Adrian shoved past the Cleric guards through the door. His mother nearly leapt out of her chair into his arms. Jasmine was sitting on the only window ledge, hugging her feet so that her dress spilled to the floor as she stared at the lake below and the ghostly fishery. She barely turned his way.

  He kissed Isabella’s cheek as he held her against him as tightly as he could.

  “I was so scared that I lost you,” Isabella cooed to his shoulder. The gold and tan fabrics of her flowing gown were a sharp contrast to the battle-scarred armor she wrapped her arms around. She leaned back from him with a proud grin and wiry hands to his cheeks, her brows crinkling at the scruff of his beard, “You’re…I’m just thankful,” she blinked whatever she was about to say away and pulled him into another tight embrace.

  Jasmine rolled her eyes back to looking out the window, unmoved. “I see my men are putting their boots back on. So, Mad Maudeline has finally seen reason?”

  Isabella turned a glare on her, tsking. “Stand and greet your brother. He barely survived his last skirmish and we have Princess Maudeline to thank for that.”

  Jasmine slid from the window sill with a stomping of her bare feet and crossed the small room. It was such a simple room compared to what they should have. Two small beds meant for low ranking guards, a single shelf with only two cups and pitcher of water on it, and nothing else. If not for the fact that it was within the castle and not in a dungeon, if not for the one window that looked out over the lake, it would be no better than any prison cell he had laid eyes on. Maud had made her point plain and clear to them.

  He stiffened at the sight, wishing he could warm at his sister’s approach, but it was her haughtiness—which had always annoyed him—that put them there and he couldn’t unsee it.

  “I’m glad you’re alright,” Jasmine stopped from hugging him. She furrowed her brows at his plated armor. Her mouth gaped when her eyes finally rose to his stoic gaze.

  “I’m taking command of your troop,” Adrian said dryly.

  “When?” Jasmine’s thick, dark brows pressed further.

  “It’s already done,” He shrugged at her, shaking his head but never drawing his hard gaze away.

  Jasmine sank from it. She shook, wide eyed, and fuming with a stumble to stay on her feet. “Those are my knights! They come from my estate. I was doing what any commander should. I was in the right. You can’t take them from me. You can’t!”

  “What were the terms of our release?” Isabella still had her arms hooked around him. “I know you spoke on our behalf and this was part of that, what were the rest? Does our alliance still stand? Theresa and Paul? Are they safe?”

  “They’ve been kept in the Princess’s room the whole time,” Adrian answered with a stiffness. He wanted to lash out at the both of them. At Maud. At everything. He said calmly, “They won’t be returned to your care until the siege is done…in case…” He winced, turning his eyes between them to blink away the distastefulness of the next words, “…you break the agreement or betray the alliance before then.”

  “And what if the castle is to fall?” Jasmine whirled on him with a growl. “What then?”

  Adrian broke from his mother’s hold with a jerk and nearly slammed into his sister as he boomed in a roar that shook the walls, “Then we die defending it!”

  Jasmine’s back tipped the shelf into the wall with a loud thump as she cowered from her brother’s harsh gaze in a jolt. She was trembling. He had never yelled at her like that before. He had never wanted to yell at her like that before. He had never wanted so badly to wring her neck for her insolence in his absence.

  He bore down on her, leaning in like a snarling dog as he continued roaring, just as loudly, just as threateningly, “This is not a simple siege by some piss-ant lords hoping to overthrow their sovereign, Jasmi! These are the enemies of Jehovah thy GOD! Enemies I fought for half my life while you pretended to campaign against serfs with sharpened sticks and some fucking rods! And you bargained, knowing you had the only heavy horse for thirty kilometers in every direction? You selfish little hag! You almost got me killed and you ruined…you destroyed…you…”

  “ADRIAN!” Isabella thundered with a finger aimed at the ground beside her. “We didn’t know that when we did it. We were trying to establish our place within the hierarchy of two Paladinate Orders and a rising monarch. Who knew that they had no physicians here? This is the capital, is it not? The amount of neglect was unexpected and, frankly, terrifying. You cannot blame us for that.”

