AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh good, aren’t I lucky?” Maria put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. A dark shape flitted past the window behind her, drawing my eye, and a shiver raced through me.
It was probably just a bird. A grouse or bustard, most likely. But it could have been Eyrie.
My mom’s eagle always gave me the creeps. Something about the way he stared at me whenever I was around, almost disapprovingly, like he shared my mother’s opinion of the way I dressed and behaved.
Or perhaps he guessed my unhealthy infatuation.
Like Falroy, my fox, Eyrie was her animal companion, a special bond that went beyond owner and pet. Although my people weren’t able to talk with animals, exactly, some of us were able to communicate after a fashion, with a thought or a feeling, and there were those of us who formed a special lifelong bond with one animal in particular. For my mother, her eagle found her when she was fifteen. The story goes that Eyrie pecked out the eyes of a boy who was paying her the kind of attention she didn’t like. Falroy, my fox, on the other hand, was injured in the woods and I found and helped him. Those bonds marked me and my mother as outsiders in this magicless country, and should have made our familial bond stronger. But ever since we arrived in this place, all we’d done was grow further apart.
Eyrie stayed in my mother’s suite in the castle, and was given the freedom to come and go through the open windows at will.
Falroy was forced to remain outside and find shelter for himself.
“The gray,” I said decisively, suddenly needing to be out of there. “Go fetch it.”
Maria narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but I held my nerve. Sometimes, being the princess had its advantages. She would be forced to back down.
Eventually.
After a long, awkward silence, she finally huffed. “Fine. Wait here, your majesty.”
I ignored the sarcasm in her voice and watched her go through the door to my parlor and from there to my dressing room. As soon as she was out of sight, I slipped out of the room, checked nobody was around, and ran, ignoring Maria’s annoyed shouts from behind as she tried to chase after me.
She wouldn’t catch me, that much I knew. I was faster than any of the servants, and with more stamina. In fact, even with the dress restricting every movement I could probably give the guards themselves a run for their money if I had to. Outside in the courtyard, I concentrated hard, forcing my mind to calm, and silently called for my fox as I ran for the small gap in the wall he’d shown me just two weeks after our arrival in Estana.
As soon as I heard the familiar chirrup of his voice, I felt the smile slide over my face.
Back in my home country, they said that familiars and humans bonded based on personality more than anything else. I liked to think that my driving need for freedom brought me to Falroy that day in the woods, my need for freedom just like a wild fox running over the countryside. Though what that said about my mother and Eyrie, I’m not sure.
Falroy led the way through the tiny gap and I wriggled through behind, soon finding ourselves on the other side of the wall, and from there heading quickly through the city streets and into the forest.
CHAPTER 2
Maksim
The head jailer could barely meet my eyes as he told me it was the prisoner’s last request, mumbling something about bad luck if we don’t honor our obligations to the condemned. Thatcher, one of my chief advisers, coughed out a laugh as the silence stretched.
“Well you’d better read the letter then,” I grunted, pushing aside more important paperwork.
The truth was, I hated executions. I found them distasteful. But if this bandit who’d been condemned for a week thought some last-minute plea would save him from his fate, he was mistaken.
“Yes, sir. Actually it’s more of a note than a letter—” The jailer made a squeak in the back of his throat as he met my eyes. Fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a scrap of paper that looked like it had been used to wrap cheese, unfolding it and gulping back dryness as he started to read haltingly, his literacy skills severely lacking. “For the ear of, um, P…rin…ce… Prince Maksim, the one true king of Estana,” he began, and I frowned. This again? “It has been my honor and pleasure to serve you, as my father served your father before us. I’m not afraid to die for my beliefs. All I ask is that you consider one final plea: find Raul, your father’s last master of arms. He was young when he was driven away, and he lives still. He will welcome you. There was a time when Estanian royals were trained to the highest standards. You will need those skills to retake the throne. When I am hanged on the morrow, it will be with a glad heart if I know that this kingdom will be restored.”
