BVC Announces Wren to the Rescue by Sherwood Smith
Wren to the Rescue
by Sherwood Smith
All her life Wren has hoped for an adventure.
Now she has one – with a kidnapped princess, a handsome prince, and a magician. What does it matter if the princess is only Tess, her best friend from the orphanage; if the prince is a youngest son with no chance of becoming king; and the magician is an apprentice? Wren leads the other three over mountains and past killing spells, fighting battles along the way. But then she finds herself up against some shape-changing magic that may end her life as a human forever!
A novel of Wren’s World, and Book 1 of the Wren series
NY Public Library Best Books for Teen Age List, 1995
Finalist for Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature, 1995
Anne Spencer Lindbergh Honor Book, 1996.
About the Author: Sherwood Smith has published over forty books, one of which was an Anne Lindbergh Honor Book; she’s twice been a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and once a Nebula finalist. She fell in love with Chinese historical dramas and hero tales six years ago, and ever since has immersed in Asian history, literature, and language.
Chapter One
Wren stared at Tess in amazement. “You’re a what?”
“A princess,” Tess said again.
“Oh, I get it. A new game.” Wren clapped her hands. “So how do we play? Am I a princess, too?”
Tess shook her head. “It’s not a game.”
“Tess,” Wren said slowly, “if this is supposed to be a joke, it’s not working.”
The two girls stood under the spreading branches of their favorite tree, each trying to see understanding in her best friend’s countenance.
Wren studied Tess’s familiar face above the plain gray dress that all the girls at Three Groves Orphanage wore. She saw no hint of a smile on the curved lips, and Tess’s blue eyes gazed steadily and solemnly back at her. In front of Tess’s white apron, her long hands clasped each other tightly. This wasn’t any joke.
“Long lost?” Wren asked in a tentative voice. Images flitted through her mind, and she just had to add, “Lost . . . stolen away by the Iyon Daiyin, perhaps? And you’ve been rediscovered—here?”
Tess smiled at last, her own sweet smile that transformed her long face into something very beautiful indeed.
“Not long lost. Just—hidden.”
Wren’s skin prickled with horror when a gleam appeared along in her friend’s eyelids—a sheen of tears Tess was not going to let fall. If Teressa had just found out she was a princess, the news didn’t seem to be part of a happy ending.
To make her best friend smile, Wren gave a loud and dramatic sigh of disappointment. “Well, then I’ll still have hopes for me.” She plumped down on a tuft of long green grass. “So you’ve had a secret, and now you’re telling me. Can you tell me any more than that?”
Tess rubbed one of her hands up her sleeve and down again.
“Yes. Mistress Leila is my aunt, and a princess in her own right. She’s really Leila Shaltar—”
Wren knew as well as any child in Siradayel the names of Queen Nerith’s offspring. “Princess Leila Shaltar, the Queen’s youngest daughter? The one who was supposed to have gone off traveling and settled out of the country?” At Tess’s nod, Wren’s light blue eyes grew round as icebird eggs. “Are you a secret ninth child—”
Tess shook her head. “No. I’m the daughter of Princess Astren—”
“Third daughter of Queen Nerith!”
“—and King Verne Rhisadel, of Meldrith.”
Perplexed, Wren frowned. “I thought . . . well, I guess I never thought much about Meldrith—it being so far away—but I remember, somehow, hearing that there wasn’t any heir.”
“There is an heir. Me. But I’ve had to live here in secret except for a short trip every year to see my parents. On my birthday, which comes day after tomorrow.”
“I thought your birthday was in summer, just after Gerrin’s—oh! That was a pretend one?”
Tess nodded slowly, solemn again as Wren sighed, sagging like one of the orphanage cushions. She was a short girl, with a square face and small hands and feet. Her only remarkable feature was a bushy cloud of brown and blond streaked hair, as if—Zanna the orphanage pest said once—two scalps of hair had had a fight for possession of her head and both had become attached. Wren’s braids were long and thick and heavy and seldom remained neat. Tess admired that about Wren. That hair of hers had character.
In contrast, Wren often and longingly wished that her hair was more like Tess’s—waving, shining, auburn, and it never seemed messy.
A new idea seized Wren, like a boulder had transported itself straight into her heart. “So . . . you’re leaving for good, is that it? That’s why you’re telling me?”
Tess said quietly, “I think my parents might try to keep me in Cantirmoor this time, if nothing happens.”
“Nothing happens?” Wren repeated, bouncing up from the ground. “A curse? Is that it? You’ve been under a curse?”
Tess nodded, her forehead puckered with unhappiness.
Wren said longingly, “Oh, how I wish it were me.”
This made Tess laugh. She sank down onto a low rock and laughed, rocking back and forth rather like a kettle on the boil, because she didn’t make any noise. Wren stopped bouncing about and regarded her with a mixture of mischief and concern. To Wren, Tess’s laughter sounded uncomfortably dose to tears. “I guess I shouldn’t have said that—” Wren began.
Tess lifted her head. “Why should you stop saying what you wish?”
Wren spread her hands, giving her friend a funny, lopsided smile. “Well, things have changed.”
“Do you think I’ve changed?”
Wren peered doubtfully into Tess’s upturned face. “You haven’t, but your place has. Unless you’re about to tell me that I’m a princess, too.” Wren struck a princess pose—and sure enough, Tess smiled again.
“I wish I could. In fact, truth to tell, I wish we could trade places. You want a life of adventure—how many times we’ve talked about it! And I don’t, really.”