4. Gwen
Gwen bolted upright, her eyes fixed on Miriam. “Rumors?” she cried, only just remembering to modulate her volume. “What rumors?”
Miriam froze, her eyes widening and her expression growing terrified. “Wh…What? Rumors? I don’t know anything about any rumors!”
“Miriam!” Gwen hissed. “You know something! Clearly you do! Tell me at once!”
Miriam stared at her, looking more like a startled rabbit than ever, except now she was caught in the gaze of a predator.
Gwen had the grace to feel ashamed, but she wouldn’t let the dropped hint go. She couldn’t. She needed answers, even if she had to press Miriam into giving them to her.
But footsteps around the corner shattered the moment. Their approach was rapid, and she barely had time to throw herself back into her chair before the newcomer appeared. Gwen smiled and nodded to the courtier, even as she watched Miriam out of the corner of her eye. Miriam had resumed polishing the glass at a feverish pace, her back to the princess, but Gwen still caught the telltale flush in her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed. Miriam definitely knew something she didn’t want to tell the princess.
But the courtier paused, shifting uncomfortably as his eyes flashed from Gwen to Miriam. He might not have been comfortable in the princess’s presence, but he clearly knew his duty. He obviously wasn’t going to continue on, leaving the princess adjacent to such low company.
Gwen tried to wait it out, but as the man blustered through a series of increasingly terse attempts to get her moving, she gave up, putting all three of them out of their misery by agreeing to accompany the man in search of her mother. But once they found her, Gwen couldn’t free herself again, and before she knew it, the evening meal had begun.
This time they ate in the presence of a select group of courtiers, including both the man who had rescued her and Count Oswin. Since the count was her mother’s most senior advisor, he was always present at such affairs, but the other man was a surprise. Lord Rafferty, as he was apparently called, was a junior enough member of the court that Gwen couldn’t remember ever meeting him before, although his face was vaguely familiar.
He had certainly never eaten with them before, and she could only assume his sudden inclusion was a reward for his meddlesome surveillance of her. The thought stung, although it shouldn’t have come as a surprise given what she now knew about how her mother had been using the court against her. It wasn’t much of a step from alienation to surveillance.
Gwen stuffed down her resentment, squishing her feelings away until there was no outward sign of them, as she had so often done before. She had no desire to attract her mother’s attention, especially in the presence of guests. At least with the others present, she would be excluded from the conversation and could thus avoid having to converse with her mother.
As the meal progressed, her mind turned to more helpful topics, and she found herself extra grateful to be left to her own thoughts. In the corridor, she had been focused on Miriam’s mention of a rumor—a topic she intended to pursue again at first opportunity. But in the time since, something else had occurred to Gwen, and as she ate, she was free to consider it from every angle.
Miriam had said they were both captives at night, and she was right. For the hours of darkness, neither the queen nor her courtiers watched them, believing both the princess and the valley folk to be safely shut away behind doors. But what if they were shut behind the same door?
If Gwen snuck into the storage rooms with the captives for a night, they could help keep her awake. Behind a locked door, they would have hours to talk freely without fear of discovery or notice.
The idea captivated her. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? All she had to do was stay awake past sundown when the captives were locked away. Once darkness fell, she could creep through the palace to their prison. Given she and Easton had secretly appropriated a master key for the palace—to enable them to roam it freely—getting past the locked door shouldn’t present a problem. Even if she eventually fell asleep—which she inevitably would, she was sure, even with assistance—Alma or Miriam could wake her before dawn so she could sneak back into her own room.
The hardest part of the plan would be staying awake long enough to sneak through the palace. She sometimes remained awake for a few minutes past her normal bedtime, but to succeed with her plan, she might need to last as long as half an hour.
As she considered the difficulty, she pushed her food around on her plate. How little could she get away with eating? A full stomach always made her drowsy, so perhaps hunger pangs would help keep her alert.
It wasn’t as simple as not eating, however. She had long ago learned that her mother wouldn’t permit her to boycott a meal altogether. She needed to walk a fine line—consuming just enough to satisfy her mother without coming close to filling herself.
Thankfully the guests took enough of the queen’s attention that she didn’t notice her daughter’s tiny mouthfuls or how much of her movement was just shifting food around on her plate. And somehow the small amount she ate only made Gwen hungrier than she had been when the meal began.
