Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(9)
She keeps her head down and continues walking.
The road is disturbingly quiet. It occurs to Aurora that she really has very little sense of Deluce as a nation, of what it’s really like to live here. She’s been introduced to a variety of lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, noblemen and noblefaeries alike, but she’s never once been invited to their homes, nor seen the great population of peasants at work.
There’s a rustle in the trees, and a bird darts out of the underbrush, flapping into the sky. Could it be the same starling? Worry blossoms inside her. There are so many things lurking in this world about which she knows so little: magic that has the power to give birds speech, tensions that drive men to murder. Her heart races as though trying to speak for her, to tell her to stop, to turn back. This is no way to spend a sixteenth birthday—wandering alone.
Another bird shrieks.
A distant scream rings out—maybe an owl.
Or could it be the howl of a killer, covered in the stale blood of two princes, hungry for more?
To be safe, Aurora steps off the road and into the soft thickness of the surrounding woods. Even with her lantern, it’s dark—so dark. It’s too late, or too early, for a girl—a princess—to be out alone.
This was a mistake. She’ll turn home and demand that the council send out a proper search party to discover Isbe’s whereabouts and bring her back. She’ll find a way. Perhaps she can refuse to marry Prince William—the third and youngest son of the late king of Aubin—until this one wish has been granted.
Yes. That’s what she’ll do. She’ll double back, sticking to the woods, which are speckled slightly with the last dregs of moonlight.
But even upon turning around, pushing past underbrush and dodging the low-hanging branches of the trees, many still covered in snow, she begins to find herself disoriented. She’d been only a few feet from the road, hadn’t she? But the road, of course, isn’t lit, and so she can’t quite tell. Better to chance bandits on the road than wolves in the forest. She moves a few feet in what she is sure must be the right direction, but only finds herself surrounded by more woods. Is this the royal forest? She begins to run, urgency pumping through her veins. Her dress tangles in roots and branches, and she hears a tear, but she doesn’t care. She trips and falls onto her knees, dropping the lantern. The flame sputters out. With no way to relight it, she leaves it on the ground and gets up quickly, her fear spiking. She runs toward the road.
The road isn’t there.
She turns around again and sees a glimmer of light. That must be it: the moon against a frozen puddle. Pulse hammering in her temples, she runs harder. She finds herself not beside the road at all, but near a cottage. Its windows are shuttered and completely covered in ivy. It must be one of the many old homes the royal families of the past used to summer in—ideal for hunting excursions. There are several of these throughout the royal forest, Aurora knows, many now long abandoned. Her father enjoyed hunting when he was young and decreed that all the deer in the forest be reserved for his use alone—but he apparently gave up the sport when he married her mother. Since then, the royal forest has become thick with foliage and busy with game that no one is allowed to hunt.
This cottage is large but extremely humble in comparison to the palace, with only two levels and not a single tower. The light she thought she had seen is not the moon but a strange cluster of fireflies huddled at the base of the front roof. As her eyes adjust, she can make out the shape of a small wooden swing tied with two ropes, lightly swaying in the wind.
She has no idea where she is, or which of the several old summer homes this might be, but at this hour an abandoned cottage seems far safer than the woods. When the sun has fully risen she’ll resume her search for the road.
Ivy winds along the doorframe, and Aurora wonders when the door was last opened. After tugging and shoving, dust flying into her face, the heavy door eventually budges inward with a groan.
Aurora glances over her shoulder into the whispering woods around her before entering the dark home. She leaves the door open a crack, hoping the faintest of outdoor light will penetrate the heavy blackness of the air within—and wishing she had just a small portion of Isbe’s bravery, her facility for moving about in the dark.
Think, she urges herself. Servants usually leave a lantern on a shelf just inside the door of every room. Her hands fumble along the inner walls until she trips and hears a clatter. A metal lantern. It must have been on the floor.
She bends down and feels for the handle. Thankfully, there is an old candle inside and a tinderbox attached. Hurriedly, with trembling hands, she shakes a bit of dried kindling into the lid and removes the flint, then rubs the flint against the firestone, watching the faintest of sparks fly off.
It takes several minutes before the kindling catches—a tiny, winking orange ember, which she gathers toward her mouth and blows on until it becomes a small flame. Quickly she uses the flame to light the candle before stomping it back out. It’s the first time she has lit a candle like this in all her life—normally, the servants keep fires burning in every room of the palace, for all but a very few hours of the night, and it’s far easier to light the lanterns using the already leaping hearth flames.
The dust in the air is thick—so thick she fears the air itself will somehow catch on fire. The house has clearly not been inhabited for many years, but feeling she has no better choice, she finds her way to the staircase and heads up, looking for something resembling a bedroom, where she can close the door and sleep the remaining hour or so until sunrise.