IWJACM Chapter 7

Rezet weighed it for a moment.

Cold as ever, his reason sat down to calmly weigh why this tremor had come now. A feeling never trembled without reason.

He'd first seen this woman three years back. Not a short span of time. Even now, she stayed lodged in his memory—a shard of glass. Why.

"……"

Rezet soon found something he could call a reason. He'd seen this woman during the most hellish stretch of his life. So this now—this feeling—was likely nothing more than sentiment for that season, stirred by an unexpected brush with its afterimage.

It would be a lie to say he hadn't wanted her—a jewel of a woman he'd no business even dreaming of holding, not in this life.

He'd been baser then than now—and for it, near worshipped anything that burned high and bright as the sun. Like a crow that hoards whatever glitters, not caring what the shine is hiding.

Guess that habit's still in him, then.

Rezet wound one arm around the woman's slender waist. He lifted her carefully, so the hurt shoulder wouldn't press against him, and drew her into his chest. Still holding her, he climbed onto the bed.

Her body, damp with sweat, pressed soft against his through the thin cloth between them. Rezet caught a lock of Elise's loosened silver hair between forefinger and thumb and rubbed it slow. The feel of it was dangerously addictive.

Even at a thing this outrageous—daring to carry Argan's princess onto a bed—his guilt ran thin. He'd found himself a reason, it seemed.

The woman gave a faint moan and pressed against him. A heat higher than her own seemed to please her. Legs tangled, and chest to groin, their bodies fit together without a gap.

Rezet's brow drew faintly together.

He'd thought her nothing but frail—thin enough to topple at a touch. But the curves pressing into him, the bare skin wrapped in a single thin layer of cloth, were more naked than he had any business knowing.

She'd sweated hard, and still the princess smelled of wildflowers. Holding her, he felt near buried in a flower in full bloom.

"My lord…"

He'd combed his hand through hair that scattered light even in the dark—once, twice, again—before her small murmur stilled it.

"Just when I think I've got the measure of you, my lord… I find I haven't, after all.…"

"Did I wake you?"

A flicker of surprise crossed Rezet's eyes.

'Surely not—she hadn't been asleep at all?'

The woman resting against him shook her head.

He moved to pull back at once, but she caught him. Eyes shut, the princess dragged in a labored breath.

"When we reach the capital. My lord."

"Yes."

"Please… don't hold it against me too much…"

She murmured something, but the sound was too faint to catch. Rezet eased her back a little and bent his ear to her lips.

A thin, ragged breath brushed his earlobe.

"Call it my last, desperate flailing."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Think me mad, if you like…"

My worth—just think of it, just once.

That was how the princess's final words ended.

Time passed quickly. Elise's cold finally lifted, a full two weeks flat on her back, again.

"We can't afford to lose any more time."

The moment she was fully mended, the Grand Duke told her—so unbothered about it—that he meant to move her execution date up.

What was there to say to that? Elise had nothing left to do but nod.

"You'll need to ride starting today. Will that do?"

Until now they'd traveled by prisoner's cart. But as the schedule pressed tighter, the cart gave way to horseback.

'Dig in—insist on the cart?'

But this man—who'd stayed fixed at her side this whole while—would already have caught how far she'd mended, mended enough to sit a horse. Knowing it, he asked anyway.

Elise gave in—there was nothing else for it.

"Which horse should I ride?"

"Which horse?"

The Grand Duke, smoothing his warhorse's mane, turned to look at her. A rare flicker of question rose in his blue eyes.

"Pardon me."

Rezet closed on her in a few long strides. His build was solid enough to crush her without trying, and Elise found herself shrinking back before she knew it.

Then a firm arm came round and closed on her waist. A motion she'd grown used to, this past month or so.

The man who'd once asked leave before letting so much as a finger brush her had, somewhere along the way, grown this careless about it.

It wasn't a bad change. He still pulled away clean the moment the necessary contact ended—but even this much, where was she to complain.

"Hold fast."

