“Did he see you?” Ava asked, struggling to hold back her amusement.
“Aye, he saw me all right,” I told her. “And my eyes were so wide with shock that the baker noticed, and he turned around and his eyes went wide at seeing Nilson. When the beggar boy noticed the baker, he panicked and let go of the rope, and Nilson dropped straight into a barrel of flour.” At this point I was struggling to even keep telling the story because I was laughing so hard. “So the baker grabs his wooden roller and lets out this angry yell, and Nilson shoots out of the barrel all covered in flour from head to toe. The baker takes a swipe at him with the roller and misses, and Nilson comes running toward me and keeps on going out the door, leaving a trail of flour footprints behind him. And the baker turns around and his face is all red because he’s so angry, and he starts running toward the door to chase after Nilson.”
“What did you do?” Ava asked.
“I’ll tell you what I did,” I chuckled. “I stuck my foot out as the baker was going by. Got him so good he tumbled through the door head over heels and rolled into the street. By the time he even knew which way was up, I’d run out the back door of the shop.” It was a fond memory, made fonder by the way the princess was enjoying it. “I wasn’t too pleased, you know. But I got home long before Nilson did, and when he came trudging up the road still caked in flour, I couldn’t stay mad. We laughed about it for days, even though I had to sneak past the baker’s every time I went into town after that.”
I let Ava laugh it off for a minute, and, noticing that she was done eating, I moved the food to the small bedside table. “May I check your wrist?” I asked, holding my hands out. She put her arm into them, and I removed the bandage to have a look at her wounds. “Is it still painful?” It was puffy and red, and surely tender to the touch, but the antiseptic I’d brewed was powerful, so I wasn’t scared of infection.
“The wine’s helped some,” she answered, and at the concerned look on my face, she chuckled, “I’m not as delicate as you seem to think I am.”
I smiled warmly and replaced the linen around her wrist. “Well, sleep is important.”
I got off the bed to grab the sleeping furs I’d dropped near the door, feeling the princess’s gaze on me while I did. “What are you doing?” she asked eventually, when I’d begun to lay them out on the ground near the bed.
“I was going to sleep on the floor,” I answered. “Albus tends to spread out at night.”
She watched me adjust them for a few moments, almost as though gathering the courage to say, “I’d prefer it if you slept with Albus and me.”
I looked from the furs to her. “You needn’t be afraid, Ava.”
“What I needn’t be and what I am are quite at odds,” she admitted, and I could tell it wasn’t easy for her to ask. She may be a princess, but it didn’t appear she felt entitled to what she wanted. How could I decline? I sat back down on the edge of the bed to take off my boots, and then I slipped under the covers in compliance. “Thank you, Kiena,” she said, and she gave my cheek another of her tender rewards before turning around to throw an arm over the hound.
Don’t let the princess bribe you with kisses, that’s what the king had told me. That was a joke. Here I was already, nearly prepared to keep taking her south, just like she wanted. It was only an intuitive pull in my gut that kept me from calling it bribery. She was genuinely afraid. She was genuinely grateful. And, best of all, she seemed to genuinely enjoy my company.
“Goodnight, Little Will-o’.”
Chapter 4
I woke early the next morning knowing there were things to be done, but the bed was warm with Albus and Ava, and it was much softer than the one I slept on at home. The shutters of the single window were trembling in their frame, agitated by the wind outdoors. Years and years of experience had taught me to feel the weather in my bones. I could hear the direction and strength and intention in the whistling of the wind. I could smell the collecting moisture in the air. A snowstorm would be here by mid morning, and it put me on edge.
Instead of abandoning the heat of the princess at my side, I lay there with my eyes open, thinking. The paths available to our situation were limited so long as Ava wouldn’t tell me why she’d run. Taking her south was too treacherous. On the road to Ronan, spies were a possibility, bandits a probability, and danger a guarantee. The princess hadn’t revealed her destination in the south, but I’d heard stories of how the Ronan capital was so far south that the woods grew denser and hotter and wetter until you reached the Emerald Sea. It was a long distance to travel, and in land unfamiliar. I couldn’t take her south.
Had the castle not been the safest place for her? If a spy had infiltrated the ranks and threatened Ava’s life, were there not hundreds more of the king’s soldiers to find them? Yet, she’d run. She’d left her father and mother and the safety of their home because something made this journey less of a threat. I couldn’t think she’d leave them without a word should their lives also be in danger. Though I knew so little of her, that much I was certain of. I could see it in her sincere care for Ellie, and how she’d tried to bandage Albus’s muzzle. She was caring and kind. Life was important to her, and her own was at risk; I very well couldn’t take her north.
The fire had died during the night, and the sharpening bite of the air outside was piercing through the room so that my ears had begun to tingle. Though Ava had her face buried in Albus’s fur, I wouldn’t wait for her to complain of the cold, so I slipped out of the heavy covers, careful not to stir her or the dog. I put on my boots for warmth and knelt at the dead coals, resurrecting the ashes with fresh logs and tinder. Afterward, I gathered the sleeping furs I’d laid out the night before, rolled them back up, and then tied them to the saddle. By the time I was finished, I noticed Ava had shifted, and her eyes were following me across the room.
“I tried not to wake you,” I told her while I tested the latch on the windows, making sure the wind wouldn’t push them open.
Ava sat up, dropping her head back against the headboard. “I woke at your absence.”
Her arms rose high above her, stretching as she yawned, and her wide mouth and sunken eyes and disheveled hair created such an uncouth look for a princess that I couldn’t help but smile just a little. She still looked beautiful, but in a delightfully graceless way. I was about to ask how her wrist was, but then she yawned again, and finished the action with a tired sigh.
“Are you accustomed to sleeping in?” I asked, doing little to mask the tension in my voice because of the storm, and by it, the unintended implication that she was spoiled.
“Kiena,” Ava said with a smirk, all sarcasm even if she was still waking up, “if you think princesses have the luxury of sleeping until midday, then I’m afraid you are terribly mistaken.”
“I wouldn’t know what princesses have the luxury of,” I told her, moving back to the saddle to grab the antiseptic. I carried it over to the bed, and sat down at Ava’s side to motion for her hand.
“Study, practicing my studies, studying some more.” She gave me her arm so I could remove the bandage from her wrist. “It’s rather tiresome, really.”
I poured a small amount of antiseptic into my hand so it wouldn’t spill on the bed, and massaged it over her wounds. “If I’m honest, Ava, it sounds rather simple.” She didn’t have to worry about eating every day, or providing food for anyone else, or what would happen if she got sick. She didn’t have to worry about a lot of things.
I could feel her eyes on me as I worked in the last of the liquid. “I’ve sounded overindulged,” she realized.
However, my immediate worry wasn’t that she’d given me the wrong impression. I’d been too tense to take in her playfulness, and I’d likely been offensive in doing so. “I shouldn’t have—”