Grace hitched her pack up higher on her shoulders and started walking. “You said there wasn’t any evidence that it was just the mountain.”
“There isn’t any evidence to say that it wasn’t, either.” Harold started after her. “You’re putting your life on the line for so little?”
“They’re friends.” Grace shook her head. She was showing too much emotion.
“So we’ll go,” said Alex, catching up with them. “It’s better to know.”
Harold cast disparaging looks over both of them. “I just like it better when the answers are in books.”
Grace thought back to a day when an answer from a book had changed her life. “Yeah,” she said, surprising herself. “Me, too.”
It had been one of the best afternoons she’d had in a while, Grace thought as she laid out her sleep sack in front of the fire.
The sun had held out, and they’d made good time along the trail. Harold and Alex had a rhythm that pleased her.
“I still don’t see,” Alex said, stretching out in front of their fire, “why we can’t take a boat.”
Grace took her time admiring the lithe movements of Alex’s body. She didn’t answer until the silence had almost stretched awkwardly long. “I don’t want to get sent back home.”
A chunk of unruly bangs fell careless over Alex’s eyebrow. The reddish glow of the fire cast warm flickering lights over her cheekbones, turning her complexion shades of burnished bronze. Her neck disappeared into shadow, and Grace had a sudden urge to taste the hidden valleys the firelight both concealed and highlighted.
“You’re dodging court,” said Harold, quiet.
He wasn’t wrong, Grace thought, but Petra understood, and--
She sat bolt upright. “Harold,” she said urgently. “You can’t tell Petra about Alex.”
Harold looked at her in confusion, but Grace wasn’t even looking at him. She could see the hurt blooming on Alex’s face, and she was on her feet at once, not caring that her boots would leave clods of mud on her sleeping sack. There was a sudden odd silence, as if the quiet background chirping of bugs had suddenly fallen silent. It ripped at her ears, and she strained to hear them. The cicadas still sang, but--
Alex had shoved herself to her feet and taken a few steps out of the circle of light. Her face had gone grey as the warmth of the fire’s light failed to reach her.
“Stay,” Grace said to Harold. He looked at her in blank affront, and she ignored him as she crossed the clearing.
She took hold of Alex’s wrist and pulled her off into the trees.
“Grace, I understand,” said Alex, a weird crackling sound creeping through her voice.
“No, you don’t,” Grace hissed. It felt like waves against her chest, pounding harshly in a storm. “It’s just that Petra…”
“Doesn’t think well of me?” asked Alex. “But no one does.”
Grace swatted at a bug that was flying around her head. The smoke of the fire kept them away, but here in the woods they had begun to swarm. “She’s the only one who matters,” said Grace. “Please don’t make me choose.” The words sliced keenly through her composure.
Alex smoothed back Grace’s hair, and there was a hint of something, something agitated still, and Grace wasn’t sure it was all her own. The touch was marvelously soothing, and Grace found herself resting her head against Alex’s shoulder.
As if Grace weren’t the villain in this situation. She cleared her throat and tried again. “She’s my sister, and I need her. She’s the only one who believes me. The only one who can stand for me in court.”
Tension went out of the shoulder under Grace’s cheek. “I don’t want to be your secret,” said Alex, carefully neutral.
“I don’t want that, either.” Grace pulled back to look at Alex. “I just want to be able to-- to tell it right.”
One hand cupped the back of her skull, treating it as if it were delicate as eggshells. The other traced the line of her jaw, tilting her face up. Grace went willingly, gladly, and the background noise she’d missed roared back into life when Alex kissed her.
“It’s a shame Harold is here,” Alex said, after some time. “We’re here to spend the night together and I can’t.”
“If he weren’t--” Grace asked, breathless. It felt like her stomach had filled with moths nevertheless drawn to the spark of fire that Alex lit in her.
