17. Gwen
When Queen Celandine appeared, she paused in the doorway, regarding Gwen with raised brows. “You’re here early, my dear.” Her tone didn’t indicate whether she thought it a good or bad thing.
“I’m here,” Gwen said through gritted teeth, trying to hold onto her courage now she was actually facing her mother, “for real answers. You cannot possibly mean for me to marry a lowlander prince.”
The queen’s brows rose even further. “Really, my dear, must you use that language?” She walked unhurriedly to the table and sat. “I’m not sure why you find the idea so impossible. Who else should you marry if not a prince?”
Something in the look she gave Gwen—as if she knew who Gwen would rather marry and was mocking her for it—sent anger searing through Gwen’s veins. The emotion overpowered the instinctive fear she felt in her mother’s presence.
“Oh really?” she spat out. “So you’re intending to tell the lowlanders the truth about us? Or do you think you can excuse why a husband and wife need separate chambers at night?”
The queen’s hand stilled, her knuckles growing white around her fork.
“What do you mean?” she asked, the words coming out a fraction too quickly.
Satisfaction surged through Gwen. For the first time she had succeeded in rattling her mother.
“Oh, I don’t know, Mother. I suppose I’m thinking that my husband might be a little surprised to discover his bride turns into a bear each nightfall! And when he finds out I’m not the only one, he may suspect a conspiracy against him.”
“Silence!” The queen leaped to her feet, sending her chair clattering to the floor behind her. “How dare you!”
She reached Gwen in two strides, slapping her hard across the cheek. The blow sent Gwen staggering back, her hands flying to her face. Her mother had never hit her before, and the shocking pain brought her fear rushing back.
It was too late to back down now, though. She had revealed her knowledge to her mother, and she couldn’t take it back.
“Never say that aloud,” the queen hissed. “Anyone might have heard you!”
“So you are keeping me a secret from everyone.” Gwen tried to keep her voice from shaking. “But why? If the whole kingdom knows the palace’s inhabitants become bears at night, why can’t they know their princess does as well?”
Her mother clapped a hand over Gwen’s mouth, silencing her. Gwen pulled back.
“But why?” she cried. “What difference does it make?”
“It makes all the difference!” the queen growled. “Are you trying to ruin everything?”
For a moment the two stared at each other, both of their chests heaving and their eyes blazing. Distantly Gwen felt curious. Why had her mother kept the condition of the court a secret from Gwen and Gwen’s inclusion in the enchantment a secret from everyone else? The two guards who had found her in the garden must have been genuinely worried for her, thinking she was an ordinary girl about to be confronted with something horrifying.
But sharper than the curiosity was the anger, laced with the inevitable fear that underlined every interaction with her mother. Despite her shaking knees, Gwen wasn’t going to back down. Not this time.
The queen’s brows drew closer, her eyes narrowing. “So you have discovered the truth at last, pathetic girl. I suppose you had to know eventually. But I will not allow you to ruin plans that have been years in the making.”
She grabbed Gwen’s wrist, holding it tightly enough that Gwen cried out in pain. The queen didn’t loosen her grip.
Dragging Gwen behind her, she strode out into the corridor. Gwen struggled to free her arm, but despite her efforts, she was pulled along in her mother’s wake.
When they began climbing the winding stairs of the west tower, Gwen considered throwing herself down them, pulling her mother with her. Surely the queen would have to release her hold then.
But Gwen was as likely to be injured in the attempt as her mother. She would have little chance to escape with two broken legs.
She kept struggling, though. It might be futile, but now that she had unstoppered the dam, she couldn’t suppress the years of bottled anger and resentment that were flowing out.
It made no difference. Her mother maintained an iron grip, proving herself stronger than she appeared. Only when she had opened a door at the top of the tower did she finally let go, and only then so she could throw Gwen into the room beyond.
Gwen flew forward, losing her balance and landing hard enough on the stone floor to bruise. She scrambled to her feet, wincing, but her mother stood in the middle of the doorway, barring the exit.
Tears sprang to Gwen’s eyes. “Why, Mother? Can you really not tell me why?”
“What a fool I was to think you had finally matured into the tool you need to become.” The queen regarded her with disgust. “How the court and kingdom can put their hope in you, I’ll never understand.”
