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“I can’t believe I’m stealing from my own citizens,” Aric muttered. He was bent over his newly acquired pair of boots, tightening the laces.

“You can pay for them once we return to court,” I said firmly. “Which we can’t do without taking the shoes in the first place.”

Aric stared at the boots, his expression clouded. Despite my confident tone, I shared his guilt. Commoners were already struggling. Taking their meager possessions might be his right as king, but it still rested uneasily against my conscience.

Under other circumstances, I would have simply bought the shoes—we had money, after all; Marya’s packing had included a purse of Gilden regals. But if Gildenheim was anything like my own country, gossip spread faster than pollen on the wind, and we were only a few miles from the castle. Aric’s face was known, and my description would have spread by now, too. If we showed up in the dead of night bartering for a man’s shoes with royal coin, the court would know about our escape within the hour. Theft was the only viable option.

And, I admitted, I’d done pretty well at that. The shoes I’d snatched from the first homestead we passed were a yeoman’s work boots, not the suede Aric was probably used to, but the fit was better than expected. And they would hold up for the journey.

I was more worried about how Aric and I would fare. My con dition was quiescent for now, and I was fit enough from regular rides and weapons practice at home. But the mountains of Gildenheim were considerably colder than even the deepest winter night in Damaria, and the chill was setting in hard now that the sun had set. I was strong enough on the training grounds, but the toll travel extorted was a different sort, especially if we were trekking to the border on foot. And it occurred to me how little I knew about the man I’d married. Could he wield a sword? Shoot a bow? Under pressure, would he fight, bend, or break?

I snuck another sidelong look at Aric. He’d finished tying the laces of the first shoe and was doing up the second. The skies had cleared; now the half-moon’s light turned his hair to silver as it cascaded over his head and shoulders, gentled the sharp lines of his jaw. I had the improbable impulse to lay my hand there.

“You’re staring.” Aric was watching me, his brows drawn together in the slightest frown.

I clasped my hands firmly behind my back, even though I hadn’t actually reached towards him. As if I would be so foolish.

“I’m not.”

Aric raised one brow. It was a feeble attempt at falsehood, and we both knew it.

I flushed. “I wasn’t staring. I was… assessing.”

“Assessing what? How best to attack me next?”

This man was impossible. “For the last time, that wasn’t my assassin.”

“I was referring to the horse fiasco, actually.” A pause. He looked down at his newly acquired boots. “And I know it wasn’t your assassin. I’ve actually been meaning to thank you.”

Now I was staring. “Who are you, and what have you done with the surly man I married?”

Aric’s flush was visible even in the moonlight. He rose to his feet, and his gaze caught mine. Something stirred behind his eyes. Perhaps it was anger. This disaster wasn’t entirely my fault, but I hadn’t exactly made things better.

“I am trying to be better than him,” he said, his words clipped. “I know we didn’t get off to the best start—”

I snorted, as if I were the one who was periodically equine.

“—but I also realize you were not to blame for my personal misunderstandings. So. Thank you.”

I stared at him, startled beyond words by his blunt honesty. I’d been raised to believe that no concession, no expression of gratitude, came without a debt to be collected later. There was something about the way Aric spoke that eschewed guile, but could he truly be offering me his thanks without the expectation of something in return?

After a moment, I said carefully, “What precisely are you thanking me for?”

“For trying to save me. When the assassin attacked, you threw yourself in front of me. You could have been killed.”

It was the right thing to do; I hadn’t even questioned it. I hadn’t had time to think. My mind flew back to the flash of steel. The lantern exploding in my hands. Aric, stepping between me and the assassin as they struck again—the moment before I’d opened the locket.

He’d been terrified. He clearly was hopeless in combat. And yet he’d tried to save me, too.

“You did the same,” I said, surprised by the realization.

Aric flushed. “I promised to protect you.”

I’d made the same promise. “So your marriage vows do mean something to you?”

“Of course they do. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t have sealed them with magic.”

Once again, he’d left me without a ready response. I didn’t know what to make of this man. He’d thought I was forcing him into marriage, and so he’d been intolerably rude—that, I could understand. Yet while believing the worst of me, he’d also… sworn to protect and care for me? And, more confusingly, meant it?

