The Hidden Princess (19 page)

Briar just smiled down at me, his teeth shining white in the silvery light. “I’d forgotten how much I like it when mortal girls struggle.” He reached for my top, pulling it up, laughing and trying to touch me. No matter how hard I struggled or kicked, I couldn’t move him; he was so, so strong, stronger than iron. Stronger than stone. And all the time I was sobbing with fear and horror, and there was such a storm of voices and shouting in the woods that I couldn’t make out what was happening at all.

And then just as I thought that there was no way out, and a cold, deep hopelessness washed over me, Briar was jerked away from me – not completely, just enough to loosen his grip on my clothes, and I looked up into the face of my dad, contorted with fury as he roared at the Hidden boy to get away from me, hauling at the filthy folds of his clothes with hands like claws.

“Connie, run!” Dad yelled, his voice bloody with rage, and as I watched, the Hidden boy’s face twisted with anger and again with that terrifying inhuman strength he turned on my father and closed both hands around his throat, picking him up as if he weighed no more than a baby, even as Dad gasped and clutched at the white cold hands at his neck, just hurling him away. I rolled away from Briar’s grasp and looked up to see Dad slam with ferocious speed into the trunk of a tree just metres away, then drop to the ground. He lay still, his head at an odd angle, looking my way with blank, unseeing eyes, and I knew straight away that he was dead, that he’d died trying to save me.

My dad was dead. He’d been killed, and it was my fault, and the last time we’d spoken I’d screamed at him that he was a liar, a cheat, and that I never wanted to see him again.
My dad
. I dropped to my knees, and the flurry of dead leaves that flew up around me as I hit the earth seemed to take for ever to drift back down, as if time had actually slowed.

Briar turned back to me, his white teeth shining in the moonlight again as he smiled. I’d lost my chance to run away. He was an animal. Not-human, not-human. He leaned so close I could feel the chill of his breath on my face – cold, not like human breath. The frozen hopelessness washed over me again, and I knew there was no point in fighting any more.

“
You’re mine now
.” Reaching out, his hand slid down my belly, taking his time, knowing there was nothing I could do – and then he stopped, he just stopped, and for some reason he wasn’t touching me any more. I scrambled up but found my legs wouldn’t support me. I turned to see Briar backing slowly away through the trees, utterly soundless, treading in total silence across last year’s dead leaves.
Dad?
I thought, burning with the ridiculous hope that he wasn’t really dead, that he’d somehow struggled to his feet and found a way of forcing Briar to retreat. But Dad lay on the ground just metres away, watching me with dead eyes. He was gone; he was just gone…

Lissy, then. Had I found her, at last? Heart hammering, I turned, expecting to see my sister in her cloak of golden feathers, praying against all hope that she’d come to find me. But Lissy wasn’t there, either. There was only a boy I’d never seen before. He stood silently, just paces away – tall like the Hidden, but olive-skinned and slightly older, somehow, ragged dark hair hanging in his eyes. And he was holding a bow and arrow, the bowstring pulled back taut. There was something so still about him that he seemed to make the rest of the world slow down, too. Shaking, I glanced back over my shoulder at Briar –
Dad’s murderer
– who was still backing away, step by step, staring at the newcomer.

“
You?
” Briar whispered at the boy. “Nicolas de Mercadier.” His voice shook with mockery. “So, the traitor has returned.” I was completely forgotten now, discarded on the ground like a piece of rubbish. “Now the Hidden are free, you have returned. And yet, it was always in your power to free us, to open the Gateway, and you did not.”

The newcomer didn’t move –
Nicolas?
– the bowstring was still pulled back tight, brushing against his ear. His gaze flickered towards me, then back to Briar, but he said nothing, waiting. Nicolas was motionless except for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. I looked away, staring at Dad’s body, unable to believe what had just happened, that he was really dead. We were alone in the clearing.

Briar smiled with sheer malice, nodding at the arrowhead aimed at his heart. “Would you really do it, traitor? Would you kill me with iron?”

Traitor?

“Don’t try me.” Holding the bow absolutely rigid, the boy he’d called Nicolas spoke with a light accent that I couldn’t place.