“H…hope? What do you mean?” The queen’s unexpected words drove back Gwen’s impending tears, a strange echo of those spoken by the girl from the city.
“It’s all your fault, you know,” the queen snapped. “If it hadn’t been for that fool boy, I would never have felt the need to—”
“Fool boy?” Gwen surged forward, grasping at her mother’s shoulder. “You mean Easton? What did you do to him?”
“Far less than he deserved!” The queen thrust Gwen backward again, sending her to the floor in a second heavy fall.
But Gwen barely felt the pain. She stared up at her mother. “So he’s alive then?”
“As I said, better than he deserved! But I couldn’t risk killing the son of a courtier. Not after everything went wrong.”
Her eyes snapped and burned, pouring the load of her own anger and frustration onto Gwen. “But how was I supposed to know the object worked in such a way? It was supposed to bind my people to me—ensure their loyalty. How could it turn us into bears and bind us to the mountains instead?”
Gwen slowly stood, giving a shaky laugh. “So it was a mistake, then? The high and mighty Queen Celandine made a mistake, and now you must spend your nights as a bear?” She laughed again, a stronger, colder sound. But her mother was finally talking, giving her answers, and she had to goad her into continuing.
“Silence!” her mother cried. “It may have been a miscalculation at the time, but I can turn any situation to my advantage. Haven’t I used it to keep the population quiet? I even found us a way through the mountains—I bought us a future!”
“But it was still a mistake,” Gwen said softly. “And every night you’re reminded of it. But why did you have to involve me?”
The queen gave her a satisfied look. “That was a master stroke, and I came up with it on the spot. Obviously I couldn’t confess I’d made a mistake. I needed to assure my people the enchantment wasn’t permanent, but since I had no idea how to reverse it, I needed to give myself time. And thankfully you were safely out of sight.”
Gwen sucked in a breath at this description of her torturous imprisonment.
The queen smiled in response. “A humorous fantasy, is it not? But hope is as powerful a tool as fear. A careful wielder of both can hold more power than you can imagine.”
“You’ve been using me to control the court all this time?” Gwen stared at her mother. It was far beyond what she had imagined.
“I’m only surprised they swallowed the notion of a virtuous princess so easily,” the queen said with a mocking smile. “A girl so pure, the enchantment couldn’t touch her. One who must be protected at all costs because only she could save her people.” She chuckled. “But it does sound like something the godmothers would contrive, does it not?”
“But you haven’t found out how to reverse it,” Gwen said slowly. “It’s been ten years, and we’re all still trapped. How can the people still look to me with hope?”
The queen’s smile turned hard. “Who said I didn’t know how to reverse it? A prince is the answer, of course.”
Gwen gaped at her. “That’s why you’re bringing a lowlander prince here? Marrying him is supposed to reverse the enchantment?” She frowned. “But love is usually the key when it comes to godmother objects. You can’t possibly think I love this stranger or he me?”
“Love?” The queen’s brows rose. “No, who could ever love you?”
Gwen froze, icy tendrils creeping over her. She didn’t know why the words shocked her after everything her mother had said over the years. But they hit her in a part of her heart she didn’t know was still unguarded.
“A prince was just the excuse at first,” the queen continued, “since I hadn’t found a way to reverse it by the time you came of marriageable age. I told them it could only be a prince and that stalled them for a while. And then somehow they found…” She broke off, clearly seething too much to finish the sentence.
Gwen frowned at her mother, trying to understand what she wasn’t saying. Had it not been the queen herself who had chosen the prince and insisted on Gwen’s marriage? Had someone actually called her mother’s bluff? Had it been one of her trading teams? Gwen almost wanted to laugh at the idea of her mother’s horror when her people returned in triumph with a prince in tow, expecting to be rewarded.
But if they had found a prince and brought him into the mountains, where was he now?
The queen looked up at Gwen, her eyes narrowing. “As always, I turned the situation to my advantage. You would do well to remember that no matter what happens, I will always find a way to control the situation. The time had nearly come in any case, and the princeling has proven useful and will have further uses still. Including him in the enchantment produced unexpected results, but the boy has his own godmother, and her words were far more interesting than the boy himself.” She scoffed. “He will soon fail, of course, that much is inevitable. But he will still free us in the process, and then I will have one final use for him.”
