Chapter 17
I left Opal to spend time with the prince. It had only just occurred to me what a long shot this all was. Not just the Seneschal but all of it. We’d set off from Anchor with such enthusiasm buoyed by our win the last time we’d fought evil. But no matter how awful Balix had been, at least we knew who he was and where he was. This time we were running blindly. The seneschal was a lead, but with no way to see him, it was a useless one. And just because he could fly didn’t mean he’d kidnapped Jet. Jet could be anywhere. I didn’t know how many winged Anorians lived in the West Kingdom, but I’d seen enough to know that looking for Jet in the mountains here was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Any one of The Order of the Sky could have Jet. Or none of them.
I headed out into the gardens to breathe the fresh air. Part of me wondered if I’d be stopped. They did have a habit of locking people up for no reason after all, but the guards let me pass with no problem. Instantly, my nose was filled with the sweet scent of flowers. The Queen’s gardens were a work of art with every type of flower imaginable growing around perfectly manicured lawns. I took a deep breath, trying to rid myself of the sour taste in my mouth after speaking to Alast.
At the end of the garden, I spotted a figure that, at first, I assumed to be a gardener, but as I walked closer, I saw that it was River.
“What happened with the Queen?” he asked as I walked over to him.
I told him everything that had been said, not leaving anything out.
“It doesn’t sound good, but I do have some news that will lift your spirits.” He pointed upwards. When I followed the line of his finger, I saw a very welcome sight. Just above us, Kaida was circling in the sky. When she saw us, she spiraled down, landing with a soft thump beside us.
“Oh! Am I ever glad to see you!” I said, bringing her neck into a hug. I knew she could look after herself, even against the winged Anorians, but not knowing where she was had been a source of worry. “I’ll run and find you some clothes. Wait here!”
Bringing a full-grown dragon into the palace would send everyone into turmoil, but taking a naked woman in would raise questions. Better to get her dressed before explaining her presence.
I ran up to the guest room I’d slept in and grabbed some clothes. Kaida, in her human form, was smaller than me, but I had no way of knowing where her backpack was. It had been taken along with the others when the Anorian guards had pulled us from the raft, but unlike ours, hers had never been given back. I’d ask James about it later. Now, I just needed to get Kaida into the palace with as little fuss as possible.
“Thanks,” Kaida said later as she slipped a too big t-shirt over her head. She’d rolled the bottoms of my jeans up.
“I’ll ask about your backpack when we are inside,” I assured her. “Where have you been?”
When I saw you get taken to the palace, I figured you’d be ok. I flew over the mountains where those bird people live in the hopes of spotting Jet. As soon as they saw me, they came in to attack. I’m a faster flier than them, so escape wasn’t a problem. I just found somewhere secluded away from them and hunkered down for the night. I’ve been flying around the gardens most of the morning. I’ve been coming and going, trying not to arouse too much suspicion. I’m sure the bird people must have seen me, but I’ve been left alone. River has told me everything that’s going on.”
“Has he told you about Opal?”
“No. What about her?”
I linked my arm in Kaida’s and grinned. “Opal has only gone and fallen in love with the prince.”
The queen and prince were delighted to meet Kaida. Two more beds were brought to the room I’d had to myself only the night before. One for Opal and one for Kaida. It shot down any chances of River coming to me in the middle of the night. It seemed that every second I spent with him now involved other people. We never got a moment together alone. Before bed that night I vowed to go to him. If he couldn’t come to me, I’d have to be the one creeping around the palace corridors. I’d waited long enough.
I was just beginning to drift to sleep, as my candle sputtered and threatened to go out after burning down to a thin stump. I’d spent the last hours of the day in the bedroom with Opal and Kaida. Our discussions of how to get up to see the seneschal had born no fruit, though we'd talked late into the night, leaving me less and less opportunity to sneak to River’s room. Eventually, I heard Kaida snoring on the other end of the room, while Opal endlessly kicked her legs in her sleep, in the bed between Kaida and me. Good. They were both asleep. Now I needed to get to River’s room without being seen by any palace guards. As I got out of bed and pulled a gown over my nightdress, there came a faint tapping at the door.
