We departed the inn as the sun peeked over the horizon, the forest glowing pink and ethereal in the dawn light. Beatriz and Rafael woke me, unlocking the door that I hadn't bothered to try last night after my unceremonious removal from the room downstairs.

"I'm sorry about your family," I said to Rafael, as Beatriz sat me down to unwind the bandages and inspect my ear. Her fingers stilled at my words, a glance towards Rafael before she continued her work. The soldier simply swallowed, nodding curtly before excusing himself in Ardal and slipping from the room.

"Is he all right?" I asked, wondering whether the circles under his puffy eyes would hinder his ability to protect the prince when we rode out.

"His entire family was slaughtered. How would you feel?" Beatriz said, distracted by her work of removing the stinking poultice from my ear. I hissed in reply as she touched the raw flesh.

"You're fine," she snapped, when I tried to move out of her reach.

"It stings!" I protested. She sighed.

"Would you rather I cut the entire thing off and save myself the trouble, then?" she asked.

I glared at her, settling back into my chair with a grumble. I bit the inside of my cheek as she worked, determined not to so much as wince as she re-dressed the wound, wrapping my head in a bandage once again.

In the inn's courtyard, horses and men milled around, Frederico at their center. We were all dressed in black, the only thing identifying us as a group. It was a clever idea, I thought, as Beatriz pointed me towards a horse before heading away towards her brother. No flag, no banners, simply a dress code. It would make Frederico's ranks easy to infiltrate by an outsider, but it would also help his men blend in should we ever need to separate and disappear.

I made a mental note to bring up my concerns with his makeshift uniforms during our next verbal sparring match.

The horse I'd been directed towards was a bay mare, saddlebags already loaded with supplies, a bedroll tucked away beneath them. She swished her tail, stamping once as I approached. I greeted her, extending my hand for her to sniff before reaching to pet her withers. She blinked at me with a skeptical brown eye that reminded me of another pair of brown eyes.

"I heard you wanted to ask after your man."

The voice was that of the messenger's, from last night. He was still dressed in his travel worn commoner's clothes, his sharp, dark eyes wary as he approached me. Sliding my hands into my pockets, I turned to face him.

"If you know anything," I began, before realizing I had nothing to offer him in return for any knowledge, "I would be indebted to you."

A sharp smile cracked the corner of his face.

"Pay your debt to the true king on my behalf," the messenger said, his keen gaze sliding over to where Frederico was preparing to mount up, talking quickly and quietly with Beatriz and Rafael. "Your man was tall and very...Pretanian. Right?"

I snorted at the Ardalonian's assessment of Giles, as close as I could come to a laugh thanks to the guilt and dread warring in my gut.

"I'd seen him around before," the messenger continued, "But never again after the coup."

Something hard and painful congealed in my stomach as everything in my mind rallied to fight against the messenger's words.

Giles was gone.

The thought was devastating, all the breath leaving my lungs as it sank in.

"But the other Pretanian, the older one," the messenger continued, despite my inability to conceal the effects his words had on me, "He came around asking about your man the day after."

I blinked at him, shaking my head in an attempt to clear it of despair and stitch his Ardal into a coherent sentence in my mind.

"What?" I asked, defaulting to Pretanian when I couldn't process what he'd said through the guilt and dread and sadness flooding my mind.

"The old Pretanian was looking for him the day after," the messenger repeated, in slow, deliberate Ardal to be sure I understood this time.

The old Pretanian. Callum Winters? But why would Winters...

The messenger flashed his sharp smile before sketching a quick bow and leaving me to the dawning knowledge. If Winters had asked about Giles, that meant that Winters - and, by extension, Dulciana - was looking for my valet.

And nobody looked for someone who they already knew to be dead.

The mare nipped at the edge of my cloak, tugging me back into the present moment. The messenger had disappeared into the crowd of men, but beside where Frederico had already mounted up, Beatriz was watching me. Catching my gaze, she inclined her head, an inquiry.

