A Captive of Wing and Feather

by Melanie Cellier

  I didn’t know why it had caused such mass concern, however.

  He turned to look at me, his brow creasing slightly even as he gave me an easy smile. His eyes flicked up, just above my face, and I realized that I was once again wearing the hood of my cloak, pulled forward to shield my face. I must have pulled it up without conscious thought as I followed Cora.

  “Sometimes the people who find their way here don’t want to be found,” Cora said, her voice cold. “We don’t take too kindly to strangers asking questions.”

  He didn’t seem in the least flustered by her response.

  “But surely some who are lost want to be found?” he asked.

  Cora narrowed her eyes. “I suppose that depends on who’s doing the finding…” She let her voice trail off, the question implied.

  If he made a reply, I didn’t hear it. Instead I stumbled back half a step, my eyes widening. His voice had triggered my memory.

  He had been a gangly youth when I last saw him, although still charming. There had been a whole crowd of us, gathered for some function, and he had been intent on involving the other princes in some sort of mischief. Now that I had caught the familiar note of his voice, I could see the traces of the boy showing through in the man he had become. And suddenly I understood what had thrown the townsfolk into such confusion.

  This man belonged no more to the forest than he did to this remote town. He belonged in a palace, on a throne. We were talking to Crown Prince Gabriel of Talinos.

  Chapter 2

  Something in my movements must have given me away because both Cora and Prince Gabriel turned to look at me, interrupting whatever verbal sparring I’d missed.

  “Are you all right, Lady?” Cora asked, remarkably calm given she was confronting her future king.

  “Lady?” Gabriel looked between us. “I must admit I didn’t expect to find any of the local nobility here.” He swept a ragged bow—far less polished than the ones I knew him to be capable of performing.

  So he was still attempting to pass himself off as a forester of some sort then. If he wanted to portray himself as the kind of commoner who was overawed at the presence of minor nobility, then he should have worked on the air of confidence which he wore more comfortably than clothes.

  “What?” Cora stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment.

  “Lady isn’t someone important,” said a piping voice. “Why did you bow to her?”

  Juniper, who seemed to have recovered from her momentary timidity, gave Gabriel a direct stare. Wren hurried forward and swept her daughter up onto her hip, coloring as she did so.

  “I’m sorry, she’s only young. She doesn’t know what she’s saying…”

  She looked back and forth between each of us, suddenly uncertain.

  No one had spoken the prince’s identity aloud, but the knowledge of it hung over us all, coloring our interactions. For a moment there was awkward silence, and then Gabriel blew out a quick breath.

  “You all know who I am, don’t you?” When we all nodded, he sighed. “I suppose everyone in the town knows.”

  Cora gave a wry chuckle. “Brylee is somewhat isolated, it’s true, but the innkeeper prides himself on knowing the face of every royal and noble in the kingdom. And word travels fast in these parts—it wouldn’t surprise me if half the inhabitants of the next village over know by now. Would you prefer we all start curtsying or should we maintain the charade, Your Highness?”

  Gabriel gave a rueful grimace, running a hand through his hair and further ruffling the little curls. He shrugged and then gifted us all with a broad grin.

  “I thought maybe I was far enough away from the capital that it was worth giving it a try at least. People tend to act strangely when they know you’re a prince.”

  “I can only imagine,” Cora said dryly.

  “You’re a prince?” Juniper’s eyes widened. Her gaze locked on Gabriel. “A real one or a pretend one?”

  He chuckled. “A real one, from what they tell me. Are there a great many pretend ones?”

  She nodded. “I thought maybe they were all pretend. Like dragons and giants and princesses.”

  Wren clucked. “Princesses are real, Junie.”

  “Are you sure?” Juniper asked, her wide-eyed face looking between each of the adults for confirmation.

  I bit my bottom lip and looked away, not meeting her eyes.

  “They most certainly are,” Gabriel assured her, gravely. “I have met many of them myself. I even have two sisters who are princesses. Twin sisters, in fact—Pearl and Opal.”

  I thought of the young twins with a pang. They would be fifteen by now—so grown up. Did they ever think of me and wonder about my fate? Did anyone?

  “And godmothers?” Juniper asked. “What about them?”

  Oh, they’re real, I thought but had to leave it to Gabriel to inform her that godmothers also existed.

  Juniper seemed to consider this before looking in my direction.

  “Why did the prince bow to you, Lady?” She struggled in her mother’s arms until Wren gave an exasperated sigh and let her slip down.

  Gabriel followed her progress toward me with his eyes before letting his gaze dwell curiously on my still-hooded face. I could feel the questions hovering on the tip of his tongue.

  I wrapped an arm around the little girl’s shoulders, squeezing her affectionately against my leg. I said nothing, however, and Cora answered for me.

  “That was a misunderstanding.” She turned to the prince. “Lady is her nickname, not her title. No one from the local castle ever comes down to the town. As far as we know, Lord Leander dwells up there alone. He has no wife or daughters for us to call lady.”

  “What do you mean as far as you know?” Gabriel immediately latched onto the oddity. “Surely he doesn’t literally live alone? If he never comes down to the town, he must have servants who visit for him—to fetch food and supplies, if nothing else. Do they not gossip?”

