I gave the Carvalhos their privacy upon our return to camp. One of Rafael's uncles fell to his knees upon recognizing the three children accompanying us. The other wrapped Teodoro in a hug so tight it nearly crushed the exhausted boy. Valentina remained pinned to Rafael's side, her tiny fist balled in the fabric of his shirt, refusing to release him. Rafael did not appear to mind. Gabriele still did not speak.
The rain abated by sundown, streaks of scarlet painting the undersides of the retreating clouds. A chilled breeze raced through the trees around us, still humid after the day's rain. Tempted as I was to practice with my bow, I busied myself with my new chores as maidservant until the scent of dinner filled the twilit air. Scouring the camp, I located Frederico, seated across from Rafael and the children, the Carvalho uncles flanking them. No Beatriz. A grin tugged at my cheeks as I secured not one, but two portions of roasted hare.
Picking my way around the perimeter, I found her seated against a tree facing the setting sun. She slid one of her knives across a whetstone, her hair a wild, unbound cascade hiding her face.
"Obedient little prince, aren't you?" She scraped her hair aside, studying the edge of her blade with barely a glance in my direction.
"A bet is a bet," I replied, setting myself down closer to her than was probably wise. She eyed the place where my leg brushed hers as I stretched out beside her, her blade screaming against the whetstone once more. I'd taken care to seat myself to her right, away from the scarred part of her face. Closer to her knife-wielding hand, but I didn't think it too risky since she hadn't immediately jerked her leg away from mine.
"Not that one," Beatriz said, when I lifted one of the meat skewers to my mouth. The edge of her lips had flickered up as she fought a sidelong grin. I lowered the skewer.
"If you'd hurry up, I would've given you first choice," I replied huffily.
"Do not come between me and my knives, idiota," Beatriz said, caressing the blade to test its edge. I looked away when I began to wonder what it would feel like if she caressed me that way.
A laugh rumbled in her chest as she lifted her leg to sheath the knife back in her boot. A shiver rippled up my thigh when her leg slid back down against mine, closing the space between us even further. Seizing my distraction, she swiped the choicier skewer from me, tearing into it as she stared off towards the setting sun.
"I assume you've already set up my bedroll?" she asked.
"What kind of maidservant would I be if I hadn't?" I grinned.
"A poor one," Beatriz affirmed with a nod. "Though I'll relieve you of your duties if you've put me anywhere near Josepe and his terrible snores."
"I think you'll quite like where I've put you."
In response, she did something I did not expect at all. Taking yet another bite from her skewer, she leaned her head over to rest it against my shoulder. I tried to continue eating normally, battling the dual desires to savour the moment, frozen in place, or wriggle my arm free to settle it over her shoulders.
"Do these pretty words of yours thrill your Pretanian girls?" she asked, tearing me from my inner debate.
"Obviously. Haven't you heard that I'm the world's most charming prince?"
She looked up at me with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. She shook her head, her hair smelling of rain and the swaying grasses we'd ridden through earlier that day.
"Then when will you learn that I'm not like Pretanian girls?"
"I think you've already made that quite clear," I replied. I liked where this conversation was going, so much so that I finally decided upon a course of action. As smoothly as I could, I slid my arm up along her back, resting it across her shoulders. At first, she didn't move, inspecting the last morsel of meat on her skewer as if I hadn't moved at all. Then she reached over and tugged my cloak around her shoulders, wrapping the pair of us up in it. She chewed the last of her dinner while I fought to keep from pinning her to the tree and ravishing her, my own dinner forgotten.
"Your Highness?"
"Are you bloody kidding me?" I muttered, as one of the soldiers tromped around from behind the tree, bowing to the pair of us. Beatriz huffed a laugh.
"Yes?" she asked, not shifting from where she was still leaned up against me, nestled under my arm.
"The king is asking for you," the soldier said. He kept his eyes studiously pointed at his boots, clearly mortified to be interrupting whatever this was.
"Of course he is." Beatriz sighed, pulling herself free from me. She handed me her skewer.
"I quite enjoy when a few warm stones are left near in the foot of my bedroll," she said in parting. Her fingers grazed my shoulder, my skin tingling despite the layers of shirt and cloak.
Leaning back against the tree, I waited for their footsteps to fade before scrubbing a hand over my face. This was intoxicating, the little pieces of her she kept revealing one at a time, like a trail of breadcrumbs. I'd half expected her to keep her distance from me, not lean her head on my shoulder. Or un-sheath her knife for daring to put my arm around her, not wrap us in my cloak. I'd also half expected her to shirk my arm the moment someone came upon us, but she hadn't either.
I didn't dare think about where I'd placed her bedroll. Close enough beside mine that I could reach out and touch her if I wanted, but far enough that she had her own space, if she so chose. Though after she'd leaned against my shoulder, heat pulsed in my stomach at the thought of how she might react to my proximity later.
I focused on the sunset instead, enjoying the precious few minutes that the sky would remain ablaze as if the gods had painted fire atop the clouds. It felt like ages ago that I'd watched my last sunset in Pretania – a muted thing of pink and periwinkle, pathetic when compared to this brilliant explosion of colour. Everything in Pretania now seemed muted and bland compared to Ardalone. Granted, I'd had my lifetime fill of attempted murder by poison, but everything here was so much more exciting. So much more alive. Highcastle was like Andrew – steady, predictable, and safe. But Ardalone...
