To Ride the Wind: A Retelling of East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Four Kingdoms Duology Book 1)

1. Charlotte

Aflash of white caught Charlotte’s eye, unnaturally clean and bright among the greens and browns of the forest. She turned to face it, but it was already gone.

“Elizabeth!” A surge of unease in Charlotte’s stomach made her tongue trip over her sister’s long name. “Odelia?”

She still remembered the childhood years when they had been Bettie, Dellie, and Charli. But it had been many years now since her older sisters had turned into prim young ladies who insisted all three use their full names.

She called again, more loudly, but heard nothing in return. The silence around her was deep—too deep for a forest in mid-afternoon. She opened her mouth to call again but was silenced by a piercing scream.

Launching into motion, she sprinted toward the sound only to run headlong into her middle sister. The two girls bounced away from each other, Odelia falling while Charlotte just managed to keep her feet.

Her sister glared up at her from the forest floor.

“What is it?” Charlotte asked, too frightened to worry about Odelia’s irritation. “Why did you scream?”

Odelia stood and brushed off her dress. “That wasn’t me.” Her voice carried a note of superiority. “Elizabeth was the one who screamed.”

But Odelia couldn’t entirely hide the anxiety in her face as she glanced back the way she’d come.

Charlotte sucked in a breath. “Is she all right?”

She started in the direction of the scream, but she hadn’t made it more than three steps before her eldest sister appeared, stalking through the trees with stiff dignity.

Charlotte raced to her side, grasping her arm. “Are you hurt?” She tried to examine her sister, but Elizabeth shook her off.

“I’m fine,” she said shortly, glaring at Odelia. “I can’t believe you abandoned me! I suppose you were hoping I would be eaten first, giving you a chance to escape.”

Odelia turned pink but stuck up her chin defiantly. “Your legs work as well as mine. It’s not my fault you froze.”

“Eaten?” Charlotte asked, impatient with their bickering.

Both turned on her with a synchronized movement, glaring at the youngest. Charlotte winced. Elizabeth and Odelia might bicker at times, but they were barely a year apart and had always formed a united front when it came to her.

She sighed, but for once she was concerned enough not to back down. “Is there a dangerous creature about? I thought I saw something among the trees…” She trailed off, unable to think what predator might have been responsible for that flash of white.

“It was an enormous bear,” Elizabeth replied in a small voice, apparently subdued by the memory. “A white bear.”

“White?” Charlotte gasped. “I thought they only lived in the far mountains! What was one doing down here in our valley?”

“As for that, who knows.” Odelia looked at Charlotte with narrowed eyes. “But where were you?” She spoke as if she suspected her sister of setting the bear on them.

“I saw a flash of white earlier.” Charlotte pointed toward a place between the trees. “I couldn’t think what it might be.”

All three young women turned to stare at the place she indicated, their earlier fear overwhelming their disharmony. Elizabeth and Odelia might have been pretending to be unaffected, but they were clearly still afraid.

Something moved between the trees, mostly out of view, but none of them could miss the glimpse of pure white. Odelia screamed, and all three sprinted away from the bear toward their house.

Elizabeth and Odelia soon outstripped Charlotte. Given her petite frame, she had never been a great runner. As she fell behind, she knew she should be afraid, but she couldn’t help a surge of curiosity.

She glanced over her shoulder, scanning the trees for any glimpse of a snow-white bear. Did such a thing really exist? And, if so, what was it doing in her forest? In the five years her family had lived in the region, she had never heard tell of a brown bear in the area, let alone a white one. Could Elizabeth or Odelia have mistaken what they’d seen?

Her steps slowed even further, and she half turned. She knew she shouldn’t look behind her while moving—she was going to walk into a tree if she kept it up—but she couldn’t bring herself to blindly flee for home. It was rare for anything new or interesting to occur in this remote valley.

But her momentary courage fled the moment an enormous, white-furred shape lumbered out from between two trees. Her steps faltered and she stumbled to a halt, her mouth falling open. The creature was even larger than she’d imagined, and its fur seemed impossibly white for a wild creature. Charlotte herself never wore white, since the material didn’t stay that way for long.

The bear lifted one foot to step forward, and her eyes caught on its long black claws. Her heart took off into frantic flight, and her muscles tensed, ready for her body to join it. But just as she sprang into movement, her eyes found the bear’s.

Her breath caught. Objectively, they looked just like those of any bear, but there was something in the creature’s expression that she couldn’t dismiss.

She wanted to pause, even to reach toward the bear, but her body was already running. Within steps, trees blocked a clear view of the animal’s face. She slowed, but the memory of the claws returned, and she shook herself. She must have imagined the look in the bear’s eyes. There was no way an animal could display such sympathy, despair, and longing with a single glance.

