25. Charlotte
Charlotte followed at her friend’s heels as Gwen raced back toward the destroyed houses. She could see from Gwen’s expression that she was feeling tormented, considering herself responsible. But neither of them had foreseen the possibility of the wind turning against them and becoming an unchecked weapon.
“What made the wind fight you?” Charlotte asked Gwen as they ran.
“My mother,” Gwen panted back. “There was another matching object that I left behind. A whip. I didn’t know what it did, but it’s obvious now. She must be able to tell when I’ve activated the halter, and she started using her object to interfere.”
The hard ball that burned inside Charlotte flared up. Another crime to lay at the feet of the mountain queen. It seemed there was no end to them, and Charlotte meant to hold her accountable for every last one.
“Help!” A desperate voice called, directing their steps.
They raced around a wall—one that stood starkly upright, no longer attached to the building it had once supported—and Charlotte crashed into her friend’s back. Peering around her, she saw a woman attempting to lift a large beam off a young man.
Charlotte and Gwen hurried forward in unison, one on each side of the woman.
“I’m all right, Ma,” the man said, although he looked pale to Charlotte’s eye and his breathing was strained. “It’s just a pity our roles aren’t reversed—I’d have this off you in a moment.”
“Hush now,” the woman said sternly, “and save your breath.” She sent a desperate look at Charlotte. “It’s on his chest, and it’s getting harder and harder for him to breathe.”
“We’ll help,” Gwen said from the woman’s other side. “If we all pull together...”
The three women reached down, all three of them straining with the effort to pull up the beam. But they couldn’t shift the heavy bar of wood.
The mother kept trying even after Charlotte stepped back, so she pulled her away. The woman fought, trying to get back to the beam, so Charlotte snapped at her, trying to pierce the mother’s mounting fear.
“We’re not giving up! We just need to try something different. Is there anything we can use as a lever?”
“Over here,” Gwen called, and Charlotte turned to find her already dragging a wooden post toward the other two women. It looked as if it might have been a fence post before the wind ripped it from the ground.
She ran forward to help her friend carry the post.
“Where do you think…?” She didn’t need to finish the question before Gwen was placing the shorn-off tip underneath the beam, just above the man’s head.
The mother realized what they were doing and ran forward to help. The fence post was only just long enough for the three women to all get a secure hold at once, but as soon as they had, they all pushed downward.
For a second, Charlotte thought it wasn’t working, and then the beam lifted slightly, raising one inch and then another.
As soon as they had it high enough, the trapped man rolled sideways, freeing himself. The moment he was clear, the mother let go, and the beam clattered to the ground.
She ran to her son, pulling him up.
“Wait!” Charlotte called, rushing after him. “He might be injured. We should check him first.”
“No, I’m fine.” The man managed a pained smile. “Thanks to your assistance.”
Charlotte exchanged a guilty look with Gwen. He would never have needed help if they hadn’t accidentally brought a gale to his home.
Fortunately for Charlotte and Gwen, the mother and son were too relieved at his rescue to ask where the two young women had come from.
“There might be others in need,” Gwen murmured, and Charlotte followed her to the next house.
Once they had rounded a particularly large pile of rubble, they got a proper look at the rest of the hamlet. None of the houses were untouched, although they weren’t all as shredded as the one of the mother and son.
Several people were still being retrieved from two of the houses, and Gwen rushed to help. Charlotte was about to follow her when she noticed an old lady standing on her own at the edge of the chaos.
She crossed over to her, concerned.
“Are you all right, Grandmother?” she asked. “Are you injured or missing someone?”
“I’m not your grandmother,” the gray-haired woman snapped, but there was an amused twinkle in her eye that softened her tone.
“No, indeed,” Charlotte said politely. “But I would offer you aid anyway if you’re in need of it.”
“Aid, is it?” The woman raised her eyebrows. “And here was I, thinking you were the one who brought this on them.”
Charlotte paled. So someone had noticed them riding in on the wind after all.
She bowed her head. “It wasn’t our intention. We ride in rescue of others, but the person who has wronged us is a powerful foe.” The fire in her belly flared up again. “She is the one truly to blame for this catastrophe.”
The woman chuckled. “I’m glad to hear you see things clearly. So what do you intend to do about it?”
Charlotte glanced back at Gwen, who was ferrying a bucket of water toward a small fire that had sprung up in the wake of the various collapses. Others rushed to help her, and they soon appeared to have the fire under control.
“We’ll do everything we can, although I fear we’re ill equipped for this sort of work.”
“Not about the hamlet,” the grandmother said, exasperated. “About this powerful foe.”
Charlotte winced. “I’m not sure what we’ll do about her either.” Her eyes narrowed. “But we’ll find a way.”
