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fly like you're free — original Chapter 19

"Goddess—?!" Daine croaked.

"I'm a ghost," said Princess Kalasin quickly.

A second pair of sapphire blue eyes peeked over her head; they belonged to a boy of about twelve. "You know her?"

"He's a ghost too," Princess Kalasin added. If Daine had been in a state to pay attention, she would have noticed that the girl looked sheepish.

"How—?" Daine managed, strangled. Suddenly, she was all too aware of just who it was charming the villagers.

Both princess and prince—and the boy could only be Prince Roald, who had died in that first attack by the Carthaki—squeaked indignantly when she caught their arms in a firm grip and dragged them to the back of the tavern.

"But—the Player—"

"No," Daine snapped, then kicked open the door.

When they were all standing in the chilly night air with walls of wood between the royals and Arram Draper, Daine wasted no time in demanding, "How— why— what on earth are you doing here?"

The boy looked alarmed. Princess Kalasin, being familiar with Daine, looked rather less so.

"Hiding," said the latter. Her chin dipped, and Daine suspected she was blushing. "We were hidden pretty good, too. You're the first visitors we've seen yet."

"You're supposed to be dead," said Daine.

"Well, we're not. Can we go see the Player now? Please?"

"No," said Daine, distracted. "Who knows you're alive?"

"Mama, Papa, Aunt Alanna, and Onua—your Onua—and our nurse and guard, but we aren't supposed to tell them who we really are. Please can we see the Player? We haven't seen anything like that in ages and—"

"No," said Daine. "Your nurse and guard?"

"The ones we live with, who were really hard to sneak past so we could come see the Player, so can we—"

"No." Daine pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead against the incoming headache. She was starting to remember just how tiring it had been to guard the princess and her siblings—which she had often done while the Lioness was in conference with the king. She dropped her hand and scowled at Kalasin. "I saw you buried m'self!"

The younger girl shrugged. "I think they buried one of those... doll things. Simu-lacquer...?"

"Simulacra," Prince Roald provided, voice quiet in the night. His eyes were flicking between his two companions like it was a game of tack-ball.

"Simulacra," said Kalasin. She frowned. "I guess that means the guy who made the simulacra knows too, because why else would he be asked to make a copy of a dead princess?"

"Who are you?" Prince Roald wanted to know, now fixing his serious gaze entirely on Daine.

Before Daine could come up with an answer, Kalasin replied for her: "This is Daine. She's Aunt Alanna's second." Then she brightened, her spine straightening and her blue eyes shining at Daine. "Does that mean Aunt Alanna is here? Does that mean it's time for us to leave?"

Those questions was even worse than the question of who she was, Daine thought despairingly. She could hardly tell the crown prince and princess of all of Tortall that she had stolen an extremely valuable prisoner of war and run away. Not only was that confessing to treason, but after all the times she had scolded the girl for sneaking out, the princess may never stop talking about how much of a hypocrite she was!

The door behind her clicked open quietly while she struggled for words. The one who came out into the broad wood-and-stone alley behind her was very, very tall, and very, very graceful.

All the hair on the back of Daine's neck stood up as she registered that, adrenaline trickling ice through her veins, the princess's screams from all those long months ago ringing in her ears anew—

"Who—" Draper started, then stopped.

For a long moment, nobody moved.

Then Kalasin glanced between Daine and Draper a few times, and said, "Is that...?"

"Numair," Daine cut in quickly. Her heart was rabbiting against her teeth. "This is Numair Salmalín."

The princess's mouth formed the smallest 'o'.

"He's—he's the Player," Daine managed to get out. "We're travelin'. I don't work for the Lioness anymore. We—we was just—passin' through."

Both royals gave her a very strange look. The mage didn't do anything, even breathe. Daine didn't dare take her eyes off the children for long enough to see his face.

Kalasin broke the standoff once again. "Daine," she said apologetically, "you're not a very good liar."

Daine's face burned as though she had baked it on the sands of the Great Southern Desert. "I didn't lie," she hissed.

Kalasin shrugged, her eyes gleaming in something that was distinctly not apology.

"You're alive," said Draper faintly. His voice crackled around the edges.

The not-apology turned to anxiety as the princess craned her neck to look all the way up at him, and it was Prince Roald who said, "...We are."

Daine felt Draper shake himself, then heard the strained levity in his voice as he said, "How strange, to find royalty so high in the mountains. We're... honored by your presence. And shocked, as well."

