“I shouldn’t have mentioned her dad.”
Ciaran watched Asra disappear behind the trees. The smell of the cooking rabbit brought his senses back to the campfire, then to Margot’s words.
“Why?” Ciaran asked.
Margot gave him a sneer that was so reminiscent of Asra that he wondered if it came naturally to shapechangers. “You’d think with all your fancy schooling you’d be a little smarter. At least about people’s feelings. Aren’t you supposed to be a diplomat or something?”
“I don’t know anything about Asra’s family,” Ciaran said. “That would require her to actually speak to me in something that’s not a grunt or an insult. I’m assuming he died in … ”
“In the massacre your brother ordered, yeah.”
Ciaran had grown used to Margot’s bluntness over the last several days. He’d never truly considered how much his position affected how others spoke to him. Even in his worst rows with Vincent, he had never truly let loose on Ciaran. He’d always been aware of his place in the pecking order.
It wasn’t much different from how Ciaran deferred to Nolan. He thought of the last time he’d seen his older brother, in the palace on his birthday. As furious as Ciaran had been with the guards for trying to hurt Bane, he hadn’t dared to say anything disrespectful to Nolan. He’d even bowed before he left.
Margot didn’t have any care for titles or ranks. She roamed freely, skirting the laws and carving her own life for herself. She had no reason to watch her tongue or tiptoe around him. As unappealing as her nomadic lifestyle was to him, he couldn’t help but envy her freedom.
But that didn’t make her abrasiveness any less irritating at times.
“I think ‘massacre’ is a bit of an exaggeration,” Ciaran said.
Margot scoffed as she poked at the sizzling rabbit with a stick. “Of course you would.”
“The shapechangers wiped out nearly an entire brigade,” Ciaran said, bristling. “They were hardly defenseless. And it wasn’t as if it was unprovoked. They’d been causing trouble around the city for years. They had to know eventually there would be retaliation.”
Margot fixed Ciaran with a sharp glare. “You really believe everything your brother tells you, don’t you? You should talk to the hellhound. Get her side of things.”
“And what good would that do?”
Margot rolled her eyes. “Other than make you a smarter, better informed ruler, you mean?”
“In what way?” Ciaran said with a shrug. “I’ve no more interest in ruling over you shapechangers than you have interest in being ruled over.”
Margot shook her head. “Look, prince. I think you’re a nice person. But I still have to live in the world that you and your family create. I’d like to live in a world where there could be some peace and understanding between us.”
Ciaran watched in silence as Margot lifted the rabbit off the cooking grate by the toes of a hind leg and laid it on a cool stone at the edge of the fire pit.
“If that ain’t enough of a reason for you,” Margot continued, “then saving your own skin should be. You two will never make it out of here alive if you’re arguing like schoolchildren all the time.”
“That … is a fair point.”
She stretched her arms over her head. “Anyway, I’m tired and would like to actually sleep in my own bed tonight. And I still gotta get the dog smell out of the linens.”
Ciaran pondered Margot’s words as he watched her disappear inside her tent. She was right, of course. About everything. He couldn’t just ignore the shapechangers as king, especially now that Nolan had done so much to provoke their ire. He’d need to learn more about them—ensure he stayed on their peaceful side.
Ciaran grumbled as he tested the temperature of the charred rabbit with his finger tips. This was exactly why Ciaran had never wanted the throne in the first place. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to keep track of all of the moving cogs in the machine that kept the monarchy functioning.
He pulled a bit of meat from the rabbit’s leg, then tossed it to Bane, who snapped it out of the air.
The first step was to bury the hatchet with Asra. And that, he feared, was exactly where this plan went to hell.
----------------------------------------
Asra emerged from the trees about an hour later, looking lighter and happier than Ciaran had ever seen her. He’d never asked her about her friends or family—it seemed a painfully obvious thing to ask now that Margot had pointed it out. They must be truly special, for her to have spent as long as she had facing certain death to protect them.
However, her airy smile faded the instant she saw Ciaran.
“What are you still doing up?” she asked. “You should get some sleep.”
“So should you.”
Asra snorted. “I’ve had enough sleep over the last week to last me until I’m dead.”
She eyed the rabbit skin she’d left on by the fire. She grabbed her rucksack resting against the log, then pulled out a canister of salt and a vial of tanning solution.
“You know how to tan?” Ciaran asked, watching Asra sprinkle coarse salt over the tiny skin.