There was still something uneasy between them, but Grace’s limbs felt warm and heavy, like she’d had a second glass of the strange golden wine that suffused the drinker with warmth and cheer. When she and Petra had spent a rare lazy summer evening in the private courtyard of the manse and done just that, they’d paid a heavy price for it the following morning. Grace wondered if there would be something similar here. Would the cure be as simple as drinking the clear sweet mountain water?
She reached out and took Alex’s hand, and Alex led her back towards the camp.
When they got back to the clearing, Harold was studiously silent.
Grace bundled herself into her sleep sack and let the fire warm her. Alex joined her, leaving just enough space for Harold, who eyed them with eyes full of unasked questions but took his place silently.
The fire crackled merrily and, in spite of everything, Grace fell swiftly into sleep.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Grace set aside just enough food for breakfast and pointedly ignored the way Alex stretched. She didn’t notice the way Alex moved in a lithe, sinuous fashion at all.
“So, Princess,” Alex said. “Why are you taking the slow way?” An expanse of brown skin had appeared out of her sleep sack, and Grace took care not to look.
Grace shrugged, shoved the rest of the travel biscuit into her mouth, and kept rolling up her sleep sack. They had miles to cover.
“If I wanted to get to the mountains,” Alex went on, undeterred, “I would take a boat.”
The sleep sack fit neatly into its case, and Grace pushed it down to the bottom of the bag so it would lie smoothly against her lower back as she hiked. “Hiking works,” she said, still gruff with the morning.
“Sailing works, too. Only faster.”
There were at least seventeen reasons why Grace hadn’t immediately gone to take a boat. The foremost among them was that hiking soothed her. Her muscles sang with the exertion. Lurking under that, though, were the other reasons: these were the ones she didn’t want to talk about. The fear she’d be recognized and stopped. The desire to spend as much time away from court as possible. The honest feel of dirt under her boots, and her preference for being in control of all of her movements.
She turned her face away and wondered what her problem was. Slinging her pack over her shoulders, she said, “Sailing works.”
Alex was still half-dressed with a sleep crease on her cheek. She took two steps closer to Grace, apparently unconscious of her own nudity, and said, “But you’re reluctant, Highness. Why is that?”
Grace was suddenly and dizzily aware of Alex’s height and proximity. She swallowed.
Alex smoothed a hand over Grace’s hair, which Grace hadn’t bothered to brush. It snagged in a tangle. “If you’re afraid of the water, I think I can be suitably distracting.”
That jarred Grace back to reality. She wrenched herself away and went hunting in her bag for a brush. “What? No! I just didn’t want anyone to make me go home.”
Grinning, Alex produced a brush out of a pocket, and Grace used it with more force than strictly necessary, yanking it through her hair. “I can solve that, too.”
Stuffing her hair back into a ponytail, Grace asked, “Oh? How?”
“Give me my brush back, and I’ll show you.” Alex held out her hand, and Grace blankly turned it over.
In an instant, Alex had swept Grace onto the tree stump where they’d eaten and pulled the tie from Grace’s hair.
“What--?” Grace abruptly fell quiet when Alex’s hands brushed against the nape of her neck.
Normally, Grace put her h
air back. For formal occasions, she put it up, and, rarely, it fell straight and prickly down her back.
Within fifteen minutes, Grace was staring into a little pocket mirror that Alex had procured from the recesses of her bag and wondering who was looking back at her. The eyes were the same, and the nose was the same, and that was it. Her hair had turned a lighter color, and it feathered and curved around her face, casting shadows that made her bones look different.
“How did you do that?”
Laughing, Alex caught Grace’s wrist. “Don’t touch, you’ll ruin it.”
Grace peered into her own reflection, amazed by the change. “You carry the oddest things in your pack.”
“Well, you can make do with dirt and crushed grass in a pinch, but it’s not as good.” Alex produced a small bundle of fabric and shook it out. “There, put this on.”
It was a dress, high-necked and out-of-date, and it reminded Grace of Nell. With a pang, she pulled it over her head and settled it over her outfit. “What about Harold?”
