Page 53 of Tangled Sails

I would have been embarrassed if I weren’t terrified. “The prince.”

“I know who you meant, Your Highness.”

My chin pulled back in confusion and I turned to look behind me, thinking perhaps Tavric was there, but there was still no one.

I turned back to Harlan, whose eyes were steadily fixed on me. “Who are you talking to?”

“You.”

“Then why did you say Your Highness?”

He suddenly stepped close to me and I flinched away from him, but he only reached out and tapped the medallion that hung around my neck.

I looked up at him, frightened by this mysterious situation. He’d said he would take me to Tavric, and instead he was spouting nonsense about my necklace. I shook my head. “It doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s just an old necklace that my mother gave me,” I said, my voice warbling.

“No, it’s not.” He turned to one of the large books that lay on the desk and flipped it open. “Have you seen this?”

I stepped forward and looked at the page he turned to, recognizing it as the one filled with illustrations of family crests that Tavric had shown me. “Yes. The prince already searched that book. There was no match.”

He unceremoniously shoved the book closer to me. “Are you certain?”

A strange aggression rolled off of him, making me even more nervous, but curiosity made me study the pages he’d turned to. The illustrations were beautiful, and some of the crests even looked to be a similar style to my own crest, but—wait.

My eyes snagged on a familiar design.

“It’s there,” I said, pointing to the crest that looked precisely like the one stamped onto my own necklace. “Look, it’s right there!” I said in excitement, jabbing my finger onto the page. It even said The Kingdom of Branfrie below it, even though Branfrie hadn’t been a kingdom for generations. Still, this was proof that my home existed here, in this world. Or at least it was known by this world.

How had Tavric missed it?

I looked up at Harlan, hoping for answers. His eyes shone with an excitement that was almost frightening. “You came through the portal,” he said.

My heart dropped and my stomach clenched. Recognizing the crest and the name of my kingdom was one thing. But speaking of a portal? “Excuse me?”

“Only those of us who came from Branfrie can see this crest.”

I stopped breathing. He had said “us.”

“It’s not just Branfrie itself that’s shrouded,” he continued. “Information about our land is hidden as well. So Prince Tavric could look at this page all day long, and he would only see an empty space where this crest is drawn. Or perhaps even a different crest altogether.”

The pounding of my heart made my chest ache, and it was difficult to draw breath. “You’re from Branfrie?” I finally managed to ask.

He nodded.

My eyes darted about as I tried to make sense of his words. “How long have you been here?”

“Nearly eighteen years.”

“But…how?”

“A dare gone wrong.” His expression was suddenly shrouded with regret. “We’d heard the rumors about the castle tower our entire childhood. A powerful sorceress had lived there years before. Girls would go to learn from her, and some of them would never return. When she died, everyone said the tower was cursed, but we thought it was just a story.”

I swallowed hard. He was talking about my tower, he had to be.

“So we, as lads of fifteen and sixteen, thought it would be fun to test it out. The rumors were old, after all. No one had actually disappeared in our time.” His gaze stayed glued to my face, intense and disconcerting. “So we all set out to climb it, and we made it. Fools, all of us. We could have fallen at any moment, but such lads always think themselves invincible.”

“Did you fall?” I couldn’t help asking.

He gave a shake of his head and a shrug. “No. Just climbed down. Got nearly to the bottom and thought I’d show off, so I jumped the last bit. Only I didn’t land on solid ground.”