Besotted (The Fairest Maidens #3) - Jody Hedlund Page 0,71

my gaze skyward. Although the day was cloudy and contained the damp chill of approaching rain, the blazing color of the leaves overhead and the majestic formation of geese soothed the ache in my soul that had deepened with each passing day Aurora was in danger.

And with every passing day, I was beginning to realize my brothers had been right. I’d been shortsighted. Though I hadn’t wanted to join the fight against Queen Margery, I no longer could deny the need to defeat her. Her cruelty and greed had seeped beyond the borders of her country to ensnare Mercia and Aurora. If Margery succeeded in her ability to make gold, she’d become unstoppable. She’d be able to build her army and pay mercenaries to fight for her. Where would she attack next? Norland? Scania?

With the white stone and her quest for gold, she would seek out additional royal maidens whose hearts she’d employ in her alchemy. The cruelty would only continue as she traded her gold with kings for the hearts of their daughters.

Chester peered overhead at the geese too. “As noble as your desire is to destroy the white stone, the legends are all the same. Its power can only be abolished if it is crushed. But anyone who touches it succumbs to the sleep of death.”

“The sleep of death?”

“A sleep that never ends, except in death.”

I shook my head, unable to believe a stone could contain such power. “And you believe these legends?”

“Aye. They have been passed down for centuries.”

“If anyone who touches the stone dies, then how did the queen make the elixir she used in her gem mines? And how would she transport the stone from her residence in Kensington to the Boarshead Lodge? For surely with so little time left to use Aurora’s heart, she has carried the white stone with her.”

“The white stone is kept in a chest made of the purest unblemished gold. My father once saw the chest before King Alfred died and said only the bravest souls dare to carry it.”

“Perhaps she mixes the elixir in the chest itself?”

“Perhaps. Either way, no man who touches the stone lives.”

“Then there is no way to destroy it?”

“At least no way to destroy it and live.”

“Then I shall take it to the East Sea and drop it into the deepest part where no one will be able to recover it.”

Chester barked a humorless laugh. “If it were that easy to get rid of, someone would have tried such a method already. But, no, the stone will not sink, stay buried, or burn.”

I shifted my sore backside in my saddle, my mind racing to find another solution, to uncover some other method. “Then the only thing to do is to lock it away where no one can have it.”

“And that is exactly what the kings have done through time. They’ve attempted to conceal it where no one would be lured by its promise of riches.”

“Clearly that wasn’t enough.”

“And as I said, King Alfred, God rest his soul, shouldn’t have given it to his daughter, or at the very least should have given it to Leandra instead of Margery.”

“So, you believe Aurora’s mother would have safeguarded it rather than use it for her own gain?”

“From the way my father spoke of Queen Leandra, she was content to be a keeper of the keys to the ancient treasure and had no plans to seek it out. She would have done the same with the white stone.”

“Then we shall not only rescue Aurora, but we shall take the chest with the stone and make her the keeper of it.”

“And give Queen Margery all the more reason to seek Aurora’s death and throne?”

Vilmar’s admonition from the night he’d followed me to the cottage came back to me: “You don’t know Queen Margery the way I do. She’s a wicked woman and will stop at nothing to get what she wants.”

“There!” Ahead of us, Jorg called out and nodded to the south. “I see the smoke of campfires.”

Anticipation charged through me, chasing away the weariness that had been my companion of late. I joined Jorg and Chester in galloping the last of the distance. We broke through the woodland into a clearing to find a small army on the level plain in front of the hunting lodge. Most sat or stood around several fires, warming themselves and breaking their fasts.

I scanned the camp, searching desperately for a sight of Aurora’s golden hair and beautiful face. But there was no woman