CHAPTER 46
Helena
Whirling, Helena pulled out her bow and plucked an arrow from her quiver. General Valentin stood in the doorway with a mild expression.
“I’ll thank you not to call me that,” she growled. “I regret ever accepting your help with Luther. Especially since it didn’t work.”
“It may have started as fake, but I always wanted it to be real,” the General said earnestly. “And you can stop pretending to have feelings for Raphael. You’ve done your part by stalling him.”
The prince tensed. After the conversation they’d just had, surely he didn’t believe the General’s hogwash?
But then, hadn’t she believed it herself?
“The only time I’ve ever pretended feelings was for you,” she said with a smirk. “And that was only to keep Luther away and to free my friends.”
General Valentin’s chin jerked back. “Are you saying you actually care for this murderer? For someone who would kill his own father for power?”
“I lived with Cap for months,” she laughed. “I don’t believe for a minute that he’d murder anyone.”
“Ah, yes. Cap.” General Valentin shook his head with a wan smile. “Raphael did a fine job crafting that persona, didn’t he? Someone like Prince Michael, but a little less devoted to being a perfectly charming prince. Someone, instead, with eyes only for you.”
The General’s eyes were sympathetic. They begged her to listen to him. But she fought it. He’d twisted the truth before, about both Cap and herself.
“That’s a lie,” Cap seethed.
“Is it?” The General’s eyebrows bounced up. “What about Rouge?”
But had he lied, or had he only been mistaken? He might have believed what he told her.
“Rouge?” Cap sounded confused. “What does she have to do with anything?”
The General turned to Helena. “Wouldn’t you agree? Is our Rouge not enamored of Prince Raphael and his charms?”
She risked a glance at the prince. He’d been just as confused when she suggested it. But she had suggested it before. Shouldn’t he understand this time?
“Yes,” she finally answered. Clinging to the memory of his adorable stammering after she accidentally kissed him, she added, “But I don’t think he ever encouraged her. He’s a bit clueless when it comes to women.”
“I am not!” Cap protested.
Oh, she was going to enjoy this. “If that were true,” she replied, innocently batting her eyes at him, “you would know when one is about to kiss you.”
“What are—”
Leaning over, she pressed her lips to his. On purpose this time.
Cap startled back before relaxing into her lips for one telling moment. Then grabbing her shoulders, he pushed her away. “Margit! The General—”
“You owed me that one,” she grinned. His face wasn’t as red as she’d hoped, but she’d take it. “And he’s on the other side of the room. We have time to react.”
“He has the wind gryphon!”
Helena spun back to the General. The hand she could see was empty, but the other was tucked into his pocket. He wore a sad smile.
“So much for having a captain with a wind ability,” she said lightly. “I should have known better than to believe a word you said.”
“If you ask Raphael, I’m sure he’ll confirm it for you.” General Valentin strolled toward them.
“There is one,” the prince said stiffly. “But he’s not strong enough to hunt us down. Nor was he in my quarters when you blew my arrow off target.”
The General shrugged. “He supplied me with an enchanted object. But don’t blame me because your aim worsens when you panic.”
If he had the wind gryphon, they couldn’t fight him. So what could she do?
Go for brazen, of course. It was what she did best.
“Cap, miss his mark because he panicked?” Helena laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one, Valentin. Tell us another.”
“Princess,” Cap muttered under his breath.
But the General just shook his head with that sorrowful expression he liked to use.
“I should have known you would believe a handsome youth over a grizzled old general. I had hoped to either marry you or send you home.” He sighed.
“I’ll have to dispose of you instead. I can’t have your foreign influence swaying the judge at Raphael’s trial. ”
“Dispose of?” she replied with an amused lift to one eyebrow. “Will you lock me in a storage cupboard and throw away the key?”
Cap’s hand gripped her arm, pulling her back a step. But she kept her eyes on their advancing foe.
“Perhaps it’s better this way,” the General continued sadly. “There are those who doubted my version of the king’s passing, but even they would never accuse me of harming my own beloved.”
“Beloved?” Helena scoffed. “No one—”
“I’ve already sent a letter to King Steffan accounting our deep love and upcoming nuptials,” he mourned. “He will be devastated when he learns that his dearly loved daughter died at Prince Raphael’s hands. If only I had managed to wrest the wind gryphon away from him sooner!”
Helena’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Ralnor will be firmly behind me once Lord Luther confirms my devotion to you.” His eyes turned to Cap.
