The Princess Fugitive: A Reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood (The Four Kingdoms Book 2) Read online

  

  THE PRINCESS FUGITIVE: A REIMAGINING OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

  Copyright © 2016 by Melanie Cellier

  First print edition published in 2016

  by Luminant Publications

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored in, or introduced into a database or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN 978-0-9806963-5-6

  Luminant Publications

  PO Box 203

  Glen Osmond, South Australia 5064

  [email protected]

  http://www.melaniecellier.com

  Cover Design by Phatpuppy Art

  Main Title Font by CuttyFruty

  For Marc

  who loves me with his words and his actions

  Contents

  Assassin

  Part 1 - The Flight

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part 2 - Asylum

  The Guard

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part 3 - The Trials

  The Guard

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Note from the author

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Assassin

  Moonlight shone through several tall windows, illuminating the large empty room and the lone man slowly pacing its length. He was tall and broad shouldered and he wore his strength easily, like a well-fitted cloak. He made it all the way across the room and back before suddenly raising his head and peering towards a door hidden on the opposite wall.

  A second figure appeared and moved swiftly to intercept the first. He was shorter but a hidden menace lurked behind the taut grace of his movements.

  “Is everything ready?” asked the waiting man, his voice low and deep.

  “It is. My men are in place.”

  The tall man nodded and there was a moment’s silence. The new arrival shifted his weight in a subtle gesture of unease.

  “What is it, Joran?” asked the tall man quickly, although he kept his voice quiet. “The plan is perfect.”

  “Of course. We will succeed. Have I ever failed?” The unease was in his voice now, though. “Nothing can go wrong. Unless…” he trailed off, apparently afraid to voice his concern.

  “Unless what?” asked the tall man, raising his voice slightly with impatience.

  There was another pause.

  “Unless there’s…an intervention.”

  “An intervention? Oh, a godmother? Is that your worry?” The tall man gave a sharp bark of quickly stifled laughter. “You can relax in that case. There hasn’t been a godmother in Rangmere for nearly twenty years.”

  “You’re right, as always,” said Joran. “But they are known to favour princesses.” He directed a significant look at his companion.

  “You of all people should know that things are not always as they seem,” replied the first. “Godmothers help deserving princesses. There may have been a godmother at Princess Ava’s Christening but there’s a reason the kingdom hasn’t seen one since.

  “Ava isn’t the damsel-in-distress,” he continued. “She’s the wolf. There will be no godmother to aid her, I can promise you that.”

  “Then we are ready,” said Joran, “and only await your order.”

  “Get it done.”

  Part 1 - The Flight

  Chapter 1

  Ava wasn’t sure what had woken her but something was definitely wrong. She almost never startled so suddenly into wakefulness. She held herself still, assessing the room without opening her eyes.

  Only the light of the dying fire leaked through her eyelids and she could detect no discernible sound. But despite the absence of clues she felt utterly sure that a person loomed over her.

  She sighed softly and twitched, using the movement to slide one hand under her pillow. Still the intruder remained motionless. Ava could guess why her unknown visitor had paused. She knew exactly what picture she presented, asleep in her gorgeous canopied bed. Her golden hair, perfectly curled, spread out across the pillow and her dark gold eyelashes rested gently against her perfect, rose-tinted cheeks. Her full lips parted softly, allowing the tiniest glimpse of her straight, white teeth.

  Her grandmother had told her that when she slept she looked like an angel and she suspected she also looked younger than her true age of eighteen.

  Innocent and beautiful. Enough to make anyone pause. The effect was no accident, of course. Her father had taught her that her looks were her greatest weapon.

  “Never was there a truer-looking princess than you, my Ava,” he had told her as she sat on his knee as a girl. “Your face alone will disarm any opponent.”

  The memory of his words brought a bitter sting. Her face had not been enough last summer. But she pushed the thought of Arcadia aside. Perhaps her face had not been enough then but apparently it was sufficient tonight.

  As she snapped her eyes open, her hand slashed upward in one fluid motion. By the time she had assimilated the identity of the intruder, the tip of her knife had already penetrated his ribs. She felt a detached pride at the steadiness of her hand and her well-judged aim. But this feeling was soon overridden by betrayal.

  “Joran.” She now sat bolt upright in her bed. The man had dropped to his knees, his own knife falling into the soft carpet without a sound. He gripped the hilt of the blade protruding from his chest with both hands but didn’t attempt to remove it.

  He made no reply to his name but looked up and met her eyes. A grudging respect showed through the grimace on his face.

