In my haste to get away I hadn’t bothered stopping to pick up a change of clothes, and had no real plans for what I was going to do next, how I’d feed or clothe myself, where I was going… All I knew was that I had to get away from the castle and the life that was planned for me.
A saying from our master of the hunt flashed into my head. Scared animals are dead animals. Here I was, soaked through, starving and terrified. I felt like the young doe that drowns itself trying to swim across a raging river, all to spare itself being torn apart by hounds.
A sob got caught in my throat, but I forced it back down. I’d had no choice. I couldn’t marry him. And I didn’t regret what I had done. A freezing death was better than one moment as Prince Galen’s wife.
Falroy was beside me, as ever. He nudged my thigh with his cold nose and I felt him curl up into a tight ball next to my thigh. I stroked his damp fur and tried to steady myself. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live, to be wild, to be free. To marry for love. Not for the sake of the crown.
I sniffled hard. Maria’s comment about near enemies floated back to me, along with a memory of Maksim. A spring day, when I’d seen him from a great distance, re-fletching an arrow, drawing the feathers across his tongue. He’d looked beautiful, even from so very far away.
But ever since we kissed, it was as if I looked at him with new eyes. His power, his size, his presence. His chiseled body and strikingly handsome face.
Rubbing my hands together, I winced and sucked in a painful hiss. That long day of riding, with my hands clutching Rosie’s wet reins, had taken a terrible toll on my skin. Even in the darkness, with just one sliver of moonlight, I knew I had rows of painful blisters across both palms.
But I ignored the stinging pain and picked up the stick of poplar and the larger piece of wood that I’d been using to try to get a fire going. Kneeling on the cold damp cave floor, with sharp stones digging into my knees, I placed the point of the stick into the larger branch and worked my hands back and forth to spin it as fast and as long as I could. With all my might, with all my terror, I focused on that movement. I had to get a fire lit. If I wanted to survive tonight, I had to have a fire to warm me up.
The cold and blisters made my movements awkward and shaky. The stick flew from my hands and clattered somewhere nearby. I pawed at the dirt around me like a blind woman. I’d lost it. My frustrated groan turned instantly to a sob as I wrapped my arms around myself, shaking and chattering.
Rosie let out a panicked whinny. Fear gripped me so hard that I even stopped my chattering. I snapped my head toward the narrow cave opening. Someone was there.
Someone was coming.
Planting my blistered hands on the rough, rocky floor, I scooted back toward the far wall, making myself as small as I could, hiding as deep in the deepest, dark shadows as the cave would allow. The unmistakable scratch of boots on the soil followed, accompanied by a nicker of a horse that I didn’t recognize. Not Rosie.
The footsteps continued. Only one set. Only one person was there. For now. How many more would be following? My mind went back to the previous day, the highwaymen that accosted me, and I imagined that this was another, probably one of a group. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. I’d be found, right here, and in my frozen, hungry, weakened state I’d be powerless to stop him doing what he liked with me.
I held my breath, and stared unblinking at the opening of the cave. A dark figure filled the entry, a black shadow against the blackness of the night. But the moonlight made a barely visible silhouette of broad shoulders and the gap between two massive legs.
I drew my knees even more tightly to my breast, and rolled my neck so that my hair covered as much of my cream-colored tunic as possible. I needed to stay small and stay hidden. Falroy scampered from my side to assess the newcomer and chittered in the way he did when he knew someone’s smell.
Oh no. It had to be one of my stepfather’s men. I was sure of it. The sound of a flint strike cut through the silence and a spark shot through the darkness. I braced myself to be discovered, as a torch suddenly burst into flickering flames that licked the cave wall.