“We do all take chances,” Gaz said.“That’s the nature of patrol, but you seem to take more than most.”
I sighed.“Is this to be another lecture on how impulsive I am?I didn’t act impulsively.Finnrey and I discussed it.The boy had to be dealt with.Honestly, it was far kinder than leaving him for hours while we found you two and went back.”
“But why didyouhave to do it?”
I opened my mouth and closed it again.I wouldn’t betray Finnrey by telling anyone about her reaction to the boy or how she feared she’d been bitten.“I just had to,” I said.
“You know,” Gaz said, his voice sounding sort of far away.I peeked at him and saw he was looking off into the distance.“Sometimes you make it really hard to protect you.”
“Protect me!”I stopped walking and my hands went to my hips.“I don’t need your protection Gaz of Westower.I can take care of myself.I’m two and twenty and have been doing patrols for ten years.”And then a thought occurred to me.“Did my father ask you to watch out for me?”
My father, King Wollem V, had been king for almost forty years.I was but one of his many children.The current queen was his fourth wife, and I had half-brothers and sisters younger than me.Finnrey and her siblings were the product of his union with the second queen.My mother had been the third queen.She was also the sole queen to give him only one child—me.And she was the queen known for her infidelity.She’d been discovered in the bed of another man, and the king had divorced her that very afternoon.
I’d been about three at the time and very confused as to why we had to move out of the castle proper.To the king’s credit, he made sure to keep me close.I always knew he loved me as much as any of his other children.And when he’d married his fourth wife, about eighteen years ago, he’d pulled me aside the day of the wedding and told me that my mother was the only woman he’d ever loved.
I’d wanted to ask him why he was marrying another woman then, but I didn’t dare.Besides, by then my mother had paired with her third partner, so it wasn’t as though she was available.
The king had never outright told me I was his favorite child, but as I said, he did once tell me my mother was the only woman he’d ever loved, and except for my unusual height, I looked a great deal like her.The king had never tried to exempt me or any of his offspring from patrol duty, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d told Gaz or one of the other patrols to keep an eye on me.
“Is that what this is about?The king promised you a handsome sum if you kept me safe?”
Gaz gave me a look I knew well.It saidare-you-madandhere-we-go-againall wrapped together.I was immediately sorry I’d opened my big mouth.“Pay me no mind,” I said before he could answer.“I’m the one who’s a dusthead.”
“The king never said a word to me about you.He’s never said a word about protecting his daughters to anyone, that I know of.”
“Good.”I nodded brusquely.How much longer until we were back at camp?My cheeks burned, and I felt awkward.
“But he didn’t need to,” Gaz said.
I glanced at him, brow furrowed.
“I like watching out for you.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but my mind was a complete blank.I had no idea what to say.Thankfully, I didn’t need a retort because Gaz stretched his long legs and caught up with Finnrey and Nize in three strides.Nize put an arm around him, and the two started laughing.I couldn’t help but stare at Gaz’s back.
I like watching out for you.
What did that mean?
I’d carried feelings for Gaz so long without any encouragement from him whatsoever that I’d long ago given up hoping he’d ever see me as anything more than a gangly girl from the castle, another princess.Mayhap, sometimes, I wondered how we so often ended up in the same patrol team.But then Finnrey and I were often on the same team too.But now I began to think perhaps it wasn’t simply chance.Had Gaz found a way to ensure we were on the same team?Neither bribes nor favoritism were common in Earsleh where everyone felt honors should be earned.But there were always some who could be bought.
If Gaz had bribed someone to pair us, why?Did he feel about me the way I felt about him?Did he—
“Cadet Mara!Cadet Finnrey!”
At the gravelly sound of Morll’s voice, my head jerked up and all romantic thoughts fled.“Sir!”I said.Finnrey answered the same, sparing me one quick look over her shoulder.
“We’ve been looking for you.There’s someone here from the castle to take you back.”
“What?”Finnrey said at the same time I said, “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand, cadets,” Morll said.“Get back to camp, pack up, and return to the castle.”
“But it’s almost dark,” Finnrey said, stating the obvious.Except in case of emergency, no one outside the castle walls traveled in the dark.Hollows seemed to prefer the dark to the light.Finnrey speculated that the sun hurt their eyes.
“Then you’d better hurry,” Morll all but growled.When we simply stood and stared at him, he clapped his hands, startling us.Finnrey and I started running, heading toward camp.I swore we heard Morll mutter, “Princesses” as we ran past him.
Back at camp everything was in disarray.Normally this was a time when everyone gathered to eat and swap stories about the day.I’d been dreading having to talk about killing the baby Hollow, but now I realized I wouldn’t have the chance.A contingent of no less than a half dozen of the king’s soldiers stood at the edge of the camp, looking gruff and impatient.I recognized one of them, a man who had been in my father’s service since before I was born, and approached him instead of arrowing for my tent like Finnrey did.
