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Chapter Twenty-Six A wild horse of feeling and emotion

Gwen led Isobelle away from the village center and between the fields of Lambton and his neighbor, out to where the trees

began.

The transition was stark, for the farmers kept the land clear right up to the line of the forest. One moment they were

walking through knee-high grass, and the next, they were beneath the ancient canopy of oak and blackthorn and ash.

The weight

of their age had given Gwen a strange, shivery feeling as a child—as if she were stepping back in time, able to glimpse the

ghosts of what these trees might have witnessed centuries ago.

Like dragons.

Isobelle was being uncharacteristically quiet, her eyes focused on where she put her feet.

Ahead of them was the creek whose

groundwaters fed the village well half a league away, and its whispering chatter rose as they approached, filling the silence

between them.

Gwen had grown up listening to Bertin’s stories.

She’d always known dragons weren’t far lost to history—when she’d play in

these very woods as a child, her parents would warn her to keep one eye on the branches and the other on the undergrowth,

just in case.

A village doesn’t lose its memories that quickly.

Isobelle, however, had just learned that dragons were real .

Not a creature found only in ancient histories, but a flesh and blood monster that had nearly cost old Bertin his life.

They came up on the edge of the creek at one of Gwen’s favorite spots, where a crop of boulders interrupted its flow in a

series of babbling, rushing rapids and tiny waterfalls.

She began to climb them automatically, but stopped after the first

boulder when she realized Isobelle was lagging behind.

Gwen turned, then dropped into a crouch, wishing the moon were not quite so fickle about hiding behind the clouds.

Just now,

it was difficult to see Isobelle’s face in the darkness.

Then Isobelle spoke.

“No one is going to help those women,” she said quietly.

Gwen paused. She’d expected her to burst out with some comment about Bertin’s story, or the difference between the memories

kept by castle and village.

Instead, Isobelle met Gwen’s gaze through the gloom.

“No one in power is going to listen to those villagers who came asking

for help. No one will believe them. I’m still struggling to believe them, and I just met a man whose face was disfigured by dragonsfire.”

The treetops began to whisper against each other, though the air below was still.

The clouds over the moon shifted, allowing

a wash of pale light to filter through the leaves, casting swaying spirits of silver across Isobelle’s face.

Gwen glanced down and saw Isobelle’s hands balled into fists at her sides, and before she could register the impulse, she sat down on the stone, slid forward, and reached out.

Gwen curled her fingers over Isobelle’s, her thumbs settling against the backs of her hands.

They felt chilled compared to Gwen’s—she longed to lend Isobelle some of her warmth.

Gwen let the pad of one thumb slide across the dips and swells of Isobelle’s knuckles, and with some astonishment, watched the tension ease away under her touch.

In a rush, Isobelle said, “We have to do something. If no one else is going to do something about it, then we should.”

Gwen allowed herself the briefest look at Isobelle’s face, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

The sight of her—lit by shifting

moonlight, anguish flooding her gaze, rosebud lips in a thin, determined line—almost robbed her of speech and sense entirely.

Gwen imagined pulling her closer, flush up against the rock where Gwen sat, so she could lean forward and soften the clench

of Isobelle’s lips the way she’d done her hands.

“We will,” Gwen managed faintly, having put so much effort into staying still that she had none left over for words.

“You

and me. We’ll do something about it.”

Gwen must have moved after all, because Isobelle answered her summons and shifted closer against the rock, her hips between

Gwen’s knees where they dangled over the edge of the stone.

“Olivia will tell us in the morning where they’re being held, and on what grounds.” Isobelle blinked, gaze shifting from a

place of future plans and deliberation to refocus on Gwen’s face.

“This whole white knight thing,” she said with a laugh.

“I can see why you like it.”

Gwen swallowed, so moved she couldn’t answer.

Isobelle could simply have dismissed Bertin’s story and the women who’d come

seeking help.

It would have been easier for her to let it all be a mere blip of unpleasantness marring an otherwise frivolous

evening of snacks and bonfire festivities.

But here she was, rewriting her entire understanding of the world, and making plans to charge into battle to fix it.

“Thank you,” Gwen whispered finally, daring no more than to give one of Isobelle’s hands a tiny squeeze.

“For coming here tonight with me.”

