Chapter 20: The Prince's Patience
The forest east of Silverwood was a different beast. It didn’t just surround them; it consumed. Ancient oaks wove a ceiling so thick the daylight turned a sickly green, and the ground was a spongy mat of rot and grasping roots. Silence pressed down, broken only by the distant, dripping echo of water and the ragged sound of their own breathing.
Jared lasted three hours.
He was leaning heavily on the branch, his face the color of ash, when his knee simply buckled. He went down without a sound, catching himself on his hands before his face hit the moss.
“Damn it,” he growled, more at his own body than the forest.
Kellen was at his side in an instant, pressing a hand to his forehead. “He’s burning up. The wound’s infected.” He didn’t say I told you so. He didn’t need to.
Freir scanned the dense, darkening woods, his expression grim. “We can’t stop here. This is ambush territory. We need walls. Even shitty ones.” He chewed his lip, thinking. “There’s a trading post. A foul little place on what used to be the border. It caters to smugglers and people who don’t want to be found. A day’s walk from here. Less, if we weren’t dragging a man who weighs as much as a draft horse.”
“We’re not leaving him,” Clara said, her voice flat. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Kellen agreed, his mind already working. “We carry him. In shifts.”
It was brutal, clumsy work. Jared was all dense muscle, and even semi-conscious, he was a dead weight. Freir and Kellen linked arms under his shoulders, his arms draped over their necks. Clara carried their meager supplies—the empty waterskin, the single remaining knife—and tried to clear a path ahead, pushing aside thorny creepers.
Jared’s muttered apologies were the only conversation. “Sorry… this is… ridiculous…”
“Shut up and conserve your strength,” Freir snapped, but there was no heat in it, just strained effort.
They moved like that for what felt like years, the green twilight deepening around them. The air grew colder, damper. Then, through a break in the trees, they saw it: a narrow, muddy track, and beside it, a two-story structure of weathered planks leaning against a rocky outcrop. A sign, half-broken, creaked in the wind. The Staggering Hart. Smoke curled from a chimney pipe, the smell of burnt fat and ale faint on the air.
“Civilization,” Freir muttered, his voice dripping with irony.
Getting Jared up the steps and through the door of the common room was an ordeal. The room fell silent, a dozen pairs of eyes—hard, assessing, incurious—tracking their progress. A man with a scar bisecting his eyebrow wiped a tankard slowly behind a rough-hewn bar.
Freir didn’t approach him. He walked straight to a corner table where a woman in a leather apron was losing a game of dice. He dropped a single, heavy gold coin onto the wood beside her hand. It was the last of his ready coin, Clara realized.
“The back chamber. The quiet one. For two nights,” Freir said, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
The woman didn’t look at the coin. She looked at Jared’s sweating face, at Kellen’s aristocratic bearing poorly concealed by dirt, at Clara’s too-large dress. She pocketed the coin. “Up the stairs. End of the hall. Don’t bleed on the sheets.”
The chamber was exactly as described. A mean space smelling of damp wool and old pipe smoke. A single lantern sat on a rickety table. The bed was large, its linen yellowed and stiff. The floorboards groaned under their weight.
They got Jared onto the bed. Kellen began immediately, using the last of the clean water from a pitcher to wash the inflamed wound on Jared’s side. His fingers were deft, clinical. “It needs proper cleaning. Herbs. A poultice. Things we don’t have.”
“I’ll get them,” Freir said, already turning for the door.
“You can’t go back down there alone,” Clara said, a thread of panic in her voice. That common room felt like a pit of wolves.
“I’ve dealt with worse company.” He gave her a tight smile. “Watch the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me.” He slipped out, the lock clicking softly behind him.
The room shrank with him gone. There was only the ragged sound of Jared’s breathing, the soft, wet sounds of Kellen’s ministrations, and the oppressive silence of the inn itself. Clara stood with her back against the door, listening to the distant rise and fall of voices below.
Kellen spoke without looking up. “He’s right, you know. About using your testimony as a weapon. It’s the only move we have that isn’t just running.”
“I know.”
“It will be ugly. They will try to break your story. They will call you a liar, a hysteric.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Kellen finally glanced at her, his hands stilling for a moment. “Yes. You have.” He went back to work, his voice lower. “I will be there. To verify every detail. My testimony as a Duke of the Empire… it holds a different weight. Even in disgraced exile.”
It was an offering. Not of love, or even of desire, but of solidarity. Of using his mind, his status, as her shield. Clara nodded, a lump in her throat.
