24. Gwen
Her friend fell into silence, lost in her own reflections. They were unhappy ones from the look of her, and the familiar sensation of guilt wrapped itself around Gwen.
She had been worried for her friend—worried enough to attempt to find the castle on her own. But she had never dreamed of the damage she herself had done. Charlotte must blame her parents, but that was only because she didn’t know it was Gwen who had spurred them on to it. She had purposely maneuvered them outside without Charlotte or her sisters so she could tell them her concerns about Henry.
They had still believed him a mountain prince until she had told them there was no such person. She had even been the one to suggest the candle. She had let her fears consume her, had spread those fears to others, and now this was the result. How many lives had she ruined?
The thought of her mother’s plans of conquest seized Gwen’s throat, threatening to close it over. There were still so many more people who could be hurt as a result of her misjudgment.
Should she confess everything to Charlotte? Even as the thought occurred to her, she was already rejecting it. She wanted to help her friend, but would Charlotte let her do so once she knew the truth?
And under that, the uglier reality. She didn’t want to see the hurt and disgust that would surely fill Charlotte’s eyes once she heard what Gwen had done behind her back. Gwen had finally found a friend, and she couldn’t lose her already. She couldn’t be alone again.
“We’ll go together,” she said instead, the words surprising her. “Together we’ll find both Easton and Henry.” The thought of going back home, in reach of her mother, terrified Gwen. But she couldn’t abandon Charlotte after causing her suffering. And if she was honest, the mountain kingdom was the most obvious place to look for clues as to where Easton had gone. She would have started there already if her fear hadn’t gotten in the way.
“Yes!” Charlotte leaped up, her earlier despair evaporated, her face alight with purpose. “We’ll go together and find them both.” She paused, her brow creasing. “So where exactly are we going? You’ll have to lead the way.”
She flashed her friend a smile, and Gwen took strength from it, even managing a smile of her own.
“Actually,” she said, “about that…” She drew the golden halter from her pocket. “I didn’t walk here when I escaped, I rode the wind. And I think that’s our best hope of getting back.”
“You…rode…the wind…” Charlotte startled her by letting out a loud whoop. “That is far more amazing than I was expecting. You are amazing, Gwen.” She shook her head. “You escaped your mother on the back of a wind horse. I think I picked the right ally.”
She eyed the halter in Gwen’s hand. “Although the horse that would fit that might be a little small to carry both of us.”
Gwen chuckled in spite of herself. She didn’t deserve Charlotte’s admiration, but she couldn’t help being swept up in the other girl’s enthusiasm.
“It gets bigger,” she said.
Charlotte laughed. “Of course it does. So how do we use it?”
She looked at Gwen expectantly, and Gwen’s heart sank. “Um…that might be the hard part. I’ve only used it once, and then it sort of…well, it caught me while I was falling from a tower.”
“You fell from a tower?” Charlotte eyes widened. “Someday you really need to tell me your whole story. But for now…” She looked around them. “Do you think that would be tall enough?”
Gwen followed the direction of her finger to a tree. “Tall enough for what?” she asked, her heart sinking.
Charlotte flashed her a challenging smile. “To fall from, of course.”
“Of course,” Gwen repeated weakly. She wasn’t sure if she had the courage to throw herself purposefully from the top of a tree, but she also didn’t know another way to activate the halter. “What if it doesn’t work this time?”
Charlotte was already walking toward the base of the tree. “It’ll work.”
Gwen wished she had half her friend’s certainty, but she could sense Charlotte was in no mood to be dissuaded. She would take any risk to rescue Henry, and Gwen owed it to her to offer what assistance she could.
When they stood on the highest branch, however, she was no longer so sure she could do it—even for Charlotte.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked, her voice coming out a squeak.
Charlotte threw her a mischievous glance. “No.” She already had one arm wrapped firmly around the bark, but she wrapped her other arm around Gwen. “I think we’d better be connected, though. Do you have the harness ready?”
Gwen held it up. Her hands were sweating, but she had her fingers wrapped so tightly around the golden object they were white with the effort. Even the wind that tugged at them given their height couldn’t pry it from her grip.
“Well, then,” Charlotte said. “Here we go.”
Before Gwen realized what she intended, her friend pushed herself off the branch, pulling Gwen with her. She had angled them away from the other branches, attempting to jump into clear air rather than lower boughs.
She had succeeded partially, but there was still one large branch beneath them—one they had both made use of to haul themselves so high. For a dizzying second, Gwen was sure they were going to collide with it. But then the harness in her hand began to grow.