River had come to me! He knew Opal and Kaida were sharing a room with me so I assumed he was here to take me back to his room. With a quick raking of my fingers through my hair, I padded across the stone-tiled floor to answer the door. “Hello?" I whispered, trying not to awaken Opal and Kaida. I knew it was River. Who else would it be? But I opened the door a fraction to make sure. In the darkness was the outline of someone. Someone, I realized with a sense of disappointment, that looked nothing like River.
It was a winged guard hunched over, looking up and down the hallway furtively. She was a female guard, the only one I’d seen so far. She’d been at the raft when we were brought to the palace
My heart skipped a beat. So far, the guards I’d seen were keen to lock us up. The only reason I could think for a guard to be outside my door in the middle of the night was to take Kaida, Opal, and I back to the dungeons or worse. I planted my foot alongside the door's base, hoping to prevent it from being pushed open, and turned to shout for Opal and Kaida.
Before I could get the words out, the soldier whispered, “You're Freya, right? Relax, I'm not here to hurt anyone.”
I paused and turned back to look at the midnight visitor. “What are you here for?”
She took another quick look down the corridor then bade me out of the bedroom.
“I saw you go and speak with Alast. I heard what you had to say. I also heard what he had to say. Is it true that we are all in danger?” I looked into her eyes. She didn’t look the type that was frightened of anything, but she must be if she was coming to me in the middle of the night.
“A couple of months ago, we thwarted someone who was looking for the unicorn keys. He was about to bring destruction to our world. He is dead, but we have reason to believe that there is another after the keys. We don’t know who, but we do know they are willing to stop at nothing to get their hands on them. The keys are powerful objects. We think the seneschal has a piece of one.”
“Alast is a jerk. A lot of the Order of the Sky are. So old fashioned. I don’t even know why they work down here. Not all of us are like Alast. There is a progressive movement between the younger winged Anorians and the human Anorians. We want to integrate not segregate, but the elders think humans are scum. They only work here to have access to the queen. They think it gives them power.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I can take you up there if you want to go.”
My heart thudded with excitement at her offer. After hours of talking with Opal and Kaida, we’d come no closer to finding a way up the mountain, and here I was, talking to a guard who was handing me the solution on a plate.
“I’ll let the others know,” I said, motioning to open the door to the bedroom behind me.
She grabbed my upper arm to stop me. “No! Just you. The winged people may dislike humans, and every 'grounder'—I hate that term so much—but they hate shifters even more. They'd be captured right away, and I won’t be able to free them. I might be able to get you up there unnoticed by Alast or the other elders. If you agree, we'll leave tomorrow.”
“Of course, I agree.”
“You can’t tell your friends. I can’t risk them trying to come with you or follow you. This is dangerous for me as well as you. I can’t do anything to make it more complicated t
han it already is.”
I paused. However much I hated making a promise to keep this from the others, all our futures depended on getting up that mountain. They wouldn’t hesitate to do it if they were in my shoes. It wasn’t like River wasn’t already keeping secrets from me. I looked at the guard and nodded my acceptance. “I swear it.”
The soldier nodded and then looked over both shoulders. “I’ll be in the gardens tomorrow after breakfast. There’s a gazebo in the north garden. Head there.”
I’ll be ready.”
The soldier flashed a smile. “See you tomorrow.”
Before I could reply, the woman spun on her heels and ran off silently down the hallway, into the darkness.
I took a deep breath at the duplicity of what I was about to do. I wasn’t the best at keeping secrets. After a quick pep-talk, I realized that now was my chance with River. It was now or never. We’d waited so long. As I turned, I spotted a light under the door of the room across the hallway. River's room. From the moon's position out the window, it had to be about midnight.