She didn’t look back again as she fled, and within minutes she had reached her family’s wooden home. It was smaller than ideal for five people, and the paint was long since peeling, but at least the walls and door were sturdy. No wild animal had attacked the structure in the past, and there was no reason to think a bear would do so now.

She pulled on the door, meaning to fling it open and tumble inside, but it resisted her tug. Someone had latched it, although they didn’t usually secure it during the day.

“Elizabeth!” she cried. “Odelia! Open the door!”

A shuffling sounded inside, and a crack appeared. Her oldest sister’s eye peered through, as if checking to see that Charlotte wasn’t a bear speaking with the voice of a girl.

Charlotte huffed and pushed the door the rest of the way open, shoving her sister back. Lately her relationship with her sisters had regressed, and she had been restraining herself around them, but she was too irritated to hold it inside.

“You locked me out there? Are you serious? You were just going to leave me to be eaten?”

“I’m very thankful no one has been eaten.” Her mother spoke with a faint trace of amusement. “But was there really such a need for concern? White bears in the forest sounds like one of your childhood tales, Charlotte, but I don’t know what to make of it when all three of you claim you saw the creature!”

Charlotte winced. Her childhood claim that an invisible girl lived in a tower in the woods had been proven true in the end, but apparently she was never going to live down her reputation for being fanciful.

She directed an extra glare at her sisters, although neither of them was looking in her direction. It was partially thanks to her sisters that she had acquired the reputation in the first place. They had known the truth of the girl in the tower but had still taken delight in undermining Charlotte’s claims. Her relationship with both Elizabeth and Odelia had seemed much improved in recent years, however, thanks to their leaving their old town behind and moving to such a remote area. But lately, it seemed as if nothing had changed after all.

“Perhaps you all imagined a bear,” her mother said in a more comforting tone. “Sometimes the shadows among the trees can be positively fearsome.”

The older two protested this suggestion, but their manner lacked the certainty Charlotte felt. Now that they were in the comfort and security of home, they were clearly both feeling ashamed of their reaction among the trees.

Charlotte shook her head stubbornly, however. “I saw it clearly. It was definitely a bear—and an enormous one too. I knew bears were large but not that large. And its color...” She shook her head. “It was such a pure white it would have hurt to look at its fur if the sun had been higher.”

Neither of her sisters responded to her words, and her mother soon set them to chores around the house, separating Charlotte and her sisters in the process. It was an intentional act, Charlotte knew. Her mother was trying to give them space in the hopes it would soften the other two toward Charlotte. She had been doing similar things ever since the recent resumption of her sisters’ old hostility—a change triggered by the celebration for their cousin’s wedding.

But though Charlotte knew her mother meant well, she was tired of feeling alone and just wanted someone to take her side for once. It had been different in their old home. As young children, the sisters had been close enough, and by the time Elizabeth and Odelia pulled away from Charlotte, she had friends she could turn to in their place. When she was younger, she had solved the problem of her sister’s growing animosity by escaping the house and them as much as possible, spending her time with her friends instead.

But it was different this time. When their father had first announced the family was moving to join his sister and her family in the far eastern valleys, Charlotte hadn’t been too worried. Elizabeth and Odelia had complained that their destination was too remote, but the family had always lived in one of the remotest towns in Northhelm, so Charlotte had dismissed their complaints. The timing had even seemed perfect since her closest friend had just left the village.

But it turned out that the unscalable peaks forming the eastern border of Rangmere were even more remote than the forests of Northhelm. And while a number of secluded valleys were hidden in the lower part of the range, very few humans made those valleys their home. Charlotte had assumed they would at least have their cousins for company, but even they lived several hours’ ride away. It had been a shock at first, and she had feared living in such an isolated way with only Elizabeth and Odelia for company.

But the isolation had worked to her advantage. It had been the presence of others that had first caused the issues in the sisters’ relationship. First, the girl in the tower had chosen Charli as her closest friend, despite Elizabeth and Odelia being closer to Daisy in age. And afterward, the youths who caught her sisters’ eyes had looked past them to their younger sister and the growing promise of her great beauty.

Elizabeth and Odelia, so close in age, had always been closer to each other than to Charlotte, and it had been easy for them to form an alliance against her. But in the valley, it was only the three of them, and her sisters had softened toward Charlotte, growing less distant and severe until she had even started to think of them as friends again, as they had been as children.

All of that seemed over, though. Their cousin had recently married, and everyone from three valleys had gathered for the occasion. There had been several new young men, recent arrivals to one valley or another, and it had also been the first gathering since Charlotte had turned eighteen. Since social customs decreed her birthday made her eligible for potential courtship, it had been a disastrous combination. Not one unattached young man had looked in the direction of either of her sisters, and in such an isolated living situation, that was too great a blow for them to bear.

