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 stayed 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.”
Three white birds swooped around me, although it was hard to tell which ones in the near darkness. They honked and bugled, circling me, and it didn’t matter that I couldn’t understand them the way they understood me—it was clear they were both scolding and urging me on.
But it was the others that drew my attention. One of them—no doubt Shadow—had swept through the trees only to issue a loud, challenging honk, and the remaining three followed her, gliding past me and the three birds issuing their admonishment.
Despite the need for haste, I paused, looking back to see what had attracted their attention. The white feathers caught what little light was left, brightening our small patch of forest, but their bulk also blocked my sight.
All four of them reared up, stretching out their wings and hissing. I took a step back toward them just as a voice spoke.
“Steady on, there! Adelaide?”
I gasped. Gabriel.
Whether the birds took exception to his call or to my gasp, something caused them to lunge forward, attacking him with their wings—or in the case of Shadow, with her beak.
The prince shouted, and my ears caught the sound of a blade being wrested from a scabbard.
“No!” I called in a long honk. “He has a sword.”
Shadow snaked her head around and hissed at me, as if rebuking me for questioning their courage. I glared at her.
“Time is running out. We need to be moving. Leave him.”
With a rustle and flap of feathers, the birds pulled back, coming to join the three already with me. Together they surrounded me with a bevy of curved necks and orange and black beaks. Their movement revealed the prince, one arm still raised to protect his face while the other held the now drawn sword partially raised.
“Adelaide?” he repeated, staring at the spectacle of me and the swans.
He had followed me. How had he followed me? He must have been lying in wait somewhere, hidden. Had he gone to the castle at all?