Free

Cressida

As soon as she walks away, I start struggling violently, but I suddenly feel the ropes slacken, then fall to the ground. I turn in surprise to see Iris grinning and holding a dagger with a jewelled hilt.

"Before she blocked my magic, I knew what she would do. She was panicking. So when I told her what I knew about her, I knew she would want to leave for a bit. To calm down." She hands me the knife and I slip it into my satchel.

"Calm down?" I stare in the direction the witch went, thinking of the cold, confident girl who just tied us to a tree without blinking. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. 'Panicking' isn't a word that really fits with that picture.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're brilliant?" I mutter, stepping over the rope and rubbing my arm where the rope started to cut into my skin.

"Of course not," replies Iris. She says it normally enough, but there's an edge to her voice. I look over at her, biting my lip, but she won't meet my eye.

"Look," she says hastily, pointing to the sack left abandoned on the ground. "Do  you need your valuables back?"

I hurry over and fish my beloved bow and quiver out of the sack. "I don't mind about the jewellery..." I begin, then cut myself off. "No, actually, we could sell them, couldn't we? Get some money for essentials at the market." I sling the bow over my shoulder and slip the jewels into my satchel.

"You're very good with arrows," comments Iris, watching. "That was an amazing shot, when you got it through her sleeve. Did they teach you that at the palace?"

"The soldiers did," I admit. "Father would have been furious if he knew about it." I look around, peer into the trees. "Do you think we should go? Before she comes back?"

"Good idea," Iris takes the mirror out of the sack triumphantly, then we start to walk in the opposite direction to where the witch went.

I think about that blazing, furious look in her eyes. She looks so innocent, with her blond ringlets and enormous blue eyes, more like someone I might have met at one of those boring royal balls than a dangerous thief. Then I look at Iris, who is trudging along silently next to me.

"Doesn't it bother you?" I blurt out without thinking.

Iris studies the ground. "Of course. I was chained to the wall! Why do you think I was so excited when you asked me to come? I haven't felt free in the longest time."

"I'm glad you do now," I say carefully. "But that's not what I meant, and you know it."

She sighs. "Of course I do."

The silence that follows is so long that I start to think that she isn't comfortable answering the question, but then she speaks. 

"I don't think it would bother me quite so much as it does if I didn't know how it could've been. But I've been used as a fortune teller for as long as I can remember, and I've been to so many families to look into their minds. I've seen mothers with their daughters. I've seen how much they love each other, and I've always wondered why it has never been that way with the two of us." She raises her face to the sky, and I see a single tear spill out of her purple irises. "The thing is, I love her. In spite of the pain and the punishments and how she locks me up, and how often I try to escape, I do love her. I can't help it. And I'm nothing to her, like a... a wand or something. Something useful you can use for magic, and to earn money. Nothing more. If it wasn't for my power, she probably would have abandoned me."

"I'm sorry, Iris," I say softly. 

She brushes away the tears and tries to smile. "What's your mother like? Is she nice?"

I look at her, surprised. "I thought everyone knew. She was the queen. The news was spread to every kingdom in the realm."

"Mother never really cared about what was happening in the world, and I didn't have much chance to learn," she answers. She looks anxiously at me. "What... what happened to her?"

I swallow and look away. "She died when I was seven."

Iris reaches out softly and lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. I put my own hand over hers and feel a tear splash onto it as I tilt my head sideways. "I miss her, even though I really don't remember much about her. When she died, nobody knew why. It was-" I break off, a cold feeling suddenly filling my veins with ice. 

"What?" Iris whispers. 

"I remember she was telling me a story a few days before..." I lift my sleeve and look closely at the mark. The mark of the mortem. "And as she turned the page..."

Iris's eyes widen in shock, and I know she's read my mind, but I say it out loud anyway.
"As she turned the last page," I say shakily. "Her sleeve fell back. She read the last line, and I saw the top of her wrist. She had a mark... I was really sleepy at the time and I don't remember exactly, but..."

Iris is staring at me in horror, then she jumps as we hear a long, ominous howl from behind us, then snarling and snapping. We turn, and see two red eyes gleam out of the darkness.

"A wolf..." I whisper. My heart thrashed against my chest.

"Not just any wolf. It's one of hers," croaks Iris, looking terrified. "One she uses to track people. Mother must know we're gone!"

I don't reply, I just grab her wrist and we start running. The moon slips evasively behind a cloud and we are suddenly in pitch darkness, trying to escape the terrible growling of the wolf behind us and dodging the trees that loom out of the darkness. I resist the temptation to look over my shoulder. I just run, run, run.

Then, suddenly as they came, the thump of paws on the path fades and the growls become silence. We don't stop though. We run until there's nothing under our feet but empty air.

A split second before we start falling, I realise.
We've run straight off a cliff.

I scream as I start to plummet downwards, clutching to Iris's hand as if it's a lifeline. I can't see anything, and all I can feel is cold air rushing past us as we drop. Down into the darkness. My scream rings through the air as I close my eyes, waiting to hit the ground.

My scream dies in the air. My eyes fly open in amazement. We're not falling any more; we're floating. We drift upwards, back to solid ground and safety, while the dark, deadly space yawns below us.