And slowly, slowly, my father’s murderer backed away until finally he turned and just ran off through the trees without a sound, without so much as the crack of a twig, slipping away through the trees like a shadow. Breathless, I scrambled up the second he’d gone, rushing over to where Dad’s body lay on the floor, his head still at that horrible awkward angle. His neck must’ve broken, either when the creature grabbed him by the throat or when he landed.

I crouched at his side, staring down into his face, shaking and shaking and shaking and shaking. It was so strange – Dad still looked like Dad, his face was still almost the same, his mouth slack and slightly open, a trickle of blood seeping from one corner, but at the same time my dad wasn’t there. He was gone. I was never going to see him or speak to him again. Tears streamed down my face, and I knew they’d never stop. My heart was still racing – what would Briar have done to me if this Nicolas guy hadn’t turned up? I knew I’d be able to feel the chill of Briar’s hands on my skin every night before I went to sleep, that it would haunt me for ever.

“You can’t help the dead.” Nicolas had lowered his bow and stood watching me in complete silence, waiting. There was something about the way he looked at my face that made me uneasy, like he’d just recognized me from somewhere, and yet I was certain I’d never seen him before in my life. “Get up,” he said, quietly. “The Hidden are hunting this night, now that they’re free. It’s not safe.”

“My dad.” I sounded breathless, airless.“He killed my dad.” I clutched my torn clothes around me. My skirt was ripped beyond repair, trampled into the dirt.
The Hidden are hunting?
What did that even mean? What had I done, opening that Gateway, moving that stupid iron cross? “It’s all my fault,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself, shuddering uncontrollably. My eyes felt burning hot like I was going to cry, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“You need to get away from here. Get up.” Nicolas reached out, offering me one slim, sun-browned hand, but I flinched away, not wanting to touch anyone or anything. He didn’t force it, but just waited for me to scramble to my feet.

“I can’t just leave him here. He’s my father.” I got up with one quick step backwards, never taking my eyes away from Nicolas’s face. He really did look Hidden, tall and with that cold, frightening beauty, but there was something different about him, too – his skin was much darker, tanned by the sun when all the others I’d seen were so pale, the skin around his eyes faintly seamed with fine lines, even though he looked so young. “Are you one of the Hidden? Why should I trust you? You look like one of them.” My voice was cracked and thin.

“Listen, I can get you out of here safely but you’ll have to trust me.” Nicolas paused, waiting, avoiding my question like a politician. He held up the arrow, holding my gaze over the shining arrowhead. “This is finest steel: it’s full of iron and the Hidden know it’ll kill them. Iron’s the only thing that
will
kill them – they don’t grow old; they can’t die unless their blood is poisoned with iron. If you want to get out of here without being mauled, then come with me. The Hidden have been imprisoned a long time, and now the Swan King’s dead, they think they’re safe to wander, to take what they will from the mortals. Your father’s gone; there’s no helping him now. He’s nothing but earth and worms. Would he want you to put yourself in danger for his sake?”

I couldn’t move.
Earth and worms?
I couldn’t speak. I was just frozen with shock.

In the distance, I heard the faint wail of sirens and realized that the pounding bass line that had been reverberating through the woods for hours had now fallen silent.
Party’s over
. Nicolas expertly slipped the arrow into a pouch strapped to his back and shouldered the bow like a rucksack. Without another word, he just started walking off through the trees, and all the time, the police sirens were louder and louder – I could hear more shouting now, too. I felt like I was watching myself in a film, the party destroyed around me with a soundtrack of crashing vegetation as people ran off through the trees, the night torn up with the sound of desperate crying. Even though Briar was long gone, I could still feel the touch of his cold, cold hands on my skin, and if that Nicolas boy had a weapon they were afraid of, I would follow him and take it for myself.

I’d find the creature who had killed my father, and I would make him pay before the night was over.

It doesn’t take Connie long to catch me up: she’s nobody’s fool. I’m armed and she’s not, and the Hidden are hungry for mortal girls – and mortal boys, too. I don’t look round but I can tell she’s still shaking like a sapling in a gale; her breathing is harsh and ragged, and I can hear the beat of her heart.

