Whispers in the Forest
Copyright© 2025 by Jody Daniel
Chapter 15
Château Falaises Brumeux
The house was locked down.
Shutters sealed tight like clenched teeth. Heavy oak doors bolted and cross-checked. Motion sensors armed. The château—usually a place of laughter, clinking glasses, and Lena’s light footsteps echoing down stone corridors—had curled inward on itself, holding its breath.
It was 20:23.
Early summer in Knysna meant the day refused to die quietly. The last bruised light of sunset still clung to the western horizon beyond the mountains, bleeding into the forests like a slow-burning fuse. The Outeniqua peaks were dark silhouettes now, their shoulders wrapped in mist, the air heavy with the scent of pine, damp earth, and salt drifting up from the distant lagoon.
I sat alone in the study.
The room was lit only by the glow of the security monitors Hannes had jury-rigged into a temporary command post—eight feeds in a neat grid, each one washed in the ghostly green of night vision. The perimeter cameras showed nothing overtly wrong. Trees swayed lazily in the evening breeze. Wisps of mist crawled low across the lawns like searching fingers. A moth occasionally blundered into a lens, filling the screen with sudden frantic wings before disappearing again.
Nothing.
Which was exactly the problem.
The Royal Guard were in position—Lena’s people. Quiet professionals. Spread thin but deliberate around the château: two at the lower access road, one on the south ridge, one tucked into the tree line overlooking the service entrance. No chatter on the net. No mistakes. Just disciplined silence.
It felt like the moment just before a thunderclap.
Then I heard it.
At first, I thought it was tinnitus. A faint, high-pitched whine just at the edge of perception. Easy to ignore. Easy to dismiss.
Zzzzzzzzzzz...
My spine tightened.
It wasn’t organic. Not wind. Not insect. Too steady. Too precise.
Mechanical.
Persistent.
I was already moving before my brain finished the thought. I grabbed the shotgun from beside the desk—old-school, brutal, reliable—and the handheld spotlight. My thumb keyed the radio.
“Boetie? You hear that?”
A half-second pause. Too long.
“I hear it, boss,” Boetie’s voice crackled back, tight now. “Coming from the south ridge.”
Of course it was.
I eased out through the terrace doors, keeping low, letting the shadows swallow me. The stone tiles were cool under my bare feet. The night pressed in close, thick and expectant.
Above the lawn, the sky was a dirty charcoal gray. Low cloud reflected the distant glow of Knysna city lights far to the south, giving the heavens a sickly, backlit sheen. But directly overhead—nothing. Just darkness.
Zzzzzzzzzzz...
Closer now.
Hovering.
I thumbed the spotlight on.
The beam cut through the night like a blade.
There it was.
A drone.
Big. Matte black. No civilian toy. A quadcopter with a wide body and reinforced arms, holding position about fifty meters up. Red stabilisation lights pulsed slowly on its frame, calm and patient—like eyes that didn’t blink. I could almost feel the optics tracking me, thermal sensors mapping heat signatures, recording everything.
Watching.
“Smile,” I muttered under my breath.
I raised the shotgun, braced it against my shoulder. It was a long shot for buckshot—borderline irresponsible—but this wasn’t about precision. This was about intent.
BOOM.
The report slammed into the valley, echoing off the mountains like a cannon shot. The recoil punched into my shoulder. I tracked the sky instinctively.
I missed.
But not by enough.
The shockwave slapped the drone hard. It wobbled, dipped violently, then recovered with terrifying speed. In less than a heartbeat, it shot backward—not up, not sideways—but straight back into the tree line, vanishing as if it had never been there.
Military-grade.
Message received.
“They are watching,” Lena said softly.
I turned.
She stood in the doorway behind me, wrapped in a robe, her red hair loose around her shoulders. The moonlight caught the emerald on her finger, flashing green against her pale skin. Her face was calm, but her eyes—those sharp, knowing eyes—were alert.
“Let them watch,” I said, racking the shotgun with a solid, final clack as a fresh shell chambered. “It means they aren’t ready to breach yet.”
She stepped closer, just enough to touch my arm. I could feel the tension in her fingers.
The radio crackled again.
“Boss,” Hannes said. His voice had lost its casual edge. “We have a problem at the main gate.”
Every muscle in my body went tight.
“Did they breach?”
“No,” he replied. “But they left something. A courier bike just sped off. There’s a package hanging on the bars.”
The night suddenly felt colder.
My stomach dropped.
“Don’t touch it,” I said immediately. “No one touches it. Clear the area.”
I started moving before the sentence was finished.
“I’m coming down.”
Somewhere in the darkness beyond the trees, someone was smiling.
And I had a very bad feeling this was only the beginning.
Château Falaises Brumeux, main gate.
The ride down to the gate felt longer than it should have.
The gravel road wound through the trees like a scar, headlights off, only the faint spill of moonlight and the glow from Hannes’s tactical torch guiding us. The forest had changed character entirely. By day, the Whispering Pines were cathedral-quiet and welcoming. By night—especially this night—they leaned inward, branches knitting together overhead, needles whispering secrets that didn’t want to be overheard.
The gate loomed ahead.