"Quite," said Daine crisply; they were barely in the mountains at all, but she let that slide. She neatened her skirts, then marched forward and took them both by the arms again. "And we shouldn't be, because your nurse is missing you both terribly. Come." Over her shoulder, she said, "Dra—Numair, attend to your set. Your crowd'll be missing you."

She wasn't expecting a fight from him, but somehow, his elegant nod and immediate turn back to the tavern still left her feeling a bit wrong-footed.

"Daine?" said Kalasin as Daine stared at the shut door.

Daine shook her head, then dragged both royals out to the street.

For all her faults, Princess Kalasin did know when to take a loss and obey her (somewhat irritable) babysitter's instruction, and when she started to talk, trying to lead Daine back to the tavern, Prince Roald interrupted her and guided them back on track.

It was a short walk back to a comfortable cabin at the edge of town, one with a small stable and a tidy garden, with only moonlight to illuminate them all; there wasn't a hint of candlelight visible in the dark windows.

Together, they circled around to find a pile of crates below a cracked window pane, and Daine boosted both of them up so they might crawl through it, hissing at them to be careful of the sharp glass.

Prince Roald nodded seriously while his sister made a motion like she was rolling her eyes, and though the girl couldn't see her, Daine rolled her eyes right back.

When both of them were back inside the cabin and obligingly rapped against their bedroom window to let her know they'd gotten in safely, and Daine left them to their rest.

When she got back, Draper had snagged the attention of a pretty young woman a few years older than Daine. The woman was blushing and giggling at whatever he had been saying, and there was a smile playing about his full mouth and a brightness in his eyes that made Daine feel as though all her fur had been pet backwards.

She stomped up, her already terrible mood worsening at this—this show of flippancy and irresponsibility and unabashed deceit.

"If you are quite done dallying," she said sharply, "we've an early morning to make."

He gave her a strange look for that, part bafflement, part lurking amusement, and part something... else, then nodded and got to his feet, rising from the keg he had been seated on.

"The missus calls," said the woman with a dramatic sigh, her voice rich and fruity and exactly the sort men might like to seduce into their beds, and Daine's stomach turned. "Don't tell her how naughty you've been!"

Daine's hand tingled with the desire to throw something, but couldn't decide on a target.

Draper settled himself as the best one by touching her shoulder with his large hand and putting a gentle pressure on it in the direction of the rooms the tavern offered, like she was a child who needed steering.

"I wouldn't dare keep my secrets from my companion," he said as he did so, tone mild and cool with a hint of warning. Daine's stomach flipped. "Subjecting her to the disrespect would be very low of me indeed."

The incredulous, put out look the young woman shot at his back was uncomfortably satisfying, and it took the wind out of Daine's sails as they arrived at their room.

They got ready in silence, one that Daine was almost too distracted to notice. Once they had each gotten to separate beds, it came crashing over her all over again.

Princess Kalasin hadn't died.

Princess Kalasin was alive.

And not only her, but Prince Roald, too.

Why hadn't the Lioness told her? She had thought she was privy to all of the woman's secrets—or, all the ones that pertained to politics, at least—so why hadn't she ever heard a peep of this? If nothing else, there should have been status reports or something, shouldn't there?

Why, then, was the king still desperate to avenge his daughter? Why, then, did they continue to hide the two children even after the war had ended and peace was being negotiated? Why, then, did they hide them so close to the coast, only a few days' ride into the mountain range? Didn't they worry about the 'Thaks finding them?

And why did Onua know? The king and the Lioness had been there, and of course they would have told the princess's mother, but—the royal horsemistress? Maybe she had been in just the right place at just the right time? She had been there about when the funeral had been held; Daine had wanted to visit her, but ruining the bloodrain and waiting on Hadensra had taken priority, and then she had been gone before Daine could catch her breath.

But Daine had been there, on the field, and she had thought the princess died there.

By Draper's hand.

And Draper—Draper who had been viciously proud of his kill, Draper who thought freed slaves were equal to dead slaves, Draper who had watched Evin scream and fall and said it would be best if he never stood again—Draper now knew the two royal children lived.

She had to get him out of here.

Out, and far, far away, before he could decide to fix his oversight.

(As if that would make the slightest difference with the amount of power he wielded.)

(Am I speaking with Ozorne?)

"Daine?" he asked the rafters, sounding entirely awake.

Even Daine's gut flinched. "What."