Harold waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not important.”
“Of course you’re important,” said Grace reflexively, standing and moving her head from side to side. Her hair felt different.
He grinned over his glasses. “OK, what I meant to say is that I’m not notorious. No one’s going to send me back to Coura.”
Alex finished fastening up the closures on her pack and slung it carelessly over her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s catch a boat.”
They made it to the docks half an hour of easy hiking later.
There was a small, flat-bottomed riverboat tethered to the end of the dock. It was high in the water, likely on its way to fetch another load of goods down river to the bazaar. Halfway through the summer, inventories began to run low.
With more enthusiasm than finesse, two adolescent youths were tethering a pair of oxen to tow it up the river. Grace had watched enough boats come in and out of her own dock to know that even their clumsy efforts would put the boat in motion within half an hour.
It all seemed unlikely. Suspicious of the fortuitous timing, Grace fidgeted with the sleeve of her dress. After slanting a look at Alex didn’t yield any clues, she asked, “How do you do this stuff?”
“Shhh. You’ll blow our cover.” Alex took her hand and led her down the dock, approaching the man overseeing the oxen maneuver. He had hair poking out of his ears and a little pot belly. His eyes, set deep in a face of tanned leathery skin, lit up when he saw Alex, and thick bushy white eyebrows winged up.
“What are you doing here, you scamp?” he bellowed across the distance. “I thought you were living the high life in the capital.”
They drew closer as Alex called back. “I was. Now I’m going to do a job in Arrosa.”
“You take care of yourself there,” the man replied, in a more normal tone. “They have some harsh ideas about justice in the north.”
Alex feigned affront. “You know I handle myself, Bill.”
Bill shook his head, as if they’d had this argument before and would have it again over a glass of something. “And who’s your friend?”
Running a finger suggestively down Alex’s spine, Alex grinned instead of answering.
Bill laughed, and Grace was charmed instead of appalled. Worrying. “You and your girls.”
“Guilty.” There was the faintest touch of color on Alex’s cheeks, which fascinated Grace even as her stomach gave a lurch. How many others were there?
“I expect you’re looking to hitch a ride with us. Well, come on then.”
“I knew I could count on you.” Alex stretched out her arms, and Bill returned the embrace, clapping her heartily on the back as they clambered aboard.
“I just don’t want a repeat of the incident with that farmer’s daughter. There are impressionable young ones about, and I need them focused on work and not trying to peep in on you and your lady friend.” Bill gestured at the two youths, who had just finished tying off the harnesses on the second ox.
“Don’t worry,” Alex called back. “I brought a chaperone.”
Harold harrumphed, and it warmed Grace to have friends with her on what she’d meant to be a solitary quest.
“So what was that about the farmer’s daughter?” she asked once Bill was out of earshot.
Alex coughed nervously. “Do you really want to hear that one?”
“No,” said Harold at once. He looked slightly green, even though the boat moved slowly in the water. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Well?” Grace asked again, once Harold had left. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him leaning over the bow of the boat to vomit. She looked away to give him privacy.
“So, there was this farmer’s daughter,” Alex began, reaching over to rest her hands on Grace’s hips.
Raising an eyebrow, Grace replied dryly: “I had gathered as much.”
Taking half a step in towards Grace, Alex went on: “She said she’d wanted to go to the city and work at the bazaar instead of working on her parents’ farm. I seem like the disreputable type, so she asked me for a hand.”
Alex was too close. It was like a drug, and Grace’s mouth went dry. She licked her lips against it. She couldn’t look away. “You gave her one.”
Smiling, just a little, Alex said, “Yeah. Got her out to the boat, tucked her between some packing crates. I had her laid out like a banquet, the sun spread out over her skin like butter. I’d just finished taking her apart when Bill heard her and rousted us.” She dragged her fingers roughly through her hair, pushing it away from her face. “But he gave us the ride anyway.”
