Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [109]
Niniane huffed. “These are your noble heroes? They look like common brigands!”
“These men are soldiers to the core. Here is Cador of Kildore, their leader.”
Although his clothing was as worn as that of his companions, Cador wore it like a badge of royalty. His bronzed and windburned features were intriguing, with more than a hint of the hawk in them. His hair caught the late-afternoon sun, gleaming like gold. There was fire in his dark sapphire eyes, determination in the set of his firm mouth, strength and authority in every line of his bearing.
Niniane sighed romantically. Here was the very man for Tressalara. A king among warriors. Well done, Illusius! Aloud she spoke differently. “If that is the best you can do, I suppose we are stuck with him. At least he is experienced and willing to fight to restore the princess to her throne.”
Illusius chewed his lip. That was something he was still working on.
It could prove a bit tricky, and he wasn’t quite sure if he could pull it off. The highlander might not want to risk throwing his lot in with the Amelonian rebels. That didn’t bear thinking of. If he failed, Niniane would rub it in for the next hundred years.
He felt a nervous flush rising up his face and vanished himself before she could notice.
3
“Mmm! Roast dumplings and onions.”
Tressalara inhaled deeply. After failing to obtain a horse and taking many detours to avoid Lector’s troops, she had needed five days’ to reach the edge of the Mystic Forest. She was cold and tired and hungry. She hadn’t eaten since the previous afternoon, when she’d tumbled into a stream and lost her last morsel of bread and cheese, and her empty stomach grumbled. To make matters worse, her boots were still not dry.
The glowing lights of the tavern at the edge of the woods, and the tantalizing smells emanating from it, drew her closer than was wise. The forest was ancient, and little sun penetrated through the thick leaves, but there was scarcely any vegetation to camouflage her movements here.
The tavern was filled with men in leather vests and worn clothing. Their prominent cheekbones and light eyes marked them as strangers to Amelonia. Highlanders from the border, if she was any judge. Dangerous men, like the outlawed Cador of Kildore, who raided the borderlands and whose name was used to frighten mischievous children.
Tressalara hugged her arms to herself against the chill. Toward morning she might double back to the castle’s stableyard through one of the secret ways. Old Philbin would surely outfit her with a cloak and blanket, saddle and tack and one of her own horses. Meanwhile, she had to find a safe place to sleep for a few hours and some food to warm her belly.
She had thought that she might find shelter in a farmhouse, exchanging chores for a night’s food and snug lodging in the hayloft. Instead she was turned away time and again: too skinny, too soft, too young. Of course her dirty and disheveled appearance didn’t help the situation.
But those were not the true reasons, she knew. Lector’s spies were everywhere, and strangers were suspect in these unsettled times. It was not so much the doors slamming shut in her face that had wounded Tressalara to the quick, but seeing the fear and suspicion in her subjects’ faces.
Amelonia was not the happy kingdom she had always thought it to be. She realized that her people’s troubles had not grown in only five days. As her father had aged and withdrawn into his personal spiritual quest, Lector had abused his authority. Now that he had usurped control of the kingdom, fear of his retribution had placed a stranglehold upon the land.
Tressalara ground her teeth. She would do everything in her power to vanquish him, even at the cost of her own life. If only she could have reached the Andun Stone before she’d had to flee! With it she would be invincible—if she could only learn the secrets of its powers. Unskilled attempts to use them would result in a terrible death. One of her first objectives would be to get the magic crystal into her possession before Lector found its hiding