White Hart (White Hart series #1) Read online

  I cry.

  The wall comes down, and I cry so hard I can’t breathe. I plunge my hands into the soil and then beat the ground with my fists. At the same time, the wind stops howling. The breeze calms to nothing. The only howl comes from me.

  Warm arms wrap around me, and I find myself sobbing into red hair. Sasha makes soothing noises and strokes my head until the sobbing subsides. I eventually pull away, wiping away tears with dirty hands and streaking mud all down myself.

  I am about to open my mouth to thank her when a horn sounds out from nearby. Thundering hooves approach the camp, a horse snorts, and a cavalry forces its way through the gate. A stunning white mare stops a short distance from us, carrying a man dressed in chainmail with a bright red cape embroidered with a dancing dragon. He dismounts and lifts his helmet to reveal a face that seems oddly familiar. He is grey-haired, with pale eyes and a firm jaw. He stands upright, very straight, with lips that are downturned into a ferocious frown.

  “Where is my son?” The man not so much speaks as growls.

  Sasha gasps. “I think that’s the king.”

  Cas’s father walks straight past us and strides up to Allerton. He places a hand over the Allerton’s jaw and squeezes. “I will not ask again. Where is my son?”

  Allerton attempts to speak through his squashed lips but manages only a mumble. Cas’s father releases him. “He ran away with the girl.” Allerton glances across to me. “The craft-born.”

  The king swears and kicks the soil with a roar. “That idiotic twit! Three days of trekking through that blasted forest, and the shit runs away.”

  Before I know what I’m doing I get to my feet. “I can find him.”

  The king turns to me slowly. Oh, he has Cas’s eyes all right, but they are nothing like Cas. The king has eyes like frozen opals. They are hard and cold, with little emotion. Cas has eyes like the moon. They are wide and open and change colour depending on his mood. I see little of Cas’s good nature in his father.

  “And who might you be?” the king asks.

  “I’m the idiotic twit who suggested your son go after Ellen in the first place, so you can take it out on me rather than him if you want.” I lift up my chin to hide the fear causing me to quake in my shoes. Allerton chuckles. The last thing I need reminding of is the fact that Allerton is still alive and my father is dead.

  The king moves forward and grabs me by the collar of my tunic. Every time he moves, his chain mail chinks like soft bells. “You will find me my son, you dirty little urchin. I’ve not spent three long days in that wasteland for nothing. He’d better be with the craft-born. It’ll be the only thing he’s good for, if he marries her.” He roughly releases my tunic.

  As the king walks away, I flash a goodbye glance at Sasha. My world has turned upside down in just a few moments, and I wish I had the words to thank her for helping me, for stopping me making the worst mistake of my life. I wish I had the time. She waves.

  “I’ll miss you, White Hart,” she calls.

  The old nickname given to me by the people of Halts-Walden twists at my heart. I wave back, avoiding Allerton. That wound is still wide open, but Sasha managed to help me heal it a little at the corners.

  The king strides over to his horse and mounts it. One of his guard helps me up onto the withers of a grey mare. The king doesn’t even wait for me to settle before he is galloping out of the camp. A pang bursts in my chest as we pass the broken-down huts. It was my grief that caused the destruction. I never should have let it happen.

  Back into the forest, I direct the king towards where we left Gwen and Anta. If I know Cas, he will have gone straight to his horse. When I think of him running out of the camp without me, my gut aches. How could he leave me behind? Stop whining, Mae. You knew from the very beginning he never liked you.

  We weave through a new thicket, which is more like shadows interlaced with trees the night sky is so dark. My eyes strain as I search for any sight of Cas or the animals. There’s a blur of white, and my heart soars.

  “Anta,” I cry as the white stag trots out from the trees.

  “Look at that beast,” the king says. “I must have it.” He reaches for his bow.

  “No!” I cry. I drop down from the horse and run to my stag, protecting him with my body. “You will not hunt him.”

  The king raises his bow. “Get out of my way, girl. These are my woods, and I will hunt whatever I like in them.”

