Adrian sat on the side of his cot, leaning on his elbows. His hands were folded together in front of his chin. His bare feet were on the floor. Though one was able to remain flat on the wood panes, his other was on its toes, bouncing the heel. He stared at Nina in the cot on the other side of what was once the shop within the bailey.

  He recognized it from the shelves that had been filled with assorted goods when he went to Draka with his plan for their trip. Now, the shapes in the dust were filled with jars of ointments and salves, kits, tools, and other such things that physicians and infirmarians used. In between were lines of empty cots except for his on one end and Nina’s on the other.

  Only the slight rise and fall of her stomach let him know that she was alive. He noticed the blotch of red seeping through the wrapping on her side first. Her blanket had been pulled back to uncover it by whoever checked her last. He couldn’t look away except to glance at her sweat ridden face, her mousey red hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks that had become pale as death. He knew the signs better than anyone. Especially how that blotch of blood had a misshapen ring of black around it.

  They never should have gone. He never should have convinced Draka to go. Such an idiot. His own wounds were healed, of course, with a few stitches where they must have had to do surgery because of debris or something else being healed over. Nothing unusual. But Nina was…dying. He pursed his brows at her.

  Nina’s head turned toward him with a stretch of her paling lips into a warm grin as her eyes weakly opened, “Hey there, appleturner.”

  “Long legged spider,” Adrian grinned back, quickly rushing to her side. He leaned over her, trying not to show what her fate had in store as he looked down on her, “I heard you wanted round three but someone beat me to it.”

  She smiled wider, “You should thank them for saving you the embarrassment of losing a third time.”

  Adrian chuckled. Nina’s brows adjusted a bit but she tried to change the way her head was laying and lapped at the dryness in her mouth. He trembled against the fa?ade of the smile. She grabbed his hand with a weak squeeze and a knowing gaze.

  “Don’t take this on you, kid,” Nina eyed him, “This isn’t your fault. You didn’t shoot that arrow.”

  “It was my idea for us to go.”

  Nina shook her head, grinning, “It wasn’t your idea to get ambushed. You’re cute, but not cute enough to be that dumb.”

  Adrian scrunched into the tears when he tried to laugh at that, “I’m sorry.”

  Nina squeezed his hand a little tighter, “Shut up, you’re making me sorry I didn’t hit you over the head harder.” She shook her head, “You’re so much like him. Take everything on your shoulders even when it doesn’t belong to you. Trust me, you’ll have plenty of things that are actually your fault to hold onto without adding others.”

  “God said no, didn’t he?” Adrian’s brows pressed together at her wound.

  Nina shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter either way.” She reached a fist to his face, one finger a little straighter than the others as it softly touched his cheek, wiping a tear away, “I’m not dead, yet.” Her hand dropped down to her side.

  “Oh, good, you’re both awake,” Senna came in, brushing Adrian from Nina’s grasp. She knelt beside Nina’s wound, setting the basket she had carried with her on her lap, and began cutting the wrapping away with scissors dripping with alcohol that stung Adrian’s nose. “Don’t mind me. Just got to clean her up before the Clerics come in for one last look so the Paladin’s can finish the job. You should be back up and moving before sundown.”

  “God didn’t deny her healing?” Adrian breathed a sigh of relief. “Why did you wait so long, then?”

  Nina hissed as the wrap was peeled from her stitched wound. “They needed to know they had time first, I’m guessing?”

  “Something about you being disavowed,” Senna winced as she said it, then hissed a little with Nina when the material clung to her skin as she peeled it back. “Queen Maud had to force the issue. Clerics have been doing their work, but the Paladins…well, you know how they can be, I’m sure. I’m only just learning. Not a pleasant bunch on certain things. You’re not well liked, apparently.”

  “Paladins are usually more forgiving,” Adrian sat on the cot behind him, keeping his eyes on Nina’s pale face. “What did you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Nina grinned in an ashamed, knowing sort of way, “I got people killed—a lot of people—while I was a novice nun. The Lord forgives, but the world never does.”