She even limited the amount she drank, knowing the rich drinks favored by her mother would fill her stomach as easily as food. In a further stroke of luck, Alma was serving that night, and she seemed to pick up that Gwen was eating lightly on purpose. She whisked each plate and glass aside quickly before the queen could notice how full they remained.
Gwen wished she could whisper something of her plan to Alma, but she didn’t dare try even the most subtle communication when she was at her mother’s table.
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her fork, squeezing until her knuckles whitened. It didn’t matter how many years passed. She might be a woman in her twenties now, but she was still trapped as a child beneath her mother’s watchful eye.
But the surge of anger was accompanied with a familiar impotence. Her mother wasn’t merely Gwen’s parent but the queen, and there was no one in the mountain kingdom who would gainsay her. The princess really was just as trapped as the captives, hemmed in by the same mountains that restrained them.
When the meal finally reached its end, Gwen surged to her feet and gave the necessary curtsy to her mother. The queen’s eyes narrowed slightly at her daughter’s hasty exit, but she let her go unchallenged. Gwen made it two corridors over before she put her back against the wall and sucked in several deep breaths.
Closing her eyes, she continued to breathe slowly, reminding herself that the walls of the palace weren’t closing in on her. They remained exactly where they had always been. And her mother wasn’t all-seeing. It might feel like it on occasion, but Gwen had successfully kept her connection to the captives a secret from her. She could keep other secrets too. She could defy her mother’s iron reign.
A tug on her dress made her eyes fly open, her heartbeat skyrocketing with the irrational fear that her mother had somehow sensed her thoughts. But the girl tugging on her was unfamiliar, and she immediately fell back when she saw Gwen’s wide-eyed expression, her own face flushing a deep red.
“I…I’m sorry, Your Highness,” the girl stammered. “I didn’t mean…That is, I didn’t…” Her words grew so tangled that she stopped altogether.
“Who are you?” Gwen asked as her heart returned to a more normal rhythm.
The girl didn’t look much older than fourteen, and Gwen didn’t think she’d ever seen her before. She wasn’t one of her mother’s courtiers, but neither was she one of the captive servants.
With a start, Gwen realized she must be one of the mountain kingdom citizens—an inhabitant of the city who lived in one of the houses surrounding the palace but was never invited inside it.
Curiosity spiked inside her. The queen sometimes paraded through the city streets, her daughter in tow, and the populace obediently lined the streets to see their ruler pass by. But Gwen had never been permitted to walk through the city or interact with any of its inhabitants. Often she forgot about their existence altogether, except as a vague concept.
The girl shook her head, swallowing visibly as she began to back away. “I’m sorry,” she said in a tumbled rush. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. Of course I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean any harm. I—”
“Stop!” Gwen surprised herself by producing the same commanding tone her mother employed so effectively.
Sure enough, the girl froze, her eyes somehow growing even larger and her face even redder.
Gwen softened her voice. “I won’t hurt you.” She added a stern note of warning. “But the palace isn’t a safe place for you. You mustn’t approach anyone else, and you mustn’t let the queen see you. Can you do that?”
The girl nodded, her lips pressed together, and her eyes fixed on Gwen.
“What’s your name?” Gwen asked gently.
The girl shook her head this time, still not speaking, and Gwen sighed. Given the warning she had just delivered, could she blame the girl for not wanting to identify herself?
“Very well,” she said. “Don’t worry about a name. I’m Princess Gwen.”
“Gwen,” the girl said, as if testing it out and liking how it sounded.
Gwen smiled at her. “It must have taken a lot of courage for you to come here. Surely you didn’t come to find me?”
“Mother always told me stories about the mountain princess who lives in the palace and is more beautiful than any other. The one who will someday save us.”
Gwen laughed uncomfortably. “Well, some of that is true, at least. I am a princess, and I do live in the palace.”
“I thought…I thought surely a princess would have the power to help us,” the girl whispered. “Mother doesn’t know I’m here, but I had to come. Can’t you help us?”
She stared at Gwen pleadingly as Gwen tried to make sense of her words. First the girl had spoken of being saved, and now she was asking for help. But for whom? Did she mean her family specifically?
“I…I would like to help you,” she said cautiously. “I would like to help any of my people who are in trouble. But what exactly is the problem?”