“I’m more glad you brought me than you’ll ever know.” Isobelle’s face was earnest—Gwen could feel the blue stare fixing on

her again in that unnerving way it had of trying to see through her carefully constructed barriers.

Isobelle drew breath to

speak, but then stopped, that breath hitching.

Gwen’s eyes snapped up, automatically wary.

Isobelle, hesitating?

She’d have been less surprised if a dragon had charged out

of the undergrowth.

“That girl from before,” Isobelle said finally, her words somewhat rushed.

“The dancer, at the village bonfire?”

Gwen’s heart thudded, and her alarm narrowed down to a single focus.

“Fiora,” she provided.

“What about her?”

Isobelle was looking down at the stone between them.

When Gwen dropped her gaze, she saw their skirts pooled together on the

rock, the moonlight blending them into one.

“You said you used to have a crush on her,” Isobelle said, evenly enough.

“What made you stop?”

You.

The mental response was so quick that Gwen had to bite her lip furiously to stop the word from coming out.

In actuality, it

wouldn’t have been true anyway.

She’d given up pursuing Fiora a year ago, long before she ever met Isobelle.

Not that you’re pursuing Isobelle now , her mind told her, biting back that moonlit pathway of thought just as furiously as she was biting her lip.

For one glaring moment, Gwen considered making something up.

Then Isobelle’s fingers shifted slightly.

The balled-up fists were gone—her slender hands had turned to cup Gwen’s in hers.

Isobelle’s skin was warmer now, warmer in fact than her own.

And it was Isobelle offering her that warmth.

Gwen kept her eyes on those hands, not sure she could tell Isobelle the truth if she had to watch each shift of her expression

while she did.

This was not a story you told to someone you wanted to.

.. someone you wanted to respect you.

“The girls at the tea party,” Gwen managed finally.

“When they asked if I’d ever kissed anyone? When I said no, I was giving

them Céline’s answer. Not mine.”

Isobelle just waited, while the wind and the trees and the moon formed patterns on her skin for Gwen to focus on.

“She was only interested in me when she was fighting with her boyfriends. I knew she was only trying to make them jealous,

but I kept thinking... every time she came to me, I thought maybe it was different.” Gwen shook her head, as much to buy

herself time to breathe as to comment on her own foolishness.

“It worked every time. She’d always make sure to let them see

her kiss me. And they’d come sprinting back.”

Isobelle’s hands had gone still under hers.

“And where did that leave you?”

“Waiting for their next fight, I suppose. I should’ve been stronger and stopped letting it happen, but...” Gwen lifted a shoulder, a trickle of shame coursing through her, making it hard to speak.

“I did overhear her explaining it to one of them, though, and that’s what ended things between us once and for all. Just a bit of fun, I heard her tell him. A little show.” Gwen paused, snatches of that ill-fated tea party with Isobelle’s friends flashing through her mind.

Then, softly, she added, “She called it practice.”

Isobelle uttered a soft sound, shades of feeling in it too numerous for Gwen to unpack.

When Gwen raised her eyes, finally,

Isobelle was studying her, her own eyes widened with sudden understanding, scanning Gwen’s features as if seeing her anew.

“You were right,” Isobelle said finally, her normally smooth and well-practiced voice low and a little rough.

“What you said,

after the tea party—you were right. When someone kisses you, it should be because they want to. Need to. Because they can’t

take another second wondering, dreaming, about what it would be like.”

Gwen held very still—Isobelle had remembered every word she’d said that night.

Fear told her to drop her eyes, to pull away,

lest Isobelle see the truth of what she wondered and dreamed about—see how easily and deeply she could hurt Gwen if this fragile

dance of theirs fell apart.

Fear told her to end it herself, one way or another, before Isobelle could.

Instead Gwen sat, unmoving, watching Isobelle’s eyes, turned pale silver in the moonlight, the flutter of the pulse at her

throat, the tiny sound her lips made when they parted.

She saw Isobelle’s gaze dip, saw her breath quicken as she watched

Gwen’s mouth.

The realization came, not like a bolt of lightning, but like the slow unclenching of tense muscles at the end of a long day—the

soft and subtle remembering of home and safety, and of being enough .

