PDCOO Chapter 37

Bertram's body felt different this morning. Each time he cleared a ditch in a single step, muscle coiled tight around her. Anna squirmed, helpless, but every time she shifted, he simply held her more firmly.

"I thought we ought to arrive before Karlah wakes. I judged this would be faster than waking you."

"Oh."

Her mother's name, and every complicated thought in her head, vanished simultaneously.

"Good thinking! If she finds out I was gone all night, she'll put me in the furnace!"

"Is that a sincere statement?"

"Mama does what she says she'll do."

"I will do my utmost."

Bertram's pace quickened. Anna, all embarrassment forgotten, held on.

Mercifully, the sun still hung low and uncertain over the mountain ridge. Karlah would still be in bed. Only then did Anna find room to worry about Bertram himself.

"Is your ankle all right?"

"Fine."

Bertram slowed briefly and lifted his foot to show her. Where it had been bent wrong last night, only a red scar remained—the skin around it smooth and healed.

"There's still a scar."

"Yes. It's necessary."

"Necessary how. Don't trust your own strong body—remember you can always be hurt—is that the idea?"

Bertram didn't bother correcting her generous reading.

Scars were proof you had survived a fight.

A young prince who needed not to be dismissed. Scars were a tool. So the mage, when setting the curse, had arranged it so wounds healed quickly while the scars remained—exactly as needed. There was no reason to explain all of this. It wasn't a pleasant story. And the war was over.

Bertram was looking for a different subject when Anna asked something he hadn't anticipated.

"Bertram. When you dream—it seems like you have emotions then. Is the scar necessary for that too?"

"...I beg your pardon?"

"I mean—absolutely not on purpose! I wasn't watching! But that night you slept in our kitchen. You said in your sleep, Please don't. I'm frightened. Like you were having a nightmare."

Bertram knew immediately what she was referring to.

Fear was the last emotion he remembered.

Nine years ago.

The royal mage had laid him on the table and put a blade to his chest. Parted the flesh. Split the bone. Pressed the dragon bone against the red, exposed, beating heart.

The last day Bertram had been capable of feeling.

The excitement he'd felt that morning, the unease, the fighting spirit, the rage at the enemy—all of it had been swallowed by a fear that opened its mouth like the floor of hell.

"The worst things I experienced when I still had emotions come back as dreams. When I say I'm frightened in them, that's my memory speaking. Not me, as I am now."

"But are you all right? You looked so frightened I kept wondering whether I should wake you..."

"It's not without effect. Occasionally a powerful memory rattles something in me. Less an emotion than an old scar aching—that kind of sensation."

At that, Anna's voice brightened.

"Bertram! I just thought of a way I can actually put my skills to use for you."

"Your skills?"

"Yes. You must have foods you loved before, don't you? Tell me what they were and I'll make them for lunch."

Of course he had them. He'd lost his emotions at sixteen, and the memory of the royal chefs preparing only his favorite dishes the morning before the procedure was still perfectly clear.

But Bertram shook his head instead of reaching for those memories.

"I do, but—as you know—my current tastes aren't affected by what I once preferred. There's no need to go to the trouble."

"Ha. Do I look like someone who wastes their own effort? That could be a thread of change, you know. You said powerful memories from bad days can rattle something in you. So couldn't good food from a good day bring good rattling?"

Anna straightened, the picture of a person who has made a magnificent discovery. Bertram acknowledged, without resistance, that this was a reasonable idea. If he traced back past the memory of that last meal—when food had tasted like sand despite his intact sense of taste—he could probably recover what he'd loved purely, as a child. Whether Anna could even source the ingredients a royal kitchen used was an entirely separate problem, but there was no reason to douse the idea now.

"That's a good thought. I'll try to remember as soon as possible."

"Yes! Tell me quickly if you want to eat quickly. Otherwise the good ingredients might all go toward feeding our distinguished guests."

"...On that subject. Anna—did I talk in my sleep last night?"

"I was asleep myself. I didn't hear anything. Why?"

"I don't think I had nightmares..."

Bertram's footsteps slowed. He stared at the middle distance the way he did when something required genuine consideration. Anna sat still at first—a polite passenger—and eventually gave up and tapped his arm.

