Caffeine and Magix

(Pt 1 Here (X))

OUT OF TIME! In fact, I went over! But i think I’ll continue this story on my watt pad in the next day or so! I’ll link it here when I do

“Look,” she says, hiding her hands in her skirts. They’re still a little less steady than she’d like, even hours after the fact. “I understand that you’d prefer to have a horrible marriage in which neither of us grow to tolerate the other. Perhaps you already have a mistress, perhaps it’s just me you find repugnant, perhaps you’re still incapable of wrapping your head around the fact this marriage is simply another duty us royals must tend to for the sake of our people and that the best way to see to our duty is with some amount of grace. Whatever your reasonings, I don’t care. The simple truth of the matter is that there is a dead assassin in our bed and if we don’t hide his body then both of our countries are going to doing something profoundly stupid.”

He continues to stare at her, mouth open. Finally, he finds his voice. “I…I was unaware that that amount of words could come out of a single person.” He shakes his head, eyes flying wide. “An assassin?” He throws the covers back and lunges out of bed.

Rina’s own eyes widen–Arez doesn’t sleep in the nude, but his thin trousers do nothing to hide the powerful muscles currently carrying him swiftly towards her. She spins out of the way, letting him crash like a storm through the door and into the other room. He’s got a sword in his hand and she’s embarrassed to admit that she didn’t see from where he procured it.

She’s had a rather trying night.

Arez freezes halfway to the bed, shoulders bunching with tension. He’s very still as he takes in the sight; their marriage bed defiled with blood and worse, the assassin very nearly stripped of his clothing, face unmasked and neck bent unnaturally over the edge of the bed.

“I did say it was a dead assassin,” Rina points out in what she imagines to be a reasonable voice. She picks her way around Arez, careful to choose the side opposite his sword. Warriors are always so twitchy when their sword arm is blocked. “From the North, I imagine, and he knew I’d be alone. He didn’t bring any weapons with him.”

Arez is breathing hard, like a horse that’s left with too much energy and no real direction to expend it. His eyes flick over the room and linger on the mussed sheets. “He tried to smother you with your own pillow.”

“Genius,” Rina admits. With Arez in the room with her–despite her own reservations about him–makes her braver. She’d been jumping at shadows all morning, eyes drawn to the body as if it might leap up and try once more to kill her. She shudders. “Why bring your own weapon when a royal suite has so many? I’m surprised he didn’t try the candelabra.”

Arez drops the sword to his side and turns to stare at her. Whatever he finds in her face is clearly not something he knows how to deal with. Instead of attempting to, he makes his way to the bed and lifts the dead man’s shirt the rest of the way up, exposing the weeping wounds Rina had left in his side.

Rina turns away. She knows exactly the sort of damage her dagger can do, thank you, and it had been bad enough seeing it in the dark. She doesn’t need to see it in the light. She settles herself in the windowsill instead, keeping the embroidered curtains between her and Arez’s silent investigation.

The grounds are so much greener in Arez’s kingdom than in hers. Her lands are flat and dry, the only plants low to the ground and hardy. Oh, her people prosper, but it’s only through the trade with Arez’ country that they’re able to thrive in the long months of drought.

She watches butterflies (red and gold butterflies!) flutter from one patch of flowers to another. She read somewhere that butterflies could drink blood. She sighs. If only they could drink up a whole person and save her this trouble.

Rina glances around her curtain at where Arez is busily relieving the assassin of his shoes. His normal scowl is back, but it’s less severe than when it’s directed at her. She’s once again struck by how handsome he could be without the constant aura of danger he seemed determined to keep around. What sort of life would he have had without this marriage? His father was famous for marrying a peasant woman with a beautiful voice. Would he have preferred to marry for love, like him? Or would he have spent his life the eternal bachelor, abdicating to his younger brother when the time came?

Maybe, just maybe, he’d have fought his useless battles as the War Prince until his luck finally turned.

“I didn’t do it to save your life,” she mutters under her breath. She’d agreed to the marriage to save her country. Not his and certainly not him.

“What?” Arez snaps, head jerking up. He’s picking at the seams of the man’s pants now, examining the fine stitching like it’s going to tell him something profound.

She waves him off and goes back to looking at the world wake up outside the window, ignoring his growl. The dagger in her bodice is just uncomfortable enough that, rather than slumping, she’s forced to sit upright like a proper princess. She keeps one foot on the ground, under her skirts where he can’t see, just in case. She wants to be able to move if he decides to finish the assassin’s job for him.

She doesn’t know if she’s making the right call trusting him. She’s not sure what made Prince Arez, the War Prince, agree to marry a second princess for an alliance. The best case scenario is that he was cowed by his father and forced into it, just as he probably assumes her father did to her.

The worst case scenario is that he did it to eventually murder her and start a war with her country.