Iron. Old. Heavy. The kind of thing built to keep threats out—and secrets in.
The Land Cruiser rolled to a halt. I stepped out first, shotgun slung but ready, boots crunching softly on gravel. Hannes stood a few meters back, rigid, his face carved from stone. Two Royal Guards flanked the gate itself—both women, both utterly still. They were always close to Lena, never more than a heartbeat away. Tonight, they stood between the Queen and whatever had been left behind, hands resting lightly on their sidearms, eyes scanning the tree line with predatory patience.
They didn’t need to say anything.
Whatever this was, it was deliberate.
The headlights clicked on.
And there it was.
The package wasn’t ticking.
It wasn’t wired.
It wasn’t explosive.
It was worse.
A funeral wreath.
Perfectly circular. Meticulously arranged. Thick, waxy white lilies—fresh, expensive, imported—woven together with dark greenery. A wide black ribbon draped across it, its satin surface catching the light like a bruise. It hung from the old “Shooting Survivors” sign, swaying gently in the night breeze.
A grotesque parody of remembrance.
Someone had taken the time to make this beautiful.
My jaw tightened.
The guards didn’t move. Neither did Lena—until she did.
I felt her before I saw her, stepping up behind me, flanked instantly by the two women. They moved like shadows, close enough to shield her, far enough not to smother her presence. Professionals. Devoted. Dangerous.
“There’s a card,” Hannes said quietly.
“I see it.”
I pulled on gloves, slow and deliberate, then reached for the envelope tied neatly into the ribbon. Whoever had done this wanted it read. Wanted it handled. I tore it free and unfolded the thick cream card beneath my torchlight.
The words were printed. Elegant. Formal.
Not a threat.
An invitation.
“To the memory of the Queen. The Mausoleum awaits. Come home, Elena. Or we will bury you here.”
The forest seemed to lean closer.
I became suddenly aware of every sound—the creak of branches, the distant chirping of insects, the soft hiss of wind through pine needles. The Whispering Pines weren’t whispering anymore.
They were conspiring.
“He wants me to go back,” Lena said softly.
Her voice was steady—but I felt the shiver run through her as she read over my shoulder. One of the guards subtly shifted, angling herself just enough to block the line of sight from the trees.
“He wants me in Velyngrad.”
I folded the card once. Twice.
“It’s a lure,” I said. “He knows he can’t take the château without a siege. He doesn’t want a fight here.” I looked at the wreath again, the deliberate cruelty of it. “He wants you where the rules are older. Where tradition can be used as a weapon.”
The Mausoleum.
Stone. Echoes. Tunnels.
I tore the card cleanly in half.
The sound was loud in the quiet night.
“Well,” I said, letting the pieces fall to the gravel, “if he wants a funeral—”
“ ... then we’ll give him one,” Lena finished calmly.
She stepped forward, close enough that the guards tensed but didn’t stop her. Her green eyes were lit from below by the headlights now, hard and brilliant. She looked at the wreath not with fear—but with promise.
“And I will lay this wreath on his grave.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
“I hope the lilies last until then,” I said, a thin smirk tugging at my mouth.
The wind shifted.
The wreath swayed once more on the sign.
Somewhere far to the north, a man who thought himself a king had just declared war.
And this time, we were ready.
The next morning
The day broke clean and bright, the kind of South African morning that feels freshly washed. The sky was a hard, endless blue, and the light had that sharp, crystalline quality that only comes after a night of clear air. From the north came a persistent bergwind—hot, dry, and restless—spilling over the Outeniqua Mountains like a held breath finally released. It rushed through the valleys and passes, rattling leaves, carrying with it the faint mineral scent of warm stone and distant dust.
The bergwind had a personality of its own. It didn’t creep or whisper—it announced itself, tugging at clothes, lifting hair, reminding you that the mountains were alive and moving even when they looked still.
Lena and I walked side by side along the tree-lined path that led toward the cliff. The avenue of yellowwoods and pines shielded us from the worst of the wind, their branches knitting a cool, shifting tunnel of green above our heads. Sunlight broke through in fragments, dappling her hair and the gravel under our feet.
There were eyes on us, of course. There always were now. Discreet shapes in the distance, careful footsteps that never quite echoed ours. She was the Queen of Volynia, after all. And me? Soon to be the Duke of Velyngrad. A title that still felt unreal in my mouth, like a coat borrowed from someone taller—but one I was learning I would have to wear with ease.
I slowed as the trees thinned. “I want to show you something,” I said.
As we stepped out of the shelter of the forest, the world opened abruptly. The land simply fell away in front of us, dropping forty-two meters into a jade-green pool far below. The waterfall hurled itself off the cliff with joyful violence, the water breaking into white ribbons before crashing down in mist and thunder. The bergwind caught the spray and flung it back upward, scattering it into a fine, shimmering veil.
Lena stopped dead.
“This is magnificent...” she whispered.
Her voice was small in the vastness of it. I watched her face as the view registered fully—how her eyes widened, how her lips parted, how the breeze caught at her dress and made it flutter like a living thing.
“Don’t step too close to the edge,” I said gently.
