I try to walk quickly, but long legs catch up to me before I get ten steps away. I growl, peeking up at him. He looks straight ahead, jaw working as he keeps my slow and slightly shuffling gait.

“Colonel Hans said your next match is ten out.” I mouth colonel trying to figure out exactly when that happened. Or maybe he’d always been a colonel. Hans doesn’t tell me much, much to my annoyance. “But you are not riding again.”

I stop dead in my tracks and turn, and would’ve fallen on my face if Arin hadn’t reached out and caught my shoulders. That didn’t stop me from poking his chest, even as I swayed like a drunkard. “You do not control what I do. You may be my prince but you aren’t my… my…” I was gonna say King… but he’s the crown prince. Heck, this is a jam.

He raises an infuriating brow. “Yes?”

I growl and turn on my heel to stalk back into the underground, taking a smaller door that leads to a hallway that is absent of all people. Now if I can get rid of the stinkin’ prince behind me, I’ll be just grand.

I lean my back against a wall and slid down it. No one’s around. Most of the people are coming and going through the stable entrances with the horses or are above watching the competition.

A few moments later, the prince slides down beside me. I roll my head over to look at him. “Don’t you have better things to do?”

A smile tips his lips and his eyes crinkle a hair. “Watching men knock each other on their as… behind for my benefit?”

I laugh and lean my head back against the cold stone wall, feeling the divots and coarse surface through my short hair that’s plastered to my head. “You have a point.”

“Why are you so keen on winning? What do you possibly have to gain?” His voice is probing and nearly caustic… but somehow, whether it be my Gift or some other form of knowing—there is something there that nearly undoes me. An understanding, a kindness.

I close my eyes as tingling and heat gathers behind my lids, forcing back the emotion with a harsh sniff. “It’s all I know,” I say softly.

“Have you ever thought beyond this? What you would do if you could be anything, do anything?”

A smile tips my lips at his wistful tone. “Not really. There was a time I dreamed of being a mighty warrior.” He makes a sort of strangled sound that sounds like a dying donkey. I think that was his attempt to hide a laugh. I shake my head. I’d punch his shoulder if I had the strength. “Yeah. But I wanted to be just like my father. He was so brave and strong. I figured if I could be just like him…”

“If you could be just like him?” he prompts when I don't continue.

I blink and a tear traces my cheek and tickles my neck before being absorbed by my sweaty tunic beneath the armor. “If I could be like him, I could protect those I love. I wouldn’t lose anyone again.” A sad smile creases my face. “But it seems the harder I try, the worse I make it.”

“But all you know is to fight, and so you continue on, no matter how hopeless it seems,” he says in a near whisper, understanding within his voice that is beyond mere words. He not only says the words… he knows them on a soul deep level.

I turn my head to look at him, and he’s staring at me, his eyes drilling past my walls and penetrating to the depths of my soul. Only one other has been able to do that.

He leans forward, his breath dancing over my lips and sending delightful shivers down my spine. His hand cups my cheek, leaning forward. My brain feels as if it’s on a cloud, trying to reach for unknown and unlikely heights. I try to lean forward to meet him, but I forgot about the blasted armor.

The armor makes me top heavy and dreadfully off balance. I try to bring my arms up to catch myself but my forehead clips his chin and I would’ve fallen if he didn’t have lightning quick reflexes. He catches my shoulders, tilting his head up so my head rests against his chest and I hear the wild patter of his heart. I’m twisted in all kinds of weird ways that my body protests quite readily, but there’s no way on Fifth I’m moving. This calms the aching hole within my soul from betraying my Gift by replacing it with a safety I so rarely feel.

His chuckle comes from deep within his chest. He kisses my hair. “Even romance is dangerous with you. At least I haven’t been stabbed as of yet.”

A laugh barks from my lips. “I should be feeling stabby, but it seems my body has other ideas.” What the heck am I doing? But then, his presence, his smell, engulfs me, and a languid type of peace overwhelms me.

“Will you give up this competition? Please? I can’t—”

His breath catches in his chest and his heart picks up speed when it had just begun to settle. I burrow into his chest, not really caring that this is a highly compromising position to be found in should anyone happen down this tunnel. It’s more important that I offer what little support I can.