He was awake. My heart skipped a beat at what I was about to do. First, agree to a dangerous adventure without the others, then visit River. My night was turning into something exciting and, hopefully, something wonderful. I padded across the hallway and raised a fist to knock, but before I brought it down, I heard a muffled voice. I paused and leaned in closer to listen.
At first, all I heard was murmuring, and I couldn't make out the words.
But then, River raised his voice to say, “But, I can't tell them. I should… No, I just can't. I'm in such a mess, and I just don't know what to do.”
After that, the murmuring returned. It was a woman’s voice. He had a woman in his room with him. My heart pounded faster than ever, but now, it wasn’t because of excitement, but because of anger. Anger and rejection. How could he do something so vile? And with someone he’d only just met? The jerk had told me he wanted to wait, but it seemed he couldn’t wait, so he shacked up with some stranger.
Inside, I was fuming. Bile filled my throat. And to think, just minutes before I’d been worried about the duplicity of flying up the mountain without him.
I marched back to my room and stepped inside, wanting nothing more than to slam the door behind me. But that would wake Kaida and Opal, and they were innocent in all this. Instead, I shut the door, leaving an inch gap to watch. I needed to see who was so important that he’d risk our relationship for... No, not risk. Break our relationship.
Only a minute later, the light went out. And though I kept waiting for at least another half-hour, no one ever came out of River's room.
Frustrated, worried, I headed back to bed. But despite my exhaustion, sleep was hard in coming.
Chapter 18
I woke up after a fitful sleep, both angry and annoyed, but by the time I’d gone down to breakfast, some of the anger had dissipated. I’d jumped to conclusions. Ok, he’d definitely had a woman in his room, but there could be a logical reason why. Just because I couldn’t think of one, didn’t mean there wasn’t one. He sat chatting to the prince as Opal, Kaida, and I walked into the dining room. When he saw me, he gave me a smile. The smile he always gave me. Whatever his meeting in the shadows had been about, he showed no sign of being nervous or upset by it.
“Hey, you,” he said as I took the seat beside him. He kissed me on my cheek, then filled a glass with juice from a pitcher and passed it to me. Nothing about his demeanor showed guilt over his clandestine meeting in his room last night.
“You ok?” he asked. “You’re a bit pale.”
I took the juice from his hand and took a sip. Maybe I was imagining the whole thing. I trusted River. He’d come through for me so many times. I remembered the time I’d told the others that I’d seen him giving Jet and Opal up to Emblors. I’d been wrong about him that time. I had to be wrong this time.
“I’m fine,” I lied, accepting a plate of breakfast food from a servant. “Just a bit tired, that’s all. I think I’ll go for a walk in the gardens after breakfast.”
I needed to clear my head. I also needed to find the spot where the guard had said she’d meet me. I wolfed my food down quickly and excused myself from the table. As the others were all embroiled in a conversation about the Order of the Sky and politics, and in the case of Blu and Ivy, absorbed by the huge croissant the pair was sharing, no one bothered that I was leaving the table early. I made my way out of the palace and to the north garden, my heart pounding with each step. The palace gardens were as extensive as they were beautiful, but the gazebo was easy to see near the north wall.
I found her, not in the gazebo as expected, but hiding behind it. In the light of day, she looked a lot younger than I’d first thought she was. Her long brown hair was tied behind her head in a neat French braid that fell down to her waist. She had the same pointed look as the other Anorians, but her face was softer, her lips fuller. She could almost pass for a human if she kept her wings hidden. I suspected clever makeup had something to do with it.
“You ready to go?” she asked, beckoning me toward her.
I nodded as I slipped between the gazebo and the north wall of the palace grounds. She opened a small door, hidden from view of the palace and headed out. When I followed, I found myself in a cobbled street.
“The door in the wall has been there since the wall was built, but the gazebo was added later. The door was shut with a padlock, but a little forcing and the lock broke. I think the royals have forgotten it exists.”
“Are we going to fly up there now?” I asked, gazing up to the high peak in the distance. From where I was standing, I could see the bridge that the guards had jumped off to swipe us. Behind it, the backdrop of the gorge and the river and above that, the buildings carved into the rock. Small figures flew around the peak.