  “You will not hunt him. He is mine.” The tears are close to the surface again, and my voice shakes. I’ve not come so far to lose Anta as well as Father. And Finn… and Sasha. I wrap my arms around Anta’s neck, holding him tight.

  “Stop fooling around and get out of the way, or I will shoot you.”

  “No!” I scream.

  The king lets loose his arrow, and it plunges into my side. I scream and clutch onto Anta’s fur. He lets out a groan of agony as though he feels the arrow in his own side.

  “Father!” Cas comes running out of the forest trees. As I feel the blood trickle down my side, he rushes over to me. “Mae, no. Father, what have you done?” He stares at the arrow in horror.

  “I’m hunting, son, what does it look like?” the king replaces his bow and dismounts. “Well, seeing as the little brat is determined to stop my fun, hello, dear Casimir,” he says in a voice laced with sarcasm. “What a pleasure it is to see you again, and looking so regal in your rags. Gods above, what have you done to your hair?”

  “Never mind my hair—you need to get help to Mae. She’s bleeding!”

  The king clouts his son around the head, hitting him with such a heavy blow that Ellen screams as she exits the thicket. “That is no way to address your king.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” Cas mutters. “Please help my friend. She is bleeding, Your Majesty.”

  Seeing the distant look in Cas’s eyes is almost as painful as the arrow in my side. Ellen stares at the scene, aghast. She eventually puts her hand inside his. I flinch away from them all.

  “Very well. Where is the healer? Come forth, you old cretin,” the king says, rolling his eyes with boredom.

  A man in dark blue robes hurries forth. His eyes widen at my wound. “Oh, this is very bad indeed.”

  “That’s not helping,” I say between gritted teeth.

  “We need to remove the arrow and swiftly. But she will lose a lot of blood, and bandages need to be applied.” The man is very old, with crinkling eyes and white stubble on his cheeks. Still, he clicks his fingers, and the guards are at his side in seconds. “Fetch my tools from the carriage, and something to carry her on.”

  “I’m not leaving Anta while he is around.” I glare at the king.

  “I am your king, and you will address me as such.” His eyes flash with temper.

  “Your Majesty,” I say with a sneer. I’m too angry and in too much pain to be afraid of him. What kind of coward shoots an arrow at a girl?

  “Father, Mae saved my life on more than one occasion when we were in the woods. Spare her and her stag, please.” He tries to move between the king and me, but His Majesty is still staring me down with his austere glare. Cas rushes to where we stashed our belongings. “Look! This is the stag’s bridle. Mae is telling the truth. She rides Anta like a horse.”

  The king briefly glances at the bridle in Cas’s hand. “Fine. We don’t have time for this nonsense. Casimir, you will ride the stag, and the craft-born can ride your horse. Healer—get the injured girl into the carriage and fix her on the way back to Cyne. We need a new housemaid in the Red Palace, although that insolent streak will need to be beaten out of her.”

  “Father, I don’t think—”

  “It’s Your Majesty,” the king booms. “And I will do what I want. Now move your sorry arses before I put another arrow in the girl. This time I won’t miss the heart.” He grins at me, flashing his teeth. My bravado fails. Cold fear runs through my veins.

  As the healer helps me onto the stretcher, all I can think of is the vision
shown to me by the Nix. I’m one step closer to it coming true.

  Chapter Twenty-Two – The Way to Cyne

  The healer pokes and prods around in my wound as we ride in the carriage.

  “It’s not deep,” he says. “I suspect His Majesty did not release the arrow at full strength. Then you really would have been in trouble.”

  “How lucky I am not to have incurred his full wrath,” I snap.

  “You are lucky,” he replies, his voice straining as he yanks the piece of metal from my flesh. I let out a cry. “You may not realise this, but talking to His Majesty, in the way you spoke to him, is treason. You should really watch your tongue before he cuts it out.” He leans closer and waggles his flaky eyebrows. “Or worse. In fact, I believe the only reason you were not executed on the spot was because of your services to His Highness.”

  “You mean Casimir?” I say.