  “He has servants,” said Wren, her voice soft. “But no one ever sees them in Brylee. Not since his father died five years ago.”

  “That sounds ominous,” said Gabriel with a laugh tinging his voice.

  When none of us responded in kind, or even smiled, his humor slipped away, a frown taking its place.

  “Well, that sounds serious enough to be worth investigation,” he said. “Have none of you…” His voice trailed away at the horrified expressions on the faces of Cora and Wren. They might be more sensible than most, but they were still citizens of Brylee.

  “No, of course you haven’t gone to have a look,” he muttered to himself.

  I frowned at him. Hadn’t he only arrived the evening before? Surely he hadn’t been here long enough to understand the strange and pervasive timidity that gripped the townsfolk and rendered them impotent in the face of even the mildest threat.

  “It is certainly curious enough that I, at least, would like to go and pay a visit to your Lord Leander,” he said. “I wonder if my purposes would better be served by going as myself or attempting to…” His words dropped too low to be heard as he planned his best approach.

  I gazed at him in shock. It had been five years since I had seen anyone approach a potentially dangerous situation with such decisive action. I had almost forgotten how little this small forest-bound town reflected the rest of the kingdoms.

  His mutterings suddenly ceased, and his eyes swung up to latch onto me, as if his roving thoughts had brought him back to the other puzzle confronting him.

  “And what exactly is Lady a nickname for?” he asked. “What is your full name?”

  I sucked in a breath. This was dangerous ground.

  “Adelaide,” said Wren from behind me, a note of confusion in her voice. “Her name is Adelaide, Your Highness.”

  The prince gave a visible start and then took two long strides forward to push back my hood, fully exposing my face. For a moment we both stood frozen, our eyes locked together. Then his gaze broke free to rove over the rest of
my features, and I heard his startled intake of air.

  His lips moved, forming the beginning of a word, and I didn’t know if he meant to say my name or my title, but it didn’t matter. In another second he would reveal everything and destroy the only refuge I had left. Habit had sealed my lips, but seeing him brought back my old self too forcibly, and I opened my mouth to cut him off.

  A loud honking burst from my throat, filling the entryway and sending Gabriel staggering back a step. I clasped my hands over my mouth, liquid filling my eyes. I hadn’t slipped up like that in over a year.

  I glared at him, and something about my look must have silenced him since his gaping mouth closed without saying a word.

  “Lady? Are you all right?” Cora looked at me with concern, her eyes darting suspiciously to Gabriel.

  A giggle broke the tension of the moment. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the unshed tears before Juniper saw them.

  “Do it again, Lady! Do it again!” Juniper bounced at my side, her eyes shining. “You haven’t done that in forever.”

  I smiled at her but shook my head, consigning myself once more to muteness. Silence was far better than the only sounds I could now make.

  “Do the squeak. Pleeeeease!” she begged.

  I shook my head more firmly.

  “But—”

  Wren scooped her up, cutting off her protest.

  “That is enough out of you, little miss. We’re going to go check on Selena and Frank now, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

  “But Mama…” I heard her saying as Wren marched off down the long hall in the opposite direction to the kitchen.

  Gabriel finally found his voice. “The…squeak? Should I even ask?”

  “Definitely not,” said Cora. “Now you said you were looking for someone, Your Highness? If I’m sure of one thing, it’s that we don’t have anyone here likely to have a prince looking for them.”

  “Are you sure about…” Gabriel let his sentence die off when he caught the pleading look I had trained on him. “Never mind then. I guess I need to look elsewhere.”

  “Perhaps you can start at Lord Leander’s Keep,” Cora said in a flat voice. “You seemed mighty interested in it before. And if you run across an Audrey, you can let her know that her sister misses her.”

  Gabriel gave a bow—courtly and polished this time. “I will certainly do so if I run across this Audrey.” But even as he said it, his eyes lingered on me.

  I frowned. It almost seemed as if the crown prince of Talinos had come here looking for me. But why would Gabriel, of all people, be searching for me? From the things I had been hearing around Brylee for the last few years, Talinos had trouble enough of its own without its prince worrying about a missing Palinaran. And how had he possibly managed to track me to Brylee, anyway?

  But the only thing harder to believe than that this royal prince had come here searching for me, was the idea that there might be a second person he knew hiding in this out of the way place.

  The silence stretched out until Cora narrowed her eyes.

  “Very well, then, Your Highness. If you’re not needing anything else…” She stopped short of actually ordering a prince to leave her property, but it seemed not even the presence of royalty could shake her from her assertive ways.

  Cora had been running the haven with open doors for so long that not even the growing timidity that infected the town seemed to have quite managed to stamp out her old nature. And one of the few positives of the townsfolk’s strange attitude was that she had no need to back up her assertive manner with actual courageous action—something I feared would be beyond her. No one in Brylee wanted a confrontation if they could possibly avoid it.

  The prince didn’t seem to fit this mold, but he did agree to leave, however reluctant his manner. Only when the front door shut behind him did my tense muscles relax. I’d just arrived at the haven for the day, but all I could think about was getting back out of Brylee.

