When night fell, the horses had long since tired from the run and been reduced to a calm easy trot. “Do we make camp, mistress?” Sado asked, glancing over to her again. From all his watching, he knew very well she hadn’t glanced at him even once.

She didn’t answer right away, leaving only horse hooves and the breeze to listen to until she finally let out a loud huff, “I suppose we should, we’ll move off the road a little way, and you can get some sleep. I need you fresh tomorrow after all, ‘just in case’.”

“You want to take the first shift, my lady?” Sado asked while guiding his horse off to the left side of the road.

“No. I don’t need to sleep, you can go ahead.” She answered in a relaxed and generally indifferent way.

“Mistress, you plan on staying awake all night?” He didn’t bother to hide his stare at her response.

“Why wouldn’t I? I don’t need much sleep. I’m a death worshipper remember, you know that much I’m sure. Besides, I don’t like sleep, nothing good happens there.” Nua remarked in passing. “Now go fetch some wood and get a fire going and let’s see how good a field cook you are.” She said to him and for a moment the coldness of her reply threw him off, until he saw the tiny hint of a smile on her lips.

He flushed bright red and confessed, “I’m not. I’m a shit cook I’m afraid, I actually tried it once, just to see what it was like. But it didn’t work out well.” He put a hand behind his head and rubbed it sheepishly before managing a laugh, “It became a running joke that I could out fight anyone, but out cook no one.”

“You were a Prince, so I suppose that makes sense. I’m sure you had many slaves to do all that for you, now get to work.” Nua answered and reiterated her orders, and he fell to silence before moving away to follow her instructions.

The stars looked down from the sky above, shining through the darkness of the night. Their fire crackled brightly in the little hole Sado had artlessly dug for them. Gathered offal, twigs, and small branches served as fuel.

Nua sat cross legged by the fire, the noise was the only conversation, their crude rations shoved onto sticks to be heated by the flame. When it was ready, Nua took the stick and tore a chunk away with her teeth.

“I permit you to eat.” She said after she’d swallowed her first bite.

“Thank you, mistress.” Sado replied and took his own share and began to eat.

Chewing passed for conversation, and Sado felt more awkward by the moment, but try as he might, he couldn’t tell if she felt anything at all.

When she finished hers, she shoved her stick down into the hole with the rest of the fuel and turned her attention to Sado.

“So, are you going to give me that speech you’ve been working on for the last few hours? Or are you going to try something that will have me riding on alone later?” Nua finally demanded to know with a narrow gaze.

Sado almost jumped at her directness, “Mistress I- I wouldn’t…”

Nua glared at him, “Don’t lie to me Sado. You’ve been staring at me with eyes like a lost puppy or a hungry wolf all day. If there’s something you plan on saying, or something you plan on doing, get it over with. I won’t be falling asleep tonight, so you might as well get it done.”

“I’m not lying!” Sado snapped back, biting his words off with the loud declaration that carried well beyond their little space. “I’ve…” He bit his tongue.

“I warned you about this before, slave.” Nua said, leaning back and resting her hands on the soft grass. “It isn’t going to happen. I’m not one of your little camp following whores, I’m a Duchessa, and an ambitious one.”

“I know what you said.” Sado admitted. “But I can’t help it! I love you, damn it!” He clenched his meaty fists and stared at her with grit and determination as Nua reared back at the sudden openness. “You don’t think I know how stupid it is even to say that?! That I don’t know what the public reaction would be if anyone in Pas’en ever heard me say that out loud?! Of course I know!” He roared the words out as if in fury as his heart tore open and what lay within spilled out.

“You don’t even really know me.” Nua answered heartlessly. “What do you know about me well enough to declare your love? How dare you even presume you know me well enough to say something like that to your mistress! I should have you whipped for even saying it!” She sprang to her feet with fists clenched in anger.

Sado did the same and shouted back, “But you won’t! I know you won’t!”

Nua took a step back at his sharp confidence and spat out, “How do you know that… what the hell do you know, human?!”

Sado’s voice became calm, and he took a step closer. “I know you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen… I know you have an iron will that drives you forward even into the mouth of hell. I know…” He took another step closer, “I know you have mixed feelings about my race, though I won’t pretend to know what horrors could drive someone like you to that.”

He drew closer, “I know you get tired sometimes, and like to look out the window, you hate the indoors, you hate walls, you’d rather roam the great wide world… the same as I. That you found yourself in a position you never imagined, and like me, you’re just doing your best with it.”

Nua gritted her teeth and her hand went behind her back. “I know you’re the bravest woman I’ve ever seen, and I was all but raised by Kaiji. And I know you have a deep well of affection for everyone who belongs to you… you’re like their mother. Hard, firm, but wanting them all to be safe at the end of the day… even me.” She was within reach of him, his distant mistress, seemingly spellbound by what he had to say.