Time stretched. The lantern flame guttered. Jared stirred, mumbling something about posted rotations.
Then a knock—a specific pattern: two quick, one slow.
Clara unbolted the door. Freir shouldered his way in, his arms full. A clay jar of honey, a bundle of dried yarrow and comfrey, a clean-ish strip of linen, a loaf of coarse bread, and a wedge of hard cheese. He also had a new knife at his belt, its handle plain and worn.
“Traded the embroidery on my coat,” he said by way of explanation, dumping his haul on the table. “The bartender’s wife has a sense for healing. She asked no questions. Cost extra.”
He moved to the bedside, unpacking the herbs with a focused efficiency. He crushed the yarrow in his palm, mixed it with a dab of honey, his movements sure. This, too, was a skill born of necessity. Of patching up wounds far from court physicians.
Between them, Kellen and Freir cleaned, poulticed, and bound Jared’s side with a silent, coordinated competence that spoke of mutual, if grudging, respect. Jared faded into a deeper, more peaceful sleep, the lines of pain easing from his face.
Kellen finally sat back in the room’s lone chair, exhaustion etched into his features. “We should sleep. In shifts. I’ll take the first watch.”
Freir jerked his head toward the door. “You take the chair. I’ll be outside.”
“Outside?”
“Someone needs to listen to the hall. And the stairs. That lock is a joke.” He looked at Clara. “You get the other bed. Try to actually sleep.”
He was gone again before she could protest, pulling the door shut. She heard the faint rustle as he settled on the floor in the corridor, a silent sentinel.
The reality of the space descended upon her. The large, empty bed. Kellen, a tense silhouette in the chair by the window, his eyes on the dark yard below. Jared, a solid, sleeping warmth beside her.
Clara lay on the very edge of the mattress, stiff in the stiff sheets, listening to the two different rhythms of breathing. She must have dozed, because the next thing she knew, the lantern was out and the room was lit by murky pre-dawn gloom filtering through a grimy window.
Kellen was asleep in the chair, his head tilted at an uncomfortable angle. Jared was still out. The door opened silently, and Freir stepped back in. He looked weary, a shadow of stubble on his jaw, but his eyes were alert. He saw she was awake.
He moved to the washstand, pouring the last of the water into the basin. He splashed his face, ran wet hands through his hair. Then he leaned on the stand, his back to her, his shoulders tight with a coiled energy that hadn't been there before.
“They’re talking downstairs,” he said, his voice low so as not to wake the others. “A group came in late. Not imperial soldiers. Mercenaries. Asking about a group of four. Two noblemen, a guard, a woman. The bounty is significant.”
Clara’s blood went cold. She sat up slowly.
Freir turned around. The careful control he usually wore was sanding away, leaving something raw and angry beneath. “They’re describing you. Not as a victim. As a traitorous whore who stole state secrets and seduced her own husbands into treason.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “My father’s name buys some hesitation here, but not enough. Not for the gold they’re offering. We have until maybe midday before someone in this rotten place decides to collect.”
He pushed off from the stand and crossed the room in three swift strides. Before Clara could process the threat, his hands were on the doorframe on either side of her head, caging her in. The sudden proximity was a shock. She could smell the forest cold still on his skin, see the flecks of gold in his anguished eyes.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, then dragged slowly down her neck, over the wool dress, as if he could see every hidden scar beneath. A possessive, furious heat radiated from him. It wasn’t entirely about desire. It was a rebellion.
“We’ll show them,” he growled, his voice a rough vibration in the quiet room. His lips brushed the sensitive skin where her neck met her shoulder, tracing the path of a scar his fingers couldn’t touch. “We’ll get to my father’s court, and we’ll show them exactly how a prince worships his wife. Let them see what their lies tried to smear.”
His intensity was a tidal wave. It was the same force that had proposed using her as a political weapon, now turned fiercely, dangerously personal. For a second, Clara was back in the palace, cornered, the air stolen from her lungs. Her body went rigid, a board against the door.
Freir felt it. He froze instantly.
His entire posture changed. The aggression bled out, replaced by a sudden, startling stillness. He pulled back just enough to see her face. In the grey light, he saw the panic she couldn’t hide.
His hands came down from the doorframe. Slowly, so slowly, he lifted one and cradled the side of her face. His thumb stroked her cheekbone, a gesture of shocking gentleness.
“Clara.” Her name was a sigh. The anger was gone, replaced by a deep, frustrated pain. “Just kisses, then,” he murmured, his eyes searching hers. “Only that. Right here. Until you say otherwise.”