  “You called me a fool once,” he said, his words laboured. “It seems you were right.”

  “I told you then, I’m always right.” Ava was glad to hear her voice come out steady and light. She wasn’t squeamish but she kept her eyes firmly on his face, away from the blossom of blood spreading across his shirt.

  “Ah, but you weren’t right that time, were you?” he asked, mockery in his voice. She stiffened, still not used to the knot of tension she felt at any reminder of Arcadia.

  Still her voice remained steady as she replied. “It seems we were both liars on that occasion. I seem to remember you assured me of your loyalty. And yet here we are.”

  Joran was sagging now and Ava could no longer ignore the blood that seemed to be everywhere. She felt her stomach churn and had to call upon her not inconsiderable will-pow
er to keep it in place.

  Softly the man crumpled onto the carpet and she steeled herself to lean over the edge of the bed. His eyes inched open and slowly focused on her.

  “My loyalty,” he paused as he drew in a burbling breath, “always lay with whoever has the power.” His voice trailed off and this time his eyes closed and didn’t open again. A thin trail of blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth and his chest stopped moving.

  Ava sat frozen, watching for signs of life. None came. She slid across the bed and slipped out the other side. Her bare feet sank into the carpet and she moved silently across the room. Stopping by the fireplace, she reached towards the bell-pull and then paused. Her hand moved instead to pick up a candelabra from the mantelpiece and light it from the fire.

  Her thoughts churned but her face remained still, giving no hint of her emotions. This was another weapon taught to her by her father and the lesson was so ingrained that she practiced it even now, alone in her room in the middle of the night.

  She was glad her father wasn’t in the room for many reasons. For one, he was one of the only people still able to read the minute changes in her face and she suspected he wouldn’t like what he saw. While her face remained still, her mind was seething. Her thoughts kept circling back to the corpse behind her and she knew her father would disapprove of this lack of control.

  He had trained her to keep her mind sharp and ordered at all times. He had trained her to be effective and merciless. She admitted to herself now that he had also trained her to be a killer. She knew, somewhere in the back of her mind that she had been responsible for many deaths. Strange, she thought now, how different it is when my own hand did the killing. I didn’t expect that.

  For some moments she dwelt on this thought until horror and self-disgust began to stir within her. As soon as she recognised these emotions she thrust the thought away, burying it deeply, far from her consciousness. She knew she couldn’t banish the thought entirely, but I’ll deal with it later, she decided. Even as she did so, she felt a pang of guilt. Her father would be disgusted at her weakness.

  This knowledge brought her back to the far more important reason she was glad of his absence. This was the unwelcome realisation that had caused her to move her hand away from the bell-pull. Joran had said his loyalty lay with the power. Once that had meant her but obviously his loyalties had shifted. And here in Rangmere there was only one power.

  She had been waiting all winter to discover the consequences for her failure over the summer. She hadn’t expected such a drastic response but perhaps she should have. Her father had never countenanced failure. The only real surprise was that he had taken this long to act.

  Ava saw no choice but to flee. Immediately.

  Her face hadn’t changed as she processed these thoughts but with the decision came a new determination that showed only in her eyes and a small tightness around her mouth. She turned away from the fire and moved quickly to a tapestry hanging against the side wall.

  She brushed the material aside, revealing a small wooden door. She opened the door without knocking but didn’t step through.

  A small stone chamber stood exposed. A single candle burned in the room revealing a cot, a chest and a small washstand. A tall figure lay sleeping in the bed but at the sound of the opening door he sat up. In one quick movement he slid out of bed, facing the far wall. As he moved, he seized the hilt of a naked sword lying by the side of the cot. He stared at another door but it remained firmly closed.

  Ava cleared her throat quietly and the man swung around. She gestured for him to enter her room but he hesitated. Ava had seen Hans in many different situations but couldn’t remember ever seeing him surprised before. And he certainly never hesitated.

  But then she had never invited him into her room before, either. She sighed and gestured again before turning and walking back towards her fireplace.

  His feet moved as silently as her own but she sensed him following her across the carpet. After a moment she heard the sharp hiss of an indrawn breath. She knew without looking that he had cleared the end of the bed and seen what lay on the other side of it. She turned and silently watched him change course.

  He knelt beside the dead man and briefly placed two fingers on the man’s neck. His observant gaze moved from the hilt of her own knife, still protruding from Joran’s chest, to the abandoned knife on the carpet.

  It was one of the things Ava liked best about Hans – she never needed to explain things to him.

