Chapter Twenty-One The Not-Entirely-Uninhabited Ruin
Chapter Twenty-One
The Not-Entirely-Uninhabited Ruin
My foot ached abominably, but at least that meant it hadn’t gone numb. I steered my thoughts away from the possibility that it would have to be cut off if the situation worsened.
“So, why twelve?” I asked.
“What?”
“Why was it so important for Jack to find eleven duplicates? Or any duplicates, for that matter? You never did get around to telling me.”
“Decoys.”
“Right. Of course.” It was obvious, now that I had enough pieces to put together. “Jack thought the assassin would target her, too, once she started defending the king. She wanted to confuse whoever it was.”
“It was my idea, actually. Mine and Clem’s.
Jack was going to go off on her own, but we wouldn’t let her.
She finally agreed to let us come as long as she could be in charge of it all.
” He paused as we helped each other over a twisted tangle of roots.
“It was supposed to just be the three of us, but then we met Kit and Harry and Max, and things got a wee bit out of hand.”
“And then after the business with the duchess…”
“Things got very out of hand.”
I stumbled over a tree root that arched just high enough above the ground to catch my foot, wrenching my ankle.
I managed not to fall on my face, but after that my ankle complained when I put any weight on it.
It was the same foot that was already half-frozen, and my limp grew more pronounced.
Still better than injuring the other foot. Sam put a hand on my arm to steady me.
Our hike was growing more difficult as the darkness deepened. If I’d broken my ankle rather than spraining it, it would have been a disaster.
“Do you think there’s any chance we’ll find shelter soon?” I asked.
“We might.” Sam’s cautious tone belied the already-limited optimism of his words. “Even if we don’t find the castle, someone might live nearby—the burn would be a good source of fresh water. There could be a hunter’s lodge, or a hermit’s hut, or—”
“A ruined tower!” I cried.
“I suppose,” Sam said with more than a hint of skepticism. “Although I don’t know why anyone would build a tower in the middle of the forest. No roads to guard, the visibility through the trees would be terrible—”
“No, I mean I see one. Over there.” Between the trees, through the haze of falling snow, I’d caught a glimpse of a curved stone wall with a ragged top.
The remains of the round keep were nestled in a bend of the brook.
It might have stood taller in the past, but at some point everything higher than about fifteen feet had been sheared off, with a slope of mossy irregular rocks fanning out from one side.
It looked as if a giant had kicked it over.
Possibly that was exactly what had happened.
“This makes no sense,” Sam said. “What’s it doing here?”
“Oh, you find all kinds of nonsensical things in the middle of a forest. Take gingerbread houses. Ridiculous place to put them. The ants get in after a day and never leave.”
Sam regarded the structure dubiously. “Are you saying a witch might live in there?”
“Who knows? Either we go inside, or we spend the night in the snow. I just hope it doesn’t belong to bears.
They get annoyed if you sleep in their beds or eat their porridge.
” Unreasonably so, in my opinion. If you’re perishing with hunger and find porridge that’s been left to sit out all day long, I think it’s fair to assume no one has any plans to eat it.
Two out of the three bowls had been inedible anyway.
But they tossed me out the window before I had a chance to apologize or explain.
The light had almost faded by the time we made our way inside.
I was happy to see solid walls, although the ceiling had a large hole in it where a stone staircase, grooved in the middle by the passage of innumerable ancient feet, wound its way up the wall to the nonexistent upper floors.
Between that and the gaps where the windows had been, it wasn’t much warmer than the outside.
A chandelier of icicles dripped from the remains of an arrow slit.
But there was enough wall to keep the wind at bay and enough roof to keep the snowfall off our heads.
In fact, other than some small drifts beneath the window holes, the place was surprisingly free of snow.
It was also, however, clearly inhabited.
Although no one was present at the moment, there were signs of recent use.
No bowls of porridge had been left unattended, which was a pity; we could have used a warm meal, stolen or otherwise.
But tucked beneath the stairway, out of the way of any drafts, we found a bedroll of much more recent origin than the building itself, along with a few other odds and ends—blankets and pillows and a basin for water.
I walked over and poked at the bedroll, which proved to be exceptionally thick and soft.
“My goodness,” I said, peering at it in the dim light. “Is this a feather mattress?”
Sam looked uneasy. “Surely we shouldn’t stay here.”
“I don’t see that we have much of a choice.
” In another few minutes, the light would be gone.
“Look, there’s only a couple of possibilities.
Maybe someone lives out here because they don’t like a lot of company.
If they object to us coming in out of the snow, we can deal with that when they get back.
I think most people would understand our difficulty. ” Asshole bears aside.
“I suppose,” said Sam.
“On the other hand, this could be a horrible trap meant to lure us in, and something awful is going to happen if we stay.”
“What kind of something awful were you thinking?”
“Oh, the usual. Our legs get cut off if we don’t fit the bed. Forced marriage to a beast. My firstborn child is demanded as payment for—”
“Those are your worries? I was more concerned about axe murderers.”
“All right, ordinary axe murderers, then. But if that’s the case, our options are either a horrible fate in here or a horrible fate out there.