“Yep. We use a lot of leather back home.”
“Won’t that take days to tan?” Ciaran asked as Asra worked the salt into the skin.
“Not for me.”
She soaked the skin in the tanning solution, then moved methodically down the fleshy side, the same way he’d seen her do when healing injuries. The skin tanned rapidly, like his flesh had healed under her touch.
Ciaran watched, enraptured, the silence between them broken only by the crackling of the fire. If he was going to speak with her, now was the time.
“Asra, can we speak for a moment?”
Asra opened her mouth to respond with what would definitely be an “absolutely not,” but seemed to reconsider after a moment. She sighed and set down the freshly-tanned rabbit skin. “About?”
Ciaran took a deep breath. “I wanted to propose a truce.”
Asra raised an eyebrow.
“It’s obvious we’re not going to get along,” Ciaran continued. “But it’s also obvious that being at each other’s throats constantly is slowing us down, or worse, putting us in constant danger. Most of our little disasters could have been avoided by just communicating better.”
Asra pursed her lips, then, to Ciaran’s surprise, nodded.
“I’m not saying we need to be friends,” Ciaran continued, “but we have a common goal. We should be allies, at least until we’ve accomplished our task. After that … I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
He bit his lip. He hoped that bridge would be easier to cross than the last bridge they’d crossed together.
Ciaran leaned forward and extended his right hand to her. Asra’s eyes flicked from his outstretched palm to his face, then back again. She sighed and gripped his hand with her own.
“Fine,” she said. “At least until Nolan is dead.”
A weight lifted off Ciaran’s shoulders. He smiled and said, “That’s all that I’m asking for.”
Asra stood and started to walk away, but Ciaran pulled a flask out of his pocket and said, “Wait. Shouldn’t we make a toast to our new peace treaty?”
Asra paused and scrunched her nose up at the vessel. “Where did you even get that?”
“Margot.”
“You know, I’m starting to think you have a problem.”
Ciaran smiled and said, “And I think you’re a lightweight, and you’re afraid I’ll drink you under the table. You’re afraid I’ll be better at something than you are.”
Asra glared at him as she sat back on the log. “That was cheap.”
“And yet, it worked,” Ciaran said.
He grabbed their cups from dinner and poured a measure into each one, then passed Asra’s to her. They tapped the cups together and drank the contents.
“All right,” Asra said, extending her cup back to him. “Let’s see how well your human liver holds up.”
“What did Margot mean earlier?” Ciaran asked as he poured more whisky. “About knowing how you dogs are?”
“Oh,” Asra said, smiling wistfully as she took her cup back from Ciaran. “I guess her culture is monogamous.”
“And yours isn’t?”
“Not usually, no. Some people only have one partner, but it’s not the norm. My mom never had any partner other than my dad, even after he died.”
She threw back the next measure, and Ciaran followed in kind. Questions about her father burned inside him, but he didn’t want to spook her and have her clam up again.
“Well that certainly explains a lot of your attitude toward me,” he said.
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Asra snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I didn’t realize you were only interested in women,” Ciaran said with a shrug.
Asra furrowed her brow. “I’m not. I’ve been intimate with other people, too.” A smirk crept across her face. “Oh, I get it. You think because I’m not drooling over you that means I’m not attracted to men at all?”
Ciaran puffed his chest and some of his typical swagger returned. “Come on, Asra. I’m the most eligible bachelor in the kingdom.”
Asra snickered and said, “Aren’t you only a bachelor because your lover boy threw you to the curb?”
“That was cheap.”
Asra laughed. The sound made Ciaran smile, even if it was at his own expense.
He took a deep breath as he considered his next words. “So is Liam one of your … ?”
Asra barked a laugh. “Oh, don’t ever tell him you said that. He’d be so grossed out.” She shook her head. “Liam and I were practically raised together. He was a convert in Windemere City. My dad found him and brought him home when we were both five. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Ciaran nodded slowly. “And Sophie?”
Asra sighed and smiled sadly. “Sophie is … ”
She shook her head and held her cup out for Ciaran to refill. He did so, and then his own, and they both drank them.
“Sophie deserves someone better,” Asra said after a moment.
Ciaran nodded, deciding not to prod further at what was an obvious sore spot. He reached up to scratch his arm and hissed in pain.
“What’s wrong with you?” Asra said.
“Nothing,” he said, shrugging it off. “Just a little sunburn.”