"If I promise not to harm a hair on either of the royal children's heads, will you promise not to slit my throat while I slumber?" There was amusement in his tone, but he wasn't entirely joking.

Daine realized that she had been gripping her hunting knife under her pillow ever since she had laid down, and now her grasp was so tight her fingers had started to hurt. She huffed and loosened her grip. "Only if you mean it."

"I do."

There was a strange, almost raw slant to that promise, and she rolled onto her back and stared at the rafters herself. For a long moment, in the dark and the still, she wondered how she might ask him about it.

In the end, all she said was, "Mm. I promise."

"I thank you, and I promise as well."

Daine snorted, but it sounded half-hearted. (Subjecting her to the disrespect would be very low of me indeed.) "Just sleep."

She wasn't fully exhausted when she had gone to bed which, as always, led to jagged dreams—the way Hadensra had moved overtaking Draper's smooth grace while his (Hadensra's? Draper's? The emperor's?) eyes melted into rubies and then right out of his open mouth; the corpses she had marked screaming in their shallow graves with the voices of friends long passed; marking her ma by accident and watching, motionless and callous, as she withered away, sobs ringing out like Daine had never heard before—and they ended on a note that left her quite certain that the blood splashed over the floor was Princess Kalasin's.

It took her several frozen, panting moments to finally register that the blood on the wooden floor wasn't invisible or cleaned up—it was simply that there wasn't any blood, and there never had been in the first place.

It was morning, Draper was still asleep in the other bed, there wasn't any sign or scent of blood anywhere, and Daine needed to restock on supplies before they headed out again.

She collapsed back into her unwelcoming bed with a sigh, wiping the tears from her face.

Goddess, but she hadn't missed those dreams.

It took her a few more slow, deep breaths to calm her stomach again, then she got up and got dressed behind the changing screen, then woke Draper.

Promises or no, she wasn't letting him out of her sight today.

Obligingly, he trailed her through the village as she found the general store and purchased cured meats and dried fruits and cereal grains, then found the farrier and had the man check over all the horses' shoes (one of Spots's was coming loose, so Daine had it fixed), then tracked down the older woman who sold soap and took a few nicely-scented bars.

The tips Draper had earned (eight coppers, this time) stretched farther than she would have thought. She still had to use some of her leftover wages, but they wouldn't be hurting for coin for a while yet.

They decided to stay another night in the village. Daine had been forced to concede that he probably wouldn't attack the prince and princess now that they weren't in wartime or on a battlefield, and their horses were pining after one more night in a stable that had a pasture and a salt lick, and she didn't actually want Draper to fall ill again, and she didn't much like the look of him when he was trying to deal with the lower temperatures even here.

...Which meant another night of those dreams.

Daine sighed into her bag of new rags, obtained from the tailors'.

Back before she had sent Cloud away with Onua, back before she realized just how dangerous it was to be as good with animals as she was, she would have gone to the pony and slept away the bad dreams with Cloud's barrel chest against her cheek and horse-smell in her nose.

She tried not to think about her, and succeeded most of the time, but oh, Goddess, did she miss her.

What would she have had to say about Draper, Daine wondered. What would she have made of him? Would she have bitten him?

Would she have trusted him?

Daine would never know now. If she had stayed, maybe she would have, if Cloud was still safe with Onua—now, on the run, with a charge of treason on her head if ever she should return...

"Copper for your thoughts?"

"No," said Daine, abruptly back in her own flesh, making her way down a rocky dirt road with three horses and one of the seven most powerful mages in the world.

"A silver, then, perhaps?" His voice was mild, almost warm.

"Hardly," she said, but it lacked bite. It was getting harder and harder to bite, as of late, and she didn't like it much. Not when it was him.

"You drive a hard bargain, missus." Then, before she could retort, he lightly added, "A skilled one, as well. I never would have thought so much could be bought with so little."

She glanced at Mangle's saddlepacks, which were almost as full as could be expected. "Hm? This is fine enough, I s'pose. How much do you pay for oats?"

He opened his mouth, then frowned, then thought about it, tapping his chin with a single finger as he followed her with shortened steps. "I... don't believe I've ever purchased oats in my life." He said it like it was a revelation.

Daine stopped and stared, only for Draper to blush under his tan.

"I went to university at a young age, and managing numbers never made it onto my duties—after that, Oz—... the emperor..." His throat worked, and Daine's heart ached for a moment; losing friends was something she understood all too well, even if this particular 'friend' was doing them more service from his grave than he ever had in life. "He gave me an estate, and then it was the duty of my steward. I only provided the coin for the man's budget."