  “Well, from what I’ve learned about God and the Christ Jesus,” Senna said with another wince and hiss as she peeled the last bit from the wound. She was letting out a long breath to steady herself before she began cleaning the swollen, red ridge of the stitches. “Forgiveness is not just what the Lord does. These Paladins are just being choosey about what they do because they’re scared of what’s coming. Anyway, I don’t know what was stopping them. If the King had been awake when they discussed it, you’d already be healed, believe you me. Sorry, this will sting.”

  Nina leaned back into her pillow and shrieked as Senna began rubbing a damp cloth along the edge of the swollen ridge.

  “Disavowed is a big one, though,” Adrian shook his head, “But I doubt it was the main reason. The ones that ambushed us were Saint Olgas. They need every Paladin in the fight when they arrive. The disavowed part is probably what they said to keep the Cardinal from interfering once they knew they could spare one for a day.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Nina huffed between yelps, “If the disavowing was the reason. You might try a knife, woman, it’d be softer!”

  “Sorry, I’m trying, alright!” Senna growled.

  Adrian slid to his knees beside Senna. “Let me,” he took the damp cloth from Senna. “Like this,” he pressed it against the ridge and softly rubbed it downward. There was puss between the stitches. His eyes darted to meet Nina’s curious gaze.

  “Where’d you learn that?” Senna asked.

  “We were the vanguard into Siberia,” Adrian used the cloth draped over his thumb to wipe away the puss as he continued rubbing down the ridge. “We didn’t have physicians with us for very long. They were targeted by the Olgas. And, I was too young to be in most fights, so this was what I did.”

  Nina moaned a little but she was watching him with attentiveness that made his face fill with heat. He wanted to smile, he knew he was impressing her. Senna, too, though she was watching his hands, studying how he barely made Nina’s red skin ripple.

  “You’re infected,” Adrian said as he dunked the cloth into the bowl of alcohol that Senna had slid to between them. “That’s the real reason the Paladins haven’t healed you. They can’t do anything about that. The Clerics are the only ones who can help with that and until they’re done, all the Paladins will do is make it so the rot is inside of you and unreachable.” Adrian returned the cloth to Senna for her to wash the other side of the ridge. “They probably told the Princess about you being disavowed to make her back down, depending on whether it was a Paladin or one of the Church diocese who told her.”

  “It was the commander of the Holy Sepulcher,” Senna was moving slower than Adrian but Nina didn’t seem to notice, which was good.

  Nina’s gaze followed Adrian as he sat back on the cot. He wasn’t sure what that expression on her face meant, but she wasn’t necessarily blinking at him, nor was she smiling. It made him shift in his seat.

  “Qasim,” Adrian tried not to look at anything but Senna’s hands at work. “Then, that’s what it was. To keep her from meddling further. That infection needs to be gone before a Paladin can lay on hands. So, no, you won’t be able to do anything before sundown.”

  “I know,” he could almost make out a smile on Nina’s face when she said it. “Your family is here. You should go and see them, let them know you’re okay.”

  “They are?” Adrian was on his feet. “What? No,” he was drawn to the door that Senna had come through. “What do you mean, they’re here? How long have I—? But the Olgas are—! They’re going to be—!” His breath was pounding from his mouth as rapidly as his heart, “Oh, please God, no!”

  He climbed over the cot and stumbled barefoot through the door into the blinding light of the sun and a rush of cold air that gripped him instantly.

  The noise of the bailey was like a punch to the face. People were being herded through the bridge gate in a curve toward the door of the Hall in the middle of the stables by Clerics and pikemen. The hammering and breathing of the forge beside the shop was sputters rather than rhythmic. All around were stacks of barrels and wagonloads of grain and foodstuffs that were crammed into every space that wasn’t being filled with freshly fletched arrows and piles of spears or shields. The stables were filled with cows, pigs, and goats, instead of horses, crammed so tightly that they weren’t able to lie down. Chickens in mesh lined boxes were stuffed snug until their feathers were poking through.