He didn’t move. He left the choice hanging in the inch of space between them, his hand warm against her skin, his breath mingling with hers. The offer was clear. A reclaiming, but on her terms. A quiet defiance in a filthy inn room, with bounty hunters drinking below and her other husbands sleeping steps away.
Downstairs, a door slammed.
The sound was like a gunshot in the stillness. Freir’s head snapped toward the door, his body shifting from a lover’s proximity to a fighter’s stance in a heartbeat. His hand fell from her face.
“They’re getting restless,” he muttered, his eyes locked on the worn wood.
Clara’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic counter-rhythm to the heavy boots now tromping in the common room below. The world was crashing back in, but the space between them still hummed with what had almost happened. With what she still wanted, despite the fear, because of the fear. It was hers to choose.
She hesitated.
Then she breached the distance.
Her kiss wasn’t confident. It was a press of her lips against his, a testing of the promise he’d just made. It was brief, and she pulled back just enough to see his eyes, which had widened with a shock that quickly melted into something molten.
“Kissing is okay,” she whispered, the words tasting foreign. “It’s nice when it’s one of you three.” A faint, shaky ghost of a smile touched her mouth. “I’ve never been kissed so sweetly, or so passionately in this way. I don’t mind… if you want to kiss me other places besides my lips.”
She took a quick breath, feeling the heat flood her cheeks. “I’m just… not ready to go any further.”
For a second, he just looked at her, as if deciphering a complex code. The shouts from downstairs seemed to fade. Then, a soft, breathless laugh escaped him. He leaned his forehead against hers, a gesture of staggering tenderness. “Okay,” he said, the word a vow. “Places besides the lips are okay. Got it.”
He didn’t ask for a list. He simply bent his head and touched his mouth to the pulse at the base of her throat. It was a kiss that held the gravity of the scars just inches away, a silent apology and a claiming all at once. Then he lifted his head, his demeanor shifting again, a general reassembling himself for battle.
“We need to move. Now.”
He turned toward the bed. Kellen was already awake, watching them from the chair, his expression unreadable in the gloom. He had seen it all.
“How much did you hear?” Freir asked, not breaking stride as he shook Jared’s uninjured shoulder.
“Enough. The bounty. The company downstairs.” Kellen stood, rolling the stiffness from his neck. “Your solution is moving. Mine is misinformation.”
“What’s that mean?” Jared grunted, pushing himself up, his eyes clearer but his movements slow.
“It means we give them a different story to sell.” Kellen walked to the small traveling pack, pulling out the plain, dark cloak Clara had worn from the keep. He threw it to Freir. “Put this on. Hood up. You’re leaving with me, right now, through the back. We’ll be loud about heading toward the northern pass.”
Freir caught the cloak, understanding dawning. “You’re the decoy. The two noblemen fleeing.”
“Exactly. They’ll follow the money. The description is two nobles and a guard with a woman. So we split that description. Give them a cleaner chase.” Kellen looked at Clara and Jared. “You two are the guard and the woman. You leave separately, ten minutes after we cause a scene. Head straight east. Follow the creek bed. We’ll circle around and meet you by the standing stones before nightfall.”
“It’s thin,” Jared said, but he was already swinging his legs off the bed, testing his weight.
“It’s all we have.” Kellen’s voice was final. He looked at Freir. “Ready to cause a problem?”
Freir grinned, a flash of wild energy. He pulled the cloak on, shrouding his distinctive features. “Always.”
They went to the door. Kellen paused, his hand on the latch. He didn’t look at Clara, but his words were for her. “Don’t stop for anything. If we’re not at the stones by full dark, keep going toward the light border outpost. Got it?”
She nodded, her throat tight.
Freir glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes finding hers. The promise from a minute ago was still there, a live wire between them. Then he was gone, Kellen at his heels, their footsteps pounding deliberately down the hall toward the stairs.
A moment of silence choked the room. Then a roar of commotion erupted from below—shouts, the crash of overturned furniture, Freir’s voice loud and aristocratic cursing the “filthy den” as two figures burst out the back door.
The hunt was on.
Clara counted each heartbeat. Jared had pushed himself upright and was moving with a forced, grim efficiency, tightening the bandage on his side. He picked up the new knife Freir had acquired, testing its balance.
“Can you run?” Clara asked, her voice barely audible.
“I can hobble with purpose.” He offered her the handle of the knife. “You should carry this.”