I didn't dare entertain the hubris that Ardalone was like me. Ardalone was like Beatriz, though. It kept me on my toes, like she did, guessing what would happen next. Occasionally, it landed me flat on my back in the dirt, wondering how I'd ended up there. Most of all, it made me realize how little of life I'd lived being walled up in a castle. Even mother and father had lived their share of adventure when they were my age. Perhaps mother had brought the infamous treaty to me in the middle of the night to do more than save Andrew. Perhaps she knew that I would need more than what Highcastle could offer me, that I would always long for something I didn't know existed if I'd settled down and married a Pretanian debutante.
Or perhaps this was all sentimental hogwash that I was calling up to avoid thinking about the place on my shoulder that still tingled from the touch of Beatriz' fingers. With a huff, I pushed myself to my feet, the clouds fading to murky darkness in the distance.
~*~
Frederico must have gotten wind of what had transpired, for he kept Beatriz occupied in his tent until most of the other soldiers had gone to sleep. I battled against my eyelids, sheer willpower not enough to keep them open as I waited for her to emerge. My battle was in vain, however, for when I jerked awake some time later, she was already wrapped in her bedroll beside me, the stars having swung widely across the sky since I'd last gazed up at them.
I noted with satisfaction that she hadn't repositioned her bedroll. She fidgeted in her sleep though, her face turning away from the fire as her hand slipped from her stomach. It fell open, her wrist exposed, a strangely vulnerable pose when paired with the tranquil, resting state of her face. Her scars rippled in the dancing firelight. They'd called her Gatita, I thought, as I followed the bands of twisted, imperfectly healed tissue down her face. They snarled along her neck, leaping over her collarbone before disappearing below her shirt collar. Funny that I hadn't even noticed them when she'd torn her shirt off the day before.
My eyes went back to her hand, laid bare and open before me. I wasn't sure if I'd ever really noticed her hands before, not unless they'd been balled into fists or gripped around a sword or reaching for a knife. Were her scars the reason she always kept a weapon within reach?
I remembered the feel of her fingers against my face when she'd tended to my ear, calloused but gentle. A contradiction, just like her. Seething with impatience and anger one moment, her eyes dancing with laughter the next. I wondered what it would be like to hold one of her hands, properly this time. Not like how I'd touched her while the Carvalho children ate, but the way I'd so casually held so many other hands in the past. Hands that had been soft and dainty and manicured. Useless hands, beyond the menial skills of embroidery or cards. Hands that had never crushed an herb poultice or stitched together flesh or wielded a sword.
My fingers hovered over hers, tempted by her open palm but unwilling to touch her, to startle her when she was so vulnerable. I was about to lean away when her fingers twitched, curling to brush mine.
My gaze darted to her face, her eyes open but heavily lidded with sleep.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, making to move away, but the edge of her lip curled upwards, the scars pulling taut. Her fingers lifted, brushing the spaces between mine. A shiver coursed up my arm, stilling my retreat.
"An inch further and you would have been," she murmured, tipping her chin to the hilt of the knife tucked beneath her makeshift pillow. I didn't mean to swallow as I looked at it, but that earned me a quick flash of her teeth, glittering in the night. Her fingers had curled experimentally around mine before she let her hand drop.
"Go to sleep, idiota," she said, her eyes crashing shut drowsily. "You'll need your beauty rest before I pummel you at dawn."
"I need to practice with my new bow in the morning, if I'm to stop being so useless."
Her eyes flickered open, alert now where they'd been heavy with fatigue before. She inspected me, amusement tinged with something else. Something that had me wanting to drop my hand to hers, to feel her warm fingers knit with mine.
"You do realize that Frederico would never allow you within an inch of a true battle?" She yawned, her body arching before she settled back into her bedroll. "He needs you alive, not dead at the hand of one of Dulciana's minions."
"I'd like to be a little less useless if we're ambushed again," I countered. "Will it help if I promise not to spout battlefield etiquette at you while we're under crossbow fire?"
Something thrummed alive inside my chest at the look she gave me. It was a look I hadn't known I'd been hunting for. But now that I'd seen how her eyes could sparkle with laughter even as she seemed to be reassessing me, I very much hoped I could do it again.
"They were all wrong about you," she said finally. She held my gaze for a heavy, heady moment before she closed her eyes, nestling against her makeshift pillow.
I didn't ask who she meant because I had a feeling I already knew. "They" meant everyone here in Ardalone. Everyone who had thought me an idiot, who thought me no more than a pretty face under a foreign crown, who thought I would run home to Pretania as soon as I could. Beatriz' breathing slipped into the even cadence of sleep beside me, her hand still open and vulnerable and so incredibly tempting.
But I let her sleep.
Something was happening. And no one, not even her royal brother, could stop it now.
~*~
**A/N: Hi everyone! I'm on summer vacation in Europe for the next few weeks, so my updates will likely be sporadic and at weird times of day compared to my usual. As much as I wish I could spend my entire vacation writing, there's just too much to see and do here! Thank you for understanding :) **