Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 24

I rummage through the dresser where the maid has unpacked corsets, brassieres and underpants. Then I attack the wardrobe of embroidered silk dresses, but I do not find my deerskin trousers and cotton shirt.

I take the lantern into the bathing chamber and see them lying on the tub to dry. My fur parka smells of lilac soap. Gone is the trapped snow mould rooted in the matted hair, the winter-sleep oils, the campfires' ashes and smoke. And though I've wished the parka clean a hundred times since waking from the long-sleep, Blackfoot Forest and my parents, have never felt so far away.

I wrestle with three buttons on the back of my silk dress, finally slip it off, and put on my hunting clothes. Happy to be dressed again in my cotton shirt and fitted trousers, I tuck the Prince's stolen room key into my empty knife belt. Lifting it from his doublet while he was distracted with my drunken flirtations was easy. In fact, it was so easy I half-suspect he allowed me to take it. But I am not about to waste an opportunity.

I crack open my bedroom door and listen. Wind wheezes around unseen nooks and gusts in from the chilly exterior. Far off a man coughs, but I do not waste precious effort stretching my senses through the tower. The six guards who followed us to the royal guest quarters all left with the Prince. Which leaves two men watching Deadran and me. Apparently, we are not dangerous.

I lock my door and carry my boots down the flagstone corridor. My hand traces bumps in the cold bricks as I climb the stairs to Jakut's suite. At his door, I smooth one palm across the keyhole and guide the key in with my other hand. The latch turns with a dull thud. I puff out a breath of satisfaction, retrieve my boots, and slink into Jakut's chambers.

With a match from the supply I've found in my guest room, I light a lantern and enter the living area. The hearth smells of smouldering ashes. In the far corner, near doors to a balcony, stands a grand writing desk. Leaves of parchment lie scattered across the leather top. I flick through scraps of indiscernible sketches and Jakut's handwriting, then check the drawers.

Once the lantern is extinguished with a little hiss from my wet fingers, I return it to the hook by the suite door, and venture onto the balcony. Keeping to the shadows of an overhead buttress, I search for signs of the guards. This side of the royal guest tower butts up against the roof of a long building. There is no escape from the closed courtyard below so patrols around the back of the tower are unnecessary.

I pull on my boots, and climb over the balcony railing. In the distance, the frosted lake glistens like a mirror. Behind it, silver-tipped pines stretch as far as the eye can see. I extend my arms so I am suspended over the edge and study the wood beamed roof. It is a small leap, and a larger drop, but the slats and beams are closely spaced and evenly constructed so I should not fall through the thatching.

I breathe in, softening my muscles, imagining I'm as graceful and soft-footed as a deer. Then I leap. In the second I am falling, I bend my legs to break the impact. My knees jar with the landing force, but the roof doesn't shake or crack beneath me, so I cannot complain. I creep to the end of the building and lower myself down a wooden door using a protruding metal knocker.

Once I am in a tunnel away from the guest chambers, I hurry towards the fort's northern quarter, hood pulled up, head lowered into the wind.

I am too exhausted to search the Duchess's mind over a long distance so I will hide somewhere near the banquet hall while I scour her memories. A detail has come back, and I intend to discover its significance, along with my brother's whereabouts. When Duchess Elise advised her husband to relocate Kel to the old tower, she suggested they move the boys. But when they referred to getting rid of the shadow weaver, they spoke of only one child. Which other boy or boys was she talking about?