"And you are not alone here, Your Majesty," Griff said. "All the families that were at Moonvale are living in the city nearby. Camp sixteen in particular has been asking to visit you, but I thought you may want some time on your own to get to know your palace and recover from what you've been through."
"The families are all here?"
Griff nodded.
"Did the assembly find Moonvale?"
"Not yet."
Ana sighed. "All right. How can I help with the families who are arriving? Are they all arriving at the beach?"
"Yes," Griff said. "They are coming from different parts of Allandis, but they will all end up at the same beach. They would be thrilled if you would greet them at their arrival. I will ask some guards to escort you."
Ana nodded. "Thank you."
Raine stepped forward and grasped Ana's arm. "We will find him," she promised. "And we will bring him back."
"Nothing can keep him from you, Princess," Griff said. "I have witnessed that myself."
Ana escorted them to the palace entrance, and watched them as they headed toward the beach, a calm acceptance coming over her.
She knew what she had to do.
After changing into one of the dresses in her wardrobe, she called for Milly and her handmaids to do her hair, then asked the guards to meet her at the front entrance for her visit to the beach.
However, she slipped out of the side door and headed down the gardens toward the beach alone.
Unfortunately, she didn't know how to create the raft. That was pure magic and not something she understood. Maddoc hadn’t used any spell or items unique to him. As she walked along the beach, wondering where to find the magic sand, she suddenly realized it was all around her. Picking up a handful, she held her fist over the water and spread it out into the water the way she’d seen Maddoc do, and to her utter surprise and delight, rippling gold waves began to form on the surface, turning into a raft.
She climbed on tentatively, unsure how to direct it where to go. "Please take me to Maddoc," she whispered.
The raft began moving, speeding away from the beach, smooth and calm, and Ana sat down in relief. She hoped she ended up in Allandis and not somewhere else. She turned to look at the palace she was leaving, the new home that Maddoc had tried to create for her. But it wasn't a home yet. Nothing was a home without the people she cared for; she needed to be comfortable in order to embrace it.
Maddoc was a much more complicated man than she’d initially thought. Stubborn and irrational, he insisted on having his way, on having her, but he’d held onto information just like everyone else. She couldn't allow Maddoc to suffer for trying to help the people she was supposed to protect, the people her father was supposed to protect, and some answers she needed, only he could give. There was so much Maddoc hadn’t said and so much she still didn't know. What was he hiding and why?
There were also some hard questions for her father and mother, including why she was so sheltered from the truth about the royal assembly and why she was deeply attracted to a man who wasn't her fated mate.
She turned to stare at the direction that she was going, and a fierce determination gripped her. She wouldn’t stop until she got the answers she needed. It was time for her to grow up.
Within half an hour, the raft slowed at a lake near the honey marshlands, close to the palace. She climbed off and watched it melt back into sand, floating on top of the waves. On instinct she crouched and dipped her hand in the water to see if she could preserve any. The sand converged to the center of her palm, and when she lifted her hand out of the water the sand was dry. She grinned. So that was how they did it. Pouring the sand into a small pouch attached to her dress, she hid it among her skirts, then marched to the nearest town.
A royal sentry on the outskirts of the town stared at her as she approached, his mouth dropped open. “Princess Ana?”
"Yes," she said firmly. "Take me to the palace."
10
MADDOC
Maddoc held still as he leaned against the wall in a tiny closed-off corridor between the kitchens and the storerooms in the palace.
The pain in his shoulder had been getting worse, aching so badly he couldn’t sleep. The previous day the pain started thudding through his body, and that was a bad sign. He had no choice but to continue on; his healer wasn’t available and he couldn’t risk anyone reporting where he was to the royal assembly.
It had been much easier to navigate the kingdom when no one knew what he looked like. Since his appearance in court to claim the Royal Promise, and his subsequent public visits to the castle, he was too easily identifiable. He couldn’t risk traveling for too long out in the open or going to any of the healers who might have helped him when his healer was unavailable—just in case they reported him. Luckily, all the secret passages and spaces of the palace were still available to him and that was what he needed right now, even at the expense of cutting all communication with his highcloaks.
He had spent the last few days locating all the remaining members of his guild who hid in plain sight and helped him around Allandis. Some of them had already suffered, and a few had died, but that just drove him to push harder to get them all out.
The days he spent showing Ana who the houses truly were, other members of his guild worked to protect the ones suspected of being sympathetic to him and his cause. That was where the real danger was, because the royal assembly were doing whatever they could to force people to talk.
And it wasn’t people like his highcloaks, who had the training to withstand interrogation. The people who helped him were just normal commoners, trying to live their lives peacefully and avoid being targeted by the assembly. They were usually grateful for Maddoc’s interference with the royal houses’ actions, having seen or experienced their devastation firsthand. Some of them were people he’d helped get back into society, some felt compelled to to join after seeing him step in. Others just didn’t like the power the houses had and how they used it.
Regardless of their reasons, all of them had been loyal to him over the years and now they were dying, or having to watch their families and friends die if they didn’t give up their knowledge about Maddoc and his highcloaks. He couldn’t blame them. Allandis had a delicate balance, and his attack on the king had upset it. Some of those targeted weren’t even his supporters, but got punished anyway—applying intense pressure to everyone was how the assembly finally managed to find out where Moonvale was. They were closing in.
Since the families had moved home, it had been quiet at the base. Memories lingered of the people he’d met, the families who’d grown and expanded, and everything that growth signified. It was the end of a long period of time in his life, and now he could move on. With Analisa.
Footsteps clunked past, only pausing when two sharp raps sounded against the wall. That was his signal. The last family he’d been looking for were in the palace prison, like he suspected.
Maddoc shuffled along the corridor, trying to determine the best way to get to the prisons without alerting the king's guard. In his current condition, he could possibly handle two or three of them, but with his injury, any combat was a risk. It was a struggle to even use a bow and arrow.