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Chapter Four:

The Unexpected Guest

Her father’s death shrivelled Eirwen. Her appetite waned, her body shrunk, her hair lost its lustre. She remembered little about the time between his funeral and her leaving the palace, like she’d become a ghost herself, drifting through the walls of that lifeless, empty place. A broken instrument, a songbird without its voice.

Sometimes the servants would leave apples in her bed, when another meal was left uneaten at the table. Food tasted like paste.

One morning, some time in early spring, her stepmother looked at her across the breakfast table.

“My dear child,” she said, her voice like clear glass, “I do hate to see you waste away. You are so pale and sickly-looking. Why don’t you go and pick flowers in that beautiful meadow beyond the stream? I’ll have my huntsman accompany you.”

Her loyal guard stepped out of the shadows. He was a mountain made human, tall and wide, strong as stone and just as severe. Eirwen had never seen him smile, but despite his stern appearance, she had never been afraid of him. His small blue eyes sparkled with kindness.

Eirwen nodded. She liked having a task, something to focus on, and if happiness was beyond her forever, it didn’t matter what she did. She might as well pick flowers. It might make someone else happy.

“I’ll go with you,” said Cole, rising from his seat.

His mother shook her head. “No, dearest, you have dancing lessons this morning.”

His resolve disappeared in an instant, his voice vanishing. He dropped back into his chair. Bianca rose and crossed the room, her skirts swishing darkly across the stone. She wrapped her arms around Eirwen. They were even bonier than her own had become, but there was something unnatural about them, like she was some kind of doll, a porcelain body on a frame of steel.

“I do hate to see you so depressed, my dear girl,” she whispered coolly in her ear. “Wear a smile for me, there’s a good child.”

Eirwen tried, but the action was beyond her. Her muscles felt tight and heavy. If there was ever to come a time when she would smile freely again, she could not imagine it. It was a ghost of a future she could not grasp.

∞∞∞

The meadow her stepmother spoke of was awash with colour. Red, blue, purple and pink blazed amidst the tall, waving grass. The smell reminded her of summer, of Papa, of jam tarts and lazy afternoons, but it reached her as though through a haze; filmy, filtered, and as unnatural as the smile she’d tried to force.

She filled her basket within minutes, and floated to the edge of the stream. She wished she could be like water, drifting through the meadow, inactive, cold, unfeeling. She wanted to be carried away to a land where she didn’t have to think any more.

A raven on the bank opposite squawked. There was a flash of silver from the corner of her eye. Eirwen screamed –the first sound she’d made in days– and leapt back. A blade struck the soil beside her.

“Forgive me,” said the Huntsman, collapsing in a heap. His thick, rough fingers clawed at the earth. “I cannot, I cannot…”

She gasped. “What… what are you doing?”

The man shook his head, his entire body trembling. “The Queen,” he said, “she ordered me to kill you.”

A chill struck Eirwen in the chest. She had never been close to her stepmother, but for her to want to murder her? She had done nothing to her, nothing at all–

“But… why?”

“You are heir to the throne, not her. She wants it for herself.”

“But… I’m only a child!”

“You won’t always be.”

Eirwen swallowed. Her limbs were still gripped by fear. But for the first time in three months, she felt something. “I don’t want to die.”

The huntsman sobbed. “I cannot do it. Run away, sweet princess. Go somewhere she will never find you.”

“But… where will I go?”

“Beyond the woods, there is a village,” he said. “I cannot take you; she will be suspicious if I am not back soon. Go there, and stay there. Never return to this place.”

He yanked his dagger free of the ground. Something twitched in the woods ahead. A doe.