The woman patted her on the arm. “That’s the spirit.” She leaned close as if about to impart a secret, and Charlotte responded instinctively, also leaning in. “You have to be in the fight if you want a chance of winning it.”
Charlotte pulled back, fighting a smile. From the old woman’s air of great significance, she hadn’t expected such a familiar saying.
“Very true, Grandmother,” she said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
The woman gave her a tart look, as if she could read Charlotte’s thoughts. “See that you do.”
Charlotte turned to leave. “If you’re truly uninjured, I should see if there’s someone who needs my help.”
“Wait a moment, wait a moment,” the woman cried testily. “You young things are always in such a rush. Give me a moment.”
Charlotte waited obediently, trying to hide her impatience to join Gwen and do something to help.
“It’s here somewhere,” the woman muttered before giving a cry of triumph and producing a golden ball.
Charlotte stared at it, bewildered. When the woman held it toward her with an imperious gesture, she reached out her own arm, and the woman dropped it into her hand. She stared down at the ball, which fit comfortably into her palm.
It looked and felt as if it were made of real gold, but it was far too light to be solid.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What is this?”
“It’s a gift,” the woman said with satisfaction. “Rumor says it will help you find your true love.”
Charlotte looked up sharply, and the woman smiled. “You are looking for your true love, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t bother me with silly questions,” the woman said with a return of her earlier tartness. “Don’t they teach young people manners in this part of the world? If you receive a gift, you should thank the giver, not pester them.”
“Thank you,” Charlotte said obediently, still shocked.
A moment later the woman’s words registered, and she frowned. She spoke as if she wasn’t a resident of this hamlet after all. And neither did she look as if she’d just been caught in a gale.
“No more nonsense from you, youngster,” the woman said with a knowing look. “I’ll look after these people, so you can focus on what you must do.”
“And what is that?” Charlotte asked, watching the woman closely.
But despite her attention, she couldn’t help blinking, and in the half-second her eyes were closed, the woman disappeared.
Charlotte gasped. In the second before she had gone, she could have sworn she saw something shimmering behind the woman’s shoulders.
“Were those wings?” she whispered, although there was no one near enough to hear the question.
The woman couldn’t possibly have been a godmother. It wasn’t as if Charlotte was a princess.
Except…she was. The thought hit her for the first time. If Henry was a prince—one in the direct line to a throne—and also her husband, that made her a princess. The thought was enormous. Too enormous to be grappled with in the moment. But it was enough to make her believe in the identity of the woman who had disappeared before her eyes.
Her fingers closed around the ball. It had been a strange enough gift already, but it had just become infinitely precious. Even after her marriage and residence at Henry’s castle, she had never imagined she would someday receive a godmother object directly from the hands of an actual godmother.
Reverently, she placed it in her deepest pocket. Turning toward Gwen, she was about to call out to her friend in excitement, but something snatched at her dress before she could speak.
The sharp wind pulled at her again, making her stomach tighten. The wind that had died when they landed was returning.
She ran toward Gwen and the others, shouting for everyone to take shelter. She didn’t know how she knew it was necessary, but the certainty filled her.
Gwen looked up, frowning, and Charlotte called only two words. “The wind!”
Gwen’s eyes snapped upward, although there was nothing to see in the sky. Her hair whipped around her face, though, and her skirts flapped. It wasn’t just Charlotte’s imagination. The wind had returned and was growing stronger by the second.
“It’s back,” she panted as she finally reached Gwen. “And it’s going to destroy what’s left of these houses if we don’t do something.”
“But what can we do?” Gwen wailed.
The grandmother’s earlier words—increased in significance in Charlotte’s memory now she knew they were the words of a godmother—came back to her.
“You have to be in the fight if you want a chance of winning it!” She grabbed Gwen’s arm. “Your mother has sent the wind against us again, but we can’t fight it from down here. We have to be riding it if we want a chance at controlling it.”
Gwen wanted to argue. Most of all, she didn’t want to return to the sky to be buffeted and thrown about at her mother’s whim. But she couldn’t deny the logic of Charlotte’s words.
A particularly strong gust made a child cry out in fright, and Gwen’s fingers plunged into her pocket.
“Hold onto me,” she said grimly as she pulled out the halter. She didn’t think they were going to need to fall from a height to be caught in the wind this time.
Sure enough, Charlotte barely had a hold on Gwen when the halter grew and the reins appeared. The next second, both girls had been swept into the sky.
“Go higher!” Charlotte shouted in her ear, ignoring the cries of shock and fear from below them.
Gwen pulled on the reins, relieved when the wind responded and leaped skyward, taking them high enough not to touch the houses or even the trees.