“Marrying me,” Gwen said, the words dull. She couldn’t follow half of what her mother was saying, but anything that brought the queen so much satisfaction had to be bad for Gwen.
“You may think you’re defying me right now,” the queen said. “But it is as pointless as everything else you’ve attempted. The prince will return to us soon—the painting has shown that clearly enough. So I merely need to keep you sequestered here until then.” She tapped her chin. “I will say you’re sick and resting so as to be recovered for the prince’s arrival.” She nodded. “Yes, that will work well enough.”
Gwen’s heart leaped as she realized her mother meant to lock her in the tower room and leave her there. But it wasn’t fear that stirred her. Not when she had the master key still resting in her pocket.
The queen stopped halfway through the doorway, however, turning back with a mocking smile. “I am not such a fool as you apparently think me, daughter. The key to this room is one that only I hold. Your master key will not open it. And so I recommend you reconcile yourself to your stay here and use the time to prepare for your future. Soon our curse will be broken, and you will be married straight after. You will soon be the princess of two kingdoms, and we will begin a new and glorious future for the mountain throne.”
“What do you mean?” Gwen asked, her mouth dry.
The queen’s lips curved upward. “I’ve always promised you would one day rule, haven’t I? But how could I leave you such a small kingdom, trapped behind walls? The throne I will pass to you will stretch all the way to the ocean. There is no mountain I won’t level for your future. Don’t worry, my dear. You will be Queen Gwendolyn sooner than you think—but I will always be by your side.”
With those haunting words, she disappeared, the key turning in the lock. Gwen threw herself at the door anyway, pounding on it and screaming as she tried to open it.
It remained sturdy, however, and she knew she was too high in an unused tower to be heard by anyone. Even her servant friends wouldn’t know to look for her in such an unlikely place.
She had thought her mother might lock her in her room—had even thought she might try a closet again—but she had been overconfident in her possession of a master key. Failing that, she had thought Alma and the others would find some way to reach her. Now that both possibilities were stripped away, she felt raw, exposed, and desperate.
Her moment of defiance had been so long in coming and had failed so spectacularly. She had known her mother had some scheme underway, but she hadn’t realized the scope of it. Did she really think she could put her daughter on the throne as a puppet queen, hailed by the court as their savior but powerless in everything but name?
Looking around the barren room, it seemed all too possible. And what had her mother said about leveling mountains? A week ago, Gwen would have dismissed it as grandiose talk. But now she had seen the godmother objects her mother had amassed. Was it possible they had the power to change the geography of the region itself, laying forth a path for her mother to conquer the surrounding kingdoms in Gwen’s name?
She looked down at her empty hands, remembering how they had looked as the paws of a bear. Nothing seemed too far-fetched any longer. And her mother would already have a foothold in the lowlands if Gwen’s marriage made her a legitimate princess in one of their kingdoms.
Her mother wanted to fool the mountain people into following Gwen as the one who had saved them from the curse. And she wanted to fool a lowland kingdom into accepting her by marriage, opening the door to her planned conquest. But all her plans revolved around her daughter. Her mother had made Gwen the key to all of them.
A different level of desperation sank into her. She couldn’t stay in the tower to meekly accept her mother’s planned future. Escape wasn’t only necessary for her own sake anymore. Her mother said the curse had trapped her and her people in the mountains—explaining why they had never traded beyond those who lived in the valleys of the foothills—and as far as Gwen was concerned, her mother could stay in the mountains for the rest of her days.
Gwen looked wildly around the empty space. The unused room wasn’t even furnished, so there was nothing she could use to try to batter down the door.
Her eyes fell on the windows. Rushing toward the closest one, she tried the latch. When it swung open, she had a brief moment of triumph before she remembered where she was.
One glance downward sent her staggering away from the open pane of glass. She wasn’t in her room any longer. There was no friendly ground waiting for her, only a fall of several stories.
But desperation still had its fingers deep in her heart. Not even her fear of the drop could compare to her fear of her mother. And if she did fall, at least her death would foil her mother’s plans.
Knowing she couldn’t wait until her false courage faded, Gwen swung one leg over the windowsill. There were no sheets to make into ropes or anything equally fanciful. She would either scale the rough stone of the castle wall or she would fall.
