Chapter 13 A Planned Attack
A PLANNED ATTACK
On market days, Caius always drifted through the aisles, lingering with the vendors, trading stories and laughter until time slipped its leash.
Some had welcomed him first because he was the boyar's son, but now they waved him over, friendships forged with the handsome young man because of the way he listened—how he remembered names, how he made each tale feel singular, important. Caius had a gift for people.
I knew that gift well. I knew what it felt like when his attention settled fully on me, when his warm sunbeam focused until it felt meant for me alone.
I heard that the boyar had ordered new suits of chainmail, delicate work that kept Dani beside his father at the forge for long hours, demanding patience and absolute concentration. No, Dani would not be at the market today.
Knowing all this, I chose my moment carefully—and went to find Caius. I wore the dress Buna had embroidered for M?r?i?or, pinched color into my cheeks, and bit my lips until they were ripe and dark as a plum. None of it was accidental.
I tucked my basket under my arm, two sweet buns cradled inside—traded for a jar of our honey.
The pastries were part of my plan—but Caius didn't know that, and I had no intention of telling him.
When I reached the main part of the market, two village girls spotted me and bent their heads together, whispering behind cupped hands.
We'd once been friendly, but lately their glances had sharpened, their laughter carrying a brittle edge that had little to do with humor.
“Looking for someone, Magda?” one of them called, her smile thin, the implication clear without her needing to say his name.
Only then did I realize how transparent I'd been.
Over the past few weeks, I had made a point of crossing paths with Caius at the market—lingering at his side, trading jokes, letting our flirting stretch longer than it should have.
What I'd imagined was subtle had been anything but.
I forced my expression into something neutral and moved between the stalls, pausing to inspect the vegetables as though their freshness required deep consideration, determined at least not to make my searching so obvious.
I heard his boisterous laughter before I saw him, standing a few stalls ahead, deep in conversation with the cheese monger.
I bit my lip once more, then let my attention drift elsewhere as I passed—pretending not to notice him at all, hips swaying as I went, the basket cradled easily against my side.
I felt it before I heard it—the moment his laughter faltered, the instant his gaze found me.
“Magda!” he called after me.
My heart skipped, quick and bright, at the sound of my name on his lips. I didn't turn at once. I let him wait a heartbeat longer, then slowly looked around, schooling my face into mild confusion—as though I truly didn't know who had called for me.
“Caius,” I said lightly, letting just enough surprise into my voice to make it convincing. His answering smile told me I'd played it well.
“What are you buying?” he asked, peering into my basket, as he fell into step next to me as I walked.
“Sweet buns,” I said lightly. “I traded honey for them.” I tipped my head, letting a smile soften the edge of my words.
“What about you? Don't you have servants who do the shopping for your household?” It was a jest—but not entirely.
A reminder of the distance between us that longing looks and years of friendship could not quite erase.
He only grinned. From his pockets he produced two apples and a block of hard cheese and began to juggle them, the rhythm of his hands brushing my words aside as neatly as if he'd never heard them.
A flicker of irritation sparked in my chest—quick, unwelcome—before I smothered it.
Caius always did this, turning away from a thorny comment with a smile and a trick, and I hated that some small part of me found it charming.
“I was going to sit under the big oak by the river and read,” he said. “Care to join me?”
The ease of it startled me. How quickly a glance, a pause, a bit of practiced innocence had shifted the day to my advantage. I accepted his smile, even as a quiet awareness stirred beneath my satisfaction: this had been easier than it should have been.
We settled beneath the sprawling branches, in a patch of ground warmed by sunlight. He broke off a piece of cheese and handed it to me along with an apple. Conveniently, I had two buns and offered him one in return, and between us it made a fine enough lunch.
I spread my skirts and tucked my legs beneath me as we ate in companionable silence.
It felt good, this simple sharing of food—and yet foreign, too.
This was a first. My time with Caius almost always included Dani, and while it thrilled me to have Caius to myself, I felt Dani's absence all the same.