“What now?” she cried, but Charlotte didn’t know how to answer. When she had directed them to resume their journey, she’d been thinking of the villagers below and following the directions of the godmother. She didn’t know how to control the antagonistic wind.
“Forget about the mountains,” she cried as loudly as she could. “Just try to keep it away from people and anything it could damage.”
Gwen nodded, her attention focused on the reins as the wind lurched first one way and then another, trying to throw them off.
Charlotte held onto Gwen, but she kept herself poised ready to grab the reins as she had done before. If the wind grew strong enough, it would take both of them just to keep hold of it.
The land raced beneath them, so distant Charlotte hardly noticed it. But eventually a bright light ahead of them caught her eye. It took her a long moment to realize what she was seeing, and when she finally caught on, she gasped.
Spread from one side of the sky to the other was the ocean, reflecting the sunlight so that it winked and glowed.
“We’re going to have to land,” she shouted, and Gwen nodded.
“I see it.”
Charlotte had always wanted to see the ocean, but she didn’t want to be swept out over it, carried far beyond the reach of land. Gwen obviously felt the same because she directed them downward immediately. But just as she did, a large town appeared, nestled on the coast and protected by a vast sea wall.
Both girls cried out at once, and Gwen pulled them up again. Charlotte could see her trying to wrestle them either left or right, but the wind wouldn’t cooperate. It was determined to sweep them out to sea.
As they left the land behind, unreasoning terror gripped Charlotte at the vastness that was now apparent in three directions. She knew the sea was big—endless, some said. But she hadn’t been able to comprehend the reality.
She wrestled the fear down, however. There was no time to give way to it. Even if it killed them, they couldn’t let the wind lay waste to a whole town. And neither was she ready to give up on the two of them. They had to force the wind to bring them back in.
Gwen tried to direct them left just as the wind lurched in that direction. They swerved so violently in response that both girls were nearly unbalanced. But it gave Charlotte an idea.
If she could find a way to communicate it to Gwen, they would possibly have a chance of getting back to land safely without destroying the town. She leaned in, about to shout in Gwen’s ear, when a spot of brown caught her eye, followed by a white sail. The wind was sweeping them straight for a fishing fleet—one that was out on the open ocean, far from the protection of the sea wall. On their current course, they would reach them in less than a minute and every one of those ships would be sunk.
There was no time for explanations. Charlotte lunged around Gwen and grabbed the reins. As soon as she had control of them, she held herself in readiness, the reins slack in her hands.
Gwen started to protest, but Charlotte ignored her, all her senses on edge. The second she felt the wind lurch in one direction, she threw the reins the same way, using every bit of her strength.
They swerved so violently that the wind carried them in a half circle, sweeping them back toward the land. Gwen cried out in surprise, but Charlotte couldn’t break her concentration to explain.
The wind pulled them sideways again, and she did the same thing, bringing them all the way around in a full circle this time until they faced land again. It happened again in the other direction and then again. And each time they circled, they were closer to the land than they had been the time before.
At last they grew close enough that Charlotte began to consider how to direct them around the town. But before they reached the harbor, the wind cut out as it sometimes did, sending them falling toward the waves. Both girls screamed, but the wind caught them just as their feet broke the choppy surface of the water.
It swept them back up again, only to cut out again. Charlotte’s stomach lurched, but she couldn’t miss the opportunity. She pulled on the reins in anticipation so that when the wind caught them again—more quickly this time—she was already directing it downward.
They weren’t going to make the actual land, but they had a chance at the sea wall. She angled toward it, screaming for Gwen to brace herself.
Charlotte let go of the reins as they skimmed just above the wide wall of stone, throwing herself sideways and landing on the stone with a painful series of bumps. She lay for a minute, listening for the whistle of the wind and hearing nothing.
Sighing in relief, she rolled over to find a young man offering her a helping hand. She took it, glad for the extra assistance since every one of her muscles ached.
“Did you just ride that wind in?” he asked, his eyes wide and his curly hair looking as if it had just been through a hurricane.
Charlotte winced. “Yes, I’m sorry. I hope it didn’t hurt you.”
“I’m fine,” the young man said quickly and offered her a grin. “Just astonished.”
Charlotte smiled back weakly, glad the stranger was taking it so well.
“I have a friend,” she said as she turned to look for Gwen. “We should—” Her eyes caught on Gwen, sitting frozen a few feet behind them, her eyes on the young man behind Charlotte.
Charlotte turned to follow her gaze and found the young man equally frozen, his eyes fixed on the young woman still sitting on the stones.
“Gwen?” he asked in a breathless voice. “Is that you?”