"Oh," said Daine, blinking.

Draper was the sort of man who had had a steward, a friend, and lots of schooling.

Daine was the sort of girl who had had a pony.

Now neither of them had any of that anymore, only the road under their feet, their travel packs, an army at their heels and the faintest sense of where they wanted to go next.

(As much as this war had taken from her, had he been the one to lose more?

No. He had been the one to give up more.

For her.

He had done it for her.)

"You must think less of me, to have lived such a charmed life," he said, sounding almost sheepish.

Daine shrugged. Something tasted very strange at the back of her throat. "Did you pay your steward well?" she asked.

Only once it was out of her mouth that she realized the man had probably been a slave, given that it was Carthak, and all.

(And free slaves were as good as dead slaves, weren't they?)

"One hundred thakas per year—one thaka being worth about as much as a gold noble, I believe—plus room and board for his family, and scholarships for the two children. They had to pay for the harp lessons themselves."

...Here Daine had felt faint to be earning five gold nobles per month as the right hand of the Lioness.

She realized her steps had slowed in shock, and forced herself to keep walking. Shaking her head, she told the man beside her, "If you paid 'im fair, I can't see what there is to pinch at. You did your part, and he did his."

Draper gazed at her in silence for several seconds, then nodded and looked forward again.

When they got back, Daine set up camp at a table in the tavern's dining room and made herself busy catching up on their mending, listening to Draper entertain with half an ear.

Maybe she could simply whittle the night away with needle in hand—or maybe she could go see if there was any work to be done in the stables, make a bit of coin of her own. She hadn't caught anything to sell to the butcher this time around, so perhaps she could keep herself busy by earning a stablehand's wages for a day.

Of course, she didn't dare leave Draper alone with the prince and princess so close. Maybe she could ask the tavern owner if there was sitting work she could do...

Draper had never bought oats before.

Daine stared sightlessly at her cloak, needle pushed through the cloth.

He had never bought oats because he had had a steward who bought oats for him. A steward who wasn't a slave, who was paid very well to do whatever stewards did in Carthak.

That day before Daine escaped with Draper, the Lioness had said that he had been well-respected by all who met and worked with him—and Daine didn't like it much at all that it didn't sound like such a joke now.

None of them had any idea of what he was capable of. None of them knew what he had in him. None of them knew anything.

They only knew a man who paid his steward, and paid him well.

They didn't know the man who killed the princess—

—except, apparently, Daine didn't know that man either, because the princess—and prince—were both alive, and nobody had told her.

Goddess.

She pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes and sighed.

When she looked up, the young woman from the night before was hanging off his every word again, and Daine couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be paying her less attention to her than he had the night before, instead focusing on the youngsters while weary mothers sat back and kept an eye on their broods.

Daine decided not to think about that, or any of the other things, either, and went back to her mending with a single-minded fury.

She made her way through most of it before asking the tavern owner for floor work to stretch her legs, and the woman gave her washing and bustling to do—blessedly active work that fended off the odd itch in her bones and earned her two coppers.

Draper went back to doing his tricks for an audience an hour past sundown, and the itch on Daine's bones got a bit worse.

Who was he, really, to be so practiced at putting up a front?

Who was he, really?

I wouldn't dare keep my secrets from my companion. Subjecting her to the disrespect would be very low of me indeed.

Who was he to say that. Who.

His show was gaining speed and intensity when Daine realized that one of the watchers at the back of the dense crowd was considerably shorter than her fellows, black-haired, and very familiar.

Daine picked the table next to the princess to wash, and took the opportunity to stoop next to her and hiss, "Leave."

Princess Kalasin gave her a scowl, and Daine rubbed the back of her prickling neck. It was making her nervous to have the princess and Draper in such close proximity, but she couldn't be in two places at once, and if she left to take the princess back without making Draper stay somehow, Draper would doubtlessly follow her and discover where the princess lived.

"It's one Player," the princess hissed back. "It took me ages to sn—get out. Nana's got ears like a bat. Come on, Daine, please?"

"The last time you said that, you died," Daine replied. She wished that she could carry her bow on her. She had been forced to leave it and her quiver against the wall, and the longer the princess was here—the longer the night stretched on at all—the more she wished she had just kept both strapped to her back. "Home. Now."