  He searched the tabards on the pikemen. None of them wore the colors of his homeland. Only Holy Sepulcher or Enya’s Order, the Burkhan Khaldun. He looked to the walls, more of the same.

  Frost crackled and burned his bare feet as he rushed to get around the herded people and then up the steps to the balcony overlooking the bailey. He passed more archers, Clerics, a few Paladins, none with the tabards of Anatolia, only more Holy Sepulcher and Alcalia. He ignored the cold that was making his skin swallow itself as he looked out through the bridge gate, and gaped at the sight he beheld.

  The purple and gold of Anatolia was unmistakable, surrounded by Holy Sepulcher knights and Clerics like prisoners of war, along the lakeshore, where they were sitting. Hundreds of them, at least. He knew the tabard ranks. Centurions, knights, praetors, all sitting and waiting with their boots and arms in piles behind the armed guards.

  What could possibly have happened? Adrian blinked in wonder, gaping, shaking. Why were they being treated this way? They were allies! Not prisoners. Something has gone wrong. They were suspects of the ambush, perhaps.

  He tried to steady himself against the confusion, against the shivering from the cold gripping him, against the numbing burning of his toes. He turned to the door to the royal level and found the guards crossed their pikes at him.

  “I am Prince Adrian Taggerty, and I want to speak to Princess Maudeline.”

  “Prove it,” the guard on the right said gruffly.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Adrian hugged his arms against the cold, “I am Prince Adrian Taggerty, the King’s Ward. I just woke up in the shop. I was the one ambushed. I have an urgent message for the Princess. Open the door.”

  “If you don’t have a pass or royal decree, you don’t get in. Just saying your name over again doesn’t change that,” the guard shrugged. “Move along.”

  “I don’t believe this!” Adrian shouted. “Let me through! I must speak with the princess! Those men are not prisoners! Those are my people and they are allies! Let me through!”

  “Back away,” the guard narrowed his eyes at him. “Last warning, boy.”

  Adrian turned from him with a growl and slammed his fist into the rail,

  “Where is the Princess?” He whipped back around. “Send her a message that I’ve woken. I swear to you as a Justiciar of the Holy Sepulcher, that I am who I say I am.”

  “And who is that again?”

  “Prince Adrian Taggerty, Crown Prince of Anatolia,” Adrian shook at him, pleading. “Just, let her know. Please, I beg you.”

  The guard rolled his eyes and opened the door only a sliver and said into it, “Tell the Queen that a Prince Aaron Tattery is trying to speak with her.”

  “ADRIAN TAGGERTY!” Adrian wanted to slam his head into something from his shivering frustration. He was hopping from foot to foot and rubbing at the chills on his arms.

  The door widened and Valmond poked his head out with an exclaiming, “Adrian? My word, let him through!”

  The guards uncrossed their pikes as Adrian sprinted past them into the long hallway lit by lamps hanging from empty sconces between doors. Valmond pulled his coat from his shoulders and wrapped it over Adrian as the door closed behind him.

  “What is going on? What happened?” Adrian’s teeth were clattering as he hugged Valmond’s tailed coat over his shoulders.

  Valmond rubbed his shoulders, “She is with the King. He, too, just awakened. A lot has happened since your rescue.”

  “Take me there,” Adrian let Valmond step around him and followed. “Where is my mother, my family? I was told they had arrived.”

  “Queen Isabella and Princess Jasmine are under house arrest in the tower,” Valmond said, reaching to continue rubbing the cold from Adrian’s back. “Princess Theresa and Prince Paul are in Queen Maudeline’s room with Father Hagen under Cleric guard.”

  Adrian stopped. “Why are they under house arrest? And why would Paul and Theresa be separated from them? And…Queen Maudeline?”