  Adrian’s glare remained on his cowering sister, who had sank nearly into a weeping ball in the tiny space between the shelf and his boots. Her arms shielded her face because—he only just realized then—his steel gauntleted fists were balled tight and raised.

  “Every commander bargains and compromises resources with their foreign allies to ensure equal rights,” Isabella was shaking, too. The sight made his shame thrash against his rage so violently that he was shivering with tears. “You’re used to fighting as Paladinate, where such practices are uncommon. Now, if we had known that ours were the only physicians, that ours were the only heavy horse, things would have been done differently from the start.”

  “I only wanted to show that I could be counted as a general, too!” Jasmine wailed through her shielding arms. “They didn’t tell us, Adri! They didn’t tell us anything! She just locked us up!”

  “Well,” he swallowed it all down. “What’s done is done. The Princess doesn’t trust either of you. All of Talkro is suspicious of our alliance, especially the soldiers and villagers. On the battlefield, we will suffer for it. Of that, I have no doubt.”

  Isabella went around him to Jasmine’s side as he straightened and made his way to the door. “We can fix this. Once you are married to the Princess, I’m sure—”

  “You think she’ll marry me now?” Adrian trembled through his sardonic, hateful laugh. “You think I want to marry the woman who practically threw my family into a dungeon? Give me some credit, mother. I’ve more backbone than that. She can marry some fop for all I care. You’d have a better chance of marrying Draka.”

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  Isabella stood in front of him and narrowed her eyes at him with a fierceness, “I see a man standing before me, fitted for war in armor that speaks of maturity on the battlefield, and yet it is a child who speaks from him.”

  Adrian angled his neck backward as his eyes widened. He knew that look better than anyone. Her hand slapped across his face barely hard enough to make him crinkle his brow. The blow struck his pride harder than his cheek.

  “A child,” Isabella gritted her teeth at him, looking a head taller than him rather than the other way around. “Seven years in the bloodiest war of the last three hundred years and still acting like I need to bend you over my knee to teach you a lesson.” She turned her glare on Jasmine. “Both of you should be ashamed. I am…for raising such immature little lions with claws already proven capable of killing but not with the brains to think beyond it!”

  Adrian rubbed his cheek. He hated that he was pouting. Like a child. His nose curled at himself.

  “If you thought past your own idiocies, you would have seen that she is not only ensuring that her people are protected but that ours retains this alliance and its support from the Paladinate,” Isabella’s glare returned to Adrian with a downward shake of her head, as if reminding him that his place was still beneath her regardless of how much taller he had grown. “She outmaneuvered us the moment we attempted the same and she did it in the only way we gave her, with the forethought, wisdom, and strategic timing, that should invoke envy in the both of you. Am I angry she took my children from me? Of course I am! But do I forget that by doing so, she prevented us from leaving her to fend for herself in this siege, from us abandoning our alliance out of self-preservation—even if we most certainly never would have—and by removing our soldiers’ boots, them from rising against her to free us and sully any future relations, let alone destroying what little defenses they have? I will not, because I would have done the same if I had the mind to think so cleverly as her, if our dispositions had been reversed, without question or hesitation, regardless of the personal bonds held therein.”

  Isabella raised her pointed finger to his nose, “I forbid you to use this against her. Your sister withheld those physicians from you, remember, and Queen Maudeline was doing surgery on you while commanding her vassals to ensure her machinations. That’s beyond impressive. Now, find a way. I don’t care how, but you stomach it and make your match with that Queen or I will send your brother to do it. Either way, she will be a Taggerty on the throne of Anatolia, or so help me. By the looks of all of you, we need someone with some fire and wisdom to share our crown or we’re doomed. I’ve raised bloodthirsty imbeciles, as far as I can see. Prove me wrong, because that woman can choose any family she wants once word reaches Christendom of what’s happened here. No one would ever be bold or clever enough to do that to me.”