“We’ve barely made it through the winter.” The girl’s voice trembled. “Spring will be here soon, but it will still be a long time before any crops can be harvested. And now the taxes are to be raised again? If the queen truly means to go through with it, we’ll all of us starve!” She finished on a crescendo, only to look up and down the corridor nervously, her expression sheepish.
From her reaction, Gwen guessed she was dramatizing the situation, in the way that was common for children her age. From the look of her, she wasn’t on the edge of starvation. But at the same time, it seemed equally clear that the people faced genuine hardship. The girl wouldn’t have mustered the courage to sneak into the palace in search of the princess if that wasn’t the case.
“Will you really starve?” Gwen asked, testing her.
As she asked, the small amount of food she had consumed roiled in her belly. It might have been the end of winter, but there was no shortage of provisions for those who lived in the palace. To her shame, she couldn’t have even said when the new season’s harvest would arrive. Autumn, winter, or spring, their tables were laden just the same.
“Maybe not,” the girl admitted. “But soon we won’t be able to afford mother’s medicine.”
“Your mother is ill?”
The girl nodded. “It’s a chronic condition, and the medicine comes from the far lands.”
It took Gwen a moment to realize she must mean her mother needed the medicine brought back by the queen’s traders. It wasn’t hard to guess that her mother charged the people high prices for anything that came from the valleys.
“I see.” Gwen stared at the girl for a moment before reaching a sudden decision. “Come with me.”
She led the girl down the corridor and into her room, moving quickly. It was best for the girl to be gone from the palace as soon as possible.
Rummaging through her cabinet, Gwen found the small leather pouch she had hidden at the back. For a few seconds, she hesitated, feeling the meager weight of it in her hand. The coins inside were few given how many years she had been collecting them—hoarding them against her dream of one day leaving the mountains. She had saved the first coin the year Easton disappeared, but her stash had only grown slowly.
But it was a hollow dream. In the depths of her heart, Gwen had always known that. She was never going to escape. Never. So there was no point in the coins gathering dust in her cabinet.
She held the pouch out to the girl, a swift movement, as if she feared her hand might disobey her and snatch them back. The girl squeaked, staring at the pouch hungrily before reaching out tentatively to accept it.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” she breathed. “You are as generous as my mother’s stories always claimed.”
Gwen smiled, but it was a tired expression. “I’m sorry I can’t do more. I’ll see what I can do about the taxes but…”
Even as she was speaking the words, she knew the dispiriting truth. There was nothing she could do. She hadn’t even known her mother was planning to raise them—or that she had apparently done so several times before by the sound of it. She wasn’t included in those sorts of decisions. She was powerless.
The girl curtsied deeply and thanked her again before moving to the door. Her hand was on the knob when Gwen called for her to stop, an idea striking her.
She hurried over to join her. “I’ll help you leave. If someone spots you on the way out…” She trailed off, reading in the girl’s face that she didn’t need a reminder of the danger she was in.
What Gwen didn’t add was that accompanying the girl out would benefit Gwen as well. Despite the late hour, she didn’t feel in the least sleepy. Usually, her eyelids would be drooping by that point, but the surge of energy from the girl’s unexpected appearance had driven away the fatigue. And surely creeping through the corridors and grounds would only continue that effect.
Gwen gestured the girl back and opened the door, peering outside into the corridor. There was no one in sight, so she slipped through, signaling for the girl to follow. She obeyed, tiptoeing behind with a thrilled look on her face that made Gwen want to laugh. How many of the girl’s childhood imaginings were being fulfilled in that moment?
But Gwen was no longer prone to the dramatic swings of emotion that plagued children on the edge of youth, and she had a clearer idea of the danger. If the son of courtiers could disappear without a trace, how much more easily could the queen dispose of a girl from the city? Gwen couldn’t let herself forget it wasn’t a game.
They had almost made it to the closest exit when she heard voices. Sweeping the girl along with her, she fled through a nearby door. It led into a small storage space filled with cleaning supplies. Gwen knew the closet was there because she had seen the captives use it—she was just glad it hadn’t been locked.
With the door closed, it was completely dark inside, and Gwen stood with her hand over the girl’s mouth. It was probably an unnecessary move, but she couldn’t help the tension flooding her. She had already been afraid for the girl, but being enclosed in the dark closet sent fear flooding through her at unmanageable levels. Only the contact with another person was keeping her from falling off the edge and plunging into uncontrolled panic.
