“What do you think, Bianca?” Aurelia whispered in her mare’s ear. “What lies amidst those trees?”
The magic, of course, was false, but the danger? There must be some reason for generations to repeat such frightening tales to their children. A tingle of forbidden allure rippled through Aurelia’s skin. She wondered what Robert would say—
Stop thinking about him! She buried her face in Bianca’s mane and tried to push away the memories of all the friends who had drifted, one by one, out of her life, too uncomfortable with the toll of being near the crown princess.
At least she still had Bianca. The mare was more than a friend, the type Aurelia could count on and tell secrets to with absolutely no fear of disclosure. She bent down and wrapped her arms around the horse’s soft gray neck. “You’ll never stop talking to me, will you, Bianca?”
The mare nickered in response.
It did not occur to Aurelia until that evening that there were eight other humans, their presence forced upon her, that she had not considered befriending. It was galling that after her father had failed to prosecute her sister, he still had the authority to assign his eldest daughter a protective guard. Though somewhere in her mind, she knew this was not the guards’ fault.
They had selected the campsite, probably with Robert’s advice, though she had not witnessed the conversation. Dusk had settled its cold fingers over the swath of blue-green trees surrounding the tent-lined clearing, and everyone had gathered close to the crackling flames of the fire. Robert, seated on the opposite side of the drifting smoke, was crouched forward, his hands loosely linked, eyes cast down, avoiding hers.
Painfully conscious of that restricted gaze, Aurelia tried to focus elsewhere. The smell of roast venison permeated the sharp smoke, and several of the men were inching closer to a burly, well-muscled guard turning the roast on a spit. “Back off,” he growled at them. “T’aint no royal banquet.”
“’Fraid not,” replied a thin blond wagon driver with bony arms and shoulders. “We’d need the wine.” He raised an invisible glass. “Only question is what kind.”
The burly man pulled the stick off the fire and tested the meat with his knife. “Heard Valshone is the best,” he said grudgingly. “Those farmers in the mountains don’t have anything better to do than grow their grapes.” He propped up the spit, then began carving away the roast.
Eager trenchers stretched at once in his direction, but he pushed them away and deposited the first slice onto Aurelia’s plate, then gave her a wink.
She glanced at Robert, who was still studiously avoiding her gaze.
Determined not to let him spoil her evening, she joined the conversation. “Valshone grapes aren’t grown in the mountains, just the foothills. They would freeze higher up.”
A sharp crack! from the campfire echoed into the night as silence engulfed the party. Too late she realized she had subjugated the other speakers. “Not that I’ve ever tried Valshone wine.”
The guard flipped his knife through the air. “Why not, Your Highness? Rumor has it there’s a whole crate of fancy wine back there on the wagons.”
There was a crate, she remembered, stowed away for improving national relations, packed up by palace staff who had assumed she would be meeting with various aristocrats along her journey. She had not known the guards were aware of the wine’s existence. But come to think of it, improving relations was just what she needed. “Maybe we should open it for a tasting?” she suggested.
Robert’s linked hands tightened.
And cheers sounded around the campfire.
She stood up. Robert rose at the same moment. For an instant, their eyes met over the crackling flames. Intense disapproval flared at her from his deep blue gaze, and a flicker of triumph pulsed through her veins. But he flinched, setting down his empty plate and vanishing into the shadows of his tent. Fine then, she did not need his silent presence dampening her spirits anyway.
“Can’t hold his liquor,” the burly guard joked, and the other men’s laughter rippled a bit too loudly into the dimming light. Two guards rose beside Aurelia, offering to help with the crate. She raised her chin, spared one last glance toward Robert’s tent, and led the way to the stash of expensive spirits.
Her return to the campfire was greeted by raucous applause.
The two men deposited the crate on the ground, and the burly guard hefted a large log over to the fire beside the crate. “Your throne, Highness,” he said, motioning toward the log.
“Aurelia,” she said, shoving the log back and seating herself on the ground. “I would prefer it if you would all call me Aurelia.”
She retrieved the first unopened bottle and held it out, just beyond the burly man’s reach, as she waited for him to say her name.
“That’s a bargain, Aurelia.” He stretched for the bottle, popped the cork with his knife, and then motioned for her to take the first drink. She wrapped her fingers around the smooth stem, then tipped it back. The sticky sweet taste did nothing for her, but the roar of approval from around the flames warmed her soul. She handed back the bottle, and he took a large swig.
As the wine began to flow, the fire caught the rough bark of the larger logs and licked into the higher echelons of the gathered pile. Light glowed a seductive orange, its warmth pulsing amid the night’s embrace, and the men glided closer, ignoring the sultry threat of smoke as they coaxed her to open one bottle after another, always insisting she be the first to savor the contents and not sully her lips. She did not care for the flavors, sweet or bitter, but after several tries, a tingly feeling ran into her head, and the taste no longer bothered her.
