Once Upon a Romance 02 - As The Last Petal Falls

Jessica Woodard

copyright

Copyright ©2012 Jessica Woodard All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced without permission of the author, with the exception of fair use.

dedication

For my person, who will never read this, but loves me anyway.

Her Royal Highness, Vivienne Bellicia Victoria, Crown Princess of Albion, shining jewel in the court of King Regal Augustus II, was coated in icy mud. She was drenched to her hips from the melted snow seeping into the fabric of her riding habit and soaking her pantaloons. Each fall in a deep bank added to her wet muddiness, not to mention her misery. Her riding gloves were so cold they were leeching heat from her hands, but she kept them on to protect against the sharp stones that seemed to leap up from under the snow to attack her every time she fell.

This was all Max’s fault, of course. If she lived through this blasted storm she was going to spend a vast amount of time making sure he knew how very stupid he had been. In highly specific detail. With more than an ample sufficiency of yelling.

She tripped on a fallen tree branch and went sprawling into the frozen muck once more. Groaning, she forced herself to her feet and marshaled her arguments. Point one: If Max had never agreed to help her escape the kingdom, her father’s overbearing protectiveness, and, of course, the king’s refusal to tell her anything of her mother, then she never
would
have escaped. She would, even now, be safely in her own bedchamber in front of a roaring fire. Bored out of her mind, chafing at her father’s rules, and longing to run free, perhaps, but safe. And
warm
. And
dry
. Clearly it was Max’s fault that she was out here in the first place.

Before her, a rocky ravine cut a jagged course through the earth. Vivi bit her lip. She didn’t want to climb it, but if she tried to go around she would lose the bearing she was following through the woods. She almost gave in to the temptation to scream her frustration, but she was too tired to succumb to histrionics. Instead she carefully let herself down over the edge, and imagined telling all this to Max. She could practically hear the shout of laughter he would give out. For a moment the thought warmed her, on the inside if nowhere else. Then her foot slipped on an icy outcropping, and her careful descent became an uncontrolled slide. The rough surface forced her riding skirt up to her thighs, and she felt her stockings rip as her knees scraped along the ground. When she tumbled to a stop at the bottom of the ravine, she was bruised and aching. The temptation to sit there and snivel was almost overwhelming.

Right. Point two:
Max
had given her that horrible horse. Honestly, what sort of well-trained animal would bolt just because of a teeny, tiny pack of wolves? Admittedly, bolting was exactly what
she
had wanted to do, and she would have been very pleased with her horse had a poorly timed jump not thrown her off into a thicket. She had watched in horror as her ill-bred beast, pursued by the wolf pack, had disappeared among the trees.

Max would laugh at that, as well. Vivienne had always been so very proud of her riding skills; she would challenge him to tricky courses and crow when she defeated him. How he would roar to hear she had been unseated by nothing more nerve-wracking than a handful of overgrown dogs and a tiny jump over some wayward bracken. Maybe she’d change it, in her story, if she saw him again.
When
she saw him again. Maybe she’d tell him she’d been chased by mountain lions and had been unseated by a wild plunge over a waterfall. Yes, that would maintain her dignity.

Of course, he’d still laugh, because he’d know she was lying through her teeth, but she would ignore him. Royalty had that privilege.

The other side of the ravine was sheer, and the roots of the trees were exposed as though a recent mudslide had unearthed them. She stretched to grab a particularly sturdy-looking one, and then hauled herself up, pushing her feet against the rigid ground and pulling hard with her arms. The next thick root was off to her left, and she leaned out to grasp it, forcing her frozen fingers to close. She began to shift her weight, when the root suddenly came free. Her upper body swung out into open air, wrenching her right shoulder, and dislodging her feet from where they had found purchase. Her shoulder screamed in pain, but she found another handhold and pulled herself back up, vowing to test her grips more carefully.

Point three: Max had given her those books on survival, along with the available maps of the mountains. If she hadn’t read them, then when this storm came along she probably would have tried to wait it out, which likely would have resulted in her death. Death would at least mean she wasn’t wet and cold anymore, so that was
still
Max’s fault. And the map of the area: that was the thing she blamed him for the most. A small keep was marked on the map-out in the middle of this forsaken mountain desolation-and when she had been thrown off her horse, she had decided to try to make for the keep in the hopes that the inhabitants could help her on her way.