She laughed, that familiar, bright sound that still surprised me every time.
“I live on the edge.”
I smiled. “That’s true. But I need you here—on the safe side.”
She turned toward me, green eyes flashing with mischief. “And what about adventure?”
“Adventure,” I said quietly, “is loving you for a long time to come.”
She studied my face for a moment, as if weighing the truth of it, then nodded slowly “And an adventure it will be.”
The wind surged again, warm and insistent, lifting her hair across her cheek. I reached out, tucking it back, my thumb lingering just a second too long.
“Lena,” I said, the words coming without effort, without fear, “I love you. Always. Forever.”
She lifted her hand to my face, her palm warm against my skin. Her touch stilled everything. “I know,” she replied softly. “You showed me this morning...” A teasing smile curved her lips. “And I am still quivering inside.”
I laughed under my breath. “I love you, my Queen.”
She shook her head, leaning closer. “To me, you’re my prince. Not on a white horse—but in a white and black twin-engined airplane, taking me to dance in the clouds.”
We stood like that for a moment, the wind roaring around us, the waterfall’s steady thunder below. Then she turned back to the cliff, still holding my hand, leaning just far enough to peer into the pool beneath. Sunlight fractured on the water’s surface, turning it into moving glass.
“One day,” she said dreamily, “we should slip away from the guards. Swim naked in that pool. Make love on the bank.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re just a little girl inside who wants to be normal, aren’t you?”
She grinned, unapologetic. “Always.”
Then she turned back to me, fingers curling into my collar, eyes catching the sunlight through the pines—bright, wicked, alive.
“Now kiss me,” she said, “and then we go explore some hidden passages in the château.”
I did as I was told, the world narrowing to the warmth of her mouth, the wind, the roar of falling water, and the certainty of her in my arms.
“Yes, my Queen,” I chuckled when we finally parted. “Your wish is my command.”
Returning to the château, the first thing we both noticed was the black rental SUV parked squarely in front of the clock tower entrance. It sat there like it belonged—dusty, travel-worn, engine ticking softly as it cooled in the late afternoon air.
“Visitors?” Lena asked, her fingers tightening around mine.
“Or family,” I replied. I recognised the parking immediately—backed in, wheels angled, nose pointed toward a clean exit. Old habits didn’t die. They just waited.
I steered us toward the side door, hoping to slip past whoever it was, change clothes, and reclaim a few minutes of peace. Fate, as usual, had other ideas.
As we passed the kitchen archway, laughter stopped me dead.
There—perched at the head of the massive wooden island like a feudal lord holding court—sat Colonel Viktor Volkov.
He was out of uniform, which was unsettling in its own way. A worn leather jacket, dark jeans, boots that had seen more continents than most passports. He held one of my coffee mugs in a hand that made it look like a child’s toy and was laughing openly at something one of the kitchen maids had said. The entire kitchen seemed ... relaxed. Charmed. Slightly enchanted.
He looked up and broke into a genuine grin.
“Privet, druz’ya!” he called cheerfully.
Lena squealed.
“Viktor!”
She let go of my hand and crossed the kitchen in three steps. Volkov rose just in time to catch her, lifting her clean off the floor in a bear hug. It wasn’t the embrace of a bodyguard and his principal. It was familial. Protective. Warm.
“You are here!” Lena laughed, patting his cheek as he set her down. “I thought you were buried under paperwork in Velyngrad.”
“I escaped,” Volkov said, winking at me. He extended a hand. “Good to see you, Captain. Or should I say, Your Grace?”
I shook his hand. “Ruan is fine, Viktor. And what are you doing in my kitchen drinking my coffee?”
“Ensuring the asset is secure,” he said lightly—eyes sharp, smile easy. “And because I refuse to let you fly the Queen of Volynia back to the capital without proper escort. The Falcon 50 is excellent, but a little small for all the protection I brought.”
“Protection?” I echoed.
He lifted the mug again. “Four large suitcases of vodka in the SUV. For the engagement party. I did not trust the cargo handlers with them.”
The kitchen staff giggled. Volkov had clearly already conquered the room.
“So,” he continued, leaning back against the counter like he planned to stay forever, “I hear there is a wedding to plan. And I assume you will require a Best Man who knows how to use a Glock.”
“You’re hired,” I said without hesitation. “But tell me about this protection.”
“Seven of my most trusted men and women,” he boomed proudly.
“Seven?” I blinked. “Plus the nine already here? Viktor ... how exactly are we getting everyone back to Velyngrad?”
He turned to Lena. “You remember your father’s long-distance aircraft?”
Her eyes lit up instantly. “YES! I thought it was sold years ago.”
“It was never sold,” Volkov said smugly. “Always kept airworthy. I brought it along. Two Falcon 50–certified pilots included to ferry your aircraft home.”
I frowned. “Short of a BBJ, we’re going to need something big.”
Volkov’s eyebrows rose. His smirk was pure mischief.
“A Boeing 747SP.”
I stared at him. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. She’s at George Airport. No hangar big enough for her, but she’s fuelled and ready. At Her Majesty’s command.”
I had to sit down.
“I didn’t think SPs still existed,” I muttered.
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