She took it. The worn wood was warm. Another weapon, another choice.
At ten minutes, they moved. The hallway was empty. The common room was a wreck of broken stools and spilled ale, empty save for the barkeep who methodically swept glass. He didn’t look up as they slipped out the front door into the cold, mist-laden morning.
The world was grey and dripping. They found the creek, a silver trickle over mossy stones, and turned east, into the dense wall of trees. They didn’t speak. Every snap of a twig, every rustle in the damp ferns, sliced through Clara like a blade.
They had been moving for an hour when Jared suddenly stopped, his hand shooting out to pull her behind the thick trunk of a fallen pine. His breathing was labored.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He pointed. Through a gap in the foliage, about fifty yards down the slope they’d just climbed, two men moved. They weren’t following the creek. They were cutting across, dogged, methodical. One held a short, thick bow.
The mercenaries hadn’t all taken the bait.
“They’re tracking us,” Jared breathed. “Not them. Us.”
He looked at her, his face pale but resolved. “We need to split up.”
Clara’s eyes widen and she shakes her head. “I can’t go alone.”
The words are out before she can cage them, raw and thin with a fear deeper than the mercenaries. It’s the fear of the silent room, of absolute solitude. Jared’s expression shifts from tactical calculation to pained understanding.
“You won’t be,” he says, his voice low and hurried. “It’s a feint. You hide here. I lead them off, circle back.” He gestures to the cavernous space beneath the massive, upturned roots of the fallen pine. “Tuck in there. Don’t move. Don’t breathe.”
“With your fever? You’ll collapse.”
“Then I’ll collapse loudly, somewhere far from you.” He managed a tight, grim smile. “Better one of us gets caught than both. And they want you, Clara. The gold is for you.”
He was right. The knowledge was a cold stone in her gut. She was the commodity, the prize. His hand, hot and solid, squeezed her shoulder. “Ten minutes. If I’m not back, you follow the creek east. Remember the stones.”
He didn’t wait for another argument. He broke from cover, not with a stealthy creep, but with a loud, crashing stumble through a thicket of dry bracken. He grunted, a convincingly pained sound, and veered north, away from the water.
The two men below halted. Their low, excited murmur carried on the damp air. They changed course, moving faster, following the noise.
Clara melted into the dark, earthy hollow under the roots. The soil smelled of decay and worms. She curled tightly, the knife Freir had given her held in a white-knuckled grip against her chest. She counted seconds, each one a hammer against her ribs.
Silence descended, heavier than before. The forest felt watchful. A drip of condensed mist landed on her neck, making her flinch. She strained her ears, hearing only the distant cry of a jay and the endless, soft drip from the leaves.
Had they caught him? Was he lying in a patch of ferns, an arrow in his back? The image was sharp, unbearable. She thought of his hand bringing hers to his fevered brow in the keep. My duty was to a monster.
She couldn’t let his duty end here.
The ten-minute mark came and went. The silence was complete. A new, colder fear settled in. Being alone was terrible. The thought of Jared dead because of her was worse.
She uncurled, moss and dirt clinging to her dress. She peered out. The slope was empty. No sign of pursuit, no sign of Jared. The creek gurgled to her left, the path to safety. To the east.
She looked north, into the tangled, dark web of trees where he’d vanished. Where danger definitely was.
Clara moved north.
Every step was an act of defiance against every survival instinct Kellen and Freir had tried to instill. She was quiet, moving from trunk to trunk, her eyes scanning the ground. She found the crushed bracken of his path, a few scuffs in the soft earth. Then, a few yards later, a single, deep footprint pointing west. He’d changed direction.
She followed, her heart a frantic bird in her throat. The land dipped into a narrow gully choked with brambles. And there, slumped against the base of a granite slab, was Jared.
He was breathing, his eyes closed. No arrow in him. But his face was grey, his skin slick with a new sheen of sweat. He’d pushed too hard, too fast. The fever had won.
Relief was so sharp it felt like a new kind of pain. She scrambled down the short incline, rocks skittering under her shoes. She knelt beside him, her hand on his cheek. “Jared.”
His eyes flickered open, glassy with heat. “You… idiot,” he breathed, but there was no force in it. “You were supposed… to go.”
“You weren’t back.” Her fingers fumbled for the waterskin, but it was empty. She looked around, desperate. “Did they follow?”
“Lost them… at the ravine.” He tried to push himself up and failed, a grimace twisting his features. “Clara, you have to—”
A twig snapped above them, on the lip of the gully.