Gwen felt something come free in her chest, a band of tightness she hadn’t noticed until suddenly she could exhale again

with her full lungs, with her whole body.

It left her full and aching, the realization that Isobelle was longing to kiss her, too.

Isobelle’s hands were shaking a little, where they rested against Gwen’s.

Her breathing was uneven.

Uncertainty and confusion clouded the silver moonlit gaze.

She was scared. Her Isobelle, frightened.

Or if not frightened , at least.

.. unsure. Caught up in something moving far too quickly for her, a wild horse of feeling and emotion, galloping

out of control with no ravine to direct its course.

Gwen closed her fingers around Isobelle’s hands again, waiting until they calmed.

She let out a long, slow, audible breath,

until she felt Isobelle do the same, mirroring her body language automatically.

Another breath, letting the tension singing

between them drain, letting them both step back from the precipice.

When Isobelle’s eyes finally met hers, Gwen raised her eyebrows and gave her a smile.

“It’s getting late,” she murmured.

“I

guess we should start making our way back before anyone notices you’re not there?”

Gwen had meant to make it a suggestion—to show Isobelle they could walk up to this cliff’s edge as many times as they needed

to before she was ready to leap.

Instead it was a question.

Instead, it left room for Isobelle to make her own choice.

Isobelle took a tiny step back.

When Gwen slid forward, she could feel a place on the stone where Isobelle’s thighs had pressed,

warming the rock even through her skirts.

“It is getting late.” Isobelle turned to look back the way they’d come.

The distant glow of the village bonfire was hidden by the

trees, though it wouldn’t take long to retrace their steps back toward their abandoned finery.

“We’ll have to go back and get our dresses from the smithy,” Isobelle went on with a sigh.

“And think of a reason why we took

so long. And...” Her voice petered out.

Even though Gwen had made that choice to step back with Isobelle, and leave that cliff behind them for a while, her heart was still sinking.

Despite her noblest intentions, she longed to stay in this place for a little while longer, where they were both free of their masks.

To walk along the cliff’s edge, at least, even if they weren’t ready yet to leap.

Isobelle’s gaze swung back toward the creek, and then sidelong up to Gwen’s face.

“Or... we could just keep walking?”

Gwen managed, with great difficulty, to answer in an even tone despite the thudding of her heart.

“Or we could just keep walking.”

Isobelle tucked her arm through Gwen’s, and they kept walking.

The silence between them hung like a warm, woolen wrap, comfortable

and easy.

Summer was coming to an end, and though the air was still balmy, there was the slightest hint of a sharper chill

behind it, like an actor just offstage waiting to make her dramatic entrance.

By the time they reached the point where the creek joined up with its neighbor to form a wider stream, the breeze above the

treetops had finished chasing the patchy clouds away from the full moon and had begun to sweep down into the forest, whistling

through the trees.

Isobelle gave a little shiver, and Gwen felt it as if her own body were chilled.

Automatically, she turned

her steps east, a path that would eventually bring them back to the road connecting the castle with the surrounding villages.

Isobelle glanced at her and then back at the stream, her steps slowing.

“You’re not cold?” Gwen said, and then cleared her throat, surprised to realize how long it had been since either of them

had spoken.

Isobelle quirked a smile.

“I am, a little, but...” She glanced back down the course of the stream, which joined with the river not too far away.

The trees thinned out ahead, and with the full moon the meadows and more solitary trees beyond the thicker woods were visible.

“Can we go see that massive tree? What kind of tree is that?”

Gwen already knew which tree she meant—the most ancient one in this part of the forest, standing alone in a field that bloomed

furiously with wildflowers in spring.

“It’s an oak,” she supplied as Isobelle tugged her onward.

Before they’d gone too far, though, Gwen’s steps slowed.

She could hear something through the trees: voices, many of them,

raised in some sort of song or chant.

A prickle of concern made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, questioning

the wisdom of venturing through a moonlit forest toward ethereal eldritch voices luring you onward.

Not that she believed

in faerie stories, of course, but plenty of people didn’t believe in stories about dragons, either.

But where her steps tried to drag, Isobelle’s quickened.

The other girl had a firm hold of Gwen’s arm, though she was wise

enough to keep hidden under the trees by the river.

