Maude trudged through the treacherous landscape of Jalantar forest towards the northernmost tip, the spot Silas had designated in his letter. She’d been walking for an hour and was beginning to realize why Jaspar had asked her to not go and had concerns about her assassination. The location wasn’t just private, it was also secluded and remote, far more than she’d anticipated. Though she’d spent most of her life training, her sword was beginning to feel heavy on her hips.

I need to get back into regular training, she thought. Lest I lose the next duel to the duke.

She was walking along the edge of the forest, near a clearing where it looked as though crops had recently been planted. Jalantar forest was right on the edge of the dukedom, just barely outside of Jaspar’s domain. I wonder if that’s why Silas picked it, she thought. She could see that she was nearing the northernmost point of the forest, and it was probably only a few more minutes until she would arrive.

She giggled a little, feeling a bit giddy at the prospect of seeing Silas again. Both him and Sara were two people she never imagined she’d see after she was captured.

What will he think now that I have changed so much? She wondered. It has only been months, but I feel like an entirely different person.

She swallowed hard, thinking about the tone of his letter. What if he had come here to drag her back to the empire and marry her? After being with Jaspar, she knew there was no way she wouldn’t feel resentful towards him if that was his goal.

She took a deep breath and then let it all out. I’m not going to know until I get there and talk to him myself, she thought.

She continued marching forward, until she came into a clearing that had a small fire pit in the center of it. Has he been camping out here? Maude wondered. It’s a bit too chilly for camping.

She paused, several feet away from the clearing. Looking around, she saw no other signs of life outside of the fire pit.

“Silas?” she asked out loud. She heard no sound of movement.

She took another step into the clearing. “Silas?” she called out again. Silence. Maude swallowed hard. What if Jaspar had been right? What if she’d just walked into a trap set by the emperor?

She took a step back. And then a couple more steps back. She whirled around and felt her face hit something…hard.

Surprised, she took a couple of steps back toward the camp.

It was a person. She looked up to the face, and was greeted to a smiling Silas with tears in his eyes.

He dropped the wood he was holding in his arms. “Maude!” he exclaimed. “You’re alive!”

Maude smiled warmly. “I’m alive,” she said. He wrapped her into a bear hug.

“I believed you were dead,” he murmured, his shoulders shaking and his voice cracking a bit.

“I’m still breathing,” she replied, gently patting his back.

He stepped back away from her, picking up the wood. “How have things been?” he asked. “I heard you were being held as a prisoner of war.”

“I am,” she said.

“Then how were you able to come out here?” he asked, putting the pile of wood into the firepit.

“From your letter, it sounded as though you had some of this part figured out,” she said, following behind him.

“You’re correct,” he said. “I was just asking confirmatory questions.”

“They hail me as a heroine here,” Maude replied. “And the duke has treated me well as a result. All because I did not take my sword up against them.”

Silas shook his head, gently putting some underbrush in the pit before pulling out a matchbook from his breast pocket on his uniform. “What a great deal for you,” he said. “I’m so glad you found a way out of the emperor’s clutches.”

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He lit a match and then lit the underbrush with it. “I’m very grateful as well,” she remarked.

He sat down on a log, and gestured for her to sit close to him. She nodded and sat down, though not as close as he’d indicated her to.

“How did you manage to find out that the emperor intended to make you his concubine?” he asked. “How did you manage to escape? I thought it impossible to get out of the battles, but you managed to pull it off.” He shook his head. “You’re impressive and crazy,” he added.

Maude hesitated, thinking about how she’d hid in the bush and heard all of her men being slaughtered before her. There was nearly nothing as dishonorable for a knight of the empire to do, than what she’d done.

To boot, she hadn’t done it because she found out she was going to be the emperor’s concubine, but because she did not want to fight in the first place. She’d told all of that to Silas before they’d gone to war, but he’d told her to just get through it and return to him. She had no knowledge that she was to end up as the emperor’s concubine up until recently.