Her bravado wavered when she reached the point of releasing her death grip on the windowsill. But she had already gone too far to turn back. She was dangling down the side of the wall, and she didn’t possess the strength to pull herself back up. There was nowhere to go but down.
The wind whistled past her, making her shiver, although she didn’t feel cold. If anything, she felt unnaturally warm. One small slip, and it would all be over.
She wished for a calm day without so much as a breeze that might disrupt her climb, but the wind mocked her, blowing more strongly in response. It curled around her, catching at her hair and dress.
She licked her lips, testing the position of both feet. She had wedged her toes into cracks provided by the uneven stones of the tower wall, but there wasn’t much grip. She would have preferred a better foothold, but it was the best she’d been able to find.
She let go with one hand, holding even more tightly with the other as she searched for a lower hold. When she found one, it felt painfully insufficient. Her fingers could barely grasp the slight lip of stone.
You can do this, she told herself, forcing her mind to override her terrified body. She released her final hold on the windowsill above.
Somehow she remained in place as her second hand sought another uncertain hold. Once she’d found it, she froze, her whole length pressed against the stone, her breath coming in desperate gasps.
But the longer she took, the weaker she’d grow. She had to keep moving. She removed one foot and cautiously lowered herself, blindly feeling for another toehold.
The change in position upset her balance, and her fingers slid. There was no time to recover herself. One second, she was still held in place by three points of contact, the next, she had lost them all, and her body was falling backward, drawn irresistibly toward the ground.
She only had time for an awareness of her impending death and the thought of a single face. And in the utter helplessness of that moment, she felt peace.
Except she wasn’t falling as fast as she should have been. The wind curling around her had grown more solid, winding its way around her legs and supporting her fall.
Could she even use the word fall? Impossibly, she seemed to be not so much falling as flying. Except it didn’t feel like flying. It felt like…riding. An uncontrolled, tempestuous ride, but she could have sworn she felt an invisible mount beneath her.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw the palace retreating behind her. She was actually being carried along by the wind, moving parallel to the ground.
Her invisible mount lurched upward and then dropped abruptly, making her stomach sink to her feet although the wind caught her before she hit the ground and lifted her again.
The warmth she had felt earlier grew, reaching an unpleasant level of heat which seemed to be emanating from one of her pockets. She thrust her hand into it, distracted and confused as she sought the source. It was the opposite pocket to the one holding the key, but her fingers closed around a small metal object.
Gasping, she pulled out the golden halter she had accidentally stolen from her mother a lifetime ago. Given all the revelations since, she had forgotten about the object whose purpose she hadn’t been able to guess.
As soon as it was free, the miniature halter cooled. It also began to grow. Within seconds, it was as large as a real halter, and it had leaped from her hands to position itself as if she really were riding an invisible horse made of wind. A golden thread grew from the halter, connecting it with her hand like golden reins that glowed.
She tried pulling on one side, and the wind horse responded, moving in the direction she indicated. Somehow, impossibly, she was controlling the wind.
Whooping in elation, she looked up to see a mountain face bearing down on her. Given her impossible speed, she was already nearing the western edge of the valley. Gulping, she tugged on the reins, and the wind horse surged upward, carrying her higher and higher until she sailed over the mountain’s peak.
A brief surge of elation gave way to concentration as the wind raced her down the other side, another peak appearing in front of her. It took all her energy to control the wind horse as she rode it up and down the various peaks and summits that lay before her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the steady beat of elation kept trying to break free, but she wasn’t safe yet. She wasn’t free yet.
Finally she rode down the final mountain face, reaching the first of the legendary valleys. They sat on the very fringe of the mountains, but they belonged to a different world—the border of the Four Kingdoms. Far below her she could see roofs and gardens scattered among the trees.
The wind raced her quickly past the first valley, but she angled it downward, and when the next valley appeared, she brought it all the way to the ground. She hit harder than she had expected, sending herself tumbling sideways.
As soon as her hands flew from the reins, they disappeared, and the halter shrank again, dropping to the ground beside her. She scrambled forward, crawling across the littered leaves of the clearing to grab it.
Thrusting it into her pocket with shaking hands, she lay flat, staring up at branches and blue sky. It took a long time for her trembling limbs to still and her heart rate to steady.
As soon as they had, tears took their place. She had done it. After all these years, she had succeeded. She was free.