Three long, broad figures stood bearing down on something gathered between them. Poise forgotten, Adeline edged closer. The hushed voices and rigid posture made it hard to tell, but she was sure that the figures fought a struggle at their feet. As she came nearer, some sort of scraggy creature reared above their heads with a raw yell, and they forced it back, groaning, to the ground. Adeline cried out in shock, but the men did not turn. They were uniformed in the thunder grey of the Queen’s personal Gard, like shadow made solid. The tallest of them wore the broad white sash that marked him as their leader – and Adeline’s stomach twisted when she realised who stood before her.
“Captain Doran,” she called. She was quite pleased that her voice didn’t quiver.
The Captain turned and bowed in one motion, as though he had known she was there, had been waiting for her to call on him. He stood to meet her eye and she stifled a shudder, that old unease clinging to her nerves even after so many years. She didn’t know which had come first; her terror or his hatred. It had always been this way. He had been Captain of the Gard for as long as she remembered, and a close family friend at that; a cousin of Edward’s. Perhaps it was his open distaste that had wormed its way into her stomach and sprouted that terror in the pit of her belly. Or perhaps it was her fear that had soured his feelings toward her, because who would dote on a child that cowered in their presence?
All she knew was that this man had played a recurring role in her childhood nightmares. Captain Doran was a cruel faced man with as much steel in his eyes as there was in his greying hair. When he spoke, his voice was thin and hoarse, as though years of screaming on the battlefield had left his lungs a ruin.
“Good afternoon, Princess.”
The creature on the ground seemed to convulse, and Adeline took several steps forward before the Captain swept into her path.
“A moment, Your Highness,” he said, and his cool tone turned confidential. “I had rather thought the Queen would attend to this matter. He is dangerous –”
“Who is ‘he’?”
Adeline sidestepped the Captain just as the dark, quivering shape on the ground wrenched an arm from the grip of one Gards and sprang to his feet with a roar. His feet were swiftly kicked out from beneath him and once again he was pinned, face first, to the cold stone path.
Her stomach lurched.
“Stop!” She yelled, tearing forward, but the Captain shot out an arm to block her once more. The gesture was impatient, and he was too slow to wipe the scowl from his face. She saw it, beneath his grim grey smile. This was the second time in as many weeks that Adeline had called a halt to Captain Doran’s fun, and it seemed he hadn’t forgotten their latest encounter either.
“Forgive me, your highness, but the Queen –”
Adeline glared at him. “The Queen –my mother– is resting with a flu,” she said. “And as you well know, her Heirs have every right to act in her name.”
It was a bold move. Adeline had chosen not to petition as heir, and with the way gossip spread in this castle it may even be a known fact. The Captain’s eyes flashed, but he gave another short bow.
“Indeed, forgive me. I only thought to warn you, Princess. This man is not... ordinary.”
Adeline pushed past impatiently, barely listening.
“Release him, for the love of Aera!” She shouted at the Gards. “Let him up!”
Captain Doran nodded, and immediately the smaller of the men released his grasp on the prisoner, falling back a step. The other, the broad, hulking Gard, lingered a moment longer, his knuckles whitening around the man’s arm.
“Release. Him,” she gritted out.
She caught a brief glimpse of the Gard’s clenched teeth, but with a half glance to his Captain, he finally did as she asked.
Adeline watched the captive man as he struggled to his knees, shaking with rage.
No, not shaking, she realised–violently shivering. He was bizarrely dressed for the Eisalaan cold, in a thin, old-fashioned cotton tunic. His knotted black hair hung in damp waves, snaking about his ears and under his collar. His feet were bare, raw and red against the crisp snow.
Adeline winced at the sight of his ice-burned skin, and quickly fumbled with her thick cloak where it fastened at her neck.
“Princess,” the Captain called warningly.
She ignored him, sweeping the cloak from her shoulders as she moved forward. The Gards made slight, identical movements – reaching for the sword hilts at their waists. Adeline came to her knees in front of the freezing man and draped the cloak over him as best she could - it enveloped her quite comfortably, but would barely close over his broad back.
“Bit small,” she mumbled, frowning.
“Princess!” the Captain called again.
The stranger lifted his face to her; her first glimpse was a flash of electric hazel, the shadowed, feverish eyes of someone long estranged from their bed. Dense black bristle crept up his neck and along his jaw, and a ferocious frown knotted his thick, dark brow. Her pulse stuttered. She tried for a hesitant smile, but it was unreturned.
Adeline rose slowly to her feet. All at once, she absorbed the full tension of the Gards poised around her. As though she were a child approaching a rabid beast, and they waited for the moment he would bare his teeth. She swallowed hard and drew her shoulders back; she was here now, and she would not look away.
After an agonising pause, the stranger stood up. And up – he was impossibly tall, and it finally occurred to her that Doran was right when he claimed this was no ordinary man. Ordinary men didn’t wear the sun as a crown when they drew to their full height.
