Chapter 30
Alaric
I keep a close watch on the princess as we move through the woods.
The changes in her strike me anew at seeing her move gracefully across uneven surfaces, hardly making a sound.
She keeps up too, which I wasn’t certain she would.
I was worried it could take days to cross the ground we must cross without a horse.
I hope Tharrok made it out of the woods safely. He knows the way, and he’s smart enough to avoid most of the monsters here. There’s a very real chance he didn’t, though.
Even though we make good time, we cannot travel all day and night. When daylight starts to make its way between the thin leaves of the winter canopy, I draw Guinevere into a glade of birch trees. “We will stop here.”
She looks around. “Why?”
“We need rest.” I begin unstrapping my sword, laying it carefully on the ground.
“What for?” The princess places her hands on her hips and glares at me. “Is this some ambush?”
Finding a comfortable spot, I sit, pulling off my boots to shake loose a stone which had worked its way down to my toes. “Hardly. But you need to rest.”
Rather than sit, she squats, without removing her weapons. A moment later she’s up again, pacing the glade. “We are wasting time. The sooner we get to Thornvale, the sooner I can return to the castle.”
Of course she is eager to return to her lovers. That little tug of jealousy is back, and I squash it down in frustration. “Well you need to rest.”
She glares at me. “You killed me, remember? I don’t sleep. I don’t eat.”
“I did not say you needed to sleep or eat. I said rest. Now sit down.”
“No.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. She might have changed in so many ways, but that stubborn streak is rooted deep within her.
“Princess, let me give you some advice I learned the hard way. You need to rest. You may not need to sleep, but if you do not rest properly, your mind will force you to. If you have not done so, you will be feeling it already. Tense, restless, unable to still your thoughts?”
This gives her pause. To my surprise, she flings herself down onto the ground with a huff. “Well how am I supposed to rest, then?”
“Start by closing your eyes.”
She continues frowning at me.
I sigh. “Close your eyes, princess.”
Finally she obeys. “Then what?”
“Now we are going to relax. To stop thinking.”
“You say that like you can just banish the thoughts, but that is impossible.”
“Not impossible. It just takes work.”
She opens her eyes and flings her hands up. “This is ridiculous!”
I ignore her. Closing my own eyes, I find the most comfortable position I can with my legs crossed and my hands resting lightly on my thighs. “I like to start by noticing all the things around me. Sounds, sensations, smells.”
She lets out an irritated little noise, but when I peek a moment later, she is sitting like I am with her eyes shut. I smile to myself.
“Notice the way the leaves beneath you crush a little as you move. Notice the sound of my voice, the shifting of trees, the creak of the bark, the water in the stream, the birds.”
“There are no birds.”
“Keep listening. They’re quiet, but they are here.”
“I hear them!”
An irritated squawk rises from a nearby tree.
“Good. Now keep listening. Can you hear a leaf fall from a branch? A worm dig to the surface of the earth?”
“Now you are toying with me.”
“No. I am trying to help you.”
She’s quiet for a while. She might even be doing as I said. I try to quiet my own mind, but I’m too conscious of her. Eventually I give up for now. I open my eyes and watch her.
Her face has lost the frown and the tension of before. Now when her brows knit it’s because she’s heard something new, delved deeper into awareness of her surroundings.
When her face falls completely still, I let her sit like that a while. Then I say, “Now stay like that. Do not move. Do not worry if thoughts come into your mind. Just notice them and let them go.”
She’s on her own now. But if I know Guinevere, she will rise to this challenge, like she’s risen to every other.
After a while I get out my oil and cloth and rub down my sword, working away any foreign objects or grime on the blade, working the oil across the surface slowly.
I keep watch over the princess as I do, but she doesn’t move.
Finally I stash my weapon away and shut my own eyes, reaching my mind out for the things that make no sound. The silent dead things buried in the ground, the bodies freshly killed and decomposing on the earth.
The tiny body of a mouse lies close by, dropped by some predator or other, covered by fallen leaves and twigs. I call to it.
Shakily, the body rises and my mind fits inside.
It’s a strange feeling. A feeling of being at once inside my own body and outside it.
Of being in two places at once. The mouse is unsteady on its feet.
Inside the tiny rodent I have to work to keep my mind from skittering to dark places to hide.
The mouse has no need to hide any longer, but instincts run deep.
Instead I send it scurrying to our glade, sniffing around the princess until she opens her eyes to look.
Never squeamish, she stares in wonder as the tiny creature places a small paw on her leg to sniff her outstretched finger.
I look up at her from the mouse’s body. Like this she looks enormous. Towering above me.
Then her brows knit together, and she looks over at me. “Did you see this?”
Trying to talk pulls me from the creature, and it drops to the ground as still and dead as it was when I found it.
Guinevere gasps. “What happened?” Then she looks closer. “It is dead.”
“A handy trick. One I can teach you if you keep practicing this.”
Her brows lift. “You did that?”
I nod. “You could too, I think.”
There’s a pause. It’s a quiet pause, but the tension has left her.
The silence is comfortable. And if my mind wanders to dark places, it’s my fault for not resting.
My hunger is too impatient to let me rest. Instead it roves where my hands long to explore, in restless motion over the pale, soft surface of her perfect skin.
To the sweet wet place between her thighs that calls to me.
Why is it I could not stay hard when I took possession of her virgin body, but from the moment she took possession of me, I’ve found it hard to stay soft?
Melantha stole more than my life and soul from me.
I think she stole my manhood too. It seems she was right about one thing: all I’m good for now is to be used by a strong beautiful woman, taking nothing for myself.
She miscalculated, though, assuming she would always be the strongest and fairest in the land.
Guinevere is more than her match. It’s not even a contest. The princess is far more beautiful than her stepmother ever was. And far more deadly if my instincts are correct.