Chapter 16
T he princess fell asleep without issue, to the general surprise of no one. It went along with her personality. The innate sense of safety she couldn’t seem to shake from a life I could hardly even fathom.
There was no end to the lengths my stepmother would go to spite me, and that wasn’t a chance I could take where my people were concerned.
Rowan let out a breathy little contented sigh from her side of the room, and I glared at her, adjusting my thin pillow a little too forcefully.
Do sleep, Princess, while I figure a way out of the mess you put us in.
My man hadn’t returned from the tunnels, but having seen Rowan’s lying skills in action, I didn’t doubt that the cave in was real. The question was how quickly we could unearth it. The pass wouldn’t be workable for months.
If her father suspected the same thing I did regarding the cause of the tunnel collapse, his armies would be ready as soon as the path was clear. And the path, of course, led directly to Bear.
There would be no convincing my father or the other dukes to negotiate peacefully if Lochlann brought an army to our door. Which left getting word to him the moment the birds could cross the path, but even that held risks.
Still, it was the only real option.
Now, I just had to keep her alive and away from Iiro’s schemes and Korhonan’s dubious affections, Mairi’s spite, the Unclanned who seemed to want her dead, and somehow also manage not to strangle her myself.
That should be simple enough.
On that auspicious note, I finally forced myself to get a scattered few hours of sleep before giving up entirely, just before the sun rose. I left Kirill outside her door, avoided Taras and his “tell me what your plan is” stare, and checked in with the villagers to make sure there was nothing I had missed.
And to make sure my father hadn’t ordered any mass slaughters in my brief absence.
Fortunately, he hadn’t, and there was no sign of unusual Besklanovvy activity.
Finally, I sent a maid to rouse and dress the princess. She came downstairs a surprisingly short time later, with the same ill temper and wild hair that had punctuated her early morning the day before.
I didn’t bother to tether her horse today when we were surrounded by so many of my men, and I didn’t particularly want the hindrance if another skirmish broke out.
More than both of those things, I wanted what space I could get from her while I tried to prepare myself for what lie ahead in Bear.
We were now only a couple days’ ride from Bear, where my father may be awaiting our return. Then again, he may be awaiting the arrival of my dead uncle with a regimen of troops to lead to a war that happened twenty years ago. It was anyone’s guess, really.
Thoughts whirled relentlessly in my mind while I parsed through contingency plans for each potential move he or my stepmother might make. Then I worked on contingency plans for those contingency plans—one could never be too sure where she and my father were concerned.
If Mairi demanded Rowan’s return to Lochlann, that would be easy enough to work with. That may actually be the best case scenario, which also made it the least likely, especially since my father wouldn’t be merciful to a Lochlannian on his very most confused day.
So the trick would be to appeal to his desire to punish her while skirting whatever games Mairi decided to play, and finding a way to convince Lochlann I hadn’t actually punished her while I convinced the rest of Socair that I had.
Easy enough.
“What time are we stopping for the day?” The princess’s voice intruded on my thoughts, but it took me a half second more to realize she was addressing me, since she so rarely did.
She also had never once inquired about our plans.
The men around us stiffened in their seats at her casual lack of address, her audacity in questioning a man, let alone one in my position. Perhaps it should have bothered me, too, but the black and white mentality of Socairan society had only ever been to my detriment.
I raised an eyebrow, caving to the curiosity that regrettably plagued me wherever she was concerned. “Overexerted yourself already, Lemmikki?”
She hadn’t, obviously. She wasn’t flushed or out of breath, but she was…off.
Further proving my point, she declined to banter in turn. Instead, she pursed her lips, shaking her head like she was wondering why she even bothered, then turned to Kirill.
I stepped in before she had to ask him, partly because I wanted her to be facing me when she got her response so I could read her expression.
“We ride to Ryaya today, so not long after sundown, if we make good time,” I told her neutrally.
She darted a look to the distance, then back at me. “We need to stop sooner than that.”
