Chapter Four. In Which the Girl Encounters Small Talk （and Hates It） #2
Barrow had received the news of Madros’s regime change several weeks after it had happened, and even those scraps had been hard to pull together.
The first traveling merchant who shared the news had difficulties even saying the country’s name, let alone telling the supposed story.
One day, there had been a king and a queen and five young children; the next, they were gone, the nation leaderless until General Sur stepped in.
That was five years ago. Madros closed its borders, and whenever a new traveling merchant arrived in Barrow, one of the gossipmongers in town would inevitably ask about news.
The merchant would just frown and shake their head, saying there wasn’t much.
Eventually, the townspeople stopped asking. It wasn’t like anyone enjoyed speaking about Madros, the name slimy in their throats.
Risa didn’t know much about the sunbaked kingdom. Her tutors had taught her everything they knew of Madros, but her history lessons never quite stuck. All she remembered was that it had been a scientifically advanced nation that refused to muddle itself with magic.
“And that was that. My father agreed. Now I am to be married.” Prince Javi shrugged again, his smile a little wobbly.
“I didn’t take you to be the general’s type,” she finally mustered.
The prince guffawed. “I’m everyone’s type. And I’m betrothed to his daughter.”
“So, what, the general wishes to be a friendly neighbor and offers his only daughter to the least significant prince of Kheadon?” It sounded like another terrible plan.
He nodded, though the wrinkle between his brows remained. “Yes. I’ll admit, I’m hazy on the details.”
He paused his little speech, searching her face. When she grew nervous under his attention, she cleared her throat. “Don’t stop on my account. Please proceed to lavish compliments upon yourself.”
“The honor is usually someone else’s,” he responded.
At least all her prior assumptions about the prince had been right. He was the worst kind of person, the kind who reveled in their own self-importance, convinced they were deserving of everything.
“Perhaps that’s the real reason Brunhilda forced me to tag along. You need all the luck you can muster to keep your large, pompous head from expanding any farther—before you topple off your horse, crack your skull against a rock, and die,” she declared.
Suddenly, everyone stopped. Darkness had fully descended upon the woods.
General Van Houten raised his fist in the air. In the torchlight, the general’s complexion looked no different from sour milk.
“Here.” General Van Houten’s voice was harsh, his strange accent unplaceable. His voice was an unpleasant grating sound, amplified by the quiet that had settled over the trees. The guards loudly set to work.
Prince Javi made a face. “I’m wearing Itranian velvet.” He gestured at his intricate doublet, gold filigree suggesting someone spent hours of labor on the fine and detailed stitching. “Surely we can go on until we’ve made it out.”
Risa was unsure if those outside Barrow knew about the specifics of the Bosque’s curse, unless they were forced to traverse its thick growth for business, like the wandering merchants.
While it was more or less safe to traverse during the day, once night fell, hardly anyone ever made it out alive, and seeing the guards prepare to camp made Risa’s neck itch.
A tic started in the general’s left eye. He regarded the prince with barely concealed disdain written across his pallid, nondescript face, though Prince Javi didn’t notice.
“The Bosque is treacherous to cross at night. We should rest now and try in the morning.” The general trotted away, shouting orders at the soldiers. That left Risa alone with the one man she couldn’t avoid, who was staring after the general with a puzzled expression.
“I’m starting to get the impression my general doesn’t like me.”
Risa gasped. “What kind of general doesn’t dream of babysitting a prince on his trek to say ‘I do’?”
“I know you’re being sarcastic, but you’re right. Who wouldn’t?” He hopped off his horse and handed the reins to an overeager soldier who had appeared at their side.
The soldiers started a fire and set up a large, elaborate tent, which had a flap embroidered with the Kheadon family crest and stripes in the kingdom’s colors: bright red, purple, and gold.
A spit was propped over the fire. A cauldron hung from the wooden shaft, and soon aromatic smells of slop emanated from the pot.
“Shouldn’t we be more inconspicuous?” Risa remarked to no one in particular. She watched as a lazy plume of green smoke spiraled upward from the fire. It turned the itch at the back of her neck into a rash of suspicion.
The prince stood beside her. He, too, watched the fire, his carefree attitude replaced with an alertness that turned his eyes sharp.
“I am loath to say you’re right, but…” He tipped his chin up and sniffed. The line between his brows deepened. Did he notice the sweet-smelling wood or how the fire crackled unnaturally loud, too?
The soldiers were unperturbed. They went on with their duties, indifferent to their carrying voices, their laughs boisterous and rising—along with the smoke—like a signal through the trees.
Risa didn’t want to be anywhere near the fire. She moved to sit on a moss-covered log as far from it as she could manage. Much to her chagrin, Prince Javi perched on the other end with her.
General Van Houten had disappeared into the other hastily erected tent to discuss what Risa assumed was secret information.
“Are you really a witch?”
She didn’t even deign to give the prince a look. “Don’t insult me. I’m just a girl.”
“Brunie’s never wrong about these things.”
Risa didn’t bother correcting him. Brunhilda hadn’t said she was a witch. Brunhilda had merely let the prince and his general and his guards believe what they wished and fed them a good lie to bolster the ruse.
“She lets you call her Brunie?”
He shrugged. “We have a special bond.”
“Does she see it that way?”
His mouth flattened into a line as he considered his answer. “She was there to witness my birth. Though that was probably her duty as royal-family witch.”
“Royal-family witch?”
“All royal families have one. Some ancient witch rule.” He stretched out his long limbs and raised his arms above his head as he yawned. “She’s around for births, deaths, marriages, elopements, divorces, coronations, first steps, first tooth, first loss of said tooth—”
“Major life events. So a fairy godmother.”
The prince grimaced. His gold eyes darted back and forth around the camp, as if the witch could be summoned by Risa’s words.
Despite the hunted look and the way the firelight danced across his face, he managed to appear quite handsome.
There was something about the shape of his strong jaw, the slant of his nose, the upturned corners of his lips.
She blamed her lack of exposure to beautiful people for her nonexistent immunity to his perfect face.
“She does not like that term,” Prince Javi warned. “Trust me. Turned my brother into a newt once when he used it.”
“Fine. Royal-family witch it is.”
“Besides, in the stories, fairy godmothers bestow gifts upon their godchildren. This face”—he gestured at himself with a grin—“is all natural.”
“Honestly, how can anyone resist you?” she asked deadpan.
He winked. “They can’t.” He gestured at her with his chin. “So how does it work?”
“Pardon?”
“The good luck thing.” He toyed with the signet ring on his finger.
Risa turned from him, crossing her arms and legs. His beauty was unsettling. It wasn’t, however, unsettling enough for her to start divulging information he could use to piece together the truth about her.
“You can reveal all your terrible qualities at once, but I would like to keep mine a secret for another day.”
If he was going to retort, Risa would never know. In that moment, he leaped to his feet and raised a hand to motion for silence.
The effect was immediate. Risa tensed. The guards and even the horses went quiet. El principito might have been a useless prince, but he still commanded respect in a way she would’ve envied if she weren’t distracted by the prickle of dread working down her spine.
An unnatural hush settled over the camp, interrupted only by the loud crackle of spitting embers.
Prince Javi’s brows knit together as he tilted his head to one side and listened.
General Van Houten appeared from his tent with an unreadable look on his long face, that ice-cold gaze piercing the green smoke that filled the air with a choking sweetness.
An arrow sailed through the trees and landed an inch from Risa’s foot.
Then another.
They were under attack.