  The healer applies something cool and refreshing to my skin. “Yes, Casimir. His Highness to you now, if you want to live.” His voice softens. “Listen, we’ve all had the equivalent of one of His Majesty’s arrowheads stuck in our backside from time to time, and if you want to learn how to survive in the Red Palace, you should listen carefully.”

  “Go on,” I say.

  The healer winds a bandage around my stomach. We are intimate in the small space, thrown together when the carriage bumps over the uneven ground. He lowers his voice. “The king is a tyrant. We all know it; I imagine you know it, too. He rules Aegunlund with an iron fist, but he is susceptible to flattery. How do you think an old codger like me has survived court for so long? Hmm? It’s not by standing up for what I believe in, I can tell you that.” He chuckles as he fixes the bandage in place. It is a warm chuckle, but with a hollow edge. The laugh of a man who gave up on his principles a long time ago.

  “I can’t do that,” I say. “I can’t switch off what I think is wrong. How can you stand by while a man like him shoots an arrow into a girl at close range? What kind of people are you?”

  The healer’s eyes turn to stone, and he yanks the bandage so tight that I yelp. “The kind who keep their heads.”

  And with that, my wound is dressed. We continue the journey in silence.

  It’s only when the trees begin to thin that I realise how far we’ve travelled through the Waerg Woods. The Borgan camp lies on the northeast edge of the forest, which means the carriage takes less than a day to exit the woods. With my fingers gripping the side of the carriage, I watch the trees disappear behind us. We rise up a slow hill, and the thicket of woods turns into a green blanket, stretching out far behind us. As we travel onto the stone slabs of the Cyne road, the smoothness is almost unsettling.

  The landscape changes from long meadows dotted with isolated farms, to more concentrated villages where scruffy young children run along the side of the carriage. We stop in a town called Aberlock, which is nestled by the conflux of the stream running from the Waerg Woods into the Sverne. A tall mill rotates by the waterside. Rapids gush over stones, and salmon leap over the current.

  When the king’s carriage pulls into the town, a number of men drop their farming tools, put down their children, or abandon their bread and cheese in order to welcome the king. They fuss around the horses, bringing pails of water and bales of hay. The tavern owner rushes out of the door, wringing a cloth in his hands and jittering from one foot to the other. After the healer helps me out of the carriage, I hear the way he stutters in the presence of the king.

  “Your Majesty.” He bows low. “Will you be staying the night? I can have your rooms set up within the hour. We can house your horses in the stables and…”—his eyes trail up and down Anta—“the stag.”

  The king flicks his cape behind his back and pulls his gloves from his hand as he strides into the tavern named the Rushing Brook. People scatter away from him, bowing low. I have no desire to follow him, so instead I decide to tend to Anta. Cas dismounts him and hands me the reins.

  “Did he give you a good ride?” I ask. My voice sounds stiff even to my ears.

  “It was a little bumpy,” he admits. “How do you ride him without getting one of your eyes poked out?” He regards Anta’s antlers dubiously. His face freezes when he glances down towards the bloodstain on my tunic. “How is…?”

  “The healer patched me up.” I manage a thin smile.

  Cas stares at his feet. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  I nod and turn to leave, but he catches my arm with his hand.

  “I thought you were right behind us. It was only once we’d run into the trees that I realised you weren’t there. Was it Allerton? Did he try to capture you?” Cas asks.

  “Yes,” I lie. “I had to fight him off.”

  Cas lets go of my arm, and his hand falls limply to his side. “I’m sorry… I…”

  There’s nothing he can say to make it better. “You should have looked back.”

  Cas swallows and balls the hem of his tunic in his fist. He can’t ever go back and not leave me in the Borgan camp. Nor can he stop his father’s arrow from hitting me.

  “I should help Ellen down from Gwen,” he says after the pause becomes uncomfortable. “She’s not used to riding.”

  “Yes, of course.” I lead Anta to the stables.

  *

  As the king, his son, and his men dine in the Rushing Brook, I sleep in the stables. The floor is cold and hard against my wound, but Anta lies on the straw and lets me curl up against his side. I am dozing like this when three guards come into the stable, carrying a bucket of hot water, clean clothes, a plate of food, and a glass of warm wine.