Somewhere, distantly, she registered that the voices had faded. But her limbs remained locked in position, her mind too occupied with holding back the panic to manage proper thought. It was so dark, and she could feel the shelves pressing in tightly on her.
But she wasn’t alone. She clung to that thought, hearing the scrape of the girl’s breathing in the darkness and feeling the warmth of her presence. She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t being punished.
The girl pulled away, startling Gwen from her stupor. A crack of light appeared as the girl inched the door open, and Gwen’s panic receded, leaving her feeling foolish.
“We need to keep moving,” the girl whispered, sounding nervous. “I have to be home before dark.”
Gwen nodded, hoping the girl hadn’t noticed anything odd in her behavior. Shaking herself, she pushed the door the rest of the way open, taking the lead again.
The corridors stayed clear the rest of the way to the external door, and when she pulled it open, the girl rushed through. She paused to wave farewell to the princess, but Gwen shook her head and followed her outside. The girl wasn’t safe until she was out of the extensive gardens that surrounded the palace. And the cool air of early evening would help drive away the sleepiness that had settled in the wake of Gwen’s earlier panic.
As they walked along gravel paths between carefully sculpted bushes and beds of flowers, she glanced back at the building. Everyone always referred to it as a palace, but it had none of the lightness of the palaces in the storybooks of her childhood. It had the necessary size and turrets, but no bright flags waved at the top of them, and the dour gray stone gave it a stern look she had always hated. It seemed better named as a castle—or even a fort—than a palace. But her mother called it a palace and everyone else followed suit, playing into the fantasy her mother liked them all to enact—the one where she was a beloved monarch, her servants had chosen their positions, and Gwen was her loving, cosseted family.
Distracted by her thoughts, she nearly didn’t hear the crunch underfoot as a patrol of guards neared their position. They were so close to reaching the palace boundary, but they weren’t quite there, and there was no time to conceal them both.
Acting without thought, she shoved her companion hard. Caught by surprise, the girl staggered sideways and fell between two bushes. The greenery grew close enough together that the shadows covered her in the darkness. Turning in the same movement, Gwen reached for an early rose bud, a smile fixed on her face.
The guards came into view, both halting for the span of a breath before hurrying toward the princess. Their hands rose to their sword hilts only to fall away again when they got close enough to confirm her identity. But their expressions didn’t relax.
“Your Highness!” the older of them said, sounding disapproving. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“But the first of the roses are starting to bloom,” Gwen said as innocently as she could.
“Your Highness, you need to go inside,” he said more firmly.
A slight rustle from the bush beside them made the second guard start to turn. She grabbed his arm, smiling inanely up at him.
“How could I sleep on such a beautiful night?”
The young man threw his superior a panicked look, and the older man pulled Gwen off more roughly than she had expected. But at least his firm hold on her arm drove off the sleepiness that had started to weigh her down.
She still threw him a shocked look, however. “Captain!”
He didn’t loosen his hold. “It’s nearly dark, and you need your sleep.”
A stab of excitement sharpened her senses, driving the sleep even further away. They had strayed onto the topic of nighttime, and though she was sure to suffer for this episode later, it would be worth it if she could reveal another piece of the puzzle.
“There’s nothing dangerous about darkness,” she said boldly. “I’m still within the palace grounds.”
“Your Highness has no idea,” the man said gruffly. “Nowhere is safe at night.”
Gwen raised both eyebrows. He talked as if there were rabble at the castle gates waving pitchforks. Although given what she had just learned about the taxes, perhaps there soon would be. Gwen had helped one family today, but she was painfully aware there had to be many others with equally compelling needs in the city.
She pushed that thought down, however, focusing on the guard. “Please,” she said as sweetly as she could manage, “enlighten me.”
The younger man threw his superior another panicked look, this time encompassing the rapidly darkening sky in his glance.
“We have to hurry,” he said, not speaking to her.
“Whatever for?” she asked brightly. “I don’t feel at all sleepy yet. And I know the way well. I wouldn’t lose my way even in pitch black.” She smiled from one to the other. “And you two brave soldiers can accompany me to keep me safe.”