Charlotte hadn’t felt a connection with any of the young men, but it hadn’t mattered. Before they even arrived home, all the progress of five years had been lost. Their memories of her supposed past crimes had reemerged, and Charlotte was back to being a source of resentment, an other her sisters could unite against. As the younger sister, she was supposed to wait her turn, not constantly steal the attention her sisters desired.

The door thudded open, and their father strode into the house, his cheerful smile banishing Charlotte’s gloomy memories. If Charlotte had the qualities of a dreamer, she had inherited them from her father. It was no surprise he had followed the rumor of prosperity to a distant land—the true surprise was that he had remained settled in Northhelm for so long.

Looking back, Charlotte should have known it was the beginning of the end when a royal tour visited their old town. Not that her father bore any resentment toward King Richard or his heir, but a place visited by royalty was far too established to satisfy the explorer inside him—the one who wanted to carve order from the wilderness and uncover riches for his family in the process.

Her sisters still resented their father for ignoring their protests in favor of his own urge to go. But Charlotte couldn’t maintain resentful feelings in the face of his obvious pleasure in their new home. He could never hide his joy after a day spent taming their land without another soul in sight, and she could rarely help smiling in response to his happiness.

His eyes fell on Charlotte first, standing closest to him. He immediately swept her into a hug, his bulky jacket emphasizing their size difference.

“Charli-bear!” He squeezed her as her broom dropped to the floor, and she buried her face in the soft leather of his jacket, barely holding back tears. Her father had his faults, but he was always warm and affectionate, and lately she had needed those qualities more than anything.

“You can’t call her that anymore,” her mother said in a tone of indulgent amusement. “The girls have seen a real bear in the forest.”

“A bear?” Her father released her and stepped back, turning to look at Elizabeth and Odelia with a chuckle. “Here in the valley? It must have been a shadow you saw, although I’m sorry to hear you had such a fright.”

He glanced at Charlotte, clearly as surprised as her mother that it was her sisters and not Charlotte spouting tales of a bear on the loose. And it was true that in the past she had shared her discoveries without first stopping to consider how credible they might seem to others.

A small, resentful part of her wanted to stay silent—or even to speak up in agreement that it had only been a shadow. She knew from bitter experience that her sisters wouldn’t hesitate to undermine her in such a fashion. But the idea of being dishonest made her stomach squirm.

“Actually, it couldn’t have been a shadow,” she told her father. “It wasn’t dark but white. I’ve never seen a creature with such pristine white fur.”

She expected her father to protest, possibly even to laugh at her, but he did neither. Instead, a strange look passed over his face—an expression almost like fear. Charlotte frowned, but before she could question him, his smile returned.

“Well, well! I suppose anything is possible. These mountains must hold secrets unknown to any man. It is enough that he wasn’t able to get his claws into any of you.”

He gathered up his older daughters into the same hug he had given Charlotte, but they both protested and squirmed out of his grip.

“Tomorrow I’ll check the closest sections of forest before you go out,” he promised them. “If there is any sign of the creature, I’ll drive it off.”

He glanced at the enormous bow and arrow hung beside the door, and Charlotte felt an unexpected tug in her chest. The emotion she had imagined in the bear’s face couldn’t have been real, but she couldn’t shake its lingering effects. It hurt with a melancholy ache to think of the majestic beast riddled with arrows, red blood marring his white fur.

“He wasn’t aggressive,” she said quickly. “I don’t think he meant to hurt us.”

Elizabeth and Odelia both shrieked protests at this suggestion, but her father looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“You don’t wish me to drive it off?” He hesitated and then smiled. “I suppose you must feel a sense of kinship, Charli-bear.”

Elizabeth sniffed loudly. She and Odelia had long ago insisted their father give up his childish nicknames for them, and Charlotte knew they looked down on her for allowing him to still use hers. But while she had submitted to the use of her full name in all other circumstances, she couldn’t bring herself to reject her father’s use of her old pet name. Every time she heard it, she felt warm, like being wrapped in a blanket made of affection and memories of happy times.

“I’ll do my best to scare it away without harming it,” her father said in a softer voice. “Indeed, I would prefer not to harm it. It is no small matter to fight a creature of that size, and who knows what the consequences would be.”

He said the last part quietly, almost to himself, and he didn’t seem to notice the odd look Charlotte gave him. Her mother’s call for them to help prepare the evening meal interrupted the moment, and she lost the chance to question him further. But when she finally lay on her pillow, her ears full of her sister’s even breathing, the image of the bear returned to her mind.

He had almost looked as if he would speak, and as she drifted off to sleep, she realized she would very much like to hear what he was going to say.