11. Gwen
Gwen endured hours of forced stillness while a team of seamstresses dressed her in gown after gown, exclaiming over designs and materials and measurements. She couldn’t enter into their excitement, but they didn’t seem to notice her lack of it, treating her more like a doll than a bride-to-be. Had they known of her mother’s plans for a royal marriage before this? Had everyone but Gwen known?
She told herself it didn’t matter, and she tried to use the time to make plans. Part of her wanted to run straight for the mountains to the west of the valley—the ones that eventually led to other kingdoms. Surely, with enough provisions, she could find the passage through that was used by her mother’s people.
But she couldn’t leave just as she was uncovering the mystery at the heart of her home. And she must still have some time, going by the number of dresses her mother had commissioned. If they were intended to be finished before the mystery prince arrived, he must still be a way off. She would uncover her mother’s secrets first, and then she would devise a plan to flee. Maybe she would even find something that could aid in her escape.
By the time she was finally released from the dress fitting, it was almost time for the evening meal. And after her experience the previous night, Gwen knew she wouldn’t be able to stay awake for any nighttime wanderings.
She had the secret master key that should let her out of her room, but the locked door wasn’t her primary hurdle. A key was no use to her if she couldn’t stay awake long enough to use it. And worse—if she made it out into the corridor and then fell asleep there, she would alert her mother to her possession of the key.
So Gwen endured a normal evening meal, even forcing herself to eat as usual, and when she grew sleepy, she went to bed. At least the mattress was soft on her bruises.
But the next morning she arrived at breakfast filled with determination. She wasn’t getting caught up in meaningless activities for another entire day.
On the threshold of the dining room, she paused, however. While they often had guests for the evening meal, having anyone but her mother at breakfast was unusual.
Count Oswin rose instantly to his feet on seeing her, bowing respectfully. “Good morning, Your Highness.”
He smiled and held out her usual chair, waiting for her to take a seat.
“I apologize for intruding on your remaining family time,” he said once she had begun her meal.
Gwen’s hand froze, the knife halfway to the butter. He knew about her mother’s plans?
She shot her mother a look and caught the strain around her eyes as she held her smile in place. The count definitely knew, but the queen didn’t like him mentioning it.
Count Oswin also glanced at the queen, hurrying into speech at sight of her expression. “Not that I mean to imply you’ll be losing each other, naturally. But it will be different to have someone else join the family.”
Seeing her mother relax, Gwen experienced again the familiar feeling that she was missing an underlying meaning in the words spoken around her. In the past, she’d allowed the sensation to wash over her, but now it sent energy crackling up her spine.
She could smell the secrets as clearly as she could smell breakfast. If only she could pluck them off the table as easily.
She forced herself to eat her toast, carefully chewing and swallowing each bite. But her ears were sharp, straining to catch any double meaning. The conversation had moved on to safer topics, however. The count and her mother discussed the weather and an upcoming picnic as if they were perfectly natural topics for a ruler to discuss with her most powerful advisor.
Gwen forced herself to drink her tea. This conversation couldn’t be the real reason he had joined them for breakfast. And from the way he kept stealing glances at her, it was easy to guess that he wanted her gone so he could move on to his true agenda.
As disappointing as that might be, it was for the best. She wanted to escape as much as the two of them must want her to disappear.
Swallowing the last of her meal, she stood. When she tried to think of an appropriate excuse for her abrupt departure, her mind went blank, so she settled for a half curtsy to her mother before hurrying out of the room.
Alone in the corridor, she could finally breathe. And the further she got from the dining room, the more she recognized the unexpected windfall in the count’s presence. Not only had her mother not given Gwen any tasks for the day, but she was likely to be occupied with Count Oswin for some time. The combination of those two things allowed Gwen to start her investigation somewhere she might actually find answers.
She forced her shoulders straight and her face into an expression of detached confidence as she approached her mother’s exclusive wing of the palace. The guard who was always stationed at the door gave her a curious look but didn’t stop her. Apparently the queen’s one family member was allowed into her domain.
Once past the guard, with a door shut safely between them, Gwen’s legs trembled slightly, but she couldn’t risk slowing down.
