Page 39 of The Forgotten Prince

As for Demelza, her mother’s maid had had so many compliments to give throughout the years, but none ever spoken with such love and conviction as Málik.

Certainly, Bryn had made her feel lovely, and she knew he’d harbored some affection for her. Despite that, no one ever made her feel as Málik did.

The way he’d looked at her, the way he’d spoken to her, the way he’d touched her—so rife with feeling… More than anything, she longed to crawl over and curl up beside him, then wrap her arms around him, and hold him until her dying breath.

With all her foolish heart, she wished she were only an ordinary girl, loving an ordinary boy, but Málik was no typical boy, and Gwendolyn was not a simple girl. Still, she loved him with an intensity that frightened her, and some part of her wished she could change her mind… leave Trevena to Caradoc, and Pretania to Loc… go tell Málik, yes! She would leave with him.

But she could not.

Her responsibility to Trevena and to Cornwall was as much a part of her being as the nose on her face. Come what may, she could not leave her people to suffer under Loc’s rule.

Of course, he slept, oblivious to her thoughts, with Bryn and Lir between them.

Gwendolyn did not know where Esme had gone.

More oft than not, she stole away whilst they were preparing pallets, and for all Gwendolyn knew, she was spying for her father. But since Gwendolyn still couldn’t prove it—not yet—it would be a grievous accusation to make. So she said nothing when Esme returned in the small hours.

Her thoughts still in turmoil, she turned again, facing Málik in the darkness, counting every thundering beat of her heart until sleep finally found her.

18

Morning broke with the light of an anemic sun.

Gwendolyn awoke, daring to hope the day would brighten and warm, but as the morning carried on, the skies turned ashen, like flesh turned gray and cold in death.

It continued to drizzle as well—a willful, freezing mist that persevered, gradually penetrating even through her leathers.

To make matters worse, for the past two bells, she’d had a feeling of foreboding—a tightness in her chest she couldn’t escape. Something hung about this forest—a shadow that unsettled her so gooseflesh erupted on her flesh. For a good league now, they had encountered no travelers—neither man nor beast.

No deer.

No foxes.

No coney.

No chirping birds.

Not. One. Creature.

When Gwendolyn’s nose detected a trace of smoke, she turned to Málik, and mouthed the word, “Fire?”

He nodded once, drawing his sword, and Gwendolyn understood that to mean he didn’t believe the fire was an accident.

Presently, they discovered the reason for the unnatural silence.

In the aftermath of whatever had transpired in this Ordovician village, the adjacent woods were bereft of life.

“Gods,” Gwendolyn said, swallowing convulsively over the sight that greeted them as they entered the once-verdant glade, now decimated by flames. “Who could have done such a thing?”

No home was spared.

No soul reprieved—not one man, woman, child, or beast.

Aisling whinnied in protest as she by-stepped over the still smoldering remnants of a luckless soul, his body prone and burnt to the bone. What flesh remained was being picked at by carrion, whose gluttony for carnage could not wait for the smoke to clear. Gwendolyn swung her blade and the large crow shuffled out of the way, squawking in protest. Peering back over her shoulder at the body, she saw no sign of weapons anywhere near his person… although, in truth, it could have been a woman. Simply to look at the corpse, it would be difficult to say. The hair, like the clothes, was burnt to crisps.

“Raiders,” suggested Bryn, though he couldn’t possibly know. The single word was more a question.

“Loc’s men,” announced Esme, with ill-concealed revulsion. “If I had known when they’d passed, this is what they were about, I’d have cut their throats myself.”

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