Connie Harker
. I’d recognize that face anywhere – God knows, I’ve seen it in place of my own reflection every day for weeks. I’ve just saved the life of the girl I came here to kill. A wave of sheer rage rolls through me: because of this girl and her idiot of a sister, the Swan King is dead, the closest I’ve ever had to a real father gone to dust. It would have been so easy to let loose that arrow. What in Hell’s name stopped me spoiling Briar’s fun and just killing her? Or I could have killed her afterwards, but the way she crouched by her father’s corpse like that, just staring at it— The Swan King is dead, and I’ll never see him again; I’ll never get the chance to beg his forgiveness for not setting the Hidden free. The truth is Connie and I are one and the same, twinned by our sorrow, our grief. I’m worse than Larkspur. What am I going to do with her now?

“I can hear police sirens. They’re coming.” Her voice is still shaking, her clothes in disarray. “Look, what’s going to happen when the police arrive and see all those things? Those Hidden?” She laughs, a brittle, glass-like sound. “And why do you carry a bow and arrow?” She stares with incredulous horror at the bow and quiver strung up to my shoulder, as if she is unable to quite believe what’s right before her eyes. She lifts her gaze to my face and stares right back at me without a trace of visible fear, even though she’s just almost been ravaged and her father has been killed before her eyes. Despite the misery she’s caused, and despite the knowledge that I’m planning to murder Connie as her sister watches, I can’t help admiring her nerve.

My voice is rough, harsh. “I can hold off one or two of them but the Hidden are hungry, and they’ve been waiting a long time. I don’t want to kill them all. Come on, you need to get out of here.” I can decide how to dispose of her later.

Lissy Harker will pay for that golden cloak that she wears. I will make her weep her eyes dry over every last feather.

“We now face a war.” I speak in a cold, low hiss, but I know all the Hidden hear every last word, a scattered tribe gathered in the graveyard, huddled amongst a thicket of ancient yews far older than the mortal church casting a shadow over us. “Could you not control yourselves for just one night?” I demand, shaking with rage I can hardly control – I want to hurt them all, to punish. “The mortals won’t forgive their young ones being hurt. Do you want your freedom, or to dwindle and die out till there are no Hidden left at all?”

The Hidden cower in silence, hundreds of pairs of gunmetal-silver eyes glittering in the darkness, all too afraid to reply. And no matter how much I hated my father when he was alive, nothing can stop me longing for him to be here now. He would know what to do. Hidden and mortals dancing in the woods: I know that this can only end in sorrow, just as it has always done.

The old gatehouse sat alone in the trees, overgrown with a tangle of dark green ivy, windows boarded up, the front door scratched and battered. Behind us, the woods were full of shouting policemen and screaming teenagers. Once, there’d been five different driveways leading all the way from the main road to the Reach, but the gatehouse hadn’t been lived in for years, the old driveway long since abandoned.

“How do we get in?” Nicolas’s eyes flickered around the gatehouse and the tangle of trees growing right up to the front door.

“Around the back.” I didn’t want to go inside with him: even though Briar was long gone, I felt the chill of his hands on my body; I couldn’t stop shaking. Dad was dead. I was never going to see him again, his corpse just left behind in the woods to rot like a piece of meat.

Nicolas glanced at me, calculating. “You go in, I’ll guard the door. I’ll stay outside.” He held back a tangled stream of brambles for me to duck under, and there was something reassuring in the way he stepped back to let me past. He was making it clear that he wouldn’t try to touch me, and so I trusted him just a little – just enough to use him for protection. After all, I had no one else, and Nicolas had a weapon that would kill Briar:
iron would kill them
. I cradled the knowledge deep inside myself, and it made me want to smile.

“No. Come in.” I turned back to look at Nicolas, towering above me and holding the strands of bramble back with his bare hands as if they didn’t hurt him at all, the bow and arrow strapped to his shoulder like he was a hero from an old legend.

The woods were exploding with panic and noise now, screaming, people running, crashing through low-hanging branches, even a dog barking, but Nicolas was so still he made it seem that all this was happening somewhere so far away that it didn’t matter.

“Are you sure? I can guard the door from out here.”