Glint of Moonlight

*Hezzlie*

At ten minutes until 2:00 AM, I take a deep breath and sling my backpack over my shoulder. I think through necessities. I know my brother said not to bring anything much, but I can carry this backpack as a wolf, once we shift. I hope everything went well with his friend, and he’ll be able to get us a car.
It’s not quite 2:00 when there’s a knock on my door so quiet, I barely hear it. I haven’t slept because I’m too nervous, but I don’t think I would’ve heard that knock if I had been asleep.
With the lights out in my room, I slide over and open the door a crack. It’s Abby. Her eyes are wild, and she’s smiling wide with excitement. “Are you ready?” she whispers, like we’re getting up early to go to an amusement park or we’re a couple of friends getting ready for the big dance at school.
I nod and step out into the hallway, closing the door behind me as quietly as possible. The hallway isn’t illuminated, but a few streams of light pour from some of the other rooms nearby. They aren’t very bright, so they could be open windows and a starlit sky or nightlights for all I know.
What I do know is that I’m lucky Abby is coming with me. I wouldn’t be able to find whatever door my brother said to meet him at without her help. I’ve gotten better about finding my way from Alistair’s office to my room and to the dining room and back, but that’s it.
Our feet barely make a sound as we glide over the carpeting to the first set of stairs. Neither of us speaks as we make our way down and around the castle, through various hallways and down more stairs. At one point, we hear some chattering, so we hide in an alcove for a pair of maids about our age to make their way by. They’d probably just think we were on our way to sneak out of the castle for some fun if they did see us, but there’s no reason to take the chance.
Eventually, we make our way down to the bottom floor, and then it’s another tangle of hallways until we reach the door. “Where is he?” Abby whispers, just as we hear a sound to our right.
Aiden steps out from a shadowy doorway with a backpack on that appears to have even less in it than mine. Without a sound, he gives a head nod to the door and steps over. He turns the knob, but nothing happens. I swear under my breath. Foiled already.
But then my brother pulls a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door, careful not to jingle the metal loudly. When the door is open, he drops the keys into his bag. I wonder if there’s a key on that ring for the gate to the fence or if we’ll be relying on my magical powers to get us through.
The air feels heavy with rain, and the scent of a fall shower lings on the crisp breeze. The scent of woodsmoke and crushed leaves hits my lungs, but I don’t have time to breathe it in and enjoy it because we have to keep moving.
Aiden stops us a few feet from the castle and whispers, “Patrol comes by here every ten minutes. We should be fine, but be listening.”
I nod, and so does Abby. I assume he’s not using the mind-link because she isn’t a part of our pack, but I should be able to communicate with him the same way I do Rowan because he’s my brother. I keep that in mind but don’t try it now.
Lots of trees dot the landscape. Aiden moves to a copse of them not far from the edge of the forest. I hold my breath and move to another one near his while Abby reaches a third. We continue to move like that until we’re in the woods.
Now, we can get closer together again because there's more cover. We have to be careful not to be noisy, though. The entire ground is covered in decaying leaves that crackle and pop as we move. Aiden tries to be careful, but it’s impossible to keep from making any noise at all. I think there have to be animals that live here; maybe the patrol will just think that’s what they’re hearing. Still, I look where I’m placing my feed. My eyesight is better since I’ve met my wolf, but it’s not perfect, and I step on a few leaves as we cut through the trees.
As we rush through the forest, I listen. I don’t hear any noises beyond our small section of trees. Not even the call of the night creatures to one another or the who-who of an owl fills the sky. It seems too quiet to me, but I am not all that familiar with what we are doing or where we are going, so I just keep moving behind my brother, hoping we reach a gate soon and that it’s not guarded.
“Is your friend meeting us?” Abby whispers in a voice that seems too loud for Aiden as he cringes slightly and then nods his head. That’s all the answer she’s going to get for now, so she’d better accept it.
It’s darker inside the thick of the woods, but as we near the place where I ran into the wall on the one and only time I went for a run here, the trees become further spread apart, and I can see more moonlight and stars. We’re almost to the edge of the woods before there’s a break and a wall.
And maybe a patrol.
Aiden stops and steps into a thicker copse of trees, one of the few nearby since we’re almost to the perimeter. “Okay,” he whispers. “We need to head to the left a bit to get to the closest gate. There should be guards there, but they aren’t always present. If there are, we’ll have to sneak up on them.”
“Sneak up on them?” I see Abby’s eyes widen. “What do you mean?”
“We can’t let them see us because they’ll use the mind-link to call for backup from the other warriors,” Aiden explains. “We need to get the jump on them so we can break their necks without them knowing we’re there.”
Abby lurches slightly. “Break their necks? Aiden, how the hell do you expect me to just murder someone? I haven’t been trained for combat, and neither has the princess.”
At first I’m confused, thinking she meant Mara. She just slit her own mother’s throat, so I guess she’s been trained enough, but then I realize she’s not talking about that princess.
She’s talking about me.
I’m the princess.
“I don’t know if I can kill someone,” I admit. “But I do think I could use my magic. Maybe I could blind them or make them see a light floating in the distance and then have them chase after it, or something.”
Aiden looks displeased, but he finally nods. “Fine. Whatever we have to do to get the fuck out of here. Just… follow my lead. Don’t scream, and don’t act like total pussies.” With that, he starts off again, and we follow him to the edge of the forest.
When we emerge from between the trees, we listen closely. I hear some insects chirping and the stir of leaves from the wind, but that’s it. Aiden peers off in the direction he mentioned we’d need to go, but I don’t see anything, and I don’t think he does either.
I smell the faint scent of another wolf, but it’s hard to tell if it’s fresh or if it’s residual from the last time the patrol went by. If Aiden picks up on it, he doesn’t seem deterred. He heads off, and we follow, slowly. Cautiously.
There are no guards standing in front of the gate. That should’ve been my first clue that something was wrong. Aiden doesn’t seem bothered by it. In fact, he seems happy, like we’ve just gotten lucky. He practically skips over to the gate and is about to pull the keys out of his bag when someone steps from out of the darkness and grabs him. I see the flick of a wrist and the glint of silver in the moonlight and know that whoever this is, they’re wielding a knife–and they have it pressed to my brother’s throat.