And while Gwen regards yet another night of huddling near a smoky, damp fire with grim determination, and a wistfulness about what she might like to do if she and Isobelle weren’t quite so cold and sore … Isobelle is uncharacteristically silent, the weight of the past days settling on her shoulders like a blanket of chainmail.
For far more insidiously miserable than rain sliding down the neck of one’s cloak, is the cold, cutting clench of a secret.
5
Oh shit, the potatoes!
A twig snapped, and Gwen’s mind lurched into half wakefulness. She’d grown accustomed to the sounds of the wilderness during their travels; this was different. She held still, listening, wondering if she’d dreamed that sound. She wanted to roll over, to relieve the painful pressure of a rock against her hip, but was too half asleep to move … until, suddenly, her watchful sentinel went on the alert and she startled fully awake.
She was on her knees, her sword in hand, before she even registered the dawn light that washed the clearing. She’d been adding a new design to the sword’s blade the night before, her engraving tools still spread out, the sword within arm’s reach. The air was temperate, but she found herself shivering, her shift damp with sweat.
‘Gwen?’ The voice, Isobelle’s voice, was so real and familiar and warm that Gwen felt it like a physical touch. ‘Is something wrong?’ She was setting a pan down by thefire, and Gwen recognised the sounds that had woken her.
‘No,’ Gwen croaked, trying to sheathe her sword unobtrusively, in case Isobelle hadn’t noticed her draw it. ‘No, everything’s fine.’
Isobelle came over and knelt beside Gwen, her gaze no less anxious. Her hair, somewhat duller and stringier for lack of washing and brushing, was braided back from her face in a half coronet; her cheeks were ruddy with exposure; and she had a smudge of ash from the campfire gracing one eyebrow.
Gwen bit her lip, brutally aware all over again of just how devastatingly beautiful Isobelle was. She stretched, trying to rid herself of the lingering tension of unease, as well as the brand-new tension of her awareness of Isobelle. As if hearing the change in Gwen’s thoughts, Isobelle’s gaze wandered, lingering somewhere south of Gwen’s face as she stretched. Gwen watched her through lowered lashes, and Isobelle started, realising Gwen had caught her staring.
Their eyes met, and all of a sudden Gwen’s heart began to pound every bit as hard as it had when she woke, but for an entirely different reason.
They’d been constantly together as they patrolled on Whimsitt’s orders, and had grown used to being so close but scarcely touching. A pattern of habit that was maddeningly difficult to break, now.
Gwen lifted a hand and slid her fingertips along a lock of Isobelle’s hair. Isobelle swallowed, her lips coming together and then parting with the soft sound of a kiss. She leaned forward a little and rested her hand against Gwen’s bent leg, palm hot through the thin material of Gwen’s shift.
That touch ran straight up Gwen’s body to settle, tense and wanting, in her belly. Trying to calm herself, she drew a long breath in through her nose.
She blinked, licking her lips in order to ask hoarsely, ‘Is … is something burning?’
Isobelle’s eyelashes dipped as her gaze swept downward. ‘Mmm,’ was her reply, a soft, murmurous assent – and then she startled, eyes going wide. ‘Oh shit, the potatoes!’
With a wail of distress, Isobelle leapt to her feet, scurrying back to the campfire and the billowing cloud of smoke now rising from the pan nestled among the flames.
Gwen ran a hand over her own dirty hair, tucking flyaways back into place and trying not to look as utterly disoriented as she felt. To go from alert wakefulness to a jolt of desire strong enough to leave her shaking – she cleared her throat and staggered unsteadily to her feet.
By the time Gwen reached Isobelle’s side, the potatoes were not just scorched, they were actuallyon fire. Isobelle was emitting little bleats of alarm, darting ineffectually towards and away from the flames, reaching out her hand and pulling it back. Gwen swore, wrapped her hand in thefolds of her shift, snatched up the pan, and then tossed the whole thing, potatoes and all, into the creek that ran beside their camp.
She let out a splutter of laughter as the water belched a cloud of smoke and steam. Then she turned – and her laughter froze as she saw Isobelle’s face.
Her expression was stricken, her blue eyes luminous and wet, her lips pressed tightly together. And when Gwen’s eyes met hers, Isobelle burst into tears.
Gwen stared at her in outright paralysis for a moment, before she remembered she was actually allowed to follow the impulse she longed to act on: she rushed to Isobelle and pulled the other girl into her arms.
‘It’s okay!’ she said, as Isobelle buried her face against Gwen’s shoulder, sobbing as though the world were ending. ‘It’s just potatoes!’
‘Thelastof our potatoes!’ Isobelle wailed, her voice muffled against the increasingly damp patch of Gwen’s shift. ‘You love potatoes!’
Gwen squeezed Isobelle, hoping to interrupt her storm of weeping, but succeeding only in making her hiccup. ‘Yeah, but …’I love you a lot more than I love potatoes, was what she wanted to say. What she said instead was, ‘There will be plenty of potatoes when we get to the town. It’s not a big deal!’
‘It is to me!’ Isobelle cried, lifting her head, her tear-stained face cutting straight to Gwen’s heart. She was oneof those girls who even cried beautifully, the tip of her pert nose turning rosy, and her lips reddening. ‘It matters!’
‘Why?’ Gwen asked helplessly.
Isobelle’s luminous blue eyes were suddenly shielded – for once, Gwen could not read what was going on behind them. ‘I just wanted to be useful. In case … in case we don’t always have castle potatoes.’ Isobelle’s face bunched up again, and her words became so tense and tangled it was hard to make them out. ‘I only wanted to be more than just some … useless girl in a travel-stained dress … I just wanted to do something to make you happy.’
A flicker of fear tugged at Gwen’s heart. More than once, as they travelled, she’d found herself thinking back to the first real fight she and Isobelle had ever had, standing on the balcony of the Darkhaven Castle ballroom, on the eve of the tournament final. Isobelle had begged Gwen to run away with her, and Gwen had told Isobelle she had no idea what life outside a castle was really like – that she’d end up resenting Gwen for the hardships of existing as a peasant.
Gwen had regretted those words the moment she said them, because Isobelle was strong enough for anything – she’d still be Isobelle in a rough homespun dress with wildflowers as her only jewels.