Clara’s head whipped around. One of the mercenaries stood there, the one with the bow, his expression one of bored triumph. He hadn’t drawn the weapon. He didn’t need to. He held a heavy cudgel.
“Tidy,” the man said, his voice a gravelly drawl. “Saves me the walk. He’s worth a bit, but you…” He smiled, a gap-toothed thing. “You’re a retirement fund, girl.”
Jared summoned a terrifying burst of strength, lurching to place himself between Clara and the gully’s edge. He was swaying, his fists clenched, a cornered bear. “Touch her and you die.”
The mercenary chuckled, unimpressed. He began to pick his way down.
Clara’s hand tightened on the knife. The feel of the worn handle was a anchor. Freir’s voice echoed in her memory. Just kisses, then. Until you say otherwise. This was her saying otherwise. This was her choice.
She didn’t shout. She didn’t hesitate. As the man’s boot hit the gully floor, she stepped out from behind Jared’s broad, unsteady back.
She held the knife not like a soldier, but like a woman who had peeled a thousand apples. A practical, forward grip.
The mercenary paused, genuinely amused. “Sweetheart, put the toy down. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I might,” Clara said, her voice not shaking. It was strange, how calm it sounded. “But you’ll bleed first. And your friend isn’t here to help you.”
He frowned, his eyes darting for a half-second to the woods behind her. It was the opening Jared needed.
With a raw shout, Jared charged. It wasn’t a fighter’s charge. It was a fall with purpose, a massive wave of momentum. He crashed into the mercenary, and they went down in a tangle of limbs and curses.
The cudgel skittered away. The bow was pinned. They grappled in the mud, Jared’s strength fueled by pure adrenaline, the mercenary’s by professional fury.
Clara dove for the cudgel. Her fingers closed around the cold, greasy wood. She stood, hefting it. It was disgustingly heavy.
The men rolled. The mercenary was on top now, his hands going for Jared’s throat. Jared’s hands were locked on the man’s wrists, his arms trembling with the effort of holding him off.
Clara didn’t think. She swung.
The wood connected with the mercenary’s shoulder with a thick, solid thunk. He roared, more in surprise than pain, and rolled off Jared. He scrambled to his feet, his left arm hanging oddly, his face a mask of rage. He focused on her now, the real threat.
“You little bi—”
Jared’s foot hooked his ankle from the ground. The man stumbled. Clara swung the cudgel again, a wild, sideways arc. It caught him across the jaw.
He went down, hard, and didn’t move.
Silence, except for their ragged breathing. Clara stared at the prone figure, the cudgel dangling from her hand. Nausea rose in her throat, acidic and hot.
Jared pushed himself to his knees, then, with a tremendous effort, to his feet. He stumbled to her, pulling the cudgel gently from her frozen grip. He tossed it into the brambles.
“Hey,” he said softly, turning her face away from the downed man. “Look at me. You did good. You saved me.”
She was trembling. “Is he…”
Jared nudged the man with his boot. A low groan answered. “Alive. Unfortunately.” He sighed, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “We can’t leave him to wake up and follow. And we can’t…” He didn’t finish. The unspoken kill him in cold blood hung between them.
Clara swallowed the bile in her throat. Her eyes fell on the man’s belt, and the coil of rough rope hooked there. “Tie him.”
Jared’s fever-bright eyes met hers, and he nodded, a spark of grim approval in their depths. “Okay. Yeah.”
It was clumsy work with his shaking hands and her inexperience, but they bound the man’s wrists and ankles, using a strip torn from his own tunic as a gag. They dragged him into a denser thicket, out of sight.
Finished, Jared leaned against the granite slab, his energy spent. “We need… to keep moving. His friend…”
“I know.” Clara slid under his arm, taking his weight again. It was heavier now, a dead drag. “The creek is that way. We’ll follow it. Just… put one foot in front of the other.”
He did. They did. Their progress was agonizingly slow, a halting, limping retreat through the endless green. The adrenaline faded, leaving Clara hollow and shaking. The feel of the cudgel connecting, the sound it made—it played behind her eyes on a loop.
“You’re not what they say,” Jared mumbled after a long stretch of silence, his words slurring with exhaustion. “Not even close.”
“I might be now,” she said, the image of the man’s head snapping to the side flashing again.
“No.” His voice gained a sliver of force. “That was protection. That’s different. That’s… family.”
The word landed softly in the murky forest air. It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t heal his fever or erase the bounty on their heads. But for a few steps, the path seemed a little less dark.