“You’ll be a better Prince than I was, because of that. Am I insane for loving you, the one who saved my life, and is saving my people? I won’t say I’m not… but even as a slave… I may be worth more another way. Komestrans were devoted to me, and still are. They’ll follow me. Take the throne of Komestra, rebuild my city and my people, I would happily become your Prince Consort. You take the throne… just let me take your hand…” Sado said with longing, and reached up to boldly touch her cheek, his boyish face and bright eyes loomed large from inches away.

Nua’s knife was out in an instant and she sprang on him with a snarl of beastial fury, he fell onto his back, with a soft thud and his arms fell open, he let them lie flat on the grass.

The tip was pressed to the gap between his golden collar and his chin, “Never… ever lay a hand on me.” She growled at him, holding him down at the throat with her left hand while she straddled him.

“I would never… ever hurt you. Never in ten thousand years.” He promised with a small, quiet voice. He kept his gentle eyes on her cruel ones.

“You don’t know as much as you think, human.” Nua hammered her reply down on him, “You think I’m just going to go all moony eyed because a handsome warrior bodyguard declares his undying affections? That I’ll just forget my dreams and ambitions for some sweet words on a beautiful night? This is no romance, and I did not travel across the world just to be won! I came to win!”

She pressed the tip of the dagger a little harder against his neck, but he didn’t flinch. “If loving you is a death sentence, then execute me. Dying for unrequited love might be a stupid thing to do… but I’m a slave, I can’t fall any farther than I already have. At least I am free to speak the truth. In the nightmare east of the Tlalmok, there are worse ways and reasons to die than this one. So… I love you, mistress. Mad, painful, and terrible, as it is.”

“So you offer me the legitimacy of the throne of your city in exchange for what, your freedom, and marrying you? Is that the deal you’re offering?” Nua asked with a more icy, deliberate calm.

He gave a small, tiny nod. Nua began to draw back her knife, a tiny drop of blood on the tip, she wiped it on his cheek and sheathed the blade. “I told you, Prince of Dreams… you don’t know everything. That isn’t yours to offer anymore, within a month or two, all meaningful resistance will be gone, and Komestra will be reborn. Before any new resistance can begin, I will have already broken it with a new crisis. You have nothing to offer.”

He put a hand gently on the flat of the knife and moved it over his heart, pressing the tip there. “Even from someone in my position, this isn’t nothing. My heart, my life, they’re yours. To command or to take.”

Her anger began to die and she drew the knife away. “Keep them both, I only need your obedience.” She thrust the blade into her sheath and then she slowly stood up and got off of him, allowing the fallen Sado space to stand.

He didn’t stand up, he lay there staring up at the stars. “No… I suppose you don’t. Perhaps if we were both peasants, or something else, maybe... but I knew this was hopeless. I had to try, forgive me, mistress. I promise I will speak of this to no one.”

“Good. Besides, you may not have heard, but Prince Rasgen proposed to me. Can you tell me one more thing, before you go to sleep, Sado?” Nua asked in a more curious voice.

“Mistress?” Sado asked without rising. The weight of his heart held him down more firmly than the soldiers who finally brought him to defeat.

“Assuming I say yes to him, am I going to have to get rid of you? I won’t have anyone around whom I cannot trust. Can you really protect the life of the man who defeated you?” Nua demanded, and Sado’s answer was slow in coming.

“I think… what you really mean, is can I protect his heir, assuming it came from you… and… it would hurt, terribly. But… what I am telling you is the truth, if I’m alive, nobody will ever hurt any life that springs from you. Even if I am a human.” Sado spat out the last word with a bitter taste in his mouth, and Nua looked away.

She spoke with genuine contrition, in a drawn out, uncomfortable way as if she were forcing the words out. “It looks like I owe you a second apology, slave. I know not all humans are bad, but I spent a long time having no reason to think there were any good ones. I shouldn’t say things like that, and I know better, my faith prohibits it… but I am slow in expelling that weakness still, at least when it comes to human males.”

“You have your reasons, I’m sure, I have no right to ask.” Sado answered, “I’m grateful enough to know you didn’t really mean it. If I were to guess, you’re just the opposite of Vargas, the way he spoke of elves… you came from the same place, opposite sides and all.”

Nua considered cutting him off, but instead, she chose to answer. ‘He deserves at least some explanation after I shed some of his blood.’ Nua acknowledged to herself before she replied. “Yes… only years, but it seems a lifetime even to me, we shared the same country. What way he goes now that he remembers will decide if he’s the last casualty of a war that ended over a decade ago, or lives. I’m trying to expel my hatred of your race, maybe he’ll choose to embrace it. I’ll put him to the test soon enough.”

Finally Nua stamped her foot, “Enough, slave, go to sleep, and if you speak of this night to anyone, I will be very unhappy.”

Sado nodded from where he lay on his back, he closed his eyes on the night sky and the stars he hated above the land he loved, and wished deeply that he would either wake up from a bad dream, or not wake up at all.

Nua remained awake as she promised, listening to the crackling flames and chirping bugs, watching some of them fly mindlessly into the fire where they burned to death. She stirred it occasionally to watch the sparks fly up to die and be absorbed by the darkness, and thought of very little at all, for the rest of the night.