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She tried to toss the bird into the blue void beyond the window, but the hawk only fluttered away and arced back to the sill, settling in stubbornly once more.

“She will not leave you,” Elani said, “any more than I will. Rossmine wants to help. If only there were some ally to whom you might send a plea, with Rossmine as your messenger! Surely there is a man somewhere in this vast kingdom who would rally the people and come to your aid.”

The hawk stretched her glorious wings and cried out piercingly: “Cador! Cador the Warrior!” But neither woman understood.

As Tressalara’s hand drew back, the gold and amethyst bracelet gleamed in the sunlight. A daring plan took rapid form in her brain. “Your words have given me an idea, Elani. It may not work, but I believe it is our only hope!”

An hour passed before Lector’s men came to escort the bride to the chapel for the marriage service.

When they unbarred the door, an astonishing sight met their eyes.

Elani sat in one chair before the empty hearth.

The princess’s golden slippers stood empty before the opposite chair, which held only her crumpled gold wedding gown—and a large white hawk.

“Where is the Princess Tressalara?” their captain demanded.

Elani pointed mutely to the bird. Rossmine turned her noble head and eyed the soldier fiercely. They saw that the hawk wore a circle of gold and amethyst upon its head. The men’s mouths fell open in astonishment.

“What sorcery is this?” The captain gasped. “The creature wears the princess’s crown!”

“Witchcraft!” another mumbled, making a sign to ward off the evil eye.

As they milled about in confusion, Lord Lector joined them. “What is the delay? I am most impatient to claim my lovely bride.”

The soldiers parted ranks to let him enter. “The Princess Tressalara has used the power of the Andun Crystal to turn herself into a bird.”

“Idiots!” Lector pushed past them and stopped in his tracks.

He would not have believed this were he not seeing it with his own eyes.

The hawk hissed at him, and light winked from the carved dragon in the central amethyst upon its coronet.

Lector’s tan face blanched with mingled fear and fury. He lost control.

“By God, she shall not escape me through such tricks! She is of no use to me now!”

He lunged forward, intending to grab the bird and wring its neck.

Instead, Rossmine spread her mighty wings and struck him in the eye with one.

Before he could protect himself, a talon raked his cheek, laying it open.

Then the hawk bounded to the open casement and launched herself into the air.

With a mighty screech and a flap of her powerful wings, she vanished into the clouds.

Lector held a hand to his ruined face as blood dripped hot through his splayed fingers. Hate burned in his eyes. “You will pay for this, Tressalara!” he shouted.

He rounded on his soldiers. “From this moment I declare the Princess Tressalara to be a traitoress to her country. A purse of one hundred gold coins will reward the man who finds the princess and brings her to me in chains…alive or dead! ”

Elani gasped, and the captain turned toward her. “What of this serving wench?”

“Lock her in and bar the door. I have no time to deal with her now. Let her starve to death for whatever part she has played in this black magic.”

Lector and his men went out. Elani listened at the door until she was sure they were truly gone, then secured it with the bar on the inside, as Tressalara had instructed. When it was in place, she crossed to the enormous tester bed and tapped on the wall behind it.

Tressalara slid the panel open, grinning in relief. “I can’t believe he was deceived by our ruse!”

Jumping down, she pulled out an enormous length of knotted fabric.

Gowns, shifts, sheets, and cloaks had all been tied into a sturdy rope.

“To think I believed that learning to knot a fringe was a waste of my time.” She laughed ruefully.

“Now help me tie it to the bedpost, and I will make my escape.”

The drop from the tower window to the ground outside the castle walls was precipitous. If Tressalara had not been one to delight in heights and feats of daring, it would have made her dizzy with fear. White water foamed over striated boulders. A fall would mean instant death.

They fed out the makeshift rope and saw that it came woefully short of reaching the ground. Tressalara heard her maid take in a shaky breath. “Don’t be concerned, Elani. I have done this before—in my younger days, you know.”

She bit her lip as an unexpected sting of tears made her eyes smart. How angry her father had been at her reckless disregard! And how proud of her daring. Oh, Father! She dashed her tears away. She must act now and mourn later.

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.