“I can’t see you go down like that again. I thought I could. Thought I’d be strong enough. Please, I beg you.” His breath hitches.

“Shhh, it’s alright. I’m alright.”

I feel his head shake, then he rests his chin on my head. My heart is trying to erupt from my chest, and a giddy sort of rumbling warms my chest down to my toes. What the heck am I doing?

Falling in lo-oove, Ran sings in a terrible and growly imitation of Jill.

My brain mentally sputters for a moment before it comes back around with a few words Momma would kill me for thinking at my bond. Shut. Up!

Ran cackles in glee.

“No, dear heart. You aren’t,” the prince whispers as my heart tries to decide if it’s enjoying this or if I should run for the hills before I get any more attached. And if he isn’t my Silver?

I… a part of me can’t even think of that. Guilt tries to curdle my stomach, but what if he is Silver? Then my silver-eyed assassin is also a prince… a crown prince.

This is worse than being caught in Eldertree sap sinkhole, and that stuff is stickier than tar.

“I’m sorry I have not been there for you as I should’ve been. Father has been pushing for—” he cuts himself off, squeezing me tighter, which hurts like the dickens because of my weird, over-sensitive skin, but I won’t complain. I stay still, waiting to see if he’ll continue. “Forgive me. I should have been there.”

I shake my head. “Your highness, it’s not your fault.”

A growl comes from his chest and I nearly swoon against his chest. I’m just feeling faint from lack of sleep. He has nothing to do with my bodily reactions. Nope.

“Don’t call me that,” he says, voice clippy and extra proper.

A laugh catches in my throat and I ignore the growling threat. “It’s not your fault. But I have to see this through.”

“Why?” He pulls back, holding my shoulder to keep me upright and pushes my sweaty, short hair back from my eyes, studying my face with a near-frown pulling at his otherwise expressionless face.

“Because this country needs you. You are going to be a wonderful ruler who looks after his people in both the wars and the peace, capable of leading into battle or plenty equally, which is not an easy task. You are fair but not naive, kind but not spineless, and powerful without pride.” I look at his chin and clenched jaw, not able to meet his eyes. “Because, once more, I fight. I fight for what I believe in. For what I love.”

“And you don’t know when to stop,” he chides, eyes swirling with an intensity I dare not look away from but am unsure how I can hold. It’s… potent and wild, like standing beside a tree that’s about to be struck with lightning. Pure, invigorating, heart-pumping terror. But in a way that feels strangely.. alive.

I snort when I can finally pull my gaze from him, throwing snot on his sleek light blue tunic that is already brown with sand and grime from where I’ve been smashed against him. I don’t have the energy to pat the wet spots away, and he only chuckles.

“What am I to do with you?”

“Let me show the pompous knights on horses who’s boss?”

He chuckles, making me vibrate on his chest. On. His. Chest.

Oh, shoot and poppycocks. My brain stutters to a complete stop then begins anew with thoughts flashing through at the pace of a flying dragon.

My cheeks burn with dread and horror as my foggy brain catches up. I am splayed on the prince’s lap like some sort of harlot.

I peek up at him, trying to wiggle back as my red face, ears, and neck finally catch up with the horror growing in my chest. I’m leaning against the crown prince. The Crown Prince.

Before… I felt safe. Comfortable. A moment of peace I treasured because it’s been so dreadfully lacking in my life… and because my brain is slower than a one legged rabbit.

Now all I feel is a strangled, let Beulah open up and swallow me whole so I don’t have to relieve this ever again, type of bone-cringing embarrassment. What in all the Four Worlds am I doing?

I cough, pulling back fully and trying to hide my glowing face in the shadows. But the servants around here are quite liberal with their waterlights and this down here is lit up more than the Naming Festival.

“I could have you thrown in the dungeon for assaulting your prince,” he says, a hint of a smile in his cultured voice.

That pulls a sigh from me. “Stubborn jack-o-monkey.”

“It takes one to know one,” he replies, wryly.

I pull a face, like I’d suck on a sour lemon. “I’m finishing this joust.”

His tortured sigh comes deep from his soul. “I was afraid of that. That’s why I came prepared.”

I pull back, looking at him with my brows drawn together. “What?”

“Come. You’ll see.”