  Would Gabriel head straight for the Keep, or would he linger, hoping to talk to me? I hurried to a window that gave a clear view of the front of the lodge and peered outside.

  The prince stood on the street, gazing back at the building with a confused expression. I stepped to the side, out of sight, hoping he hadn’t seen me. A long minute ticked by, as I tried to convince myself not to look again. At last I gave in and peeked, more circumspectly this time.

  He was gone.

  I took a deep breath and stepped away from the window. Should I leave it for half an hour before making my escape, or was I better off seizing the moment now?

  “Lady? Are you all right?”

  I started at Cora’s words. I had forgotten she was still there. The smile I managed to summon must not have been a good one because she crossed over to me, her eyes full of concern.

  “You know that we’re all here for you, right? That you’re always welcome to stay…” She paused, the lines of concern on her face deepening. “You know there’s a bed for you here, don’t you?”

  My smile softened, becoming more real. I squeezed her arm and nodded, hoping she could read the gratitude in my eyes. Of course I knew. And I wished more than anything that I could stay in my room here, as I had for three years, before—

  I sighed. I couldn’t stay tonight, any more than I had been able to stay any nights of the past two years. And I couldn’t explain it to her either—and not just because I no longer had a voice.

  I pulled my hood back up over my face. Better I go now, while Gabriel was distracted. Otherwise he might circle back and start asking uncomfortable questions.

  “Lady!” A querulous voice called for my attention as shuffling footsteps sounded from the passage. “Where have you been?”

  An elderly man came into view, hunched and with receding hair. A moment later a tiny woman followed him, shrunken by age but still straight-backed.

  “Sorry, Lady,” she said with a bright smile. “He’s cantankerous today.”

  “I’ll show you cantankerous!” he said, in what was clearly meant to be a growl although it sounded scratchy and thin.

  He took off after her, moving painfully slowly, and she sidestepped him neatly, her joints less worn than his.

  “I could do this for hours.” She cackled and side stepped again.

  A smile crept across my face as I watched them make their slow way around the entry. After more than sixty years together, they still acted like courting youngsters.

  Cora rolled her eyes and muttered that she was leaving me to deal with them before hurrying off toward the kitchen. Vilma made another attempt to outpace her husband, only to be caught by his reaching hands. As he wrapped his arms around her, she winked at me from under his arm.

  I bit back my smile, assuming a serious expression as Gregor turned back to me, keeping one arm around his wife.

  “You haven’t been near us for two days, and everything is out of order,” he said. “I can’t find my cushion—the one that eases the ache in my back.”

  “Can’t find? And whose fault would that be? You’ve put it in some nonsensical place, I don’t doubt.” Vilma shook her head. “We’re lost without you, Lady, dear.”

  I cast a single glance toward the window before offering them each one of my arms. It was true I usually visited them every day in the wing of the haven reserved for the elderly residents, but I had run out of time yesterday. So I couldn’t walk away now—not when I had no words to offer them an explanation.

  As she leaned on me for support, Vilma whispered, “Never mind about the cushion, dear, but the roof’s leaking again, I’m afraid. I don’t like to further burden Cora, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to move the bed.”

  I gave an internal sigh. It sounded like I wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. I would just have to hope that the Keep kept Gabriel occupied for the rest of the afternoon.

  Chapter 3

  The sun was far too low in the sky as I finally slipped back out of Brylee. I shouldn’t have sta
yed so long.

  The trees closed quietly around me, swallowing me without effort. A phantom ache danced across my bones, but I shook myself and pushed the imagined sensation away. The sun hadn’t set yet, and I could still make it if I hurried.

  I had been on high alert as I scurried through the streets of the town, but I let myself relax now. My feet easily trod my path without conscious thought, but I didn’t follow any established road. I need not fear meeting anyone now. The locals preferred to stay out of the forest if they could—and if their business took them through it, then they stuck to the main roads that connected them to the rest of the kingdom.

  Gray and brown surrounded me, lichen hanging from the trees and new undergrowth struggling to push through the littered detritus underfoot. Spring had arrived in Brylee, bright flowers filling window boxes, but in the forest only the occasional flash of green or newly furled leaf hinted at the season.

  The broad canopy grew densely, blocking out more of the sky the deeper in I pressed. The occasional rustle of some small animal sounded, but no bird song reached my ears, and without meaning to do so, my steps sped up.

  A louder rustle sounded behind me, and I flinched. Darkness was falling faster than I had anticipated, the trees disappearing off into the gloom, and the whole world fading into pools of black. I needed to move faster, or I wouldn’t make it in time.

  I broke into a trot as the rustles increased. What animals prowled between the trees come darkness? I burst into a large clearing, gaining enough space to get a better look around me.

  But I only had time to cast one anxious glance backward before a more familiar whoosh sounded, followed by the crash of wings beating against leaves. Seven large shapes brushed against the edge of the canopy as they swooped into the clearing, their sweeping feathers filling the air around me.

  “There you are,” I bugled, my words somehow transforming inside my throat until they sounded exactly like the sounds made by the swans themselves. “I was starting to worry.”