  “Forgive me, Your Highness,” he said, his head bowed and voice heavy.

  “For what?”

  He looked up at that and although it was hard to read his eyes in the candlelight she thought they held relief.

  “It is my job to guard you and it would appear that tonight, at least, I have failed.” There was a strange hardness in his voice that she couldn’t quite read.

  “There are only two entrances to my room and you have faithfully guarded the one entrusted to your keeping. The other entrance is locked and guarded from without by my father’s loyal guards.” She left the rest of the thought unfinished.

  The hardness in his voice earlier was nothing to the expression that transformed his face as he pondered her words. His eyes set like granite.

  She couldn’t repress a shiver.

  He seemed startled by her small movement and his eyes softened and focused on her face, assessing.

  It took all of her willpower not to blush with embarrassment. Having been with her so long, he was one of the few who understood how shaken she must be to have betrayed herself with the involuntary motion.

  She spoke quickly and softly, attempting to recover her poise and sense of control. “We must leave the castle now, tonight. Is there anything you need to pack that isn’t in your room?” She gestured towards the hidden doorway which still stood open.

  Hans shook his head once, sharply. His own training helped him keep his face steady but the training of a guard did not compare to that of a princess. Not in Rangmere.

  To someone who knew him as well as she did, the shock was painted across his face.

  “You are a loyal and skilled guard, Hans,” she said with a sweet smile, “but even you cannot protect me against an entire kingdom. We have no other choice but to leave.”

  She produced the smile without conscious thought. Manipulation came as naturally to her as breathing.

  But Hans seemed untouched by it, which was another reason she liked him. He was one of the few who never seemed affected by her beauty.

  Her father had taught her how to influence those around her even as she learned her first words. She clung to the sense of control manipulation gave her. And yet, at the same time, she liked knowing that there was one person unaffected by her skills. She had never stopped to consider the strangeness of this dichotomy. Another thought to be pushed down, to be left for another day.

  “We’ll need horses.” His voice snapped her out of her reverie.

  She shook her head once to clear it, frustrated at this strange mood that had overtaken her – so different from her normal calm control.

  “We must be far from here by morning. Perhaps sooner if someone is waiting for Joran to check back in.” Hans had apparently taken her movement as a disagreement.

  “No, no, of course. We must have horses. And supplies…” her voice trailed off as she realised this might be more difficult than she had at first envisioned.

  “I can find us supplies,” said Hans. “I have friends among the kitchen staff so I know my way around. Everyone will be asleep now.”

  Friends among the kitchen staff. The words hit another raw nerve, long buried, and Ava marvelled at how quickly her life, and mind, had spiralled out of control. With an effort she forced her mind to resume its usual sharp quality.

  “Pack whatever you need from your room and give it to me. I’ll pack my own things and meet you at the stables.”

  “No!”

  The sharp retort shocked Ava, who had
already turned towards her wardrobe.

  “Excuse me!?” she said, ice in her voice.

  “I won’t leave you alone. I won’t fail to protect you again.” The intensity in his voice and eyes stripped away her remaining anger.

  She moved to him and laid a hand on his arm. “I can take care of myself.” She gestured towards the bed and what lay behind it. “I think I’ve proven that tonight.”

  Hans didn’t reply but instead stared down at her hand. After a moment he carefully gripped her wrist and removed her hand.

  She let it drop and took a step backwards, surprised at the hurt that filled her. “I appreciate your concern.” Her voice came out harsher than she intended so she moderated it before continuing. “Right now, all I care about is getting out of this castle alive and my best chance of doing that is if we split up and move fast.”

  Hans drew in a breath as if to argue and then let it out slowly. “Of course, Your Highness.” He turned and strode from the room.

  Ava wasted no more time dwelling on the many peculiarities of the night. By the time Hans returned with a small satchel she had changed into her plainest and most practical dress and had filled a satchel of her own. It wasn’t as small as Hans’ but then Hans had not emptied an entire jewellery box into the bottom of his.

  He gestured silently for her to precede him into his small room and then pulled the tapestry back into place with a swift gesture that allowed him to close his door a half second before the fabric fell into place. Ava didn’t imagine it would fool anyone for long but any small advantage was worth it.

  They crossed swiftly to the door in the opposite wall and Hans gestured for her to step back while he opened it and glanced outside. Another gesture and she followed him into the corridor.

  He hesitated and Ava wondered if he would raise any further objections to their parting ways. Instead he drew a small knife from his boot and handed it to her.

  She shook her head and instead of taking it, gently drew the tip of a dagger hilt from her own boot.