The princess slumped, but couldn't argue the point—she knew as well as Daine did that the one who had (almost) killed her on the battlefield was the very same one who now juggled for the little boys and girls of the remote mountain village.

(Daine couldn't help but wonder briefly, and not without some humor, if the gods had ever come up with a stranger way to meet a fellow twice.)

It was with an itchy sort of half-relief that Daine watched the girl slip out of the tavern again. Hopefully, there weren't any who would hurt her in a village this small. It looked as though everybody who was somebody was now in this common room anyway; it was well and truly packed.

Daine went back to her table, listening to the burble of laughter and quiet chatter about the room.

Then, three tables later, she froze.

A dog was barking outside.

Not the bark of a dog shocked by a little girl, but the bark of a dog angered by a two-legger he had never seen before, who was taking the little girl who came to feed him dinner scraps sometimes while she kicked and writhed and squeaked.

Daine dropped her rag, shoved through the crowd with her hand already at the belt pouch that held her bowstring.

Snatching up and setting the end of her longbow against her foot, she string it so fast it nearly cracked, then grabbed her quiver (holding twenty three arrows) and wrenched open the door.

She gave herself bat's ears as soon as she was out the door, biting down on her lip so as not to make a sound at the pain it sent over her skin.

Sprinting to the main street, she was deeply relieved that between the small size and quietness of the town meant that she could hear the scuffling and disturbed animals a few streets over. She kept her ears as she charged down the streets after them, heart pounding in her mouth.

It was a moment and an eternity before she saw them—a tall man in black, heavy garb running down the street with a Kalasin tossed over his shoulder like a potato sack.

Daine gave chase.

They were a hundred yards clear of the last house, onto a flat clearing, when she finally had a shot clear enough to risk.

She put an arrow to the string, drew it, and whistled sharply—and the man was just fool enough to look over his shoulder.

She loosed the arrow, and shot him clear through the eye.

He dropped, falling on top of Kalasin as he went.

The girl's eyes were huge and terrified when Daine got there, her wrists bound in rope and a cloth gag in her mouth.

Daine pulled her free of the corpse and took out her pocket knife. She sliced through the gag first.

"N-N-Nana's dead," Kalasin spluttered in high gasps as Daine went on to free her limbs. "Roald's j-just gone—I don't know what h-happened to Sir Markus."

Daine spit a curse.

Behind her, she could hear someone sprinting in long strides after her—Draper, not purposeful enough to have had anything to do with this. Nor, indeed, had she given him any time to.

"Daine?" he panted as he got close enough. "What's going—?"

Daine, who had been straining her ears towards the surrounding forest, grabbed the princess's shoulder and threw her weight towards Draper. "Protect her."

Then she stood, put another arrow to the string, drew while picturing her target in her mind, and shot the throat of an archer who had just arrived at the edge of the clearing.

There was a second archer to her right, and her third arrow found his neck only a split second too late to keep him from firing.

Twin grunts and a thump of bodies behind her went ignored as two knife-bearers cleared the edge of the woods.

Eye, fourth arrow. Mouth, fifth arrow. Both fighters crumpled where they stood.

She turned and ducked just in time to miss an arrow fired in her direction, then drew her sixth arrow and fired. Another body thumped against the ground.

Seventeen arrows left.

She listened; there were no more upon them. There was a camp another fifty yards diagonally to her right, and she headed towards it in quick, long strides, heart thudding in all her limbs.

The frowning sentry got her seventh arrow, and the man who cried out a warning got her eighth—but it was too late. The torch-lit camp had come alive, springing to take out the attacker.

Time slowed.

Her ninth and tenth arrows cleared out the rest of the archers, her hunting knife lodged into the throat of a man with a bludgeon.

She crossed the camp to the three resting men who were waking quickly, and shoved the first down with her heel and plunged her hunting knife into his throat before he could get to his feet. She had to wrestle with the other two a bit more to properly kill them, and then there was a knife-bearer at her back and she had to dance a bit to get away from him.

One of the men had left out his crossbow and Daine snatched it up as she went, loading a bolt in a hurry and putting it in the knife-bearer's chest.

She glanced around the clearing, chest heaving. Ten arrows spent (thirteen left), sixteen dead.

She heard and saw Draper and Princess Kalasin sneaking towards a cage where she now saw Prince Roald being kept—the lone guard was charging at her, sword in hand, and she darted to the other side of the banked fire to snatch up the firewood axe.

