‘I can’t,’ she said, a little too quickly.
‘But you are of the blood of Night. Surely that means you understand more about such things?’
‘No!’ she cried, her eyes blazing. ‘My father is the Prince of Night, but my mother was human. And I was very young when I was taken. I have been shut away from my people for so long. Or have you forgotten that, Guard Bator?’
I could feel myself flushing bright red. ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean –’
‘No, of course you didn’t,’ she said ruefully. ‘You have been so kind to me and so brave, and here I am repaying you with rudeness. It is I who should be saying sorry, not you.’
I swallowed. ‘There is nothing to forgive. I can hardly imagine how terrible it has been for you. I wish I – or someone – could have changed things for you long ago.’
Our eyes met and nothing more was said. I bent to the oars with renewed strength and speed and with a heart all at once lighter than it had been all day.
A few hours later we reached the spot where we had to continue our journey on foot. I rowed in as close as I could, then we both waded into the shallow water and pulled the boat to shore. A few scratches and curses from me later, the rowing boat was stowed away within a deep tangle of blackberry bushes. Crawling out, I met the Princess’s anxious glance.
‘Are you all right? Did the bush attack you?’ she cried.
I hid a smile, remembering that the poor girl had never seen such things in her life. I was sure there were no blackberry bushes in Night and certainly none in the Tower. ‘It’s quite all right,’ I assured her. ‘Just a tough old bush – the best hiding place there could be for the boat.’
I looked around, gathering my bearings. We had to head north, straight into the heart of the woods that began just a short distance from the bank. But it was getting towards the darkest part of the night, and it would be much too dark in the woods to even see where we were going.
‘In a couple of hours it will be dawn,’ I said. ‘We will camp here till then.’
‘Is it far to the cottage?’ she asked.
‘Oh, another few hours, Princess. But –’
‘Please, don’t call me Princess anymore,’ she said softly. ‘It feels too … not right. My name is Izolda, and I’d be glad if you might call me that.’
My palms prickled as my pulse quickened. ‘Then I’d be very honoured if you might consider, er, my name – it is Kasper.’
‘Of course,’ said the Princess, with another of those beautiful smiles. ‘Kasper. It is a good name.’
‘Thank you, Pr– I mean, Izolda,’ I stammered, like a fool. ‘Your name – it is also very nice. Er, you were asking about how far it was? We will be there well before dark falls again. But we must first find a place to camp.’
‘I see.’
I caught her glancing at the blackberry bush, and laughed. ‘Don’t worry. We certainly are not going to hide in that! We’ll find a good spot, you’ll see.’
It didn’t take long. A little way down the bank, there was a deep hollow near a fallen tree, with moss growing in it like soft carpet in a forest spirit’s bedchamber. We shared a simple snack of dried fruit and a long drink of water, then settled ourselves into the hollow. After a short argument, Izolda reluctantly agreed to take the lion’s share of the moss and try to sleep, while I sat half in and half out of the hollow, keeping watch.
Izolda
It’s not that I wasn’t tired. I was exhausted. But every time I tried to close my eyes, a babble of voices spoke in my ears. Why didn’t you tell him about seeing him in your dreams? Why didn’t you tell him that somehow you must be connected, soul to soul, and that is most likely the reason why he heard what he did?
I sat up and looked at the entrance to the hollow, where Kasper sat unmoving. He was hunched into his coat, with the collar turned up against the cold of the night. I crept closer to him and saw that his head had dropped onto his chest and his eyes were closed. At least one of us can sleep, I thought, smiling to myself.
Perhaps this was a sign. Perhaps I should flee. If I left, there might still be time for him to go back to the island without anyone connecting him to my disappearance. He could go back to his old life, safe in the knowledge that he’d helped me escape, and he wouldn’t have to suffer for it. For suffer he would. If the situation were reversed, I knew precisely what my people would do to one of us who helped an enemy in any way. And that was what I was, really. I was regarded as an enemy of his people, as he was of mine. Any connection between us was not only impossible, it was wrong.
And yet it was neither. And that was what made it so hard to walk away. Because if I did, if I disappeared into the night, I knew he wouldn’t seize the opportunity to go back to the island unsuspected. He would come looking for me, afraid I’d get lost in that trackless wilderness. I knew that as clearly as if he’d said the words.
I knew, too, that it would be no good telling him that I wouldn’t get lost, that I had enough of my father’s blood in me to have that understanding of nature that is inborn in the children of Night. I could survive in the forest on my own if need be. Perhaps not as well as he could, with his learned knowledge, but enough to get by. Yet that wouldn’t make any difference to what he’d do. After all, he hadn’t let his fear of evil magic, nor the threat of getting caught doing the forbidden, stop him from entering the Tower. Reckless, I thought to myself, smiling a little, doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I lay down on the moss again and closed my eyes. This time it wasn’t voices but images that crowded in on me – Kasper straining at the oars, the two of us fleeing the Tower, the first moment I saw him, his hair black as a raven’s wing, lips red as blood, skin pale as snow …
A tremble crept up my spine as I remembered my dream. It had foretold his coming. It had foretold I would not be alone. It had foretold the joy I would feel in his company – a joy that, even in the midst of the danger we were in, I could not help feeling.
So I stayed.
When Kasper gently shook me awake, the pink and gold of dawn had cracked open the darkness, and dew lay upon the grass. ‘Good morning, Izolda,’ he said with a shy smile.
I smiled and returned his greeting.
‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes. And you?’
‘Like a log.’
Sitting up, I saw that Kasper had been busy. He had made a fire, heated water in the pan he’d got from the pantry, and made buckwheat porridge, sweetened with dried fruit. And while I washed my face and hands in the stream to chase the drowsiness away, he brewed tea with the rest of the warm water and some fragrant leaves. But that was not the only surprise in store for me. When I came back from the stream, he bade me to sit down, handed me a mug of tea, put the food in front of me – a clean piece of bark serving as a dish – and took something out from his pocket: a rough but vivid carving of a squirrel, whittled on a piece of birchwood. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said, handing it to me.
It was only then that I remembered it was the morning of my eighteenth birthday. The morning that was to have been my last on this earth, but was now the first of my new life. I struggled to control the tremble in my voice and the tears in my eyes. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much, Kasper.’