Edwin grabbed her jaw roughly and pressed his folded handkerchief between her lips.
“Just sit quietly and think. All right?”
He stroked her hair with a gentling hand, as though soothing a frightened animal.
“And just so we understand each other — no one is coming here. So if you try anything, you know what happens.”
* * *
‘First, the hands.’
She took careful stock of her surroundings.
With her hands bound, she had to move on her knees.
‘There.’
In the corner of the hut, under a pile of wooden boards, lay a broken saw blade. Small in diameter, but worth trying.
She positioned herself with her back to the wall, took hold of the blade, and began working it against the rope.
A faint, rasping sound. No give yet.
Her arms ached. Cold sweat gathered at her hairline. She kept going.
After what felt like tens of minutes—
‘There.’
She shook the rope free and pulled the handkerchief from her mouth. She rolled the rope and tucked it into her bodice.
Then she crept to the small window on the opposite wall, rose on her toes, and looked carefully outside.
As Edwin had said — no one.
She closed her eyes briefly and listened. Only the faint calls of birds.
She walked softly to the door, took the handle, and turned it.
She opened it five centimeters. Just five.
‘Creak—’
“……”
Outside: nothing. No guard, no watcher.
She took off her shoes and held them in both hands.
Then, without another moment of deliberation, she ran — barefoot into the darkness of the forest.
Something sharp pressed into the sole of her foot. Glass, or a branch, or something else — it stung and bit, but there was no time to look.
“‘Huff. Huff.'”
She was running out of breath.
She pressed her hand against the trunk of the nearest large tree and exhaled.
She looked slowly around. The forest was still and black in every direction, dense with a quiet that felt almost alive. She had the feeling that somewhere in that dark, something was watching her.
She steadied herself as best she could, and ran again.
A taste of iron was beginning to rise at the back of her throat.
* * *
Darkness had fully settled over the sky.
Kael’s urgency sharpened with each passing minute.
His throat worked.
He had been riding hard for hours. There were still hours to go.
He looked up at the black sky and bit down on something foul.
“‘Damn it.’ Ivelina.”
He repeated the name like a prayer, teeth clenched.
The muscle of his jaw shifted, forming a small, taut line.
* * *
“Ivelina! Get down here right now!”
“No! Would ‘you’ come down? You’re out of your mind!”
“Get down, damn it!”
“I’m not coming down. I’d rather fall and die!”
“You’d — what?!”
“Go to hell!”
She flipped him off from above.
Her middle finger raised, visible even from up there — and Edwin, blazing with fury below, spewed a string of curses.
“‘You—!'”
Edwin was afraid of heights. Since being thrown from a horse as a child and nearly killed, he hadn’t been able to ride — or climb — since.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t ride particularly well. But she could climb.
Emily had taught her when she was ten.
* * *
“My lady — if a dangerous situation arises, the first thing you do is find the strongest, largest tree nearby.”
“A — a ‘dangerous’ situation?”
“Yes. If you’re kidnapped, or being chased by a wild animal. That sort of situation.”
“Kid — kidnapped?! And then what? Do I wish on the tree spirit really fast?”
“No. You climb it. I mean you put your weight on it and go up.”
“‘Climb’ the tree? Won’t it hurt?”
“If you don’t climb first, you’ll be the one getting hurt. Remember that.”
“But what if the tree spirit gets angry?”
“The tree spirit’s anger will come second. What comes first is ‘you’ dying.”
“I — I don’t want to die—!”
“Then climb. Like this — if you have rope, even better. It stabilizes you enormously. This is one of the most useful survival tools there is.”
* * *
Emily had taught her properly, methodically — how to ascend, how to wrap rope around herself for stability. She had gotten so caught up in it that she climbed trees all over the estate grounds and was reprimanded thoroughly by her parents. She hadn’t done it since.
“Emily really is the best.”
She looked down.
Edwin — seething, furious — was kicking the trunk, hammering it with his fist, throwing a full tantrum below.
The tree did not move.
Because she had chosen the sturdiest tree in the area, exactly as instructed.
* * *
“You must choose a tree with deep roots and a thick trunk. And look up as well — the branches must be thick and solid.”
“Why do the branches matter?”
“Because if someone kicks the trunk from below, you won’t fall. The tree’s density makes it structurally stable.”
“Oh, I see. I’ll choose the strongest one!”
“And find the firmest branch and sit on it. Then do this — embrace the trunk. This is the safest defensive position.”
“I understand! I’ll remember!”
* * *
Who could have imagined such a situation would ever actually come?
She was genuinely grateful she’d learned this as a child.
Hugging the trunk, she looked down. Edwin was watching her with his mouth open like a shark that had missed a bite.
When their eyes met, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
“Ivelina! Come down now! I’ll forgive you if you come down this instant!”
“No.”
She had barely enough energy to answer. She shook her head, brief and final.
Edwin’s fury rekindled — he kicked the tree again. The vibration hummed up through the wood.
But it held.
Because she had chosen the strongest tree. And because she was holding on.
Night had come, and the temperature in the forest had dropped.
“So cold…”
She murmured against the bark, her voice thin and fading. What little remained of it was trembling.
Her fingertips, scraping against the grain of the wood, ached like small cuts.
She made a miserable face.
‘What if I freeze to death up here?’
Freezing would still be better than Edwin getting his hands on her — but it would also be worse than being alive to tease Kael.
She glanced down.
She hadn’t registered how high she was in the urgency of climbing. Now that she could actually see — it was dizzying. Three or four times higher than any tree she had climbed as a child. Her stomach had been empty for too long, and the height made her head swim and her stomach turn.
“Sob. I want to see Kael… I want to see Emily too…”
Tears slid down her face. The night air turned them cold almost instantly, making her colder still. With her arms around the trunk, she couldn’t even wipe them.
‘When I cried against Kael’s chest, I could just press my face into him and dry my eyes…’
The bark was nothing like his chest. Every time her cheek grazed it, it scratched.
“Sniff… I miss my husband.”
She made a small, undignified sound and continued to cry quietly.
Edwin, apparently exhausted, had given up kicking the tree and was slumped against it, smoking, occasionally spitting in the dirt.
“Let’s see how long you last.”
“……”
“Come down when you’re ready. I’ll ruin you so thoroughly you’ll never dream of being a duchess again.”
“Go… to hell… then I’ll… freeze to death with my d-dignity… as a d-duchess intact.”
She was shaking so badly she could barely get the words out, but she answered every one of his taunts.
“Ugh, ‘damn it—!'”
Edwin swore again. Slammed his fist into the ground like a man with no control over himself at all.
A thought began to press on her, cold and quiet.
‘What if no one comes for me? For days?’
Kael had already left for the estate. He wouldn’t be back for two weeks.
In two weeks, she would already be dead. Picked clean by birds, not a trace of her left.
‘…The bones would still be there, at least.’
She had no more tears to cry. She sniffled. Pressed her lips out in a mournful pout.
And then — from somewhere distant — a horse’s cry.
‘Neigh—!’
She lifted her head like a baby bird that had heard its mother.
“Ivelina! Where are you!”
Kael’s voice.
* * *