She considered the options open to her. She could search her mother’s office, but her instincts steered her away from there. Her mother sometimes mentioned having meetings there, and Gwen suspected anything the queen had hidden would be somewhere more private. Somewhere like her bedchamber. Not even Gwen was ever invited in there.
When she tried the handle, it didn’t turn. She had expected as much and come prepared.
Somewhat to her surprise, the master key turned in the lock. She’d feared her mother might have an individual lock for her own chamber.
Inside, she found a room that looked like a mirror image of her own, down to the location of the bed and coloring of the carpet and curtains. She frowned. The castle might have been austere, but what little decoration it had was tastefully diverse. She’d never seen two identically decorated rooms before.
The unexpected appearance of the room gave her a disconcerting feeling of familiarity and wrongness at the same time. She shook it off and began a methodical search.
It didn’t help that she didn’t know what she was searching for. It was ludicrous to think she might come across a paper titled My Evil Plans for my Daughter Gwendolyn,or A List of the Secret Things that Happen in the Mountain Palace at Night. But if she didn’t do something, she might spend another day shaking and crying by her bed.
Her mother’s possessions were as luxurious as you would expect from a queen, but it struck Gwen that they were oddly impersonal. Nothing in the room gave any real sense of the owner’s identity.
When she had examined each piece of furniture without finding anything of note, she turned her eyes to the walls. It would be just like her mother to have a hidden door in her bedchamber.
Her gaze lingered on a pair of closed, floor-length curtains. They would have been unremarkable except for the fact they were positioned on an internal wall.
Gwen pulled them open with a sweeping movement, gasping at what they revealed. Rather than a door as she had hoped, they concealed a large and striking portrait.
A stunningly beautiful girl stared into the distance, her golden hair matching her gown of golden satin. But more impressive still was her hand, which rested on the shoulder of an enormous white bear.
The pose was affectionate on her behalf and protective on his, although Gwen couldn’t have put into words what gave her that impression. The painter had placed them in a spring setting, in a forest, although Gwen could see the edge of a gray stone building that reminded her unpleasantly of the stone that always surrounded her.
She stood still for several minutes, taking in every detail of the painting and trying to make sense of its existence. Why did her mother possess such a portrait—it matched no one Gwen had ever met—and why was it concealed in her bedchamber?
Something about the fanciful idea of a girl with a bear as a companion reminded Gwen of a fairy story. And nothing could match her mother less. Her mother didn’t waste time on imagination or stories for children.
Unless the portrait itself hid something? It wouldn’t explain the subjects of the painting, but it could possibly explain the concealing curtains.
Gwen stepped close enough to touch it, hesitating for a moment before carefully running her fingers along the edge of the frame, feeling behind it. Sure enough, she found a small lever that she managed to pull upward with a single finger.
As soon as she touched it, a creaking sounded, and the entire life-size portrait swung forward. Gwen only just jumped out of the way in time, gaping at the dark space revealed behind. She had been looking for hidden doors but had only half expected to actually find one.
She stepped to the edge of the space, peering into the black. Just as she was considering going in search of a candle, her eyes adjusted. It wasn’t completely dark inside after all—she could see the rim of sunlight around at least two sets of closed curtains.
Within moments, her eyes had adjusted enough to allow her to step inside without any further illumination. Whatever she had expected to find, however, it wasn’t what awaited her.
Several chests rested against one of the walls, their lids thrown open to reveal the sort of riches you might expect to find in a secure treasury. But they weren’t what drew Gwen’s attention.
Scattered around the middle of the room were a series of plinths, each proudly displaying a single item. She had seen an illustration like this in a book once. It had shown a royal treasury, with the positions of honor reserved for godmother objects that had been passed down within the kingdom through generations.
Gwen gasped as her gaze roamed over the room. There were so many of them. And yet, she knew of no recent stories about the godmothers visiting the mountain kingdom. Where had they all come from?
She stepped closer, fascinated. Her fingers reached for the nearest object, but she pulled her hand back. These weren’t like the treasures in the chests. They had power she didn’t understand, and a single touch might be enough to unleash something.
She wanted hours to slowly look through the room, guessing at the powers and original purpose of each object. But she didn’t know how much longer she had. Her fruitless search of her mother’s room had already taken too long. She should have looked for a hidden door first.
