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But I didn’t care. Because I’d only just gotten him back a few days ago, and here I was, worrying about him again. The selfish, selfless prick. How dare he do that to me?
Give him back, I’d wanted to scream at the gaping faces and twisted limbs of the dead. But their souls had moved on, preferably down rather than heavenward if there was any justice in the afterlife, and no one was fucking listening to me. My prayers echoed listlessly between the trees.
Mathias had eventually tugged at my arm, wanting us out of there in case any of the survivors returned.
“Good,” I’d told him savagely. “Let them come. I’ll use that knife of yours to make them tell us where they took him.”
“I’m not letting you near anything sharp right now.”
“Then I’ll tear off their skin with my Blessed fingernails,” I’d snarled.
For once, my lover hadn’t called me on my bullshit. He’d just kissed me, long and soft and sad, and led me away, my tears blurring everything so badly that I hadn’t even been able to walk without his hand in mine, guiding me. But hadn’t that always been the way? I’d been so fucking blind before him, not even realising how much I’d missed in front of my own damn eyes, and then the obstinate asshole had appeared and pointed it all out. ‘Quareh treats its women despicably,’ he’d said. ‘Whycan’tthere be peace on the continent?’ And fuck, I hated myself for not seeing that shit myself but it was so mucheasierwith him. Mathias was like a flame in the darkness; a source of light, warmth, and so much damn comfort that I knew I wouldn’t have been able to move a step forward without him. Not just now, but…ever.
“We’re going to see Astrid,” Mat murmured, rubbing circles across my palm with his thumb. His fingers were all calloused as a result of the survival shit he’d been learning from Jiron, and I focused on the sensation of the rough skin to keep me grounded. I’d already had two panic attacks since this morning, and I didn’t have the fucking energy to push through another. “We get Quareh back, and then we get Jiron back. You with me?”
What kind of question was that?
“Always.”
Blowing out a breath to expel the last of the tauntingly brutal images dancing behind my eyelids, I brushed my hair from my face and looked up in front of me for the first time in hours. Mathias was right. Wallowing was Blessed useless, and I didn’t douseless.
Maybe that hadn’t been exactly what he’d said, but I was taking it to heart anyway. I had Things to Do, and while there was now one more item to add to the list, it didn’t take away from the rest of them. If I wanted to save Quareh from further generations of gendered abuse and inequity, as well as putting a stop to the absolute waste of life they were calling a war with our northern neighbourandsend my fucking army to comb the country for Jiron, I had to take my throne back.
“Through there,” I said, pointing at a gap in the trees that I was sure Mathias had noticed himself but graciously allowed me at least the illusion of regaining control by letting me lead him towards it. We moved quietly, cautiously, conscious that we were nearing the estate and all that might entail. It was another risk in coming here, but we needed provisions and a healer to tend to my injury in order to make it much further north, and Lord Martinez was supposed to be away at the border where I’d assigned him command of my old militia to keep him away from his poor wife. A smile graced my lips at the memory of Mat standing angrily over the man when we stopped here on our return from the trade talks slash attempted kidnapping in Sesveko, ready to tear into him with his bare hands for the spousal abuse despite it being legal in Quareh. One more thing we would change as soon as I had the power to do so.
We crouched, hidden, in the bushes, something that had unfortunately become an all-too familiar pastime of ours lately. There were too many people roaming the grounds between us and the main house for us to approach it unseen: gardeners, servants, guards. Any one of them could turn us in if they spotted us, and while we were betting on the hope that the Lady Martinez would favour us over the false king, the same couldn’t necessarily be said of the household staff.
I idly watched their movements as the shadows across the neatly cut lawn grew longer, devoting half of my attention to listening to Mathias detail his plan for sneaking us into the house, and offering various additions to make it more dramatically awe-inspiring that he immediately shot down with a scowl and a hissed whisper aboutunnecessary complexity and utter ridiculousness, Ren –which, in respect of my suggestion about befriending a pack of local squirrels in order to create a distraction, was incredibly short-sighted of him.
The other half of my mind was,naturally, admiring the scrumptious curve of his jaw and the adorning stubble that had devolved into the makings of a beard, and wondering what kind of noises he’d make if I buried my face in it and nibbled until I’d restored the teeth marks I liked to leave on his pretty skin, and-
“Someone’s coming,” I said reluctantly, dragging my gaze past him to the girl determinedly making her way towards us with a furrowed brow and a basket of unfolded linens tucked under one arm.
Mat glanced up from where he’d been drawing lines in the dirt with a stick, his expression alarmed.
“It’s only Abril,” I assured him, but that only seemed to make him even more worried.
“The servant with the crush on you?” he asked in a low, anxious tone.
I fluttered a hand. “They all have a crush on-”
“The one I threw out of your room twice last time we were here? The one you rejected at breakfast the following day because you’d…you’d…” He coloured, a delightful pink crossing his cheeks that perfectly reflected the colours of the sunset behind him.
“Because I finally got you into my bed?” I asked, grinning, and then thought about his words and realised that yeah, maybe Abril wasn’t our biggest fan after all, and we should probably move.
But it was too late for that. The serving girl loomed over us, dropping her basket in shock as she saw what was in the bushes and sending sheets fluttering to the dirt.
“Your Highness!”
“Shush,” I murmured, putting my finger to my lips just in case she didn’t understand the meaning of the wordshush.Abril nodded frantically, eyes wide, and began to lower herself into a curtsy.
Mat groaned and put his face in his hands while I waved at her to stop. She faltered, flustered.
“Abril,” I said sternly. “Pick up the linens, slowly,and do your Dios-damned best tonotlook like you’re talking to your king in a bush. Can you do that?”
She made to nod, caught herself, and dropped to one knee to begin collecting the discarded contents of the basket.
“What are you doing here, my prince?” she asked from the corner of her mouth, not looking at us as she pretended to fuss over the leaves caught on one of the sheets.