"Hold to what…"

Before Elise's words landed, he swept her up.

Elise sucked in a breath, startled. At the sudden lurch of ground gone from under her, her arms found his neck before she'd meant them to.

But the contact ended quick again, same as always. In an instant Elise found herself set in the saddle.

The higher vantage brought a faint dizziness. His warhorse ran far larger and heavier than the one she'd ridden back at the imperial palace.

"Th-thank you."

'Though I can sit a horse well enough on my own.'

Elise had just found the trailing reins and taken hold when the horse's back gave a lurch.

Startled, she turned to look behind her and met a solid chest wrapped in thin plate armor. The Grand Duke had mounted up behind her.

"Eyes forward, Your Highness."

Does this man take me for some frail thing who can't even sit a horse alone?Though—granted, half a watch was her limit at best, so he wasn't far wrong.

Before her surprise at the sudden turn had even faded, a broad palm closed over the hand that held the reins.

"Hand them over. I'll take it from here."

"……"

His hand was dry, rough—and hot to the touch.

No question about it—she'd taught this man a bad habit.

Elise thought this while waiting obediently on horseback for him to lift her down.

"Put your arms around my neck."

'Does he think I can't even walk right on my own?'

Otherwise why spell out every last thing for her, one by one, like this…? Though—not that she needed it, quite.

But Elise didn't trouble herself proving the sturdiness of her own two legs to him. She let herself be carried down, obedient, and soon enough her feet touched ground.

"We camp here tonight. I'll have a place made ready for you to rest—wait a moment."

"Anywhere's fine to rest."

"Sit somewhere cold and your fever spikes again, and the journey's delayed."

But every time he tossed off a cold line like that, whatever small hope had risen in her melted away like snow.

The Grand Duke wound his cloak round her twice over and sat her on a flat stone before he finally turned to give orders to the knights under him.

"……"

Elise fidgeted with his cloak's collar and felt the soldiers' eyes flick toward her, one after another.

Trained never to shy from the eyes of subjects or common folk, she met their looks without much thought—and the men, of a sudden, snapped their eyes away.

Not one man. Several, all at once.

Puzzled, she frowned—but not one soldier, out of all of them, would meet her eyes again.

'Strange…'

Did she look that ragged? Elise ran a hand over her hollowed cheek.

Well—of course she looked wretched. She'd been sick, flat out, for weeks.

The Grand Duke stayed off at a distance a long while. Seemed there was a great deal to instruct his men, today of all days.

Elise caught the faint sound of running water somewhere off in the distance and rose from her seat.

She'd just turned, starting toward the sound, deeper into the trees, when a sharp voice caught her fast.

"Your Highness."

Elise flinched and spun back. The Grand Duke—catching the faintest stir of her movement like a spirit sniffing it out—was already closing on her.

"Where do you think you're going?"

The sheer overbearing size of him—the gap in height and build—made her shoulders draw in, small.

Elise clutched the trailing edge of his cloak and murmured, small.

"I think there's a lake, further into the forest… I thought maybe I could wash."

The man's blue eyes narrowed slightly, working to read what she meant by it.

Fair enough—no jailer worth the name would just stand and watch a prisoner make some sudden move.

"I'll come with you."

"What?"

But she hadn't looked for an answer like that. Elise repeated it, dazed.

"You'll come with me—to wash?"

"Yes."

The Grand Duke answered so plainly that Elise wasn't the only one caught off guard. She caught sight of Ruben, the knight sworn directly to him, jaw hanging fit to come unhinged.

Not him alone. Every eye that turned their way carried the same loaded look.

Elise snapped back to herself. This was a chance. An opening to be seen closer with Rezet Kyrstan.

'Not bad.'

Best to be seen going off alone with him, and by as many eyes as could see. And this time—hadn't it been Rezet, first, who'd stopped her?

Her thoughts settled quick, and Elise nodded.

"All right. Come along, then."

The knights, who'd been holding their breath to watch, now wore looks of shock that made the last one look tame by comparison.