The weight of the makeshift weapon was unfamiliar, and it took her a few wild swings to get it at the proper height to sink it into his neck, and thankfully, he didn't manage to take her life or her weapon in the meantime.

Ten arrows spent (thirteen left), seventeen dead. Her head buzzed.

How many had there been in the first place? She listened.

—another in the woods, coming up right behind Draper and the two royal children—

Draper yanked the prince under his cloak as Daine's hunting knife flew—lodging in the man's throat and bringing him down almost on top of Daine's three.

Ten arrows and one knife spent, eighteen dead. Her body throbbed ice and fire as she sprinted back to pick up her bow.

She only managed to get it up to her shoulder and drawn when another archer popped up to her far left, almost out of nowhere, with his eye trained on Draper and the royals.

"Watch out!" she cried.

Draper yanked Kalasin under his cloak to join her brother—and was rewarded with an arrow lodged in his shoulder.

Daine repaid the fellow with an arrow through the eye, then shot another three arrows into him for good measure.

Fourteen arrows spent (nine left) and one knife lost, nineteen dead, Draper wounded. Her hands were shaking.

No other bodies living in the camp—but one large fellow disturbing lots of wildlife as he charged away through the forest, almost certainly to get a message out.

Daine glanced at Draper, decided he would live for a bit longer without help, and sprinted after the runner.

To her irritation, she trembling enough that she only managed to get in a nonfatal shot to slow him down, and had to take out her pocket knife to take out the important bloody bits in his throat, which was much more difficult than it would have been with a hunting knife and left her hands slippery with blood.

Still, when she was left panting in the aftermath (fifteen arrows spent (eight left) and one knife lost, twenty dead, Draper wounded), she couldn't hear any other disturbances around her pounding heart no matter how much she strained. The only two-legger life she could hear were the three back at camp.

"U-um, I can heal, a bit—o-or I think I can—" Princess Kalasin was saying.

"Healing Gift?" That was Draper, his voice pained.

"Yes. Roald too."

"No, come here, put your hand here and listen to me—"

Daine stooped to retrieve her arrow from the corpse (fifteen spent, nine left) and returned at a quick trot instead of a dead run.

When she got back, Kalasin was standing at Draper's side as he knelt on the ground. There was a glow of blue about the arrow that had lodged in his back, and Draper was covering one of the girl's tiny ones on his shoulder.

"Very good," he was murmuring through his teeth. "Knit the flesh like so, continue to burn the infection as you press the metal out... There we are." Prince Roald pulled the arrow free, and Draper heaved a sigh. "Well done, you two."

A flicker of irritation ran through her—they had done well? What about her?

Not, of course, that she wanted Draper to praise her (very good— you're almost there), but—but they shouldn't, either!

Oh, Goddess. What did she care?

Partially to distract herself, she took stock of the camp. Silence settled as she counted. Fifteen arrows and one knife spent, one arrow retrieved, twenty dead. Nothing left but corpses.

When she glanced over at the trio, they were all looking between her and the bodies with very strange expressions on their faces.

"...What?"

Draper cleared his throat, expression going even stranger. His voice cracked on the words, "That was, ah... indubitably impressive."

Daine blinked, then set her hands on her hips, not entirely liking the pleased tickle in her gut. Indubitably impressive. "Just because I couldn't ever kill you, that don't make me a slouch."

"This is a bit..." he started, sounding strangled, and it only pleased her a bit more. "Rather—I did not mean..."

"You're really scary, Daine," said Princess Kalasin, interrupting him.

Daine shot her a glare.

After another beat, Draper sighed and straightened. "Well," he murmured ruefully, retrieving his composure, "I suppose it is a comfort to know that if you truly wanted me dead, I'd be asleep in my grave already."

Then he made a choked noise and yanked both royals against him, covering their eyes while they both squeaked—Daine had gone to retrieve her nearest arrow and tried pull it free, covered in slimy pieces. It was one that had gone through the bone at the back of the eye socket, so wrenching it back out was gruesome business.

"What—are you doing?"

She gave him an odd look. "Taking my arrows back. This lot are my good ones. I'm hardly going to leave 'em behind."

"Oh," he said thickly, then leaned back with a wince as she chopped away the gross, clingy bits with her pocket knife. Neither royal tried to pull away from his side.

Once she finished with the messy business of retrieving her weapons and wiped them clean (or as clean as she might; she would need to wash and oil them later) on the fallen men's clothing, the others helped her collect all the corpses and lay them out around the camp.

