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She must be mad with desperation because she’s revealing things to me that she’s never said before.

“Birdy, go to your chamber.” I reach for my sister, but the queen moves too fast.

“She’ll be safe with me… until you return with what’s mine.” The queen throws down the gauntlet, pulling Birdy behind her, standing between us. Once again, my innocent sister is being used as a pawn.

Birdy may be too naïve to understand what that means, but I’m more than aware. And I’m more desperate now than ever to turn off whatever these feelings are that I have for the lost princess. The only things I have room in my life for—in my heart for—are revenge and anger.

I need to figure out how to turn off my emotions and turn on the hunter because this is the most important hunt of my life. Birdy’s life depends on it.

“Riven!”

“One more thing. Do whatever it is you need to do to get her out of your system before you bring her broken heart back to this castle and crawl into my bed. A heart for a heart, Riven. Don’t disappoint me.” She smiles with malice as she leads Birdy away from me, and my own heart nearly explodes with rage as I storm from the castle into the winter woods to claim the heart of a beautiful stranger.

Chapter 12

Adelaide

“And so I became the hunted.”

I move through the darkness, careful not to make a sound. Too risky to bring any light, I feel my way along the icy wall, my fingers nearly as numb as the emptiness creeping into my chest.

Self-preservation shut down. That’s what Doc always called it when I hid inside myself, trying to outrun feelings I didn’t understand.

It doesn’t get more fight or flight than this.

Birdy said to keep following the underground tunnel north, and that’s what I’m doing. It should lead me past the curtain wall, the defensive stone divider meant to keep people out… or in. The farther I get, the thicker the frost gets.

Eventually, moonlight guides me toward the end of the tunnel. It’s not Winter Solstice, but as the special lunar event nears, the light shines brighter. I reach the arched stone opening, but it’s covered by a wooden grate.

I’m trapped.

Feeling around the bottom, my aching fingers claw through the snowy brush in desperation. I’ve come too far to turn back now.

“There has to be another way,” I mutter, careful to keep my voice low.

I look for a loose board or rotten piece to allow me to passage. As I fumble underneath some loose rocks stacked in a mound, my hand wraps around a sturdy handle. I pull so hard to free the tool I nearly tumble backward. The stones that shift echo like thunder as an ax falls into my shaking hands.

Birdy really did think of everything. My heart aches with sadness thinking about the fact that I’ll never see my new friend again.

I have to make my hits count as I raise the small ax back and decide to cut to the smaller boards running parallel from the opening to the ground rather than a wider board running horizontal.

Once I’ve chipped away enough, I’m able to use the boots Birdy gave me to kick the wood the rest of the way. Climbing through the front wearing so much fabric will be tricky, so I risk it and take off my cape in the freezing cold, wad it up, and shove it through the slender opening. I crawl through the opening myself when suddenly, I’m grabbed from behind. I struggle against my attacker, a silent scream bubbling up in my throat in fear, but it’s just the layers of my gold fabric caught in the wood. I pull harder and harder, finally freeing myself from the splintered opening, earning myself a nasty scratch on my shin in the process.

I make sure to gather up all traces of fabric, not wanting to leave any evidence, and shove them into the bag Birdy packed for me, along with the ax.

Picking up my cape, I put it back on, securing it around me, and pull the warm fur-lined hood over my head. I scan the area and start walking away from the castle as fast as I can with pain shooting up my leg. I don’t have time to stop and check it out. I have to keep moving and make it into the forest if I want to have a chance at outrunning Riven.

The cold air slaps my cheeks with a cruel force.

My feet slip on the uneven terrain, the snow crunching beneath my boots. I’ve been walking for what seems like forever. From this distance, I risk a look behind me. I can see the black parapets and the ram parts jutting up from the white stone. It is the castle from my dreams, the place that’s haunted me for so many years. But this time, there’s no blinding snow. And the only light afforded to me is what the moon shares, lightening my path.

When the landscape levels out, I push myself and run, and run and run. My hair falling loose hits me in the face, tiny crystals of Mother Nature clinging to the damp ends. My cape flies behind me as I break away from the shadows and fly through the open area into the silver light while snow whips around me like a tornado of icy glitter. I push through the pain in my leg and my heart, rushing to the tree line of the dark winter woods.

In my dream, I’m always running from the darkness of the woods into the light of the castle to save someone, but now the opposite is true. I’m running from the dark castle in the obsidian sky toward the shelter of the Blakk Forest, full of white birch and unforgiving snow.

It’s not until I’m at the clearing at the edge of the trees that I risk looking at the small survival bag Birdy packed for me. I still have a small sliver of moonlight before I’m shrouded in the darkness, where the branches of the trees are interlocked over the top like a web, creating a canopy.

Inside, I find a small compass, but I don’t really know how to use it. I wasn’t a Girl Scout, and I suddenly regret that organized activities weren’t really my thing. There’s some bread wrapped up and a small metal canister of liquid. I unroll a map and look at Birdy’s careful drawing that shows the castle at the southeastern tip. The Northeast mountains to my right are cut into two by a river that runs through it, south toward the other side of the castle. If I keep heading north and follow along the edge of the forest, I should come to the spot marked with a red X by daybreak. There, someone should be waiting for me to take me deeper into the forest to find my uncles… and answers.