She let herself drift amid the conversation. Meandering tales and cavalier jokes slid along the outskirts of her mind like water over glass, and the laughter enveloped her in its undulating current. Providing her with what she needed. Distraction. And sanctuary from isolation.
Until the last bottle had been opened.
Then one by one the men shuffled off into the darkness. As the final guard doused the flames, Aurelia had no choice but to rise from the ground and stumble across the clearing to her tent. She struggled to untie her boots, then gave up, sank down on her cushioned pallet, stretched out her limbs, and let her weary body give way to sleep.
But the nightmares she had hoped to hold at bay leaped forth to strangle her. Images torn from memory.
Her sister hurling bitterness about Chris’s death.
The king ordering Aurelia to marry Edward of Anthone.
The body of Marcus Gregory. Her assassin. Crumpled, battered limbs useless in the dirt.
Battered by her. Crumpled by her. Dead because of her.
Aurelia woke up gasping, unable to clear that final image from her mind. She had been the one riding Horizon. She had been the one to order the stallion to attack Gregory. She had done so knowingly. Knowing she would kill him. Knowing if she didn’t, he would kill her. Knowing...
Knowledge was not all it was given credit for. She had never thought of herself as capable of killing anyone. Now she knew different. And she was not yet sure she could live with who she had become. Could anyone?
Her father, her sister, and her stepmother had all rejected her, placing status and power above her welfare. Her mother had left, perhaps with good reason, after learning that her husband had fathered another woman’s child, but still—in the fourteen years since then, had Aurelia’s mother ever contacted her own daughter? No.
And now Robert.
The tears came without permission, and Aurelia doubled over, crushing her stomach against her fist. It had been like this every night since that day in the arena, when she had killed the man who was trying to kill her. Every night the nightmares came. And every night she tried to push away the hurt and guilt and pretend she was all right. To remind herself she was now free. That the home she had thought she had and the family she had thought she loved were a delusion. They had never existed, and she was well rid of them.
She was living her dream
, free to travel where she wanted, to see and meet the people she had always wanted to see. To explore the kingdom ... that was no longer hers.
No! She pushed back the thought. It was still her kingdom. As much as it belonged to any of the citizens of Tyralt. She had a right to see her country. She had always wanted this. It wasn’t pointless. It wasn’t.
But after dark, it was harder to believe. With the cold chill seeping into her bones and the silence illuminating the emptiness around her—inside her—there was nothing that could stop the pain from ripping through her chest and draining her mind.
Only tonight something was different.
She stood, took a half dozen steps to the tent opening, and lifted the flap. A chill wind rushed in to battle her hair.
You’re drunk, she told herself.
Of course she was, and despite others’ claims about the effects of alcohol, she was neither happy nor out of her head. Only hurting. And sad. And unwilling to put up with it when one of the solutions to her problems was only a matter of courage.
What courage? came her taunting conscience. You’re running away.
She was running. She knew that. And she ought to feel bad about giving up her right to the throne and with it the promise that one day she would be able to help her people, but Aurelia had learned that that promise was a sham. She had never been in line to inherit that type of power. She had been expected to marry according to her father’s wishes and to one day let her husband take on the real power. The future of Tyralt had never been within her grasp.
And she was too wounded and too tired to fight that stark reality. She wanted a future. She wanted love. And those, she was quite certain, had nothing to do with political power.
But they had everything to do with the young man in the tent less than fifty feet away.
She looked, Robert thought, like he felt. Her hair was tangled and ... damp, for some reason, the strands in the front clinging to her face. Her cheeks and nose were red in the candlelight, and her clothes, the same she had been wearing all day, were crumpled and creased. Which meant that she, unlike he, might have slept, though clearly she was not rested. She stood, clinging to the sides of the tent flap as if she might collapse.
“Why?” she demanded, the hoarseness of her voice matching her disheveled appearance. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
He moved toward her, but she sliced out with her hand as if thrusting him away.
“Why are you ignoring me, Robert? Not just this week, but before that. I know I’ve done something, but—why?” Her fingers slid off the canvas, and she slipped down.
He caught her elbow, but she pushed him back, standing up on her own.
Her breath reeked of alcohol.
“Aurelia”—he started to tell her she was drunk and should not be there.
But she interrupted him. “I’m sorry.” She was choking now, falling once again, this time to her knees.
An apology? He had not expected that. Not when he had been the one to start the fight, and he had been the one sulking like a child for the past week. Her next words flattened him like a violent wind.
“I killed him. I know you can’t forgive me because I killed him.”
What? His heart wrapped around a tent pole and wrung itself dry. Was that what she thought? That he blamed her for defending herself against an assassin? It was himself he blamed, his fault she had had to defend herself.
“You didn’t kill anyone.” He sank to his knees and reached for her shoulders.
But she lashed out at him. “I did!” She choked, and only now did he realize the wetness on her face was caused by tears. “I chose ... I chose to kill Gregory. I saw him with the gun, and I chose.”
He could have kicked himself for his own stupidity. He should have guessed—should have known she was coming apart inside. Especially tonight when she had suggested drinking, and he had been so certain she was testing him to see if he would try to stop her. She had a right to fall apart after all she’d been through.