A blink of the eye later, she had the golden reins in her hand, and the wind beneath her, as steady as any mount. A whoop in her ear and hands clutching at the back of her dress told her Charlotte was safely behind.
“Did that mad plan really work?” she murmured, but the wind snatched the words away before they could reach Charlotte’s ears.
She didn’t know the exact direction of her home, but on the way out, she had been able to steer the wind at will. If they circled high enough over the mountains, eventually they would catch sight of the mountain kingdom. It was too large to miss, especially from the air.
She tried to direct her wind mount upward and east, toward the nearest mountain peak, but it pulled north instead. She pulled harder on the reins, and the wind bucked in response.
Charlotte gasped, grabbing tighter to Gwen. “What’s going on?” She had to shout to be heard over the rushing noise around them.
“I don’t know!” Gwen cried back. “This didn’t happen last time.”
She tried again to direct their wind mount right toward the mountains, but it wouldn’t respond. When she pulled harder, it suddenly disappeared beneath them.
They both dropped, screaming and flailing before it suddenly caught them again. Gwen only had a second to catch her breath before it surged upward, carrying them terrifyingly high.
“This is too high!” Charlotte shouted in Gwen’s ear.
Gwen gritted her teeth and didn’t reply. All her attention was focused on wrestling with the uncooperative reins. She couldn’t understand why they were behaving so differently to the previous occasion.
The wind lurched, almost exactly like a bucking horse, and the reins nearly slipped from Gwen’s grasp. Charlotte threw herself forward and grabbed them as well, the two girls holding on with everything they had.
And all the time they fought the wind, it carried them northward at breathtaking speed, the mountains rushing past on their right. She didn’t know how many valleys had passed beneath them, but they had long since left their starting place far behind.
“I…don’t…understand…” Gwen forced out, her teeth still clenched.
“It’s like someone’s driving it with a whip and spurs,” Charlotte gasped from where she was awkwardly squeezed against Gwen as they both fought the golden reins.
Charlotte’s words sparked memory in Gwen and suddenly everything made horrible sense. There had been two objects on the one plinth—a pair. She had been repulsed by the whip and without thinking had grabbed the halter. It had never occurred to her that overlooking the whip might cause her a problem.
But if the halter controlled the wind, wouldn’t the whip be a matching pair with it? The halter could tame the wind, and the whip could control and drive it. And her mother still had the whip.
“Is the wind getting stronger?” Charlotte cried as their pace picked up even further. “How do we get back to the ground? At this speed we’re going to create a storm and destroy something!”
Gwen pulled on the reins as she had done last time, and the wind thankfully dipped in response. But almost immediately Charlotte cried a warning. Gwen craned to see what her friend was indicating and caught sight of a village approaching below at a terrifying pace.
She pulled their mount sharply back up again. If they went any lower, a wind as strong as the one they rode would rip the town to pieces. As it was, she could see the trees swaying and loose objects blowing wildly about.
She twisted in her invisible seat to see the town disappearing behind them. At least all the buildings looked intact.
Trying again, she pulled the reins up, and the wind lowered them toward the ground. It appeared her mother couldn’t prevent them landing, at least.
But just as she was wondering what to do about the speed of the approaching ground, another cluster of houses appeared. She flinched, starting to direct them upward again, but Charlotte prevented her.
“No, it’s too late!” she shouted. “We won’t get high enough fast enough to miss them. We have to land!”
Gwen realized she was right. As they lowered, the wind was losing strength, so the lower they got, the less force would hit the hamlet.
She pulled with all her strength, no longer worrying about the speed of their own impact. She would have to trust in the object to keep them safe. All that mattered was to slow the wind as much as possible before it hit the defenseless houses.
She couldn’t lower them fast enough, however. Their wind mount swept them between two houses, tearing the roofs off both as it went and filling the air with wreckage.
Gwen screamed, the sound seeming to echo around her as Charlotte also cried out. And then her shoulder, hip, and back hit the ground, and all she could do was breathe, the effort a frantic struggle.
When she finally managed to draw a proper breath, she realized the wind had disappeared completely. She looked down at the tiny halter still gripped in her fingers and quickly thrust it into her pocket.
Charlotte recovered a second behind her, leaping up and offering her hand to pull Gwen the rest of the way to her feet.
“We have to find the people,” she said breathlessly, ignoring the disarray of her hair and the dirt smeared down her nightgown. “They might be trapped or hurt.”
Gwen nodded, scrambling upright. She had brought the wind to this hamlet. Whatever had happened here was her responsibility, and she would do what she could to help, little as that might be.