Page 12 of To Wake a Kingdom

This time, the arrow still went wide, but stayed within the boundaries of the courtyard. Okay—this was something I could work with. So I kept firing arrow after arrow until I managed a shot straight through the dummy’s heart. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.

Drenched in sweat, my arms and back ached from the effort, but for the first time since I’d woken up, I felt some sense of control over this situation. Maybe I could do this.

A breeze blew off the lake, chilling my flushed skin.

Ready for a break, I headed down to the kitchen.

Kianna stood in front of the hearth, palms held up to a merrily crackling fire. “I thought we could have something hot for supper,” she said.

With a nod, I moved to examine the ice boxes that were still cool, the raw meats stored inside still fresh. I wondered how long they would stay that way. The food hadn’t spoiled while Kianna and I slept, but we didn’t know how time moved in this post-slumber existence.

“I think we should cook all of it.” I mentally catalogued the meat and offered silent gratitude to whoever had already skinned and cut the animals. Going from never having set foot in a kitchen to plucking my own chickens felt too much like tumbling down a flight of stairs on the way to self-sufficiency. “It will be edible longer, in case—”

As my words broke off, Kianna dipped her chin. She, too, had considered the precariousness of our supplies.

“Do you know how?” Kianna asked with a helpless look.

I sighed for the both of us, the sound brittle with dejection. We were a pair of newborn colts, abandoned by their mother and left in the wilds. It was a wonder we’d even lasted the night.

I tossed pieces of rabbit, chicken, and venison on the smoking grate. Together, we watched the meat char, fat sliding off and sizzling in the flames. Pale nuggets of flesh turned crispy and ochre, the heady scent of a feast filling the air. Maybe I’d underestimated myself. This didn’t seem that hard.

A while later, we sat down with our dinner, the meat no longer a reassuring gold but blackened and dry. I’d overcooked it. Sinking my teeth into a morsel of rabbit, I tore at it. My jaw ached as I chewed, the texture rubbery and dense. This was nothing like the food I was used to, and a vague despair stacked itself onto my shoulders.

“This is terrible,” I croaked, sucking in a big gulp of water. My mouth twisted as I faced down a chicken thigh like it was my last meal before being ushered to the gallows.

Kianna watched me with a dubious look, and then let out a delicate snort that blew through the chain of my pessimistic thoughts.

I blinked.

She covered her mouth, gaze glued to the table like it might save her from my glare. She was laughing at me. Her slender frame shook as she tried to hold in her giggles, but she was failing miserably. The sound was so contrary to the silence and stillness, it took a moment before I smiled, too.

It was the first one I’d cracked in over one hundred years.

And then my laughter snapped, bursting into a shower of sparks. It welled up out of me as the traumatizing events of the past two days gathered and dispelled.

But it wasn’t only these two days that flew at me. It was one hundred and twenty-one long, terrifying years of tightly bundled fury and apprehension. It released, spinning from me like threads of fraying rope, unwinding in a heap at my feet. My eyes watered while Kianna lay with her face down on the table, her body shaking and her wings twitching with glee.

After a few minutes, our snickers tapered off, and we stared at each other as reality crashed in like a boulder dropped from the sky. Our situation was untenable. We were trapped here. I wouldn’t leave my family unprotected and we couldn’t wake them up. Mare would return soon, bearing the full and merciless weight of her wrath. Whatever magic Kianna had conjured wouldn’t keep Mare away forever.

“Kianna,” I whispered, my words digging a hole in the silence where I wanted to bury myself and hide. “What are we going to do?”

She reached across the table and took my hand, squeezing it. “We are going to be okay, Your Highness. We’ll figure this out. You’ll see.”

Our eyes met, and I knew neither of us really believed that.

Chapter Six

Apprehensionstirredmefromsleep, tingles plucking the fine hairs on my arms like cello strings. The only illumination came from moonlight streaming through the windows of my bedchamber. The air pulsated with a thick promise of catastrophe.Something wasn’t right.

Shoving back the covers, I swung my legs to the floor and slipped out the dagger I’d stashed under my pillow. Knife gripped in my hand, I walked across the thick carpet, my bare feet making no sound. Dressed in only my thin nightgown, I shivered in the cool night air.

A scream echoed outside my room, and my stomach liquified into an acidic sinkhole.

Kianna.

Though her bedroom was in another wing of the castle, she had moved to the one across the hallway from mine.

Another scream pierced the silence, and I hurtled for Kianna’s room. Huddled in the corner, her arms covered her head. Mare hunched over her trembling form, a white, clawed hand stroking Kianna’s black coils.

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