She wanted to be somewhere no one could find her.
Hearing voices coming from somewhere below, Lannahi peered over the forest behind the hills and felt a qualm of longing for the silence and tranquility of the trees within it. She didn’t wish to request an escort from the moody landshapers, who no doubt were still resentful for having to swear an oath to her.
Lannahi stopped abruptly when she caught sight of a stone gazebo in the middle of the terrace and the sleighs stored inside it, which had been standing there since the day she’d met Amaruk. Because of an impulse and fatigue, she then had bid farewell to the guards at the foot of the stairs leading to the palace and ordered Souhi and Erril to fly to its roof, making the way to her chambers much shorter. After Ashared had entered a phase of quiet rebellion and swapped shifts with Kalahadd, her companions had been avoiding the subject of rides in the forest and wordlessly accepted the return to occasional walks in the nearby area, so the sleighs stood here forgotten.
Lannahi’s pulse quickened. For a moment, she considered taking Souhi and Esau with her, but that idea didn’t seem as tempting to her as the vision of being alone in the forest. She longed for silence. She craved peace. She needed solitude.
Lannahi moved slowly toward the gazebo. She was wearing warm tights and a thick dress, a winter coat and boots as well as a shawl and gloves. On her hip, as usual, rested a belt pack with throwing knives. The comfortable, high sled that Souhi had driven was too big and heavy for her power to handle, but the one Esau and Erril had used was smaller and lighter. It would be dark in a few hours, but she didn’t intend to stay out long. Half an hour would be enough.
If she was careful, nothing should happen to her.
Lannahi walked over to the smaller sleigh and boarded. She concentrated. Putting all her determination into her words, she said, “Rise slowly into the air at the height of a dagger.”
The movement of the sleigh was so gentle that if Lannahi had closed her eyes, she wouldn’t have realized she was floating in the air.
A triumphant smile spread across her face as she practiced a few more maneuvers. She ascended and descended, then circled the terrace.
Eventually, she ordered the sleigh to slowly move beyond the edge of the roof. Her heart was pounding, but this wasn’t her first flight, and her fear wasn’t large enough to eclipse her determination.
She flew away from the palace without looking back.
Chapter 18
To avoid getting lost, Lannahi flew for a while above the tree line along the path running below, but when she noticed a large gap in the white-green carpet to her left, she turned in its direction. It was too close to the city for it to be the shifters’ settlement and she thought it might be a large clearing that would be a good place to stop, not only because of the ease of landing but also because the enemy couldn’t surprise her there. When she flew closer, however, the ice sparkling in the sun told her that it was the surface of a frozen lake.
Lannahi considered turning back. She planned to fly to the clearing Ashared had once shown them, but at the last moment, something drew her gaze. The lake was an oval densely surrounded by trees, but on one side there was a wide white strip near the shore. When she realized it was a beach, she didn’t hesitate. After all, she didn’t have much time.
Lannahi gently lowered the sleigh and landed on the shore. She peered into the shadows of the surrounding forest, but she only heard the soft chirping of birds and light rustling of leaves as they hopped from branch to branch. She decided to exit the sleigh, though the crunching of the snow under her boots seemed so loud that she took only two steps, not wanting to test the curiosity of any creatures with keen hearing.
She took a deep breath. Pricked by the spires of giant trees, the fragments of sky visible from clearings and paths in the forest usually reminded her of rifts, but the lake was large enough that instead of feeling like she was at the bottom of a wooden cave, she felt like she was looking into a blue mirror. She appreciated it all the more because the sky over Goldfrost was often cloudy and filled with low-hanging gray clouds that looked as if they would descend and suffocate her. In Goldenshadows, there were days like these too, but there, the sky stretched to the horizon, not to the next hill.
At the thought of home, the longing dwelling in the corner of her heart raised its head, but the excitement of her adventure made it easier for Lannahi to ignore it. She was a little surprised by this, but when she discovered that the gloomy thoughts that had consumed her attention just a few minutes ago also couldn’t arouse the slightest interest in her, she smiled and let her senses absorb the view and silence.
“Admiring the views, Queen Lannahi?”
Lannahi twitched and spun. She barely registered the presence of two women standing at the edge of the forest before two gray wolves rushed toward her. She reflexively started to back away, remembering too late the knives in her belt, when one of them jumped at her and knocked her down to the ground.
Don’t move, growled the blue-eyed beast.
Lannahi froze.
“Sevii, take her weapon.”
She thought she’d overheard. The name of the shy girl, who gazed at Ashared with the admiration of a puppy, was the last thing she would have expected to hear.
Then she thought about the oath-taking ceremony. She couldn’t remember if the maid had attended it.
Sevii approached, avoiding her gaze, then unclipped her dagger and belt pack and retreated hastily.
“Hide them,” an unfamiliar voice instructed her. With the fading sound of crunching snow, Lannahi knew Sevii had gone to carry out the order. The strange woman turned to the wolves, “Let her up, but if she starts enchanting, bite her hands off.”
The wolves stepped away but stayed close. When one of their muzzles brushed against Lannahi’s hand, she jerked it away. She rose carefully to a sitting position and saw the white-haired woman approaching her.
Ashkii. Amaruk’s lover.
“It seems you know who I am,” the shapeshifter said with a smile that didn’t reach her golden eyes.
Lannahi rose unsteadily. When she straightened, the wolves reached her belly rather than her chest; she recognized that they were females, but she didn’t find that fact comforting. She didn’t doubt that they could easily match their male counterparts in aggression.