  “She’s the King’s daughter. While he was incapacitated, she has been Queen Regent and your sister refused to allow her physicians to help with the wounded if her forces were placed anywhere but within the castle during the siege. She didn’t allow her physicians to even help with your wounds,” Valmond pinched his mouth to one side in a frown that made his long nose twitch. “The Anatolians have been disarmed and, well, dis-booted, so to speak, and refused entry within our defenses during the siege until a compromise is reached. Your brother and sister, I suspect, are the leverage against the physicians. Queen Maudeline suspected there was a plot against her by your mother and sister to manipulate her into becoming a puppet of sorts.”

  Adrian’s shoulders sank, “Everyone is my mother’s puppet. Just take me to the…Queen.”

  Valmond nodded and brought him down the corridor and rounded a corner to where a group of guards filled the hallway before it rounded again. He led him to the door in the center of them and, before he opened it, he gave Adrian one last glance of warning.

  Adrian nodded.

  The door opened.

  Maud was standing in front of Draka in a room that was barely more than a few chairs and a small brazier on a grate at the center of them. She was on her feet, pacing, while Draka sat with his leg crossed beneath a board he was writing on while biting his lip. Maud, biting at her fingernail, paced back toward them, when she looked up and saw Adrian. She let her finger drop from her mouth and ran to him with arms wide.

  “Adrian!” She rushed to embrace him, but Adrian took a step back and sideways from her. She stopped a step away from him, regaining composure instantly. “So, you heard.”

  Draka was on his feet behind her, a smile of relief on his face. He held up a paper, “Glad to see you’re alright.”

  “I saw,” Adrian brushed past her and went to Draka, who embraced him warmly. “I’m thankful you are alive,” Adrian said to him. He leaned back from their hug, “I thought that I lost you out there.”

  Draka nodded and shrugged.

  “We all did,” Maud interjected after making certain the door was shut. “Adrian,” she began.

  He turned on her, “Why would you think my family has anything to do with who attacked us? They were Saint Olgas. And you took Theresa and Paul away from my mother? What could possibly justify that in your mind? They’re nine and six years old!”

  Maud hardened before his eyes, “I don’t think they had anything to do with the ambush, Adrian. They refused to allow their physicians to help you and him in order to save themselves from having to fight like everyone else in this siege. So, yeah, I took two of her children after I made sure one of them lived with my bare hands, on memory alone. She’s lucky that’s all I did.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” Adrian started for her, but Draka grabbed his arm. He tugged it away with a glare aimed at his former guardian. “You agree with this?”

  Draka let out a long breath and sat back down in his chair to write on another parchment.

  “We’re surrounded by an army that outnumbers us ten to one,” Maud crossed her arms at both of them, the brazier making the curves of her face into dancing shadows, “And your sister thinks that her army should be the ones defending this keep during the siege instead of our own when it was her force’s arrival that led the southern force to our doorstep!”

  “They didn’t lead anyone anywhere! They’ve been on their way here for months,” Adrian blinked at her. “How can you even believe that? Draka, tell her! They were dispatched when he was coronated, Princess. I know, I was there. So, you can throw that little excuse out the window. And as for wanting our forces inside the keep instead of bleeding on the outer lines, even I would be insisting on that! We’re allies, not your fodder!”

  Maud uncrossed her arms into fists, her emerald eyes ablaze at him, “You’re barely thus. She withheld physicians, Adrian. From you. From Draka. And then said that she would keep them from treating our casualties once the fighting began unless her forces were kept inside the walls.”

  “She what?” He turned to Draka, who was still writing but looked up long enough to nod. Adrian turned back to Maud with an upward glance and a beleaguered sigh, “Still, that doesn’t justify taking my little sister and brother for ransom.”

  “Oh, I’m not ransoming them,” Maud raised a brow, sending a chill down Adrian’s spine. “They’re leverage, like the physicians. If Jasmine doesn’t agree to lead her troops with the host to stop us from being cut off from Strasbourg, then they will be treated with the same curtesy as was given to you by your family.”

