Read Online Mistwood by Leah Cypess - Free Book Online

Sometimes her memory would surprise her with sudden spurts of information—about the growing threat of the Raellian Empire, or the long-standing enmity between two northern dukes, or the intricacies of the Green Islands trade routes. But she couldn’t control when that happened, so she couldn’t rely on it. What she could depend on, it soon became clear, was her ability to ferret out secrets with frightening efficiency.
    On the fourth day, she went to meet Rokan in his bedchamber. He had asked for the meeting—until then, he had been too busy to do more than occasionally exchange a few sentences with her—and Isabel’s anticipation grew as the morning dragged on.
    But Rokan wasn’t in his bedchamber when she got there.
    This was the first time she had seen his room in the daylight; it was decorated much like her own, but in maroon and gold rather than green, with tables scattered among the ornate chairs. The tapestry to the right of the bed portrayed a stormy sea, all dark blue shadows and white waves and a horizon that melted into the sky. Isabel had never seen a tapestry quite like it. She studied it for a moment before turning to the guard who had half-risen from one of the polished wooden chairs along the wall.
    “Er,” the guard said. “The prince—His Highness asked me to tell you to meet him in the stable yard. He said he prefers—”
    Isabel was gone before the guard had a chance to finish the sentence, racing through the hall and down the stairs so fast her feet never seemed to touch the ground. She had a vague impression of shocked faces turning to watch her and knew she was moving faster than any human could have run, but she didn’t care. Her heartbeat was pounding even faster than her footsteps. If this was some sort of trap—if Rokan wasn’t in the stable yard—
    Someone shouted a command as she flew past. He was behind her, so she couldn’t tell who it was—and then, suddenly, she could: a castle guard, his sword half-drawn. There was no way peripheral vision could extend that far backward, so her eyes must have actually shifted position in her head. She snapped her focus back to the corridor ahead of her.
    A long, narrow set of stairs led down to the stables; when she reached them, she threw herself into the air. For a few breathless moments she hung suspended in midair, her leap carrying her out over the stairs; then she fell like a stone and landed on her feet only inches past the bottom step. She used the impact to catapult herself into the stable yard.
    Rokan was mounted on a gray gelding, and a stable hand held the reins of a brown mare. Both horses startled as Isabel came to an abrupt stop; Rokan’s gelding reared, and the prince had to twist to keep from being thrown. Isabel nickered at the horse, an exact echo of the sound a stallion would use to calm a fractious mare. The gelding came back down, snorted, and stood still.
    Isabel crossed the large flat stones of the yard, and the stable hand let go of the mare’s reins in his haste to get away from her. One quick glance told Isabel he wasn’t a threat; his fear was all of her, and she could hardly blame him for that. She grabbed the mare’s reins before they had finished swinging and pulled herself into the saddle.
    “Next time you decide on a change of plans,” she told Rokan, “you should tell me about it yourself.”
    “Right,” Rokan said faintly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    “Do that.” Isabel turned the mare around in a tight circle, alert for dangers she might have missed. The stable yard was a narrow rectangle surrounded by the wooden stables on three sides, empty but for Rokan, herself, and the terrified stable hand. A moment later the guard rushed down the stairs, but stopped short at the sight of the two of them mounted. “And why are we changing our plans?”
    “Because it has occurred to me that though it’s no longer safe for me to go riding alone, it’s probably safe to go riding with you .”
    Isabel