” I gestured at the forest, now visible only in smudges of black and gray streaked with the dim whiteness of snow.
“So I’d rather hold out hope that a kindly old hermit will twitter over us in the morning, since the only alternative is freezing to death. ”
“You have a point,” he said, not looking happy about it. “All right. I’ll take the floor, then.”
“Take the floor for what?”
“To sleep on, obviously.”
I stared at him. “It’s icy-cold stone. That’ll be awful. Why wouldn’t you sleep on the bedroll?”
“Because I assumed you would be sleeping on the bedroll. And we’re not…I mean, you and I…”
Silence hung in the air between us until I took in what he was getting at.
Then I burst out laughing.
“Oh, my goodness!” I said, gasping for breath. “Should I promise I’ll safeguard your unwedded virtue?”
“Stop it.” Sam was blushing, his pale cheeks turning a deep red. “It isn’t that funny. It’s just that we’ve not so much as had dinner together, and I didn’t think—”
“This situation doesn’t seem funny to you? At all?” I flung a dramatic hand to my forehead. “A snowstorm forced them together, and there was only…one…bed! What were they to do?”
Sam cracked a smile. “Well. When you put it that way.”
“Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if mischievous fairies put all this here to embarrass you.
” I unpinned my cloak—too damp to be of any more use—and sat on the bedroll in question.
It compressed under me but stayed springy as it took my weight.
I bent over to pull my boots off, careful of my ankle.
“That would explain how suspiciously convenient it is, don’t you think?
Ow!” I winced as my foot moved in a direction it didn’t want to move.
“Let me help you with that.” Sam knelt in front of me and eased the boot past my injury.
“Thank you,” I said, leaning back on my elbows. “Look, you’re not sleeping on the floor, and neither am I. Warmth is more important than other considerations right now. And surely I can’t be that much of a temptation, can I?”
“Aye,” Sam said, looking up and meeting my eyes. “You are.”
My voice caught in my throat when I tried to reply. I found myself unable to tear my gaze from his.
“Sam,” I choked out when the lull grew uncomfortable. “You should know…”
He knelt there, waiting for me to continue. It wasn’t fair to keep it secret from him. Not when he had revealed so much of himself to me.
I had to let him know there could be no future for us.
“You should know,” I said at last, “that I am affianced to King Gervase.”
He let out a long sigh. “You’re Princess Melilot.”
“Yes.”
“Why—” He answered his own question before I had a chance to. “Because someone is trying to kill you.”
“Which means I’d very much appreciate it if you kept this to yourself.”
“Of course.” He sat back on the floor. I could barely see him in the darkness. About ten heartbeats passed before he asked, “Do you want to be married to him?”
“Not really. And he’s in love with someone else.” I cleared my throat. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It should.”
“Yes.” I shifted aside, making room on the narrow mattress. “Now come to bed. I’m cold.”
There was a rustle of cloth as he shed his own wet clothing. I had a sudden, vivid memory of Jack refusing to let me remove Sam’s shirt when I was stitching him up.
“Are you wearing a binder?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t have had enough opportunities to take it off for any healthy length of time, given the situation with the lion and everything else. “If it’s getting uncomfortable, you don’t have to suffer for my sake. Just so you know.”
Another rustle, and then he slid in next to me. I debated whether or not I should keep my distance, but the weather overcame any objections in short order. I wriggled in closer and tucked my head against his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around me.
“Were you planning to sleep in your mask again, too?” I asked.
After a moment, he reached up and removed that as well.
His face, I thought, was a very handsome one. Admittedly the light was dim, but I doubted my opinion would change in the morning. I wanted to brush my fingers across his freckles, but I didn’t.
“What a mess,” Sam said.
“Yes.”
“Gervase is a perfectly nice fellow, by the way. For a long time, I expected he’d be a brilliant brother-in-law.”
“I’m almost surprised Jack isn’t the one trying to kill me.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Not unless she decides I’m the one behind everything.”
“She won’t. You saved our lives. Hers included.”
“Oh, is that all it takes to get on her good side?”
Sam gave a low chuckle in reply. “You haven’t been seeing her at her best. She’s just frustrated and grasping at any straw.
She has a good heart. Jack’s always been my fiercest champion, you know.
From the moment I told her about who I was, she wouldn’t let anyone try to deny it.
Even when it was taking our parents a much, much longer time to come around to the idea. ”
I pulled him the tiniest bit closer. “I’m glad she was there for you.”
“Me, too.”
I’d already known she wasn’t at all a bad sort, in spite of her suspicions and accusations.
Jack and her friends had saved me from the spider wolves.
They hadn’t been there by accident. They’d been looking for me.
Jack had gone into the woods to protect a princess she had every reason to hate.
In return, I appeared to have seduced her brother under false pretenses.
In my defense, however, he was very, very warm.
Maybe I was the villain of this saga, after all. I hoped not.
“Can you sleep?” Sam asked.
“No.”
I felt him turn toward me, though it was too dark to see him now. “Me, neither.”
“What should we do, then?”
There was a long pause before he answered. “Tell me a story. It’s your turn, I think.”
“All right. A story about what?”
“You.”
That seemed fair, all things considered. I took a deep breath and began.