It painted a vivid image. Made too many emotions swirl in Grace’s chest. Instead of thinking about it, Grace fisted her hands in the short hair at the nape of Alex’s neck and drew her down, feeling bold with the sun on her cheeks. Their lips met, just a little too hard.
It was sunny out, and a breeze swept over the water and over their skin. Grace wanted, suddenly, desperately, to know Alex could do. What they could do together, on a gently rocking boat on a sunny summer afternoon.
A sharp tap on the back of Alex’s head brought them both back to reality.
“I meant it, you two,” said Bill. “Watch the hands.”
Grace flushed under the mud Alex had smeared on her cheeks that morning.
“Laying claim?” asked Alex, dipping her head to murmur in Grace’s ear.
“Something like that,” Grace replied, carefully ignoring the way something low in her belly pulsed in response to the voice. “Are there many farmer’s daughters in your life?”
“Once upon a time,” said Alex, pitching her voice low. “But right now, there’s the daughter of a queen.”
Something about Alex’s tone made the bottom of Grace’s stomach pitch like the boat was on an ocean during a storm instead of on a placid river on a sunny day. “We should go check on Harold,” she said abruptly, and fled.
They stopped for the evening later than Grace had expected. She hoped they hadn’t caused a delay for Bill.
The moment the moorings were set, Harold clambered off the boat for the night.
“Will you be okay?” Grace asked, following behind him.
He nearly pitched into the river. Grace steadied him with a hand to his elbow.
“I’ll be fine,” he’d said, terse. “I’m just not a big fan of the water.”
Since he’d vomited over the side of the boat into the river twice over the course of the day, Grace was inclined to let it go.
They spent the night on the deck of boat under the stars. Grace laid her sleeping roll a careful distance away from Alex’s to avoid Bill’s wrath and let the gentle motion of the boat lull her to sleep. Snoring emanated from the cabin where Bill slept.
Grace began to think that Harold might have had the right of it when he chose to sleep on the shore.
The next morning, though, Grace and Alex were able to put together a breakfast and enjoy it lazily while Harold scrambled to put his gea
r together. He dashed back onto the boat moments before it was back in motion.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. He was already looking green. When the oxen began to pull the barge, he clutched at his stomach and rushed to the railing.
By lunchtime, Grace could see one of the lakes that fed the river pooled at the base of the Couran mountains she needed to hike.
She took the opportunity to organize her knapsack. By the time the boat neared the shore, she’d double-checked and re-packed everything.
“There you go,” Bill said as they drew into the dock. “I plan to be loaded by evening and get a start early tomorrow morning, in case you change your mind about going to Arrosa.” He winked broadly at Alex.
Harold was the first to disembark. Forgoing any sense of dignity, he scrambled onto the shore and lay on the bank of the lake, breathing in the air as if he’d been trapped in a room with not quite enough oxygen.
Grace wasn’t unhappy to leave the boat, either. She turned to Alex, vague thoughts of following up on the touches they’d shared the previous day running through her mind.
Alex had a hand in her hair. “This is my stop, I guess. Job’s in Arrosa. I need a horse.”
“Oh,” said Grace, who should have realized.
Knowing better didn’t make the sting of being left behind go away.
She followed along quietly as Alex and Harold laughed and joked their way to the stable.
Alex paused on the step of the stable to thread her hands through Grace’s hair. “You could come with me to Arrosa.”
It was, of course, the correct interpretation. Grace let herself lean in, just a bit. The thought was tempting: to go with Alex, to have adventures, to leave all of her responsibilities behind. Against the impulse stood the image of Jack and Nell, the image of the Picaran glass salesperson who had taken their spot.
“I can’t,” said Grace, at last. “I’m sorry.”
Alex gave Grace a little squeeze. “Such is life.” She walked through the doorway and Grace could hear Alex strike up a conversation with someone inside. The easy banter of negotiation drifted out to her.
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