“Oh, don’t look at me like that! I was only teasing!” Fiona crossed her arms. “Now. The ‘price’ is that you learn to ride.”
I swallowed. “Well…” What could I say to that? There wasn’t much point in ‘having’ a horse if it just hung out in its stall or the pasture all day. It wouldn’t be good for Bella if I followed my first inclination and fed her all the time; she’d become a King Tub among horses.
“Such hesitation from the crazy girl who went hunting a dragon?” Fiona sighed dramatically, then chuckled. “You know, your quest inspired me to tell Mother I had come back. Of course, it also helped that we had lost several battles in a row, including one of our principal captains. I thought I would only be subject to her wrath for a short time, then die honorably in battle.”
“And now, here you are,” I said. “Captain of the Autumnstead guard.”
“Captain of the Autumnstead soldiers,” Fiona corrected me with a piercing look. “Understand that you don’t have to learn to ride alone. I was going to volunteer to teach you.”
“How thoughtful,” I said in my best ‘touched’ voice. Inside, I was hoping riding lessons with Fiona wouldn’t go the way court etiquette had gone with Faxon. Still, I wanted to accept her peace offering. After all, it had been great of her to think of me when she saw our horse again. Could Fiona actually have felt guilty for sending Bella to find her own way through the winter woods? Like Queen Arencaster, Fiona also was not good at showing emotions.
“You are most welcome,” Fiona said, managing to sound arrogant and brisk at the same time. “We’ll start tomorrow, bright and early. No excuses; I have to fit riding in before training. Don’t try to hide, either. I know where you live.”
While Fiona ventured back outside to enjoy the festival, I stayed behind to talk to Bella and mentally prepare myself for riding tomorrow. At least Fiona hadn’t said anything about my all but fleeing Tolliver.
The next morning, I rose with the sun and donned Fiona’s most faded, raggedy dress in case of any accidents. Even this gown proved to be a trial of long skirts; my time in Wagoner pants had spoiled me. I stopped by Fiona’s old room, hoping she could find me some pants or breeches, but she was long gone. A little sleuthing led me to the kitchen, where the cook said she’d stopped by for a snack while it was still dark, then left again.
“Have some bread for the road, my dear,” the big man said. “My, but you look like Fiona. You could pass as her sister.” So saying, he added cheese, an apple, and a water skin to the bundle.
I thanked him profusely him for the food, remembering the rock fields of Edonai.
Another perfect spring day awaited me outside: clear skies of blue; tender green leaves in every tree; wildflowers growing along the roadside and peeping out of the woods. Since Fiona was already ahead of me, I took my time getting to the stables. I had accumulated quite a bouquet by the time I got to the door.
Horses neighed in greeting as I opened the door to the shady stables. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams, turned Fiona’s hair to gold. Someone else was with her, a stocky man about her height with his back to me. I froze.
“Took you long enough,” Fiona said, coming over.
No, no, no! I gripped my bouquet tighter. I could still flee. He hadn’t seen me yet.
And…it was too late. Tolliver had turned around. When he saw me, his eyes widened, and his mouth opened slightly. I guessed he had been taken by surprise, too.
“What lovely flowers,” Fiona said. “I’ll take these back to the castle for you.”
“What about our riding lesson?”
“I’ve been called away on urgent business. Don’t worry. Tolliver is a skilled rider as well. You’re in good hands.”
I was willing to let Fiona “teach” me to restore our relationship and give it a new foundation based in truth. But this… “Fiona, I -”
She didn’t let me finish.
“You think I didn’t see you two looking at each other last night? You shy people can’t avoid each other forever! Now go for a ride and talk!”
Tolliver looked as surprised as I was.
We both remained as still as statues.
“Go on!” Fiona made shooing motions. “Do I have to put you on the horse, Leah?”
In the end, Tolliver saved me by making the first move. “Lady,” he said. “Will you…ride with me as we did before?”
I dragged my gaze away from the floor to look at him. “Yes,” I said in a barely audible tone. Tolliver couldn’t meet my eyes either.
Fiona, ever the trickster, had sneaked away. No wonder Reldion held her in such high regard.
Things between Tolliver and I were still too awkward for talk, let alone lessons. Tolliver saddled Bella - I guessed Fiona had told him about that surprise - and helped me mount. Memories of our first ride together from months ago flooded me.
The silence stayed until we reached the trees that until days ago had swarmed with soldiers. I’d wondered if we’d ever be free to walk among them again. Spring had painted everything in hues of green and gold. I could scarcely believe Faxon, Reldion, and I had grappled with the Latule soldiers in this very place.
“Why did you run away last night?” Tolliver said.
Talk about direct.
In a world filled with people who concealed their true nature, Tolliver remained constant; he was exactly who and what he seemed to be. It was one more thing I liked about him.
Still, I hesitated to answer. His tone gave me no hint of what he might be thinking, and I couldn’t see his face. How would he react to what I wanted to say, that I had liked him (I wasn’t going to be corny and say loved) from the moment we’d met?
“What became of Gerry?” he tried again.
This time I could answer. “The quest failed,” I said. “I found him, but it was wrong…all wrong, what happened. I don’t know what became of him in the end. All I know is I couldn’t bring him with me.”
Tolliver reached behind him and took my hand. “I can’t say I’m sorry. Now there is a chance for us, if your feelings haven’t changed.”
As my roommates would say, I blushed a million miles per hour. “You remembered.”
“I thought about your letter every night after you left and prayed for your safe return. I still wear it next to my heart, beneath my armor.”