Do I dare tell him the truth? She wondered. What if his goal is to gather information and then bring it back to the empire? She paused in her thinking. And what would he think of me if I told the truth? Would I want him to think of me so poorly?

She imagined the look of horror on Silas’s face as she would tell him about the dishonorable way she had run away from the battle. She knew that he would be disgusted with her and may never look at her the same.

No, she decided. I can’t tell him the honest truth of it.

She looked up at him, and he was raising his dark eyebrows in anticipation of her answer. “I, um, uh,” she looked away from him, feeling her face flush. “It’s not the most honorable story,” she admitted, trying to stall for enough time to come up with a feasible lie.

“And the emperor is honorable for accepting such a young woman as a concubine in exchange for giving her corrupt father more power?”

“True,” Maude replied. She swallowed hard, the lie she was about to tell clear in the forefront of her mind. “On the night before the battle, one of my men came to me and told me that he had something urgent to tell me. He told me that he’d been going back and forth over the weeks, trying to decide if telling me was the right thing to do. He said at the night we were in the encampment just outside of the capital, he’d overheard my father and the emperor discussing plans after the war. My father said something about me becoming the emperor’s concubine, and this soldier overheard it. He told me that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t tell me before I went to battle for the empire.” Maude sighed and shook her head. “God bless his soul.”

Silas was looking at her earnestly. “So?” he said.

“So?” she asked.

“So how did you get away? The rest of your battalion was annihilated.”

Maude winced, clearly hearing the screams of her men being cut down in her mind. “I told him thank you, told him he was in command from there on out, and left,” she said. “The next day, Duke Rosenberg’s army found me as they were leaving the battle. Apparently I was well-known in Aulbert, so he recognized me and took me hostage.”

Silas raised his eyebrows. “That’s it?” he asked.

Maude nodded. “That’s it,” she confirmed.

“How disappointing,” Silas said. “I was sure it would be a flashier story than that.”

Maude felt herself flush, feeling grateful that she’d decided to come up with such a mundane lie.

“Nothing flashy here,” she replied. “As I already said, I’ve been treated very well at Duke Rosenberg’s manor. I’ve gotten to participate in high society which I’d never had time to do in the empire.” She paused. “It’s been a lovely time,” she added.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” he replied with a small smile.

“So what are you doing here?” she asked. “Why are you out in Aulbert to find me? And how did you manage to cross the border without getting caught?”

Silas smirked. “I decided to defect from the empire’s army,” he said.

Maude felt her jaw drop. “What?” she asked. “Why?”

“The idea of my childhood friend being gifted to the emperor upon successful defense of the empire just didn’t sit right with me. There have been so many fishy things about this war in the first place. I decided that I couldn’t continue to contribute to the effort in good conscience,” he said. “Especially with the idea in my mind that there was a chance that you were still alive out there somewhere.” He shook his head and then took a big swig of water from his water skin. “The idea that my efforts to free and protect our country were also efforts that would be used to imprison you disgusted me,” he continued. “It made me feel so sick I knew I had to leave.”

“How did you even find out about my father and the emperor’s plan in the first place?” Maude asked.

Silas scoffed. “It was in the most unexpected place,” he said. “After I’d heard of your death, I started drinking a lot, every night.”

“Silas,” she said, shaking her head. Her heart ached for him. I can’t believe he did that, she thought. He used to be so adamantly against alcohol when we were younger.

He smiled and raised his hands in a surrender pose to her. “I was utterly miserable,” he began. “It both angered and saddened me that you’d been so easily overpowered after your father had forced you to use your days only to train. You’d never even gotten to live any part of your life that you may have wanted to…” he was starting to get choked up. “We had made a promise to do everything we could to make it back alive and marry. And here I was, alone in a tavern, while your body was slowly decaying in some battlefield out in the world.”

Maude felt her stomach turn and she grimaced. How lucky she had been for that not to have been the case.