When I'd finished eating, I reached for the book Caius had brought with him. “What are you reading?” I asked, turning a few pages.
“A Greek philosopher—Aristotle,” he said. “I'm afraid it hasn't been translated.”
He knew I could read only basic Slavonic, and not well at that—but the fact that I read at all set me apart from most women in the village. I felt the distance of the language like a closed door and refused to let it stand.
“Then perhaps you could read it to me sometime,” I said lightly. Even as I spoke, I could imagine what I was asking—his voice lowered, his attention narrowed to me alone, words meant for no one else. I kept my expression innocent, though I knew well enough that this, too, was a kind of invitation.
“I'd like that,” he said, leaning closer, his expression darkening as his voice dropped. “My father hates it when I read anything but military history.” He glanced away, then back to me, as though measuring the risk of the words before letting them go. “He says I'm wasting my time.”
I saw a vulnerability in Caius I had never glimpsed before—a beautiful, charismatic man, no longer a boy, carrying a wound I had only just begun to see fully.
“Some days I think he truly hates me,” he said quietly. “Blames me for my mother's death.”
There was a pain in his eyes I didn't fully understand, but I could see it nonetheless.
I reached for his hand, aching now myself, desperate to comfort him in some small way.
He glanced up at my touch, surprise flickering across his face before something softer took its place.
Gratitude. It warmed my heart to know it was something—anything—that might ease what he carried.
“You must understand what I feel,” he said, an ache threading his voice.
But I didn't. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother died the same night mine did.” He said it as if that explained everything.
In that moment, I understood how different our childhoods had truly been—not merely peasant and nobleman, but something far deeper.
My life had been wrapped in love; his had been endured alone.
Love had made me resilient in ways Caius had never been allowed to become.
My grandmother was firm and demanding, but I never once questioned that I was cherished.
He, for all his servants and tutors, had grown up starved of that certainty, and the wound had been left to fester in silence. I'd seen it from a distance, the whole village had, but I didn't know how deeply that valley had been carved into his heart until that moment.
The thought left me aching—with compassion, and with a shame I couldn't quite name.
I didn't want to name the distance between us or admit that I could not fully understand what he carried.
And if part of me wanted to comfort him, another part—less noble, more honest—wanted him to feel wanted.
So I closed the space between us and kissed him.
It wasn't our first kiss. Before, they had been stolen things—quick, breathless, Caius catching me when Dani's back was turned, all reckless laughter and youthful exuberance.
This was different. There was no laughter now, no rush to touch and separate.
My lips lingered against his—warm and yielding—and what began as tentative did not stay that way.
His hand slid beneath my hair, firm and sure, drawing me closer until there was no space left between us, and I let myself be carried by it, by the heady rush of being wanted so openly.
His mouth deepened against mine, unhurried but certain, his tongue brushing mine in a way that sent heat skittering through me. His kisses traced along my jaw, down the sensitive line of my throat, and for a breathless moment I leaned into it, dizzy with how quickly desire had taken hold.
Then the ground shifted.
The closeness, the certainty of his touch, the unspoken expectation of what might come next—it all rushed in at once, and I realized how far I had stepped without knowing where to put my feet. My body went rigid, breath catching as panic bloomed sharp and sudden.
He felt it immediately. Before I could pull away, before the moment could tip any further, he stilled and withdrew, careful, controlled, as though he'd sensed I was slipping beyond my depth.
“What is wrong?” I asked, relief tangling with the sudden fear that I had done something to make him stop so abruptly.
“You're nervous,” he said, a little tentatively.
He wasn't wrong—but I had no desire to admit it.
“What makes you say that?” I asked, still mortified, afraid my inexperience had betrayed me, wishing—absurdly—that I'd practiced this with someone else first. My plan to capture him had come together flawlessly.
What I hadn't planned for was this—here with him so close, realizing I had no idea what came next.
He took my hand in his and pressed it flat to my chest, his hand covering mine, right over my heart. Beneath my palm it raced—too fast, too loud, a frantic thud that echoed through my whole body.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.