I put my arms around Tolliver then, not in a hanging-on-for dear-life way (not uncommon when I rode horseback), but in an unmistakably romantic way I’d been longing to do for quite some time.
Tolliver swung down from Bella and lifted me effortlessly from the saddle.
Our kiss outshone the brilliant spring sunshine.
Epilogue
Fiona hadn’t been embellishing when she said Tolliver was a good teacher. Rides with him became almost a daily thing. Sometimes Fiona joined us; infrequently she assumed the role of teacher. As Fiona predicted, practice improved my riding until the day came that I rode Bella alone. I wasn’t ready to gallop, but I could handle walking and cantering. (I was still working on trotting.)
In mid-spring, Tolliver was given a week’s leave from all his duties. He and I rode to Ivenbury to help his mother and brother with the endless work around their house. The last day, we returned to Autumnstead and spent the afternoon on the shores of the lake where I had entered this world. It was, in a way, our first date.
“A date is a custom of my world,” I explained to Tolliver. “It’s an outing people make together to see if they like one another.”
“How strange,” Tolliver said. “We already know we like one another. Though I will not object to spending the day with you.” His smile sent warm tingles racing through me.
At the lake, the wind raised ripples on the water that flashed diamond fire in the sun. Every so often, the fish would jump; I liked to believe they did so out of happiness. Tolliver and I ate a picnic lunch on the shore while the horses enjoyed their own picnic of fresh greens in the nearby woods.
Later, as we splashed around in the water
, Tolliver was surprised to learn that swimming was common in my world. Personally I wasn’t a strong swimmer, but I’d had lessons when I was a little girl. Not knowing how deep the lake was, we kept close to the shore and I showed him some basic techniques.
Despite the warm sun, the water was icy, and the wind brisk. When the cold made me shiver, Tolliver and I exited the water and lay on shore to dry, holding hands.
I must’ve dozed off, for I dreamed the trees blazed with autumn colors. Something about the dream unsettled me; I woke to find that Tolliver had wrapped his arms around me.
Restless, I sat up and pushed sand around with my bare toes. “Let’s go for a walk,” I suggested. I’d seen many pretty pebbles at the water’s edge. Maybe there would be some shells, too. We had no basket or bucket, so I put them in Tolliver’s hand, the one that wasn’t holding mine.
“How are we doing on this date, Lady?” Tolliver said. “Am I to your liking?”
I laughed and gave him a gentle shove. “You’re not supposed to ask that on the date.”
“Then how would you know?” Tolliver looked baffled.
“You would ask for a second one,” I said. “And if I agreed, you’d know that I liked you, too.”
“What a peculiar custom.” Tolliver scratched his head.
I laughed. “You’re not the only one to think so.”
“What is that there?” Tolliver motioned to tiny points of light shining out of the trees.
“Sunlight on the water?” I suggested.
“No, it is coming from the land.”
We drew closer. “It reminds me of light shining off a mirror,” I said, feeling compelled to whisper.
“I would say fireflies,” Tolliver said, “but t’is still day.”
“They would have to be very bright fireflies to shine like this,” I observed.
Whatever they were, the grove was full of them, winking and shimmering like dust motes in the light, only…they were light. At the center of the luminous confusion, I saw an image, distant and separate-seeming from Tolliver and I, a scene in a painting or a reflection in a mirror.
“What a strange castle. It would be hard to defend.,” Tolliver said.
A shock ran through me: Portalis Castle! I hadn’t recognized it at first, it had been so long: the golden towers and walls; the spindle-sharp roofs with their red-brown shingles; the grand drawbridge with its fountain archways.
“Leah,” Tolliver whispered. “Is that your home?”
“It is.”
The realization of what this discovery meant struck us both silent. For a long time, we just gazed at each other, helplessly.
My head buzzed with a million questions, among them: How had this portal come to be here? Had it always been?
I didn’t deny that these exquisite spring days in Autumnstead had made me miss California in ways that hunger, cold, and danger had not. But if I passed through this portal to the other side to see what had become of the people and places I cared about, would I be able to come back?
Torn, I filled my eyes with Portalis castle, with the California sky, and thought of all the good things of home while holding fast to Tolliver’s hand.
And suddenly the scene I’d been longing for no longer hovered before me, a tantalizing temptation; it surrounded me, made me part of it!
In disbelief, I looked around. I was in the one of the Portalis Castle courtyards known as the Diagonal Gardens, where geometric hedges formed a maze that came alive with fairy lights at night.
“Lady…what happened?”
I looked back to the source of the voice. Tolliver, here! Somehow, without touching the portal or making any move toward it other than encountering it in the grove, I’d passed through. And Tolliver had come too!
“Do you see the lake?” I whispered, though there was little risk of being overheard. Despite the late afternoon sky, the garden remained quiet; most people didn’t know about it.
“Only ourselves and these hedges,” Tolliver answered, also in a whisper.
We looked for another five minutes, but ultimately there was no getting around it: the portal was gone.
Still disbelieving what had happened, I wondered how the park-goers would react to our Other World clothes. I felt unspeakably glad I’d put on my damp pants before starting the walk. (Not that Other World underclothes were especially revealing.) Then I remembered. Luckily for us, adults and children wore costumes to Portalis Park all the time. We’d look like a pair of scruffy hippies, perhaps trying too hard for authenticity, but other than that, we’d blend in.
“I never expected I would see your home, Lady.” Tolliver stood a little straighter and laced his fingers through mine.
“I’m glad you’re here with me, Tolliver.” I smiled. In that moment, I knew I faced many unknowns, possibly more than ever before, but for the first time I wasn’t afraid.
To be continued.
Rescuing the Prince Page 30