Her attention was drawn to a plinth that held two items. They both appeared to be made of gold, but they had a soft, pliable look that didn’t match the metal. She knew why she had been drawn to them—the miniature version of a halter and whip were unusual items to see molded from gold, but they were also familiar. Just looking at them brought back the sensation of wind in Gwen’s hair as she galloped away from the palace.
Without meaning to do so, her hand rose, reaching to finger the halter. The whip made her shudder—she didn’t like them and had never used one—but the halter felt like freedom.
As her skin touched warm, supple metal, the air pressure around her changed. Someone had just entered the room. She jumped, whirling to face Queen Celandine, standing in the doorway of her secret treasury.
Gwen’s face and hands went cold, her breath catching. How had she been so careless? She should have noted what she could and already left. She should have—
“Well done, my daughter!” The queen smiled at her, and for once she actually looked pleased.
“I’m sor—What?” Gwen asked, caught off guard in the middle of her half-formed apology.
Her mother gestured for her to exit the hidden room, but Gwen hesitated. Was there some reason why her mother didn’t want to unleash her anger in this room full of powerful objects?
But staying would only increase her mother’s wrath. So Gwen stumbled out in her wake, watching numbly as the queen closed both the portrait door and the curtains, shutting the girl and bear from view. Gwen almost blurted out a question about the girl’s identity, but she held it in.
When her mother turned to her, Gwen’s surprise grew, however. She still had the unfamiliar look of actual pleasure. If it had been on anyone else’s face, Gwen would have called it pride.
“I wondered when you would find your way here,” the queen said. “Perhaps I should have had that conversation about your marriage with you earlier.”
“You’re…pleased I’m here?” Gwen asked, analyzing her mother’s face for any hint of her true emotions.
“Soon you will be married,” her mother said, “and to an outsider. Some spine and spirit will be necessary if you are to keep him in line. It is a skill you must learn because your husband will not be the last you must control.”
Gwen swallowed. She was not only to have a stranger thrust on her as a husband, but she would be responsible for his subservience to her mother as well? And what was this talk of others? Her mother surely couldn’t mean more lowlanders, could she?
The queen approached her, cupping Gwen’s face in what might have been a loving, comforting gesture from a normal mother. From Queen Celandine, it sent a chill racing down Gwen’s spine.
“Of course, my daughter,” she said, dropping her voice low, “independence shouldn’t be taken too far or else it might grow displeasing.”
She emphasized the last word in a way that made Gwen want to shrink from her hand. She forced herself to remain as still as a statue, however.
“I understand, Mother.”
The queen regarded her for a long moment more before giving a slow smile. “Yes, I think you do. My expectations were low when you were younger, but you have turned out well enough, after all.”
With a satisfied nod, she let her hand drop and stepped away. Her eyes flicked to the room’s door, and Gwen recognized the dismissal with relief.
Picking up her skirts, she all but fled into the corridor, not slowing until she had passed the guard and escaped her mother’s wing entirely. She kept her face down on the way past, not wanting to see the man’s expression. Had he let her past on her mother’s orders? How long had the queen been waiting for her daughter to go snooping in her chambers?
When she reached her own room, she closed the door and leaned against it. But even with its support, her hands were still trembling. She thrust them both into her pockets, wanting to hide her weakness, even with no witnesses.
She instantly stilled, distracted from the lingering echo of her mother’s words and manner. Her right pocket wasn’t empty.
Pulling out the miniature golden halter, she stared at it. Running the events in the secret treasury back through her mind, she remembered the moment when her hand had reached—almost of its own accord—to touch the halter.
It had been just at that moment that the queen had appeared, surprising Gwen. She had no specific memory of it but, when startled, she must have instinctively seized the halter and concealed it in her pocket.
She stared at it, so innocent looking in her palm. Slowly her heartbeat picked up its earlier terrified rhythm.
She had entered her mother’s rooms to look for information, but somehow she had stolen a godmother object. This was undoubtedly taking the matter to a level the queen would find displeasing.
But slowly Gwen’s fingers closed over it in a gesture of possessiveness. She had acquired something of unknown power, and she couldn’t let it go. Not now.
If Gwen was ever going to break free from her mother, the time had come. And she needed all the power she could get.