They came to a dense blackberry thicket still bearing a few of the season’s last fruits at the edge of the wood, and without

hesitation, Isobelle dropped down to wriggle forward through the brambles, leaving Gwen little choice but to follow.

When

she reached the edge of the thicket, Isobelle put a hand on Gwen’s, and together they gazed out through the thin, concealing

layer of blackberry thorns.

The massive old oak had been struck by lightning once, leaving a section of its branches skeletal and brittle—a tiny forked slice of white, stark in the moonlight, amid the joyous green of its living foliage.

But Gwen had never been here at night.

And never on the night of a full moon.

A dozen figures stood in a semicircle not far from the trunk of the tree, where a stone bench had been erected—no, an altar

of sorts, with stones and feathers and other objects scattered upon its surface.

There were candles, too—when the wind gusted

just right, Gwen caught the faintest aroma of beeswax over the heady, sweet tang of crushed blackberries all around them.

The figures were all in white, and all women, Gwen realized—they’d shucked their dresses and stood in their shifts, which

billowed in the wind.

Their voices were raised in a rhythmic chanting that called to something deep in Gwen’s bones.

She turned her hand to twine her fingers through Isobelle’s and squeezed.

“Witches,” she breathed, half dizzy with the spectacle

and the idea that she might be about to witness true, real magic.

Hedge witches tended to be cagey and secretive about their

powers—never quite showing someone if they were real, or just a clever combination of mind games and herbalism.

Delia would

be there among them, though at this distance Gwen couldn’t distinguish her.

And hedge witches from all across the county must

have come here tonight to greet the moon.

One of the women was led into the center of the circle.

Though Gwen could not see her face, she could see the way the woman’s

steps were slow, her shoulders bowed—the specter of grief weighed on her, something heavy and hopeless.

Awe gave way to uneasiness,

and Gwen shifted her weight.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be watching,” she whispered.

Isobelle turned away long enough to meet Gwen’s gaze.

“I... I think I was invited. I don’t think they would mind.”

There was a faint question in Isobelle’s eyes, one that left room for Gwen to object.

She would go if Gwen wanted to—though

something in her just as clearly wanted to stay.

Gwen hesitated, and then shifted so she could sit, rather than kneel, on the loamy earth beneath her.

Isobelle flashed her

a smile, and then they both ducked their heads to peer back out of the thicket.

The circle of witches drew closer, enclosing the one they’d singled out within their protection.

The chant died away to make

room for a single voice—perhaps it was Delia’s, though Gwen could not be sure across the distance.

The wind shifted this way

and that, bringing fragments of the witch’s voice to the blackberry thicket.

Then the circle all spoke together, the very trees ringing with the words: “We who look upon her are filled with love.”

Gwen could not tell if they meant the moon, or the woman enclosed by the circle, or both.

The witches, voices rising in unison, began to chant a name—that of the woman in the circle, perhaps.

Rheda , they called.

Rheda, we hear you. Rheda, we see you.

Together they lifted their arms, concealing the woman who stood in their midst, and as if in answer, the wind rose to such

a pitch that it began to howl through the trees.

Isobelle drew close against Gwen and she leaned back, their bodies conserving

their warmth together as the gale threatened to snatch it away.

On the altar beneath the tree, the candle flames vanished into the wind, objects tumbling over and crashing from the stone—the witches’ white shifts were flattened against them, their hair flying, their bodies and arms bending like saplings in a storm.

The very air seemed to shimmer—Gwen’s eyes grew dim and teary in the wind as she strained to see—

And then the gale subsided.

The chant, which had grown to a screaming pitch, eased.

The name Rheda faded away again as the witches lowered their arms. Rheda stood, her chest heaving, her face tilted up toward the moon.

As

she stepped out of the circle again, the weight she’d carried had shifted.

Not banished, but..

. made bearable, somehow.

As if, when she walked into the circle, she had been more pain than anything else.

Now, she remembered who she was.

Another chant began, another name, another woman stepping forward.

Gwen shifted her weight again and Isobelle responded at

her side—they leaned together, getting comfortable, deciding without words that they would watch every moment of this ritual.

That they would listen as the names and the voices of women carried on the wind across the moonlit forest enfolded them, too,

inside the circle beneath the oak tree.

As one by one, they were made whole.