I’d been silent too long. Aric was watching me, his expression rendered unreadable by shadows. Now he was the one staring—or assessing. I looked away from him, not ready to consider what judgments he was making behind those stormy eyes.

“We should keep moving,” I said.

Aric studied me a moment longer. I could feel his gaze like a physical touch, both arousing and unsettling. I couldn’t shake the sense that I had somehow given him the wrong response. If I’d answered him some other way, would he have stepped closer? Followed the trail his eyes took over my face with his hand, cupping my chin to tilt my face towards—

I shook myself, face heating. Virtues, fatigue must be addling my wits. Aric had already made it abundantly clear that he harbored no such thoughts about me.

I shouldered the saddlebags, grateful that the nighttime hid my flush. “The border isn’t getting any closer.”

Without meeting his eyes, I moved past Aric, heading for the moon-gilded road.

Despite my best intentions, we hadn’t made much distance down the road before our pace flagged to a crawl. The saddlebags were impossibly heavy, and the way they thumped against my thighs with every step soon bordered on painful. Aric, struggling with the saddle, wasn’t faring much better. With his longer legs, I’d expected him to outpace me, but instead he kept pausing to adjust its weight.

“Bianca,” he said finally. “We should stop.”

I turned to face him. The moon had slipped towards the horizon, taking with it much of the light. The stars wheeled overhead against a cold and crystalline sky.

“We’re both exhausted,” Aric said. “And if I’m right about the spell, we’ll make much better speed in the morning anyway. We should save our strength.”

I glanced back along the road, although of course Arnhelm was too distant and the night too dark to see the castle. It would be humiliating to be caught such a short ways into our journey, but I had neither the will nor the strength to argue. Every part of my body ached. I wouldn’t have suggested stopping myself, not wanting Aric to find any weakness in me, but I was so tired I could have slept in the middle of the road.

“All right.”

Evergreen forest embraced the roadsides, providing convenient cover. We crossed the ditch with its muddy trickle of water and were soon out of sight of the path. So far we’d encountered no other travelers, but it was better to take precautions.

My stomach was curling with hunger, but I was too tired to eat. Aric pulled blankets out of the saddlebags and handed one to me. Despite the cold and the hard ground, I was asleep the moment my head touched the earth.

I woke to the blue light of early dawn and a hand on my shoulder. Aric’s. His breath brushed my ear.

“Don’t move.”

I was fully awake in an instant. My hand crept towards my dagger.

“You’ll scare them,” Aric whispered.

I stopped, confused. Scare… who? Or what?

There was just enough brightness to see Aric’s face, cast in grey scale. Keeping one hand on my shoulder, he pressed a finger to his lips and pointed.

At first I didn’t know what I was seeing. Near the saddlebags, something was glowing—a pale, glaucous tint like the luminescent tides that sometimes lapped Damaria’s shores. I blinked, and the glow came into focus as a serpentine shape about the length of my forearm. It looked rather like a salamander, four-limbed and sinuous, but I’d never seen a salamander glowing like an Adept lantern.

A slight snuffling sound, and another shape appeared—popping right out of one of the saddlebags.

I stifled a startled gasp—not fast enough. Both glowing figures froze. I had a moment to glimpse tiny claws and triangular faces with curious eyes. Then two sets of wings unfurled. A flash of light zipping upwards towards the trees, and they were gone.

Aric let out a breath. I realized his hand was still on my shoulder just as he removed it, leaving the imprint of his warmth behind.

“What were they?” I whispered.

“Glow wyrms.” Aric, astonishingly, was smiling. I hadn’t realized he was capable of the expression. “A rare sight these days—they’ve been decimated by the logging trade.”

The trade that floated Damaria’s ships. The trade that the treaty we’d signed would exponentially expand. No, Aric definitely hadn’t authored those documents.

Which left the question of who had. Countess Signa or another of Aric’s distant relations, hoping to gain a trade advantage along with the throne? Someone within the Council of Nine? But that made no sense—for all my shortcomings, my parents wouldn’t rig this marriage agreement only to have me framed for my husband’s murder.

“I’ve never heard of glow wyrms,” I said, putting those questions aside to consider later.