They appeared not to hear her, too busy conducting a silent conversation comprised of their eyes and several expressive grimaces. At the end of it, they seemed to reach a consensus.
Still not addressing her, the other guard took her remaining arm in an equally firm grip as they hustled her along the path. When she exclaimed and tried to break free, they only tightened their hold, almost lifting her feet from the ground to hurry their passage.
Gwen managed a single glance back over her shoulder and caught sight of the girl slipping out of the bushes and running for the castle boundary. At least she had succeeded in distracting the guards. But she was going to have bruises to show for it in the morning. She had never expected castle guards to dare manhandle the princess in such a manner.
She swallowed down a lump of actual fear. Whatever had spooked them, it had to be more serious than she had realized. Just what happened in these grounds at nighttime?
She ceased struggling, but they didn’t slow or even loosen their grip. Her fear increased, and she wondered if they meant to haul her straight to her mother. If so, she would need an excuse for going outside that was more believable than a sudden desire to see the roses.
But Gwen’s mind had stopped working, frozen in a state of confusion and fear, as it had done in the closet. The morass only lifted when it became clear they were heading for her bedchamber. By the time they shoved her inside, she had gathered herself enough to at least recover her balance before she fell.
She turned, meaning to protest, but the door was already being firmly closed behind her. Angry, she stomped over and pulled it back open. The guards, already part way back down the corridor, didn’t pause or even look back. Despite their cowardly retreat, Gwen didn’t risk stepping out of the room. Instead, she contented herself with glaring fire at their backs.
When they had disappeared around a corner, she reluctantly closed the door. At least the trip outside had used up much of the wait before she could enact her plan. But it was still too early to leave her room—especially given what had just happened. The guards might yet be fetching her mother.
She waited, sitting bolt upright on the edge of her bed in expectation of the queen sweeping into the room at any moment. But as the minutes passed without the door opening, she couldn’t maintain the alert expectancy.
She tried to hold onto the earlier thrill of creeping through the palace, but it had faded beyond her reach. She pulled up her anger instead, gently exploring the burgeoning bruises on her arms. But even the anger felt distant and hard to reach.
Her blinks became longer, the weights on her eyelids making them harder and harder to open. Her thoughts grew muddled, no longer following logical threads but jumping erratically and chasing down nonsensical tracks. Several times she jerked, her whole body jumping as she pulled herself back from the verge of sleep.
Defiantly, she forced herself to her feet, crossing over to open the curtains as wide as they would go, letting in a wash of moonlight. She pressed her cheek against the cold of the windowpane, the shock of it driving back the heaviness for a moment.
But the sensation lost its effectiveness too quickly, her limbs growing as heavy as her eyes. The sweet lure of sleep was harder and harder to resist with each passing second. Giving in to it would feel so blissful.
She slipped down to curl on the broad window seat, her hands reaching instinctively for one of the cushions and putting it under her head. Despite everything she had tried, she couldn’t fight the sleep that always overtook her. It was a river, and she was drowning.
She woke with a start and the certain knowledge that something was different. It took her a moment to realize what it was. She had slipped off the window seat, landing on the floor with enough force to pull her out of sleep before the sun rose. Gwen couldn’t remember the last time she had woken when it was still dark.
Excitement flooded her, fighting against the pull that tried to drag her back beneath the waves of sleep. There were still hours of the night left. She could still seek out the captives.
It was difficult to keep her eyes open, though, and she let them drift most of the way closed as she wrestled her sleep-heavy limbs into compliance. She felt as if she were fighting for control of her own body, but her determination drove her forward, and she crawled toward the door on all fours. By the time she reached it, her eyes had drifted shut again, but she was still forcing herself to move. It was too warm in her room. If she could just get out into the cold corridor, she would wake up enough to get to the captives.
Feeling blindly up the wood of the door, she found the handle. But it wouldn’t turn. Her door was locked.
She slumped against the floor, despair filling her. Had the guards returned to lock her in? Was this the result of her small defiance?
A worse thought flashed through her mind. Had her door always been locked, and she had simply never noticed?
Following on its heels was another thought that rapidly grew into certainty when she combined it with the strange behavior of the guards. She had feared that everyone was keeping a secret about her, but whatever was happening was bigger by far. Something dangerous was happening in the palace at night. Something big.
She tried to hold onto the thought as sleep claimed her again.