“Though perhaps the morally bankrupt prince should die in the struggle as well so there is no second heartbroken lover to confuse things. As Nathalie proved by merely pushing Daphne into the river, it is best not to leave loose ends.”
“Nathalie? So you were involved,” Cap growled.
“The wind gryphon is a marvelous tool,” General Valentin said simply. “I had hoped to gain the water kelpie as well. Removing your sister was an added benefit.”
Helena felt a tremor in her hands as Cap pulled her back another step. If General Valentin was telling them this, he truly meant to kill them.
And it didn’t matter how well she could shoot if he could disrupt her aim.
Helena tugged her arm, trying to free it from Cap’s grasp. If she could get one good shot off while the General was pontificating, the wind gryphon might not matter.
But Cap only tightened his grip and dragged her back again. “How did you find us?” he asked. Since the General was feeling chatty? “It’s been weeks since we felt the magic wind. And you knew I was near Laurier, didn’t you?”
General Valentin pulled his hand from his pocket and casually studied a sparkling blue object. “I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to figure out how you knew to flee, let alone to gain the finesse required to keep the wind from touching people that I couldn’t see.”
Of course. The breeze that had fluttered the trees but missed her on the way to their last camp.
The General looked at them again. “As fascinating as it is to detail my genius, I have other matters to attend to. A group of escaped prisoners, for example, that my guards are collecting as we speak. So it’s time to wrap things up.”
He opened his mouth. Helena jammed her free hand into her quiver, ready to simply hurl an arrow at him.
“Helena?” Marielle’s quiet voice came from the outer door. “Helena, are you in there?”
General Valentin turned, and Cap yanked. Helena stumbled backward, bracing herself to crash into the wall. But then he released her, and something solid knocked her over as the light vanished.
“Cap?” She waved her arms around, but all she found was a slab of wood surrounded by rough stone walls. “Cap!”
He’d thrown her into the secret passageway.
Running her hands over the bookcase, she searched frantically for the mechanism to open it. She could hear Cap and the General talking, but she was too focused on her task to listen. “Cap! Let me out!”
Her fingers found a lever, but it didn’t budge. The bookcase stayed stubbornly shut.
“Cap!” She pounded on the door with her fist. “Let me out of here! Raphael! Open the door!”
He didn’t answer her. Didn’t free her.
The infuriating man was protecting her again, and she couldn’t do a thing about it.
Banging her fist once more, she growled in fury and frustration. Then she set her hand on the wall and moved down the passage as quickly as she dared. There had to be another way out. She just needed to find it.
~
Helena found several more doors in the narrow stone passage, but she couldn’t open them either. Should she turn around? Maybe the other direction—
“Ow!” someone exclaimed as Helena bounced off an unexpected wall. “What in the heavens—”
“Daphne?” Helena blurted. “What are you doing?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” There was a note of wariness in the other princess’s voice. “I didn’t realize you were familiar with the secret passages in my castle.”
Ignoring the accusation, Helena reached out and grabbed her, hauling her toward Cap. Daphne resisted, and the faint whisper of a blade sent Helena skittering backward. She had seen the Amitian princess wield her daggers.
“I suggest you keep your hands to yourself,” Daphne warned. “Pardon my distrust, but you shouldn’t know these passages exist, and you’re the General’s fiancée. That does not fill me with confidence.”
Helena growled in frustration. “Ugh, I should have simply dealt with Luther!” She blew a loose hair out of her face. “Cap shoved me in here, so now he’s alone in my suite with General Valentin. And I can’t open the blasted door!”
A hand grabbed Helena’s arm. “Le Capuchon?” Daphne echoed eagerly. “He’s here?”
“Yes. And he can’t fight the wind gryphon by himself!”
The princess took off down the hallway, dragging Helena after her. Helena scrambled to find her balance. “Before we get there, I should tell you,” she panted. “Le Capuchon is—”
“My brother?” Daphne replied, skidding to a stop.
“You knew? But—how?”
The faint jingle of metal preceded the beautiful sound of a lock scraping. “Best archer in the kingdom?” Even whispering, Daphne’s smile was evident. “That’s been Rafe for years.”
Nodding, Helena strained her ears to hear through the wall. Voices, the ring of metal, a rushing wind, anything. But it was silent.
Daphne slid through the opening like a ghost, her drawn daggers faintly reflecting the candlelight. Helena followed with an arrow nocked. Jogging lightly across the room, she edged through the open door, but the sitting room was empty.
Cap and General Valentin were gone.