Rina purses her lips, shoving the thought away. If she really thought that, she wouldn’t have asked for his help hiding the body. It would be simple for him to kill her, blame the assassin, and then claim he killed the intruder a moment too late. But, instead of doing that, he’s doing his…thing over there.

“Northern assassin,” Arez announces, dropping the man’s leg unceremoniously. The body doesn’t jiggle like she thinks it ought to when impacting the mattress. Rigor mortis has set in. “From the Bishop’s employ, if I had my guess. They’re particularly fond of specialists like this fellow.”

She stands. “Specialists?”

“Hand to hand,” Arez says. He points to the gash in the man’s side. “Where’s the weapon?”

Rina stiffens. “Why?” The dagger burns between her breasts, handle hard against her sternum where her underthings don’t shield it.

Arez looks at her like she’s stupid. “Because we need to destroy it when we hide the body. Any court sorcerer worth his salt will be able to sense death on the blade. I’m assuming you didn’t use one of my weapons?”

That would have been smart. Smarter than Rina is, apparently. She’d forgotten that Arez’ family employed magicians. Stupid. Another threat she didn’t prepare for, just like the assassin appearing in bed with her.

“No,” Rina says, jerking her chin up. “I didn’t. I used my own.”

If Arez thinks it strange that a princess went around armed in her marriage bed, he doesn’t let it show on his face. He advances on her, hand outstretched. “All right, give it to me. I’ll need to get rid of it first.”

Rina stalls. “So you agree with me? We must hide the body with none the wiser?”

“Of course.” Arez huffs a disbelieving laugh. “An assassination attempt on my new wife within a fortnight? I can’t imagine how many weeks that’ll add onto the negotiations not to mention the blow to my reputation that he got into my rooms.”

She blinks at him. “You sound like you don’t want the negotiations stalled.” None of her research had suggested that Arez was in support of the cease fire her father was currently brokering between the North and Arez’ kingdom. None at all.

Rather than answering, he growls at her. “Knife. Now.”

She doesn’t want to be without a weapon, alone in this room with Arez and a dead body. That’s the excuse she pulls tightly around herself, anyway, but it doesn’t take long for it to start to crumble under his narrowing gaze. If he’d wanted to kill her, he would have already, plus he’d already said it would be bad for him if she died so soon after the wedding.

No, her real reluctance stems from where exactly she’s stashed the blade.

She coughs delicately into her hand. “How do you know I didn’t stash it somewhere in the room? Under the bed, perhaps?” If she can get him to turn away for a moment, she can retrieve it with at least a shred of her dignity in tact.

Arez glowers, looming over her. “Because I already searched this room while you were busy gaping at the gardens. That means you either swallowed the blade–a very impressive feat– or you’ve hidden it on your person. Hand it over.”

Her head rears back. Gaped? Gaped? It’s only with supreme will that she’s able to push her offense down and use her gentlest voice to say,“Perhaps you might, er, give me a moment to, uh, remember where I put it–”

“I am not,” Arez bites out through very white teeth, “giving my back to a woman who just killed one of the deadliest men on the planet. Now hand it over or, so help me, I will find it myself.”

This time, she can’t hide her offense. “I would never stab a man in the back.”

“See,” Arez says, pointing a finger at her. “See, that is exactly not what a lady should be saying. She should be saying that she’s never stabbed anyone period, would never, and that’s why you will be handing that little knife you have over, hilt first, before I use undue force on my wife.”

She bares her teeth at him, aware that she’s not delicately flushing like she trained herself to do in situations like these. No, she’s sure she’s full on red. “Fine. But I want you to know that if I ever stab a man in the back, it’ll be because he’s you, dear husband.” Then, without further ado, she reaches fully into the front of her dress, grabs the hilt of the blade, and yanks it out, uncaring that she nearly cuts her own chin pulling the full length from the sheath sewn into her bodice. “Here!”

Arez takes the hilt of the blade, seemingly on reflex. His eyes go from her chest to her, to her chest again. Then they go to the dagger–the foot long dagger– in his hand. “You had this thing down there?”

She slaps the finger he’s pointing with away. “Where else could I have put it?”

“In your skirts?” Arez suggests, seeming a little dazed. “Like the other court ladies?”

“That’s a slower draw,” she tells him, folding her arms. “Now are you going to get rid of that thing or would you like a map to the nearest lake?”

Arez’ brow snaps down and any last confusion disappears under his trademark scowl. “A map? Of my own country?”

Rina huffs, spinning away from him. He may be too much a coward to put his back to her, but she’s certainly not. “Just get rid of it, Arez. We’re expected at breakfast in less than an hour.”

Arez curses.

(OUT OF TIME! In fact, I went over! But i think I’ll continue this story on my watt pad in the next day or so! I’ll link it here when I do!)