Page 84 of The Forgotten Prince

There was a ramp hidden behind the bathhouse that wasn’t easily detectable. One had to know it was there to venture at squeezing through the impossible space. And yet, whether one could or couldn’t manage was less the point than whether one should. As Gwendolyn glimpsed the space beyond, she froze midstride, one leg already through the space between two trees, with no discernible place to lay down her foot. To one side lay a dark, unfathomable chasm that seemed hardly worth the risk of falling, particularly considering, even once through, the path ahead seemed only precariously traversed. There wasn’t even space enough for an entire foot on the visible ledge, and if one’s balance went wrong…

Peering down at the sack of victuals in her hand, Gwendolyn reconsidered the sword on her back and cast Málik a wary glance.

“Art afraid of heights?”

For a moment, Gwendolyn considered the question. Normally she was not, but one glance down and her heart pounded traitorously. Only darkness peered back at her—an impenetrable gloom where light did not exist. This was the same inky void that inspired fear of spriggans and trolls, the unrevealed space beneath one’s bed, the moonless corner about which one could never spy lurking danger, the darkest recesses of a grave, where life was neither welcomed, nor sustained. As much as Gwendolyn loathed to confess it, fear was the emotion it inspired—immediate and undeniable. And regardless, if it didn’t stop Málik, she refused to allow a pair of trembling knees to hold her back, especially if he was about to reveal the portal.

Nor, in truth, did Gwendolyn wish to confess to fear, while Málik was grinning so impishly. The sight of it was like a gauntlet tossed at her feet.

He extended his hand again, and Gwendolyn groaned inwardly as she put her shoulder into the decision, wiggling through the space, like a cat would, then planting her foot wherever she could.

Once through, she had to tug hard to pull the sack through, and almost lost her balance. It was only thanks to Málik that she didn’t fall.

With two hands at her waist, he steadied her. But the feel of his hands never failed to send a shiver down her spine. It was all Gwendolyn could do not to lean back into his welcome embrace.

Alas were it any other day, or any other place, she would have turned and wrapped her arms about his neck, then tugged him down for a kiss.

But this was not any other day. It was the day she meant to break faith with him, leaving him to wonder, as she now did, why he’d kept the truth from her.

“Steady?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said, but she daren’t look down.

Somehow, with help, she turned, slowly, carefully, and made her way across the impossibly narrow ledge to solid ground.

From there, another spiral passage led upward and Gwendolyn breathed a sigh of relief and tossed the sack over one shoulder as she followed Málik—up, up, up, up.

Only when it seemed they shouldn’t be able to climb any higher, the path proceeded ever higher, and higher and higher.

Eventually, Gwendolyn wondered how such an ascent was even possible. The tallest tree she had ever known—the ancient yew outside their city, where she’d married Locrinus—wasn’t nearly so tall.

Even more confusing, the mist thickened as they ascended, as though they were moving into and through the skies. But if this was the case, there was no sign of any living creature in this mysterious place—no birds, no buzzing bees, no insects at all. The air felt thin and growing thinner.

He was taking her to the portal. She knew it without question, but the realization he was defying the Druids surprised her.

It was not like him.

She felt an immediate sense of disquiet.

Something was wrong.

Did he mean for them to abandon Esme and Bryn?

Curse the sun and the moon—all the while she and Esme had been planning one thing, he had been devising another plan.

“Where are we going?” Gwendolyn pressed. “And please do not say you would have to slay me—considering the circumstances, I don’t find it amusing.”

“What circumstances?”

“Never mind,” Gwendolyn said fiercely.

It was bad enough she had given herself to him so fully, even knowing what he’d intended. She was a bundle of confusion, and more than anything, she longed for him to confess what Esme had revealed to her, though she daren’t give Esme away—just in case. For one, if he should ask her how she knew, or who had told her, it would force her to tell him or lie. Until this task was through, Esme held her mother’s fate in her hands, and Gwendolyn would not risk Eseld for pride. Though she felt the need to ask, “Why do you despise Esme so much?”

“I do not despise Esme,” he said. “Though regardless of how I feel about her, I’ve never trusted her. She is, without doubt, her father’s daughter.”

“Yet she is against him,” Gwendolyn reasoned, clearing her way past an inordinately large spider web, one that appeared too large to be real.

Nor was there any sign of a spider—no prey on the web. What an odd, odd place!

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