I thought back to the past day, the limited time she had alone, the maid who had assisted her. She couldn’t possibly have had an opportunity to plot with Korhonan…
Surely even she would have had the sense to be more subtle about it than this, if she had. And Korhonan was plenty of an idiot, but he knew enough to know he couldn’t formulate a plan based off of us stopping at midday.
“Do we?” I asked, pushing her to expound.
She looked out at the horizon once more, focusing her gaze on the clear blue sky. Something danced behind her eyes, so unfamiliar on her brazen features that it took me a moment to place it.
Fear.
I sorted through memories of her: sitting at a Summit where men discussed the murder of her entire family; alone in a carriage with her enemy; battling a group of warriors bigger and better trained than she was…
Her expressions varied wildly, from anger and outrage to wry amusement and pointed defiance. But never, not even when it was the appropriate response, had she shown a single ounce of fear.
Until now.
She returned her attention to me, a small sigh of resignation escaping her for reasons I couldn’t quite guess at.
“A storm is coming soon,” she said without a trace of irony. “A dangerous one.”
No averted gaze, no sweating, and the absence of her usual lie face. Interesting.
Sudden storms weren’t uncommon here, but according to Mairi, they were in Lochlann. People who had lived here their entire lives could hardly predict the oncoming storms, let alone gauge their severity.
But Rowan wasn’t lying, of that much I felt sure.
I gestured from the unusually beautiful day to her. “And you know this because…”
“Because I have a—” she cut off, correcting herself after a short hesitation. “An interest in weather. I’ve studied it extensively.”
I barely suppressed a snort. Not only was she making her lie face this time—eyebrows raised slightly, chin tilted in defiance, as though daring me to call her out—but I sincerely doubted Princess Tralala-Rowan had ever studied anything a day in her life.
Which begged the question of what she was going to say to begin with.
Something in the set of her shoulders told me that would be a harder answer to wrangle from her, and that we didn’t have time for it now. Not that it mattered, when it was impossible to get a straight answer from her most of the time as it was.
“I see. And how soon is soon ?”
Her jade eyes narrowed, like she suspected I was mocking her, but she answered anyway. “Two hours, at the most.”
I took a breath, considering.
The sky was clear. The air was still. But the princess was afraid.
She was so many frustrating things, but damn if she wasn’t brave. Brave and stupid and a terrible liar, yet her expression hadn’t twitched once when she said there was a storm coming.
At the very least, she believed what she was saying. My men would give me hell for this, and storms knew I would have to handle it delicately. Thinking quickly, I ran through half a dozen excuses, most of which were likely to irritate the princess immensely. Then, against most of my better judgment, my decision was made.
“Kirill, where is the nearest inn?” I asked, not taking my eyes off Rowan’s slowly widening ones.
“Korov, my lord,” he answered without hesitation, as I had known he would.
He served as our navigator, when he wasn’t guarding tiny annoying Lochlannians, that is.
“Excellent.” It wasn’t. Korov was barely a village, and the inn was questionable, at best, but at least we would be off the road sooner in the event that whatever hunch the princess had was correct. “We’ll stop there for the night.”
Shocked sputters sounded around us, accompanied by indignant huffs of air. They were willing to play along when they thought I was toying with her, but not now that I was actually listening.
Those who were most loyal to me held their tongues, keeping their expressions neutral, but there were still plenty who were clearly bothered, as I had known they would be.
“My lord,” Johan, one of my more traditional soldiers, spoke up. “Are you truly going to take the word of a woman?—”
I didn’t let him finish, not needing him to incite the others. It was dangerous for me to lose the support of my men when I had to play my father’s games. More importantly, it was dangerous for Bear. Fortunately, I had a solution that would serve all parties involved.
Well, almost.
“Come now, men,” I put on my best condescending expression, looking toward the soldiers with a casual air. “The princess clearly has…feminine needs to attend to that she’s too shy to say aloud.”
The princess in question turned as scarlet as her moniker, a deep blush rising from the strained chest of her gown all the way up to her cheeks. I couldn’t help but track the motion, fascinated that any skin could be quite so…volatile.
Though that was fitting, I supposed.
Volatile described her well.