“Still not used to having to actually work out in the sun, prince?” She considered him for a moment. “Do you want me to fix it?”
Ciaran smiled. “I’ll probably whine about it if you don’t.”
Asra sighed and walked over to him. She sat on the log behind him and pushed the sleeves up on his collared shirt. The simple, rustic clothing still felt a little foreign to him. The fabric was looser, the collar shorter and more relaxed. He missed his tailored coats. And his jewelry.
He’d been so distracted by his newly-found nostalgia that it took him a moment to realize how quickly Asra worked her magic on his burns. Her fingers flitted across his skin with speed borne of dedicated practice.
“Do you have a lot of experience healing sunburns?” he asked.
“Yeah, with Sophie,” Asra said. “She doesn’t like to be in her fur much, and she’s really pale. She burns faster than she can naturally heal, so I help her out sometimes. Well … when we actually get to see each other.”
“Why doesn’t she like to be in her fur?”
“She likes using her magic. And her fur is really long.” Asra laughed. “I think it annoys her.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?”
“About a year. I live in the quarantine cabin my dad used to use when he found converts. They come out and visit every once in a while.”
Ciaran nodded. “I see. Is that where you have your flower garden?”
Asra’s hands paused. “My flower garden? When did I tell you about that?”
“The first night you set up the concealment spell. You told me the potpourri came from your flower garden back home, remember?”
Asra’s hands resumed their work, much more slowly this time. “You remembered that?”
“I remember a lot of things,” Ciaran said. “I’m not as stupid as you think I am.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid. Just seems like a weird thing to remember. Especially since sometimes you can’t even remember what you had for breakfast.” She paused for a moment, then continued, “Yeah. Sophie helped me set it up. It kinda takes care of itself now.”
Asra’s fingers moved up and down Ciaran’s arms softly enough to send shivers up his spine. He tried to picture Asra in a quiet cabin in the forest, tending to a variety of delicate flowers. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Sophie must have put a lot of work into that garden.
“How long has it been since you’ve been home?” he asked. “I mean … your actual home?”
“Almost ten years.”
Ciaran felt a pang of sympathy. He’d only been away from home for a few weeks and was already homesick. He couldn’t imagine being gone for a decade.
“Do you miss it?” he asked.
Asra heaved a sigh, and her breath on his skin sent goosebumps down his arms. “Yes and no. The new town we built was never the same as the old one. It never really felt like home. But … I miss being around everyone. Being part of a community. I miss going out on hunts and celebrating Feast Day and … ” She shook her head. “Yeah, I miss it.”
She clapped his shoulder, and to Ciaran’s relief, it didn’t sting.
“There,” she said. “Now you don’t have any reason to whine.”
“Oh, I’m sure I can find a different reason.”
Asra sat back down on the other log, and Ciaran reached over to fill her cup again.
“So … ” he began as he reached for his own cup, “you’re afraid of admitting your feelings to Sophie, in addition to being afraid of water and horses.”
“I never said that,” Asra said sharply.
Ciaran raised his eyebrows as he poured into his cup.
“Fine,” Asra said. “I’m not a good swimmer, and I don’t like the idea of drowning. And horses are twitchy little cowards who kick first and ask questions never. You ever been kicked by a horse before?”
“I have, actually,” Ciaran said, smiling. “When I was thirteen. Nolan nearly banned me from riding. You’re also afraid of thunder.”
A thrill of fear shot across Asra’s face.
“And tunnels,” Ciaran said.
Asra picked at a piece of bark on the log she sat on and said nothing.
“You could have just told me you were afraid of tunnels,” Ciaran said. “We might have been able to go over the mountains instead. I didn’t know it would be such an issue for you.”
“I didn’t … ” She didn’t meet his gaze.
Ciaran gave her a moment to speak, and when she didn’t, he sighed and said, “I used to have nightmares of you, you know.”
Asra met his eyes now, and gave him a curious smile, as though she didn’t believe him.
“Remember when you were escaping the palace? When we were both kids?” Ciaran said. “And the alarms had been set off? I was frightened, and ran to go find Nolan. I had to escape the nanny first.”
He smiled at the memory of his old nanny. Poor woman. She didn’t deserve having to put up with him.
“We ran into each other in one of the corridors, remember?” Ciaran said. “You were huge, and had blood all over your muzzle, and I knew it was a person’s blood.”
One of his royal guards’ blood, specifically. A chill ran down his spine. Asra eyed him with an expression that he might think was sympathy, if it had been on anyone else’s face.
