from Kazik’s head to his feet several times, his ears flattened to his head, so Helena began to explain.

“Yes, I found His Royal Highness in the castle last night, and he told me there never was a sleeping princess in the castle who needed to be kissed awake . However, Kazik needed my kiss before he could leave the castle grounds.”

“You!” The fox snapped his attention to her.

“You were the na?ve fool who—” His eyes grew impossibly wide, then narrowed into yellow slits in his furry face.

“You’re a woman! You lied to me! And you deliberately ignored my explicit orders and freed both the bird and the horse!

Do you have any idea how much I paid—?” After a quick pause to scream his rage, he snarled, “And I trusted you to deal fairly with me! I guided you here to wake the sleeping princess, but you’re a woman ! This is treason!”

Helena had an arrow on the string, nocked, and aimed at the fox before he could blink.

“I never once told you I was a man. You offered to guide me to break the curse over the land, and I accepted your offer of guidance in exchange for an honest boon. I never lied to you, and I freed the horse and the bird because they were enslaved.”

“Treason is a ridiculous claim from a fox to a princess,” Kazik pointed out, flipping and catching his dagger with one hand.

The fox merely snarled. “Princess, indeed.”

Kazik arched a brow. “Rude and thankless to the end. Good morrow to you, fox. May you catch many mice in your future.”

He beckoned to Helena, but she turned back to ask, “Where is Papa Hrabik? What did you do with him?”

“Of what use is that old fool? Let him die in the wilderness.”

“And Geoffroi and Solara!”

Beginning to panic, she lowered her bow and looked to Kazik, but he shook his head and said, “Before we search for our friends, we’ll prepare thoroughly, not run off with no food or plan. We must also find out if the sleepers have awakened.”

“Enough of this!” The fox circled them to run ahead and block their way. Which didn’t work, since they kept walking right past him. So he trotted alongside Helena, hatred swirling in his yellow eyes. “Answer me. Who are you, trollop?”

She stumbled in surprise, chilled to her bones, and the world seemed to freeze.

The fox’s gaze fixed on the dagger in Kazik’s hand, which was poised for throwing.

“You, fox, a trespasser on royal property, are in no place to be making demands. Tell us why I should not claim your life, tail, and paws as a trophy after your egregious insult to a Princess Royal. You will speak with respect to Her Royal Highness, Helena of ?yrardów.”

The fox’s yellow eyes fastened on her face, widened—and his shrill scream pierced their ears. “Nooooo, this cannot be!” He glared at Kazik. “Did you kiss her awake?”

“You obviously never listen to anyone but yourself.” Kazik’s tone was icy.

“But Ryszard’s daughter must marry Plock Castle’s crown prince and leave you alone!” the beast stated, his very tone denigrating. “It is already arranged: you will marry your cousin Angelika and become archduke of Wroc?aw after me—maybe even emperor!”

Helena saw when the jolt of realization hit Kazik; pain and certainty washed over his features.

But he set his jaw and struck back: “Who are you, a mere fox, to determine the future rulers of this land? I have neither desire nor intent to take on any of these roles you mentioned. If there is ever to be an emperor or empress over Wroc?aw, that person should come from one of its ancestral royal families, not from a line of cunning shyster mages like my grandfather and father. Princess Helena is from ancient royal lines, and so is Czwarty—that is, the future Prince Szymon IV.”

The fox let out a scream of rage even as Helena felt a wave of oncoming magic.

An instant later, the little beast flinched and slunk aside as Geoffroi leapt into their midst from thin air.

His ears lay flat back, his nostrils flared wide, and his deep voice proclaimed: “We have arrived! Where is that treacherous fox?”

On the great horse’s back perched Papa Hrabik, who quickly slid to the ground and hurried to Helena’s side. “Are you well, child?” he inquired, his gray brows bunched in concern.

“I’m very well, Papa.” She flung herself into his arms. “What happened?”

Geoffroi whirled upon the cringing fox, who flattened himself at the roadside. “Try, just try once more to prevent me from aiding my friends, vermin, and I shall stamp you into the dust.”

“And I shall peck you apart!” a piercing voice added. Helena looked up to see the golden bird hovering above Papa Hrabik’s shoulder, her feathers chiming minor chords. “The fox attempted to send this good man into oblivion. Geoffroi and I prevented it just in time.”

“Solara!” Kazik exclaimed in pleased surprise. “Where have you been all this time? And Geoffroi!”

“The fay mage Bogumil asked us to serve as treasures for curse-breakers to claim.” The golden bird spoke while landing on Geoffroi’s crest, “His plan failed, since no one ever followed his rules and Princess Helena chose to declare us both free, ending our slavery to the archduke’s evil mage.”

“But how could I free you? I have no magic,” Helena protested.

“No one but a mage could speak with a tree,” Papa Hrabik observed.

“Or effectively declare two cursed prisoners free,” Geoffroi added.

“ You! You traitor to your own blood!” The fox crouched, lips curled to bare his white teeth at Kazik, head and tail lowered. Glimpsing a blaze of magic in his hate-crazed eyes, Helena flung her hand out and cried, “Watch?—”

The fox leaped with a vicious snarl. There was a flash, and then a crack like lightning.

“—out,” she finished lamely, then pressed her fingers to her quivering lips. “Did I do that?”

“I expect we shared that spell,” Kazik admitted, lowering his hand. “He got zapped from both sides.” An instant later, she was in his arms again, her face buried in his soft leather tunic.

“And where is His Royal Slyness now?” Geoffroi asked.

Kazik managed to smile. “His Royal Slyness, indeed. My father, still in his fox form, is imprisoned in Castle Valga’s guardroom.

No way of escape, even for a fox. I temporarily blocked his magic.

He is only a low-level burvis , you know, but fiendishly clever.

He mostly uses his power to steal other people’s. ”

“Hoo-rah!” Geoffroi blew through his nose. “Are we to stand here on the road until darkness falls? Climb aboard! I hear voices from the castle. Everyone in there must be awake!”

“My father!” Helena said, her heart bounding.

“Yes. And you, Princess Helena, need to make a grand entrance.” Kazik turned to the horse. “What do you say?”

Always elegant, Geoffroi bent his knee and bowed low to Helena, who covered her cheeks with her hands, feeling entirely inadequate. “It shall be my great honor to carry Her Royal Highness wherever she wishes to go,” he said.

“And I shall preen her hair,” Solara stated, perching on Helena’s shoulder. “Never fear. Your mane will be a delight to preen compared with Geoffroi’s mane and tail.”

Righting himself, the horse snorted in good humor and flung his mane to the other side of his neck. “In her heart, the bird envies me.”

Helena chuckled. “Thank you both, for everything!” Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. The last thing her people needed was a sobbing princess.

To her relief, the bird’s “preening” her rippling mane of loose hair involved only a few pain-free tweaks with her beak and a hint of magic, and then Kazik easily lifted her to the golden horse’s broad back.

After Solara arranged her skirts and hair to their best effect, Helena said, “Thank you, Solara, for everything.”

The bird fluttered her tail in a soothing shower of music that communicated deep affection, then settled just behind Helena amid the folds of her skirt.

Her glorious tail trailed over one side of the horse, while Helena’s rippling hair flowed down the other, and Geoffroi’s mane and tail completed the splendor.