“You had no choice,” Robert told her. “He would have killed you.”
“You can’t—you can’t—”
“I know,” Robert said, not even sure what words she had been grasping for but still understanding. “It’s not like in the stories where the villain dies by his own sword, or the hero walks away in triumph, certain he vanquished evil for the greater good.”
Recognition flashed in her eyes. “I keep seeing it,” she whispered. “Every night when I close my eyes, I see his face and wonder what would have happened if I had made another choice.”
Robert nodded. “How many times do you think I’ve refought that duel with Chris?”
“I ... I’m sorry”—she was apologizing again.
“Why are you sorry? It’s my fault you were in that arena. My fault Gregory came near you at all.”
“But Chris ...”
Robert drew closer, gently circling her upper arms with his hands. “What about Chris?”
“You would never have had to kill him if it weren’t for me.”
The incongruity of her statement took a moment to sink in. At first he had no idea what she meant. Then slowly Robert realized she had been suffering behind the same wall of self-guilt that he had for the past two weeks, blaming herself for the nightmarish events in the arena. The only difference was that she had already forgiven him for his failures. At least, she had told him it was not his fault, back in the garden, on the day of the assassination attempt.
It had never occurred to him to offer her the same kindness.
Instead, she had assumed that he was growing more distant from her because he blamed her for the events of that day. “Aurelia”—his hands slid up toward her shoulders—“none of this is your fault.”
“Chris—,” she said.
“It was Chris’s choice. ...” Robert choked over the words even as he said them, knowing they were the truth but struggling with his own sense of guilt. “It was his choice to die as he did, helping Melony.”
Aurelia nodded slowly, then dropped her head to his shoulder. Her hair brushed his face, and he could feel the remnants of her tears on his skin. So much for his promise not to feel any more for her than friendship. Her pulse was still pounding, but her breath slowed as he cradled her in his arms.
“You can sleep here tonight,” he whispered. He kissed her hair, then lifted her gently onto his pallet. It was not as if he was going to use it tonight. Instead, he blew out the candle and sat beside her, smoothing the tears from her face and covering her hand with his. When was he going to get past appearances and remember that beneath her temper and bravado lay real fear? And hurt. For a while, he was not certain she would ever be calm enough to sleep; but then her body relaxed, and her head sank into the cushion.
She had been right, back at the inn. She had not needed him to tell her about the danger to her life. She had been dealing with that the only way she knew how, by ignoring it. What she had needed from him was understanding.
Why had he not thought she might be facing the same guilt that haunted him? It had occurred to him once when she had first described her defensive actions to her father. Why had Robert never seen her need to discuss it?
She had seen the need in him that very first day.
He lowered his head, resting his forehead beside her hand. Was it any wonder she thought everything was her fault? Hadn’t all the people who mattered in her life betrayed or abandoned her? “I’m not leaving,” he whispered into the darkness, promising her sleeping figure. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
The derisive voice of a coastal jay mocked him from a distance. Strange. He had not known the birds came this far inland. Sitting up, he smoothed a strand of dried hair back from Aurelia’s face and took a deep, shuddery breath.
It was then he smelled the smoke.
The sudden intense odor cleared his head and made him whip around. Shadows danced on the canvas flap, shadows that could not have formed without light. A strange, eerie light that s
hould not have been there.
Robert unfolded his legs and stumbled as sharp spikes shot through his veins. Forced to pause, he breathed in the smokeridden air, then staggered to the tent flap.
Boots pounded past. One pair. Two.
His chest tightened as he peered out into the night.
Two figures sprinted across the campsite and joined a ring of dark silhouettes.
Around a tower of wild flame.
Orange tongues wove upward, tracing separate paths on canvas, then coalescing, brilliant sparks spraying the darkened sky. At the tower’s center, there were no logs or branches, but the clear form of a tent. Aurelia’s.
Robert’s gut urged him forward, but something held him back: his father’s voice, the same voice that had echoed in his head since childhood. Never rush into a situation without first surveying the scene.
Robert counted the silhouettes. One, two ... six. Two more shifted into view. Eight. Each of the guards and wagon drivers. How had they all woken to the presence of the fire before he had even noticed it?
And something else was odd. Above each figure, though hard to spot against the background of orange flame, a smaller light glowed. Torches. Robert inhaled the meaning with the thickening smoke. The campsite off the main road—one of the men had suggested it. The wine—to dull her senses. They’re not fighting the blaze. They’re feeding it.
A sharp scream ripped through the air.
And for one awful second, Robert thought it was Aurelia—that he had only dreamed of her presence behind him, and the blazing inferno was her reality.
Then the scream cut through the clearing again, and he recognized the high-pitched voice of Horizon’s fury. The horses were on the far side of the blaze. Panicked. Torches shifted, their wielders reacting to the same incredible scream.
And something clutched Robert’s arm. Fingers. Her fingers.
He spun around.
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