  Draka held up the parchment he had been writing on. Maud snatched it from him, read it, and let it fall to her side in a fistful.

  “I will not!” She growled.

  “What did he say?” Adrian reached a hand out.

  Maud was biting her lip at Draka, shaking her head, “You already know what he said. Of course, father, I forgot that you knew the Queen of Anatolia before she was trying to turn your daughter into her puppet! Before she tried to let you die! I will not undo it. I will not release them. Not until Jasmine bends her prissy, spoiled plowing knee and joins the rest of our men who are going to fight that bloody and...and…” Though her face was brimming with anger, she was pouring with tears, “terrible battle on the Clevlan Hill so we can get someone, anyone through to Strasbourg for help, because no one else is coming. No one. Your kingdom is not loyal.

  “Don’t you understand, father? Those titles you never gave, never replaced, were on lands that were owned by families already. And when you waited, they allowed these enemies to move through them. They allowed five thousand men to assemble outside of Nancy and march, without so much as a word of warning. And that’s not even counting Utrecht, where our scouts have reported nearly as many—at least—coming from the north. Twice that from the south. Oh, and don’t get me started on your ambush, where they not only knew where, but when and how to attack you when no one knew you had gone or where you went.”

  Adrian staggered back into one of the chairs. He looked to Draka for strength, but Draka was at a loss, too.

  “Our only chance is for us to fight them where their encirclement combines on the eastern front at the Zorn crossing and your sister has the only heavy cavalry,” Maud stomped to loom over Adrian, “They’re plowing useless in a siege. We need them in that fight and she refused. What would you have done, Adrian? Draka? Reason with them? I tried. Enya tried. Qasim tried. I’m not playing with my people’s future.”

  “I told Nina and one of the gate guards where we were headed,” Adrian said, “But I know she wouldn’t have…”

  “She’s the reason my mother found you in time!”

  Draka’s brow furrowed and he leaned into a hand under his chin in thought.

  Adrian was shaking. Surrounded. His own sister refusing to aid in such an integral fight, a fight that was their only chance to get help? He could barely believe what he was hearing.

  “I’m not going to hurt them, but they are being held until after her forces are fielded,” Maud wagged a finger in Adrian’s face, though he was looking too distantly in thought to see it. “Period. Your family will earn their allegiance to this kingdom or drown in our blood with us.”

  “I’ll fix it,” Adrian regained focus and looked up to her. “I’ll make sure they’re fielded and we’ll pay our homage to this alliance.”

  Draka handed another parchment to Maud as he stood. He put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a curt nod.

  “He says that he’s going to stand by my decrees,” Maud raised her chin at Adrian. “And that he expects you to take control of your army and your sister. He’s certain your mother will understand. I hope you do, too. I want to say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

  Adrian bit his lip. He leaned back into his chair. “I guess that would be asking too much.”

  As Draka stepped out of the room, Maud met Adrian’s gaze, softened from her prior fury in the firelight. She no longer looked as beautiful as she once did. She no longer seemed so wonderfully intriguing to him. All he saw was the shrewd noble standing before him with a look filled with yearning and regret behind a shield of stubbornness he didn’t have the energy or want to pierce through.

  “I’m doing what I have to,” She said softly. “I’m the only one with experience as an infirmarian without her physicians, Adrian. She’s withholding lives from us.”

  Adrian stood from the chair. “And you took children from their mother for it.” He hesitated. “I understand, but I will never agree with that sort of coldness. Those are my family you took as prisoners, Maud. Whenever you get the chance, I want that book back.”

  “But…” Maud took a step toward him, reaching for him, “She withheld them from you, too.”

  He didn’t stop but to open the door, “As soon as you are able, if you please. I very much would like to end our courtship before I ride into battle.”

  And he shut the door behind him.

  The last thing he heard was Maud’s pleading, “End our courtship?”