  “Then it’s a good thing that Michael will be your only option,” Adrian shrugged haphazardly as he turned to the door. “He always was the smart one of us. She’ll like that. As it is, I didn’t come here to argue with you or be lectured.”

  “Why did you come?” Isabella narrowed her eyes.

  “To say goodbye,” Adrian shook his head with another rub at his cheek. He knew he wasn’t bleeding but felt the need to look at his hand, just in case. “I’m leading the Anatolian host in Jasmine’s stead to prove to Talkro and everyone else that our alliance is still strong.”

  Jasmine’s lips trembled as they fell open. Isabella looked between her two children’s faces in confusion.

  “The Clevlan field?” Jasmine said it almost as if it were being stolen from her lungs along with her breath.

  “What? What am I missing?” Isabella blinked at the two of them.

  “That’s suicide! You can’t! Have Lord Thraiden, Praetor Antoni, Hassan, anyone else,” Jasmine leapt to her feet. “That’s why I didn’t want any of us in that battle. It’s going to be a massacre.”

  “What is she talking about?” Isabella was now shaking as she eyed him.

  “The messengers we sent out have all been intercepted,” Adrian let out a long breath with a solemn lick of his lips. “The one that was sent to Strasbourg was found by fishermen last night,” and he lifted his shoulders but sunk his eyes as he drew in a breath, “and a group of villagers,” his eyes opened to pierce into his mother’s frightened gaze, “friends of mine, took it upon themselves to leave this morning in hopes of using some hidden paths through the woods and caves somewhere to get word to them and bring help. But they’re running right through the enemy’s combining encirclement that will come together on the Clevlan Fields, just east of the watchtowers.”

  “Adri,” Jasmine was shaking her head at him, a hand reaching as she pleaded, “You need to have someone else command them. You’re a prince. You can’t…”

  “They have to see me leading them,” Adrian shrugged at his sister with raised brows. “It can’t be you. Even if Draka let you, Paladin Qasim would disarm you and make you sit like a puppet the entire time, humiliating and demoralizing us. It has to be me. The men will follow me, the Paladinate won’t disregard my command, and…they’re my friends. We have to draw them away so that they can make it to those caves.”

  Isabella tucked her lips and nodded as tears spilt from her lashes. She took in a deep breath and put her hands on either side of his stubbly cheeks, “I love you and have always been proud of the man you’ve become, son. And I know that your father is, too. Even if you do forget that you’re a man and not a boy sometimes.” She pulled him down and kissed his cheek. Strained by the shaking he felt through her fingers, she said, “I could’ve been a better mother. But I couldn’t have a better son. If it is God’s…Will…” And Isabella’s knees buckled.

  “Mother,” Adrian caught her by her elbows.

  “We will see each other again, regardless,” Isabella turned into her palms once she was lowered into her chair.

  Jasmine leapt into his arms, making him stumble backwards as she buried her cheek into his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she wept. “Please send someone else, Adri. Please, don’t make us bury you, too! Please, I can’t do that again. Don’t make me do this again. Don’t do it!”

  “I have to,” He held her tightly, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I love you, too, you silver-spoon fed brat.”

  “I’ll make it all better when you get back,” Jasmine squeezed tighter. “I’ll make it better. You have to come back. I’ll care for Pearl for a month. I’ll be your house maid for a year, I don’t care. You come back to us.”

  Adrian clenched his eyes shut in their embrace for a moment before lifting her softly from his breastplate so that he could look into her eyes with a winking smile he was barely able to muster, “We’ll see each other again. Take care of them for me. They’ll need you. And,” he raised a brow at her, “Try not to piss Maud off anymore. I think she went easy on you this go round. Stop trying to convince people to kill you.”

  Jasmine was pouring tears but she smiled with a stifled laugh. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

  “They’re mustering, your Majesty,” the Cleric called through the door.

  Adrian straightened with a solemn nod as he eased Jasmine away from him and went to the door. Just before he closed it behind him, he said with a wide smile, “See you tomorrow.”