"Bertram. If you have something to think about, put me down. I'll run the rest of the way myself."

"...No. Let me walk you a little further."

"We're nearly at the main road. If a villager spots us, this becomes a problem."

Anna squirmed against his hold. Even a cat—which is essentially a hairy liquid—resists containment once it has decided to move. Eventually Anna succeeded in extracting herself.

Now she just needed to go home.

...But Bertram's gaze wouldn't release her.

"Bertram?"

"Go home."

He said go home, and his eyes were still attached to her like something that had not yet decided to let go. Anna took one step closer.

"You have something to say, don't you."

"No. Please go home. Your mother will be worried."

"Bertram."

Anna turned his last two sentences over. There was only one conclusion they led to.

"Did you have nightmares every night?"

"..."

"Last night was the first night you didn't."

Bertram said nothing.

Which was clearly yes—and which was, for the first time, an answer given through silence alone. His closed lips showed no sign of opening. As though they were keeping something inside. Something precious, but not yet ready to be let out.

He hadn't said it aloud. But Anna thought: that might be a request. Not 'I want to eat something I used to love.' 'I need nights without nightmares.'

"Bertram. Maybe—"

Anna reached toward him.

Bertram's head snapped up, looking at something behind her.

Anna turned, cold dread arriving before the thought did.

Karlah was running toward them.

"Mama?"

Karlah's long curls had come loose and tangled—how long had she been searching? The moment she spotted Anna she broke into a sprint, and before Anna could say a word, her mother seized her wrist and yanked.

"Kyah, Mama!"

"Anna! Have you completely lost your mind?"

"I'm sorry, let go first—I can explain—"

"Don't make excuses! And you—Bertram. What exactly do you think you're doing with my daughter? You said you were leaving! You used that to put my mind at ease and now you're—what, playing with her?"

"Mama, it's not like that—"

Anna grabbed onto Karlah, but her mother's grip shifted to her shoulders and pressed down. Anna stumbled.

An instant before her knees hit the ground, Bertram stepped between them.

"Karlah. I apologize. This is my fault."

"Step back! Leave right now and I'll let this go—don't involve yourself in family matters!"

Bertram didn't move.

His large frame blocked Anna entirely. Karlah felt the breath go out of her. As if her daughter were drifting somewhere her hands could not reach.

'Because of this suspicious man.'

The rage overtook her—she grabbed a fist of his collar. He didn't flinch and he didn't shift. Like a zelkova tree that does not consider the typhoon its fault, he would simply repeat I apologize until Karlah had finished. The familiar, infuriating patience of it made her ears ring.

So she didn't hear the hoofbeats.

She only turned when her daughter's fingers dug into her leg, and what she saw were black boots, very close, and the man in them—

Franz Gerhardt.

The blade he'd drawn was at Karlah's throat.

A single second of outrage. Then something else—incomprehensible cold fear running the length of her neck. Franz's low, threatening voice and Karlah's scream collided in the air.

"How dare you lay hands on—"

"Anna! Anna, run—"

Neither sentence was finished.

Bertram caught Franz's blade in his bare hand. Something gave way with a sound like bone grinding, and the broken steel fell. Blood dropped onto Karlah's shoulder. In the same instant, both of them thought the exact same thing: Bertram, you absolute lunatic —

Bertram threw Franz by the collar.

"Gh—hk!"

Franz hit the dirt. Beyond him, the soldiers who'd been following skidded to a halt.

Into the sudden quiet, Bertram dropped the hilt and said:

"Let's eat breakfast and talk after."

And the soldiers, as he walked toward them, heard one more thing.

"...Until then. Speaking is not permitted."

By the time the sun rose properly, five soldiers who had not intended to be defeated and one commanding officer who had lost without managing a fight had returned to the restaurant.

They'd ridden out the night before with considerable confidence, ostensibly to guard a rural farm. They'd come home without even the right to speak.

The soldiers laid Franz—groaning with theatrical commitment—against the restaurant wall. Then they loitered near the kitchen, carefully reading the atmosphere.

—She said onions, didn't she.

—Should we be doing that instead.

In the kitchen, Bertram was having his hand bandaged by Karlah, who wore throughout the operation the expression of a woman who would very much prefer to be using the bandage on his throat.