Upon inspection, it was obvious that the men were Carthaki soldiers, even if they bore no crest and had no written orders. Further, the two royals confirmed (somewhat tremulously) that the corpse with four arrows in it was Sir Markus.

Daine gave the corpse an extra kick for that, energy summoned up by anger from wells unknown; she was exhausted. The man had several silvers on him, and she pocketed those without regret.

"So the two of you were advertised as dead and spirited away to a tiny hidden village to protect you because Carthak proved it was all too happy to target royal children, but your protector was a traitor, and now Carthak knows where you are," Draper summarized as they all looted the camp under Daine's instruction.

Digging through the pack next to her, Roald swallowed and nodded, then blinked rapidly.

Daine watched him out of the corner of her eye, then sighed. To Draper, who dug through the pack a few feet off, she said, "We need to leave."

He met her eye over the children's heads and nodded.

"What of us?" asked Kalasin, small dagger in hand. "I don't—none of the other families will take us, and we have no way to send word..."

"You'll be coming with us, of course," he replied.

Daine's stomach tightened in a combination of nerves and anticipation—as the princess had been the one hurt the worst by Draper, surely she would—

"Oh," she said. Then she glanced at Daine with a mischevious sparkle in her blue eyes. "I'm to get my storybook adventure after all."

Daine nobly and impressively avoided bringing a thick scroll down on her liege's pretty head.

She and Draper decided that none of them had the time to babysit a pyre, and someone was going to discover the bodies soon enough anyway, and all there was was to get the four of them as far away as possible as quick as possible.

They needed two more mounts, if not another packhorse as well, to which Roald said that Onua had left them with a pony each when she had left them in the village, so they could go back for them when they went to get Spots, Mangle, and Whisper—and then Kalasin turned her ankle, and both she and Roald were too tired from the excitement and healing to focus on something so small.

Daine was quite tempted to make the girl walk on her own until she figured it out—a cruel, shameful urge that only got much worse when the princess ended up draped over Draper's back and didn't seem to care in the least about what her mount had done to her.

The sight tugged at a memory Daine couldn't quite place, and all it did was add to her foul mood.

A silence fell as they worked their way back down to the village—adrenaline wearing off and leaving them all trembling and chilled to the bone.

Daine's pulse had started to fully settle when Draper spoke.

"It's... a miracle." He sounded uncomfortably raw. "A true miracle you lived, after what I did. I'm..." He swallowed audibly.

A miracle?

(If Daine thought back to the fight—in the heat of the moment, Draper had taken an arrow for Kalasin. One that might have killed him. And—)

"I don't think so," said Princess Kalasin, as if it were of no consequence at all, and Draper faltered.

"You don't think it's a miracle?"

"You're a healer," said the princess simply. "Sarge said it, didn't he? He said you were one of the best ever. That you healed fighters—gladiators." Quieter, sleepier: "S'like Daine. If you wanted me dead, I wouldn't be alive anymore."

"...Oh," said Draper, blinking rapidly. He cleared his throat, and Daine had the horrible suspicious that he was on the edge of tears. He then exhaled a not-laugh that sounded a little choked and said, "Calling me one of the best healers is a bit of a stretch. I did work in the gladiator camps from time to time, however. Mostly emergency surgeries. You very quickly learn what is needed to save a life... and what ends one, yes."

A lurking memory from deep within Daine rose to the surface—after the healers had done what they could for Evin's stump, he had made a joke about how this was almost better than trying to heal from a crushed hand, and how he didn't know anyone who had done that before. One of the healers passing by said that that was because their hands had to be chopped off anyway, and that 'that Carthaki bastard' had done them all a favor by keeping Evin infection-free for long enough to save.

It had been a cruel thing to joke about, Daine had thought at the time, with the hilt of his sword seared into her hands and his screams never quieting in her ears, but—

But what if it had been simple truth?

Daine swallowed the hard lump in her throat, and bit the corner of her mouth until the tears receded.

"Will I be able to do that one day?" asked Princess Kalasin.

Draper hummed, long and a bit teasing. "I think you might be able to do anything you dream. Maybe."

"Then I'm doing it for sure."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm!"

A deep, warm, genuine-sounding chuckle rose from the man, leaving Daine feeling very strange in her skin indeed. "Then you're doing it for sure."

Princess Kalasin snuggled closer, and Daine was left to wrangle with that surge of hot something all the way back to the village.