39
No one forced me to continue into the woods.
They didn’t need to. Willingly and helplessly, I trekked through the snow. Two males trailed me, a female and a male at my front. All I had was a driver, whose fate was unknown. I wasn’t escaping.
Certainly not without my wyvern. Without the hatchling Voran had told me to let no one take.
A mountain of a male with unruly orange hair opened the door of an awaiting black sleigh. Already inside, Dusk hissed and screeched at him, coughing smoke when I quickly gathered her into my arms. I scrambled onto the leather seat as the door shut and the sleigh lurched forward.
Trunks, piled atop each other, rattled and slid over the seat opposite me. My trunks. Taken from the Cloverleaf carriage.
They’d known. King Raxon had known where I was headed—that it hadn’t been to Valadorn.
I was too cold to dwell on that right now.
Kicking off my soaked slippers, I tossed the blanket at my shoulders around Dusk. Then I rummaged through the trunks until I found my thickest cotton gown, socks, and boots. I made sure the drapes covering the driver window were secure before ripping my sodden gown over my head.
I heard it tear and winced. But just as Voran had teased, it was already ruined.
Thoughts of him permeated as I rubbed my freezing feet and settled next to Dusk.
Raxon’s claws indeed. Pleading with him would’ve been futile. He wouldn’t have helped me. He’d been sent to hunt me, and he’d used the wyvern he’d given me to lure us over the boundary of Peace Road into Valadorn proper.
Maybe I’d always been nothing more than another hunt. A game. Something to conquer to aid in passing the time at the archives while he waited for Dusk to hatch.
Maybe he’d known all along that I would end up here.
It would certainly explain why he’d left Dusk in my care. She hadn’t been ready to hatch when Voran had left the archives, and if Raxon had planned to have me in Valadorn, then they would get the wyvern then.
My chest pinched.
How Voran had managed to trick Dusk into wandering so far from me soon poked at my mind. A distraction from graver concerns that kept my blood iced and trembling. Perhaps he’d used a dead hare. Or even a trail of dried meats.
And perhaps Raxon was going to steal Dusk and punish me for intending to deceive him by marrying Meront.
The fear I failed to hold at bay caused more.
No one would come for me. Not when this war had already been lost, and there was now little chance of gaining the gold needed to wage another. Not now that Evexon would inherit the Cloverleaf throne. Not when Voran hadn’t even—
Stop it, I inwardly chided. No point in fretting until you have to.
But I couldn’t help it, and as my thoughts spiraled to darkening places, the only modicum of comfort I found came from knowing that I would live. King Raxon wished to wed me not merely to hold his victory, but because I was a Cloverleaf.
Once my blood was fed to the Scale Crown, I could touch it. I could wear it to summon wyverns without inciting their wrath.
Escort our future queen, Voran had said.
No. Raxon would not kill me.
But some things were much worse than death.
Our speed decreased as we reached the cliffside city of Myanolva.
I might not have known what myishla meant, but everyone knew the name of Valadorn’s capital meant my liege’s den. Though I could appreciate the intent—being that this city was home to most wolves in the kingdom—it was hardly a den.
The icy streets were more spacious than any I’d seen, lined with wood-and-stone structures in a tidy fashion that said utmost care was taken in the placement of dwellings and businesses. Although it wasn’t yet dawn, smoke spiraled in tufts from nearly every chimney.
If I was cold in here, then I could only imagine how much colder it was out there. It worsened as we traveled higher and higher up the empty thoroughfare. The sleigh horses were probably acclimated to it.
As she grew, Dusk too would adjust to the climate.
I wasn’t so sure I would. Panic sparked anew when I recalled what I’d packed. Autumn and spring gowns, slippers, two pairs of boots, four cloaks, and a handful of socks. Plenty for our cooler moons, and also Moongold’s autumnal weather.
But Valadorn’s warmer moons were akin to late autumn.
I quietly hoped that I could get my hands on more appropriate clothing and that Raxon’s punishment did not include letting me freeze.
My breath fogged the glass. I drew a flower within the damp. Staring through it, I found small wooden fences before a row of one-story homes that resembled cottages. After hours of nothing but white-capped woodland interrupted by villages and frozen streams, it was almost a relief to see the city.
Halfway up the enormous cliffside, the city gave way to larger estates and patches of woodland. Through gaps in trees, Palace Valadorn finally came into view.
Supposedly, the lower levels of the fortress were crafted from rock that had been there long before the palace. When it had been built, the upper floor was made from wood, except for a singular stone tower for the alpha.
From depictions I’d seen, the palace was far from grand. Just a giant block of stone and wood, penned in by a sky-reaching fence of iron. As a youngling, it had scared me.
Now, it terrified me.
Dropping my head back against the seat, I stared at the sleigh’s wooden ceiling until the threat of tears abated. Until the ascent steepened and the sleigh began to jolt over the rock and shrub-dotted terrain.
As we approached iron gates taller than most wyverns, Dusk’s fussing became a welcome distraction.
The screech of those gates tilted her head, and she made a similar screech as we lurched forward to head through them. I collected Dusk and the blanket to my side, tense but trying to keep my breathing even so she wouldn’t sense my fear.
Through the window, snow-covered grass was interrupted by wooden outbuildings, a fenced yard for horses with stables attached, and sharp, barren trees.
The drive flattened near the palace. We curved around the circular bay and slowed to a halt beside a row of jagged windows. Panes of crimson glass had been forced between gaps in the stone, I realized as the sleigh door opened.
Ice speckled the driver’s russet beard, as well as the hair peeking out from his woolen hat. He said nothing. Just grunted and gestured with a gloved hand for us to get out.
Leaving us on the snow-dusted drive, the heavily cloaked male retrieved my belongings from the sleigh. Besides clothing, I hadn’t brought much. After Evexon and his mother had been unveiled at my farewell ball, I’d been too upset for such things to matter.
Now, staring at the direwolf face carved into the oak doors atop the stairs, I wished I’d at least taken that poison from Evexon.
The sleigh driver climbed the three cracked slabs of stone to the doors, setting my trunks before them. He then nodded to someone behind me. I turned to find a big male with short brown hair and a long beard.
Gold eyes. A wolf shifter.
Those eyes briefly surveyed me, narrowing on the wyvern growling softly in my arms. Just like Voran and his entourage, this male wore black. The brooch holding his cloak over his large shoulders—a wolf face—marked him as a warrior.
“Princess.” After a quick nod, he said, “This way.”
He marched up the stairs and pounded his fist on the center of the doors seven times.
As the sleigh journeyed down the drive toward the stables, snow started to fall. For a moment, I just stood there. I let it kiss my cheeks and nose as I gazed at the whitened grounds. Dusk shivered and crawled up my chest, trying to hide beneath my hair.
It gave me the courage to walk up the stairs and greet my fate.