Page 48 of An Enchanted Knight

“Go, seek guidance, but don’t go to Meliot’s castle just yet. I don’t want any harm to come to either my daughter or Gwyneth. We must plan this well.”

“Agreed,” Gavin replied, and immediately disappeared.

“I was going to offer my assistance,” Sabrina told him, throwing her hands up. “I’m going to bed; do you need anything?”

Tristan shook his head. Edith had already showed him where the large master bedroom was.

Alone again, he paced the room. If given a choice between his daughter and Gwyneth, he would have to pick his daughter.

What would happen to Gwyneth?

An act of kindness, saving those villagers so long ago, had come at a steep price. He was determined not to have to pay any more. There had to be a way to win.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Iola used to tell them wonderfully intriguing stories, when they were little girls. The three sisters would eagerly go through their bedtime routines on those nights that Momma promised story time. Each story would pull them in, the characters brought to life by Momma’s vivid descriptions and scenarios. Worlds were built and destroyed in their bedroom, the only sound besides their mother’s voice gasps of surprise.

Now Gwen understood. Not only was story time a time of a loving mother spending time with her children, but also training. Once they became older, the stories continued, stories they knew by heart, but now their mother added more information. They learned that evil existed, just as there were good people in the world. They became intimately aware of the spirit world, spinning simple spells to help lost souls or keep evil ones away from the innocent.

To help, her mother told them, was their purpose. The reason for the Lockhart women’s existence—as it had been for ages.

When Gwen, the oldest, got the nerve to ask about their vast differences in appearance and coloring, their mother told them her story. She’d fallen in love with a mysterious man who’d come to her one day. She’d been seduced by his looks and ability to spin words into compliments like she’d never heard before. For years they’d been lovers, creating three vastly different-looking offspring. He’d insisted it was the way of his family as he’d come from a mixture of races. Then one day, he’d announced to her that his time with her was over. According to her mother, he’d seemed heartbroken, not willing to tell her where he went. And just like it had begun, one day he was gone.

Gwen racked her brain. Somewhere in one of her mother’s lessons lay the answer to her current predicament.

Sitting on a tree trunk, she devoured the last of three apples, her first meal in two days. She’d been on the run since she’d panicked and vanished when Meliot ordered his wolves to seize her. Invisibility didn’t stop her from being tracked, so she’d conjured up a flying spell and was able to float short distances, not very far above the ground, but high enough to keep her scent off the path, making her hard to track.

Weak after two days and nights of travel with no sleep, she was ready to give up. Nerves raw from avoiding capture, she’d tried different methods of reaching Meliot’s castle undetected. Now, as she sat keeping an eye on said castle, the front door opened, and sentinels exited. They sniffed the air and trekked away from her. The wind was in her favor, or perhaps it was the constantly falling snow, covering scents and tracks. Finally, an opportunity.

She floated to the castle entrance and slipped inside. She’d find Clara, make the girl invisible, and hopefully take her to safety.

That was it. Her only plan.

Once inside, darkness loomed, making visibility hard. She strained to listen for voices, the sounds of the wind outside making it impossible. She went down long corridors, listening at doorways for the sound of a little girl. Most doors were silent. Hoping to feel the presence of the child, she opened her senses, moving along the hallway, once listening at a door, and a second time allowing her intuition to guide her.

A soft whimper caught her attention. She barely heard it over the sound of her rapidly beating heart. Freezing, she listened intently. The whimper sounded again, and she floated outside a door, trying to decide how to proceed. Feeling as if she had no choice, she reached for the doorknob. Footsteps sounded. Gwen opened the door and rushed inside, forgetting her invisibility. She stood inside the door, her head leaning on the wooden panel, waiting for the footsteps to pass by.

No sooner did the footsteps pass then the sound of another whimper caught her attention. A small child lay in a bed crying, her slight body shaking. Gwen became visible and approached the bed slowly. Although not tied up or bruised, the child’s clothing was in tatters, her feet bare.

“Hey,” Gwen whispered, trying not to startle the child. Shiny green eyes met hers. The eyes told it all. This was Clara. “Hello, Clara,” Gwen said, smoothing the girl’s messy hair. “I’m here to take you to your daddy.”

“Da? He’s here?” Clara’s bottom lip trembled. “He’s finally come?”

“No, he’s not here, but I know how to get you to him. You have to be very quiet. Promise me you won’t make a sound,” Gwen told the wide-eyed girl. She wanted to cry at the thought of this child being held for so long, forced to remain a little girl for hundreds of years. Meliot’s heart was indeed black and evil.

Gwen wrapped the child in the blanket from the bed. It was not enough to keep her warm outside, but hopefully she’d be able to find Sterling quickly. “Hold on to my neck,” Gwen instructed Clara. “Don’t let go. We’re going to be invisible—isn’t that fun?” Clara nodded, a small smile curving her lips. She looked so much like Tristan it made Gwen’s heart ache. “Here we go, shhh.”

She floated out of the room, closing the door softly behind them. When they reached a second corridor, it was a dead end. Panicked, Gwen doubled back and turned the opposite way. This, too, became a dead end.

“You’re here,” Meliot’s voice sounded behind her. “There is no escaping. Each time you turn down a corridor, it will become shorter and shorter until it will be easy to reach out and grab you.”

She ignored the wizard, avoided looking at him, and flew down the corridor back towards the room. The hallway ended, much shorter than before. He hadn’t lied.

They were trapped.

Panic always affected her in strange ways; her first reaction usually was to do something senseless. True to form, instead of giving up, Gwen ran straight into the wall in front of her. Clara screamed as they flew through the wall and straight out into the snow.

An illusion. Meliot’s specialty.