Page 9 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“Faster is not safer.”
“Please, Father, I just need to get out of here andhunt something.”
“You do realise you arerescuingthe prince, yes? Not hunting him? You are not your mother.”
“Of course—Wait, has Ma ever hunted a prince? Never mind, I don’t want to know the answer to that.”
“Shame. It’s a great story,” he remarked, somewhat wistfully. “Treasured memories—”
“I’m leaving now!”
“Take care, daughter. Don’t kill too many people.”
Aislinn grinned. She glamoured her cloak to something dull and boring that wouldn’t raise eyebrows as she rode through the town, and headed down to the stables.
The minute she was free of the castle walls, Aislinn felt as if a huge weight was rolling away from her, a levity that only increased the further away she was from it—from the castle, from the town, from mortals and their rules, from any pressures or responsibilities at all.
For a moment, even the mission didn’t matter. She lifted the glamour from her cloak the moment she was free of the towns, and galloped through the fields with her cape splayed out like a pair of glittering dragonfly wings.
A princess of Faerie. No tool for mortals. A being, wild and free.
It took her most of the morning to reach the base of what the mortals called the mountains. Her home city of Acanthia stood beneath the shadows of the vast icy cliffs that marked the border of Winter; these slopes seemed more like steep, craggy hills. They were expansive, though, and no doubt far harder to traverse when covered with snow.
She followed the natural path up the side of the mountain, searching for signs of life, a trail that might lead her to the dwarves’ hideout. It quickly proved more difficult than she’d anticipated, so she took out the map Beau had sourced for her and searched section by section. Most parts seemed wild and abandoned, claimed only by nature.
It was long, exhausting work, and she had to stop to rest several times, tired from the exercise or the sheer monotony of the task.
Snapdragon nudged her cheek as she bent to inspect markings in a tree trunk, deciding they were likely to be deer-made, not dwarven. She patted his nose, glancing at the sky. Nightfall was a couple of hours away.
Deciding to cover more ground before it grew dark, she headed north, deeper into the mountain range, into thick copses of trees that wove together like ebony threads beneath a sky alight with ribbons of gold and flame.
She closed her eyes, trying to call upon the magic of the forest, though it was a mortal one and didn’t whisper to her like the forests of Faerie.
Still, something hummed inside her, a feeling she couldn’t name, a hard tug against her heart.
It turned her towards the right.
Tracks in the mud ahead bore the imprint of a deer—possibly a stag, looking at the heaviness of prints. That didn’t interest her; she’d caught the trail of several deer earlier in the day.
Whatdidinterest her were the tracks of large, heavy boots.
Aislinn slid off Snapdragon’s back and went to inspect them closer.
Male, most likely, judging by the size. Could they be a dwarf’s, too? They looked rather large for one, but she was fairly sure that, despite their short stature, dwarves were known to have large feet, and be quite heavy for their size.
She glanced behind her. There were no tracks leading up the mountain, and the nearest town in the other direction was miles and miles away, behind the peak. It seemed unlikely any human had come from that direction.
The tracks were fresh. Whoever made them was nearby.
Aislinn went back to Snapdragon and tied his reins to a nearby tree. She would be quieter on foot, and she needed the upper hand if she was to catch her prey.
Dwarves, she knew, were immune to glamours in general, but her cloak was spelled to shift in colour—not technically a glamour. She dulled the painted wings to a simple, forest green, pulled up her hood, and slunk down the path, keeping to the shadows of the trees until they branched out.
The tracks bent around a sharp incline of rock. Sounds of water ran behind it.
Aislinn inched closer, more carefully.
The mud gave way to stone, obscuring any printed tracks, but she refused to be deterred. They could easily pick them up again once the stone gave way. She kept moving, faster now, fearing she would lose them. She searched for flecks of mud along the pebbly road, upturned stones, bits of bent grass weaving between the rocks—
