The Princess's Servant

33. The Journey

The bandits had loaded Holden and Nara into a modest-sized cart with tall spoked wheels and a scratchy baseboard. The single chestnut horse that pulled the wagon tutted easily, unaware or uncaring that it — and its tote — had been stolen. And with the trickling sunlight and birdsong, it would have made a lovely carriage ride had it not been for the circumstance. But as things were...

"You're a princess?" Holden asked. They'd not made it a stone's throw from the camp before he'd pressed the point. "Of where? The woods?"

Nara stared out the back of the cart as she leaned against the siding. "I was the princess of Lailoy," she said, an exasperation cutting into her tone. "But I abdicated the crown. And anyways, my story's not half as interesting as yours. The prince of Ward, you said? Was that a bluff?"

Now Holden found himself gazing blankly out the back of the cart. He said nothing as the horse whinnied and the bandit's footsteps fell upon the earth.

"Seven Hells, it's true," Nara (or Holden supposed 'Eris') said. "You really are him. What the hell are you doing all the way out here? And how did you end up as Sybil's—?"

"Fiancé!" Holden blurted loud enough to get a few head-turns from the bandits. "Great question!" He said. The ruffians returned their attention to the road and the prince leaned in to whisper. "If they find out I'm her servant, they might try to ransom me back to her instead," he said.

"Right, right," Nara replied. "But how did you...?" She asked again, gesturing to her own neck.

Holden sighed out all of his air and slumped forward. "I made a bet with her," he said. "Winner got whatever they wanted from the loser," the prince said, his voice bitter. "I didn't win."

"I see," Nara said, and for a moment a silence came between them that said more than any word.

"But none of that matters," the prince said after the rest. "I'm going home and I'm staying there. Probably forever. I'll never have to see the princess or her dirty little town ever again." A jolt went through Holden as he remembered his company. "No offense," he said.

Nara shrugged, though Holden sensed that she felt a bit injured. "What I'm more worried about is what happens to my sister," she said. "To Lailoy. If you two don't marry, then the treaty's off."

"It is," Holden said. "And I don't like to think about it but... But there's no way I can go through a wedding after what she's put me through. I don't like to think of what might become of her town, but— then, it wasn't my job to protect it, was it?"

"Nay," Nara said. "It was hers. And it sounds like she's done a shit job at it, too. Enslaving the man who came to wed her— I don't know what she was thinking." Nara shook her head. "Honestly, I always knew Sybil could be selfish and cruel, but I didn't think she'd have such disdain for her own people that she'd trade a moment's pleasure for their lives."

"Yeah..." Holden trailed, a twang of guilt striking his belly. "I must say, though—" He didn't quite know how to put this, so he strung the words along one after another until the sentence came out. "As selfish and cruel as Sybil is, I don't think she knows I'm the prince."

The expression that crossed Nara's face after Holden's little confession validated his nervousness. "Huh?" The huntress asked, her eyes gaunt with disbelief.

"We made the bet before either of us knew who the other one was," he said. "And when she took me back to the palace, I figured out pretty quickly that she was the princess, but—" The words felt forbidden; wrong, though he could find no moral fault in them. "But she never asked who I was."

Nara hadn't blinked. "You—"

"I was going to tell her!" Holden said before her criticism could come. "But then she went on this long rant about how 'Prince Holden was the person she hated most in this world' and 'all the terrible things she would do to Prince Holden, if only he was there.' It felt like telling her would only make my situation worse."

Nara finally shifted her piercing gaze from Holden's face down to her lap. "Yes, well... I suppose it's only natural she feels that way."

"Natural how?" The prince said. "I've never done anything to her! Ever!"

"No," Nara agreed. "But you did kind of ruin her life."

"How in the gods' names did I ruin Sybil's life?"

"It was a long time ago that—"

"Silence prisoners! We're here."

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