“No. Flying with a human would be a suicide mission for both of us. We’re walking.”
I looked back up at the peak. It looked so high. I’d told River that I was taking a stroll in the gardens, thinking I’d be up and back in an hour. That plainly wasn’t going to happen. Part of me wanted to head back into the palace and tell River where I was going, but then I remembered all the secrets he was keeping from me. I knew I’d heard a woman in his room.
“Let’s get going then!” I said, striding toward the base of the mountain.
The guard ran to catch up. “Here, wear this.”
She pulled a long cloak from her bag and threw it my way. I caught it and held it up in front of me. It looked like the one she was wearing, except it was blue where hers was red. I opened my mouth to ask her why she thought I needed a cloak, but then I saw that hers covered her wings. With the cloak, no one would know if I was winged or human. I’d be hiding in plain sight, just as she was doing.
“What’s your name?” I asked as I pulled my arms through the sleeves of the cloak.
“You can call me Herou.”
“Ok, Herou, lead the way.”
I followed Herou through the cobbled streets. We mixed in well with the humans. It was the Anorians that flew above us that had me worried.
“Will they be able to tell I’m not one of them?” I whispered, even though they were too far up to hear us.
“Hopefully not,” Herou said, picking up her pace. “The younger Anorians just want to fit in. we don’t care about old feuds and power. There is a huge divide. The humans don’t much like the Order of the Sky, and the winged Anorians don’t like humans, but somewhere caught in the middle are people like me. People who just want to get on with life in peace. Both winged Anorians and ground Anorians. “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t do anything stupid. Just keep walking. No one will stop us.”
I wished I had her confidence. Everyone, both in the air and on the ground looked like a threat. Opal would have done this without batting an eyelid. So would Kaida and River. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I was the right person for this job.
The sun had moved steadily higher
in the sky as we made our way out of the city. It ended abruptly—one minute, we were walking on chipped and worn cobblestone streets, and the next, I found myself trudging along a dirt path angled steeply upward. As we climbed higher, and the sun continued its upward journey, I found myself breathing heavily. My muscles had only just recovered from the weeks of walking to find Balix, and here I was, pushing them again. I wondered what it was like to have a quiet easy life. I was sure I used to know.
I craned my neck and looked up, up, and up. The mountain rose high above until the very peak was lost to clouds. It would take all day to get up there… I was beginning to regret leaving the palace on a fool’s errand. It had seemed so simple when I agreed to go with her. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“Herou. Are we coming back tonight? The peak looks so far away.”
The soldier stopped and panted for a moment, sucking in air and holding up a finger for me to wait until she could catch her breath. Finally, she replied, “We're not going to the peak. We're going to a city up there. This path we're on gets wilder and more dangerous the farther up we go. It's not used much, but that's why I chose this back way in. If we walked up the main road, you'd be thrown out, and we'd both be in real trouble.”
“I'll be careful,” I said. If a flying person said it was dangerous, it would be doubly so for a grounder.
“Good. Stay on this trail until you reach a fork, and I'll meet you there.”
"What? You aren't coming up with me? What if I get in trouble?” Thoughts of the path giving way and dumping me over the edge sped through my mind.
Herou shook her head. “I will fly ahead, scouting for dangers. But if you get in trouble, I can do a lot more to help you if I'm well-rested from flying than I would if I were gasping and exhausted from walking like a… like you.”
“Like a grounder?”
“Habit, sorry.” she gave me a shy smile. “Guards don't pay much attention to manners, you know. We swear a lot, too.” Her smile turned into a wide grin. She threw off her jacket and backpack and leapt from the path into midair, disappearing instantly over the edge of the mountain. I had a moment of horror, but my reason quickly caught up to my instincts. A moment later, Herou rose back into view, flapping her wings, and kept rising until she was a mere dot in the sky, circling lazily above.
The Unicorn Quest Page 11