Dimitri looked askance at Aleksi. “You dog.”
“What?” Aleksi’s face turned red. “I didn’t . . .”
Gwennore laughed. “The tonic worked, Silas. Women are getting pregnant.”
“By their husbands,” Aleksi added, and Dimitri snorted.
“That is good news,” Silas said, and Sorcha wondered why his strained smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He withdrew a letter from beneath his leather vest. “This message was secretly passed to one of our guards on the bridge. I couldn’t read it, since my Elfish is very limited, but I recognized the name at the bottom. Princess Jenetta.”
“My mother.” Gwennore grabbed the letter and unfolded it.
Sorcha peered over her shoulder to read the contents.
“She wants to meet us in secret an hour before sunset,” Gwennore translated.
“An hour before the meeting on the bridge?” Dimitri asked.
“Yes.” Gwennore continued, “My mother says we can’t trust the general and his son.”
Sorcha snorted. “We already knew that.”
“But she’s admitting it’s true?” Annika asked.
Gwennore nodded. “She wants a secret meeting in order to assure our safety. She says three miles east of here, the river is only a foot deep and we can cross easily on horseback. She will have refreshments for us in a tent about a mile south of the river.”
Silas stiffened. “That’s in Woodwyn.”
“She’s trying to lure us across the border,” Aleksi muttered.
Dimitri nodded. “It could be a trap.”
“No.” Gwen dropped the letter on the table. “According to my mother, the trap was supposed to happen on the bridge. This is her way of keeping us safe.”
Sorcha grabbed the paper and read it once again. Gwennore’s interpretation seemed to be correct, but suspicion gnawed at her gut.
“Aleksi, fly over the elfin encampment, then go three miles east to where the princess is setting up her tent,” Silas ordered. “See if any soldiers are moving toward the new meeting point.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Aleksi saluted and hurried from the tent so he could shift into a dragon.
“You don’t trust my mother,” Gwen said with a hurt voice.
Silas winced. “I can’t risk losing you.”
“But why would she cause me any harm?” Gwen argued. “She’s heir to the Woodwyn throne. How could she possibly benefit by hurting me?” When Silas was silent for a moment, Gwen pressed harder. “Since she’s going to be the queen of Woodwyn, shouldn’t we try to have a good relationship with her?”
With a frown, Silas dragged a hand through his hair.
“Shouldn’t my mother know she’s going to have a grandchild?” Gwennore pleaded with tears in her eyes. “Please, Silas. I just want to see her for a few minutes. Isn’t there some way we can do this?”
Silas shifted his weight. “If Aleksi doesn’t spot any elfin soldiers around your mother’s tent, we could try crossing the river. But we would need several troops of soldiers with us.”
Dimitri gritted his teeth. “We can’t do that. It would be seen as an invasion. They would have every right to attack us.”
“We would carry white flags of truce,” Gwennore suggested, then motioned to the message, written by her mother. “And we’ll take this letter with us, since it clearly invites us into the country.”
“The general will attack first and ask questions later,” Annika muttered.
“If the general is still expecting to meet us on the bridge at sunset, he won’t be anywhere close to this secret meeting,” Gwennore insisted. “Please, I want to do this.”
Silas sighed, and Sorcha knew he was going to cave in. It was too hard for him to refuse his wife anything.
“If you do it, then I’m going, too,” Sorcha declared.
“Me, too,” Annika added. “We’re her official bodyguards. It’s our duty to protect her.”
Silas gave the women a wry look. “You’re going to insist on doing this, aren’t you?” When they all nodded, he let out a groan. “Fine, but I’ll have Lieutenant Kashenko go in first with an entire troop. And we’ll have another troop behind us. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll shift and fly Gwennore back across the border. Dimitri, you will shift and take Annika. Aleksi will take Sorcha. As long as we stay close to the border, we can be back in Norveshka in just a minute or two.”
Dimitri nodded. “That should work.”
Sorcha took a deep breath and exchanged a look with her cousin. They were going! But even as excited as she was, there was something about the plan that didn’t seem right.
“Be ready to leave within a half hour,” Silas told them. “I’ll have Kashenko ready the troops.”
As he and Dimitri ducked under the low entrance to the tent, Sorcha realized what was bothering her and rushed forward to stop her brother.
“Silas,” she whispered, touching his sleeve. “If we come under attack and you and the others have to shift, the elfin army will see you. They’ll know your secret.”
He nodded. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take in order to keep you safe. Besides, I have a feeling it’s no longer a secret. The Chameleon probably told them. That gift they gave us was a strong hint.”
The carved dragon with the ruby eyes. Sorcha winced.
“It will be all right.” Silas gave her a smile and a pat on the shoulder. “Trust me.”
She smiled back, but her smile faded as he rushed after Dimitri. What if Gwen’s mother had orchestrated this meeting to make it look as if she was trustworthy when in actuality, she wasn’t? The elves not only wanted to kidnap Gwen, but they wanted to be rid of Silas. What if this was a trap designed to achieve both ends?
* * *
Perched high on a thick branch of an oak tree, the Woodsman scanned the elfin army encampment on the flat plain below. His spy had sent him a message late last night that the camp would be empty and easily infiltrated this afternoon. And so, he and his men were now hidden on a high ridge overlooking the camp.
To the north, farther than he could see, the Vorus River marked the boundary with Norveshka. How long would the truce last this time? Not long if that bastard, General Caladras, had his way.
The Woodsman turned his attention back to the elfin camp below and spotted several guards standing stiffly at attention in front of officer tents. He wasn’t the only one interested in the camp today. On his way here, he’d spied one of the Norveshki dragons flying overhead.
It was gone now, and the camp was quiet. Too quiet. And too still.
A flash caught his eye, and he spotted his spy, Tarrant, emerging from the thick forest on the east side of the camp and holding up a mirror to reflect the sun’s rays. Three quick flashes, the signal that meant it was safe for the Woodsman and his band to make their move.
Safe? With all the guards there?
As if Tarrant knew what he would be thinking, the spy ran toward the nearest guard and pulled off the helmet to reveal a straw dummy underneath. The Woodsman snorted. The guards were all fake, but at a distance, they certainly looked real. They’d fooled him. They’d probably fooled the dragon. Removing a mirror from his pocket, he signaled his position up on the ridge.