“I refused to sleep by myself for weeks after that,” Ciaran continued. “I insisted on sleeping in Nolan’s room. He had to hire a psychoanalyst to come speak with me. The doctor gave me a stuffed bear and told me it was magic. She said that as long as I had it in bed with me, monsters couldn’t get in.” He grinned. “Took me way too long to realize it was just a regular stuffed bear, and didn’t have any magic at all. It was all in my head.”
“That’s pretty sad,” Asra said, raising her cup.
“Pathetic, really,” Ciaran agreed, and they threw back their drinks.
There was a brief moment of silence, then Ciaran said, “So … tunnels … ”
Asra stared at a patch of grass by her feet for a long while. Bane perked his head up from his resting place by Ciaran’s feet, then trotted over to Asra and placed his head on her lap. She stroked his broad head for a moment before she spoke.
“My dad was special.”
Ciaran glanced up to study her face in the dim fire light. That wasn’t the way he was expecting this story to start.
“You know how I said some of us could use magic in our fur? Well, he could. And he could make himself giant. Like, as tall as a building. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.”
A wistful smile spread across her face.
“I wanted to help him look for converts in the city. But he never let me. Said it was too dangerous, that he’d take me when I was older. But I wanted to prove to him I was strong enough to do it, like he was.” She shook her head. “You know how that went.”
Ciaran nodded.
“During the attack, he … We had an escape route, through the tunnels in the mines. My dad stood outside, at the entrance, and kept any of the soldiers from getting in. When we had all the survivors inside, I tried to go get him. Let him know we were all safe.
“But he cast this giant wall of fire in front of me, so I couldn’t get to him. I tried to climb the rocks, see if I could get down that way. And then big chunks of the mountain started flying up into the air. He was ripping the top of the mountain up with his magic. He lifted it all above the smoke, where the army couldn’t see it. And then he dropped it on top of everyone there, including himself. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. And the rocks just kept falling and falling, and I … I just stood there and watched.”
Ciaran envisioned the scene, trying to imagine the rumbling of the landslide. All he could hear in his head was the sound of rolling thunder. He remembered her all-out panic the night of the storm, and his heart sank.
“It’s my fault,” Asra said. “They told me not to go to the city, and I didn’t listen. They told me it was dangerous, and I didn’t listen. Dad came to the palace to rescue me. If he had stayed home, he could have stopped the attack. He should have left me there. I deserved it.”
She scratched at her cheek, but Ciaran saw the tear that flashed on her fingertips before she swiped it away. She looked out into the dark woods with a shuddering sigh, a bitter smile on her face.
“This is why I don’t like to drink,” she said.
Guilt prickled at Ciaran’s mind through the fog of alcohol. Perhaps this had been a bad idea.
“We’ll call it a draw,” he said, and he dropped his cup onto the ground.
Asra nodded. She stood and said, “I should probably get some sleep.”
Ciaran nodded and stood, swaying. He tried to take a step, but stumbled. Asra’s firm grip on his arm kept him from tumbling to the ground. She held him steady there for a moment, and their eyes met, their faces so close together their noses almost touched. Her grip was iron, and he felt the power of every one of her rippling muscles in it. Her proximity set his heart racing.
The corner of her mouth twitched as she whispered, “If you can’t even stand up, I’m pretty sure I won.”
Ciaran heaved a dramatic sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to concede.”
They stood there for a moment, Ciaran’s pulse pounding in his ears so loudly he feared Asra might hear it. As she turned to leave, Ciaran said, “Wait,” and caught her hand as it slipped past.
He half expected her to wrench her hand away from him, but she just stood there, watching him, waiting for him to speak. Their gazes lingered on each other, the light of the dying fire dancing in Asra’s eyes, and Ciaran was distracted enough that he almost forgot what he wanted to tell her.
“I’m … I’m sorry for what my brother did to you. For the attack on your people. I can’t imagine … ”
Asra tensed, every muscle readying itself to flee, but she didn’t retreat. Ciaran thought of their first meeting as children. It was no wonder she was so closed off with him. She’d shared stories of her people with Nolan and in return he’d destroyed them. What assurance had he given her that he wouldn’t do the same when Nolan was gone?
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Ciaran said.
Asra’s brows drew together. She looked for a moment as if she might say something, but she only nodded once, then headed to the tent.
She paused at the entrance and said, “Sorry for almost eating you.”
Then she disappeared inside.