“I believe in Damarian the word is firedrake. ”

That word I did recognize, but I shook my head. “That can’t be right. Firedrakes were…”

I paused, uncertain. I’d been going to say monsters. But the word didn’t fit what I’d just seen.

“They were large,” I settled on instead. “Dangerous. A threat to civilization.”

Aric gave me a wry look. His smile had dimmed, like a cloud drawn over the sun. I wanted, foolishly, to bring it back.

“My apologies,” he said dryly. “I forgot you were an expert on Gilden magic.”

The sky had lightened while we talked; sunrise must be imminent, which meant we were about to test Aric’s theory. I stood up, biting back a hiss as my sore muscles screamed in protest. I’d never realized how uncomfortable it was to sleep on the ground. All the heroes did it in the epic tales I’d loved as a child, so it had always sounded romantic to bed down on the earth. In practice, though, I’d woken up with my bruises multiplied by rocks and roots, my neck so stiff I could barely turn my head. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I doubted I would have slept at all.

I hobbled towards the saddlebags. The glow wyrms, or firedrakes, or whatever they were, had made a mess of them. Perhaps they were a threat to civilization. I began unpacking the bags to assess the damage.

“Well, if they weren’t a threat to civilization,” I asked Aric over my shoulder, “then why were they hunted?”

“Perhaps labeling them as such was an excuse. Damaria once boasted extensive forestland, did it not?”

I saw his point, and it did not reflect well on my country. But Damaria needed lumber. Our soil was poor—we hadn’t truly prospered until we began to sail. “Would you have the people go hungry instead?”

Speaking of going hungry, the glow wyrms seemed to have homed straight in on our already scant food supply. I pulled out a loaf of bread hard enough to pass for cast iron, followed by a packet of dried apples. The little beasts had taken a bite out of each. Thank the seas they hadn’t decided to sample my tonic, too.

“I would have a balance, if possible,” Aric said. “Would you have the glow wyrms vanish altogether for the sake of expanding your fleet?”

I hesitated. Yesterday, I might have said yes. But today, having seen them, I couldn’t. Even if the little terrors had eaten some of our food.

“I think there’s room for compromise,” I said carefully.

“At last. Something on which we agree.”

I dared another look at him. Aric had tilted his head back to rest against the trunk of the tree, exposing the arch of his throat and the hollow between his collarbones. Our gazes met, and something fluttered in my stomach. My condition must be flaring again.

Aric cleared his throat. “It’s almost sunrise.”

I closed my hand around the locket and glanced at the eastern horizon. Swathes of clouds blanketed the sky, dyed rose and gold by the waxing light. I hoped the clouds didn’t foretell more rain.

“Right. Almost time for me to ride you.” Blast it, I was probably turning the same hue as the dawn itself. “I mean… that is, I… What are you doing ?”

While I was busy putting my foot in my mouth, Aric had stood up and stripped off his shirt. Color warmed his cheeks as he caught my gaze. At least I wasn’t the only one flushing now.

“I’m not sure what happens to my clothing if I transform,” he said. “I thought it prudent not to waste a perfectly good set of trousers.”

How could my face feel this hot on a morning cold enough to see my breath? “Right. Of course. Please continue being prudent.”

Aric gave me a pointed look. It took me entirely too long to grasp its meaning. When I did, I hastily turned around and, determined not to listen to the rustle of clothing being removed, took advantage of his distraction to compose my expression and regain control of my breathing. I put a hand to my stomach, willing the flutter to settle.

Focus, Bianca. Exhaustion and irritation had worn down my usual careful facade. I’d let my mask slip—showing Aric too much of myself. There was something about him that found all the chinks in my armor—worse, made me wonder what it would be like to set it aside.

But that would be the worst sort of mistake. Just because we had a truce didn’t mean I could trust him. Not with my self, and certainly not with my weaknesses.

All things considered, it was probably better if he did turn back into a horse. He would still be able to talk to me, confound him—but if I was on his back, I couldn’t be distracted by the storm of his eyes, or thoughts of how it might feel to have my legs around him as a man—

Virtues help me. This place, this situation was making me lose my mind. How long could sunrise possibly take to arrive?

I stared resolutely into the trees and absolutely did not think of Aric getting naked behind me until the sun had lifted safely above the horizon.