If she’d never seen that map she probably would have turned back. Her horse had most of the camping gear and supplies in the saddle bags. She was only carrying a small money pouch and an even smaller pouch with her midday meal, which she’d planned to eat
on horseback
. She knew where the towns and hamlets behind her were, but she didn’t
want
to go back. If she went back, she was bound to be caught, and that would be the end of this little trip. Still, she wasn’t suicidal. If she’d backtracked it would have been a hard trip, but she would have made it, and even now she’d have a nice space in a barn and a warm meal in her belly.

Max would laugh hardest at this, she suspected. The idea that Vivienne would ever describe accommodations in a barn as “nice” would send him right over the edge into howling mirth.

Instead of being warm and dry and full in a barn, however, she was here, trudging across an entire mountain range to get to a keep she wasn’t even sure exi st ed. Even if it
was
there, she supposed it might be ancient and abandoned. Shelter would be preferable to this open storm, but a stone keep with no fires or food would be a very dismal place indeed.

Vivienne finally reached the top of the ravine and slogged forward, dragging her sodden skirts through the brambles. Mud was plastered down the front of her riding jacket, and her gloves were going to freeze in place if she didn’t keep her fingers moving. Easier said than done, though. After her climb her hands ached, and when she clenched them, trying to keep her blood flowing, her fingers felt dull and clumsy. A low, throbbing pain was the only sign that they weren’t completely numb from the cold.

A tear rolled down her cheek-it felt boiling on her icy skin-and she realized it was no use. She was going to freeze out here, without ever finding the little keep, and she would never have a chance to tell Max all the convoluted reasons that this was his fault. She wondered when he would start to wonder about her, and if he would ever know, for sure, that she was gone. Vivienne felt sadness ripple through her, a sort of gentle harmony to the hopelessness, at the idea of her best friend never knowing what bec ame of her.

Before her loomed a dense cluster of saplings, and the idea of pushing her way through them was almost more than she could bear. She leaned against one of the saplings, a tall poplar that quivered in the gusting winds, and tried to convince herself to keep moving. Ahead there was a break in the trees. Vivi could see the swirling snow coming down hard, unhindered by branches. She would go as far as the clearing, she promised herself. She took one slow, leaden step, then another. Just as far as the clearing. It became a mantra she chanted, to keep her feet moving.

Vivienne broke into the open air, and then paused and caught her breath. Directly in front of her the ground fell away in a steep slope, out of which the dark shapes of boulders rose through a light layer of snow. Whorls of white flakes danced in the open air of the tiny valley she had found, tucked deep in this infernal mountain range.

And there, nestled in the valley, was the keep.

She gave a shout of sheer joy. Oh blessed map, oh wonderful Max, oh magnificent friend! The heavy snow obscured most of the details, but the dark edifice was an imposingly large blot against the white, snowy background. A few flickering lights cut through the storm, proving that someone was, indeed, home. Aside from the keep, the valley was nothing but a flat plane of snow, bordered by thick woods on all sides.

The gusting wind from the storm buffeted Vivienne as she stood on the edge, making her stagger to regain her balance. With her hands and feet half frozen it would be difficult to make her way down safely, so she began to cast about for an easier way. To her left the drop-off was even more severe, nothing but a sheer rock face with trickles of ice frozen on the hard surface. Descending there was out of the question. Off to her right, the slope eventually eased into a more gentle incline, but not for more than a mile. Vivi sighed; her destination was in sight, but she was going to have to scramble halfway around the valley if she wanted to make it there in one piece. She still had quite a ways to go.

She began to stumble around the rim of the ridge, grumbling. In her adventure novels, no one ever mentioned how much your toes hurt when they started to freeze. Come to think of it,
Max
had encouraged her to read all those ridiculous novels. Yet another thing for her list of grievances. Really, it was getting quite long. She was just wondering if she’d be able to find paper in the keep and write it all down, when a howl rose up from the forest behind her.

Vivienne’s blood froze in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. The wolves. She hadn’t even thought of the wolves. What were they doing here? A well-fed horse should have been more than enough of a meal for the pack, there was no reason for them to circle back to her. All this flashed through her mind in a moment, then her frustration nearly choked her. What did it matter why they had followed her? She was so close, safety was tauntingly near, but she could never outrun the wolves. They would overtake her long before she reached the shelter of the walls. It was hopeless. Her knees started to collapse, dropping her down in the snow, when she thought of what Max would say.

Giving up, Princess? I guess seven generations of royal pampering have thinned the blood. Comes from all that inbreeding, I suppose.
She could practically hear him, see that insolent grin he’d give.

Her knees locked, and before she realized it she had taken a step. Her pulse thundered in her ears and her chest heaved with each panicked breath, but she was not giving up. Not now.