  “Casimir,” I whisper to myself while ogling the meat pie. My stomach growls in anticipation. At least he didn’t forget about me this time.

  When I’m clean, dry, and sated, I drift to sleep with my head resting on Anta’s stomach, soothed by the rise and fall of his breathing and the softness of his downy fur. I wake at first light and am the first to saddle up for the journey back to Cyne.

  “I missed you in the tavern last night,” Cas says.

  I whip around, having not heard footsteps approach. After the shock of seeing his silver eyes open and relaxed in the early light, I shrug. “I had to make sure no one poached Anta.”

  “He won’t now,” Cas says. “I promise he will never hurt him. Not while I’m around.” His smile stretches into a warm grin.

  “Help me up, will you? I want to ride Anta back.” I lift a leg so Cas can haul me onto Anta’s back.

  “I will not,” he says, his jaw tightening. “You were shot by an arrow yesterday. You’re in no condition to ride. I’ll take Anta again. He’s a good steed. Aren’t you, boy?” He pats the stag on the withers, and Anta nickers in response.

  “Very well,” I say with a sigh. “I can see you two have bonded. I suppose I’m destined to be confined in a small space with that blasted old fogey all the way to Cyne.”

  “Now, that isn’t fair. Baxter isn’t a day over ninety-two, and you know it.” He points at me with a faux-serious look on his face.

  Despite myself, I chuckle. Cas responds, too, and for a moment, it feels as if the world melts around us. Yet deep down, I know this will be the last time we joke together like friends. He will always be the prince, and I will always be the scruffy girl with mud splatters on her cheek who feels more comfortable sleeping in the stables than a bed.

  Unless I tell him.

  That went really well last time. I told the truth, and it was so ridiculous to him that he didn’t believe me. But… I could show him. A mad impulse takes me over.

  “Cas, do you remember when we were being held captive by the Ibenas?”

  He stands with his arm around Anta’s shoulder, idly running his fingers through Anta’s fur. When I mention the Ibenas, his back straightens. “Remember? How could I forget? I never thought we would make it out of that place alive.”

  “Do you remember what—”

  “Casimir!” Ellen appears in the tavern doorway and waves enthusiasti
cally at him. She’s back in her finery and therefore back in her comfort zone. My cheeks prickle as I notice the way her scarlet dress pinches in at the waist and pushes up her breasts. Her ebony hair is half plaited, with the rest hanging down in tendrils over her chest. One braid has been wrapped around her forehead like a crown. She gathers her skirts and runs down the steps to her future husband. He only has eyes for her, and it is as if a second arrow hits me in the stomach. “There you are! Oh, hello, Mae.”

  “How are you going to ride in that outfit?” I stare at her, aghast.

  “I’ll be perfectly fine.” She grips her skirts a little harder.

  “You could ride in the carriage with Mae,” Cas suggests.

  The blood drains from my face, and I spot Ellen’s cheeks whitening. I may have saved her life, but that does not mean I want to spend days cooped up in a tiny carriage with her.

  “But then I won’t be able to talk to you, my prince,” she says with a pretty bow. “I do so enjoy getting to know you better.”

  When the king has eaten and drunk to his fill, we leave the village. I watch the tavern keeper from the window of the carriage and can almost feel the sigh of relief he gives as we leave, his shoulders slumping forwards. It bothers me that the people are so afraid of the king. What does he do to elicit this response from the realm? How cruel can he be?

  Cruel enough to shoot me with his arrow. A shudder runs down my spine as I remember the bored expression in his eyes. He strikes me as a man who could never love another person, not a wife nor a child. My heart aches for Cas. The time with my father was brief, but at least it was full of warmth and love. I can’t imagine the king embracing his son, or even sharing a kind word.

  Our journey back to Cyne is uneventful. The road is long and straight, passing occasional travellers or market traders. The landscape changes from rolling hills and green meadows, to muddy towns and farms. Soon we pass towns that are larger, that bring with them the stench of waste. Here, I see poor people with bones that are protruding from their thin skin. The sight of their king fills them with forced joy. Some bow to the floor, one hand held out, hoping for charity. They receive none.