I nodded once, briefly, at once a reply to her wordless question and a gesture of thanks for having sent the messenger my way. Her attention went elsewhere when Frederico spoke to her, drawing her into his conversation with a pair of men standing before them. I mounted up, studying the twins, the way they communicated with glances and postures, subtle nods and fleeting looks.

The men before them were clearly unhappy about something, but, much to their frustration, Frederico would not bend. Beatriz was sitting as still as one could in the saddle, her eyes on the men as her brother spoke, assessing. Frederico dismissed them, their fists to their hearts more halfhearted than earnest, their heads ducking in whispers once they'd turned away. Beatriz, however, was still watching them, saying something to her brother without looking at him. He cut her a look of frustrated annoyance that had me smirking. It was the very same look I'd received from Andrew, most every time I pointed out something he could have done better.

My study of the twins was interrupted when we set off, the sun dappling the courtyard in golds and greys, the leaves rustling overhead as the morning rose in earnest. I'd expected us to venture deeper into the forest, but after a few hours, the trees fell away to the same rolling plains we'd crossed the day before. We were a far bigger company than before, Rafael's men alert and scanning the swaying, grassy horizons as we rode, due northwest.

Time seemed interminable, each plain much the same as the rest. We forded a creek, rode up a hill, down another hill, and up another. Were it not for the sun shifting in the cloudless sky, I would have thought we'd been riding across the same three hills over and over again. Bugs buzzed and sang in the grasses, falling quiet when we passed. The heat, while not as unbearable as in Relizia, had most of the men shucking their cloaks and rolling up their sleeves, exposing scarred, muscled forearms that were no stranger to weapons.

We only stopped when the setting sun had dyed the sky crimson, our shadows stretching over the endless swaying grasses. Abruptly, Frederico cut away from the direction we'd been riding all day, towards a copse of trees huddled around a stream. Without any need for direction, Rafael's men abruptly dismounted and fell into the roles of setting up camp, some drawing water from the creek while others foraged dry wood for a fire.

"I have been asked to ensure you set up your bedroll somewhere close by," Rafael said, approaching as I tethered my mare to one of the trees, leaving her enough slack to graze on the slender green grass.

I chuckled under my breath.

"Is he afraid I'll try to run?" I asked, cutting a look towards Frederico, who was talking again with the same two men from the courtyard at the inn. Or rather, they were talking and he was listening, his face unreadable and kingly in the growing light from the fledgling fire and the golden tones of the setting sun.

When Rafael didn't immediately answer, I glanced over at him, my eyebrows raised in question. He was studying me, his jaw moving as if he were either talking himself into or out of saying something.

"You are wise for someone your age," he said finally. I quirked an eyebrow myself, running my eyes over him. I was not that much younger than he was, though he spoke as if there was at least a decade between us.

"Whatever you said last night has the others talking," Rafael continued, unable to keep from casting a wary look around us for eavesdroppers. "They...agree with your style of thinking."

I levelled my gaze at him, not harshly, but not with amusement. More of an expectation that he would continue and explain why such potentially treasonous words were tumbling from his lips.

"The two speaking with the rightful king right now," Rafael said, keeping his back turned to Frederico so that I could peer over his shoulder towards them, "They question whether Frederico is ready to lead. But if someone of your considerable youth is able to so quickly detail a strategy that they are comfortable with..."

I clapped a hand on his shoulder, a venomous smile on my face as I dragged the bigger man closer.

"You had better be getting to the part where you ask for my help. Otherwise this is beginning to sound just the wrong shade of treasonous," I said, careful to keep a grin on my face.

Beatriz was watching us across the back of her horse, fiddling with her saddlebags. When I tore my eyes from the princess, I met abject wrath in Rafael's gaze. He flicked my arm from his shoulder the way one would swat at an annoying fly.

"You dare-" he began, his face flushing.

I'll admit, I did feel a twinge of guilt, accusing him of treason when he'd just learned that his family had been massacred. But the fact remained that his words did sound as if he were about to offer me Frederico's job at the behest of the two older men who seemed in permanent disagreement with the crown prince.

"I dare quite a many thing," I said, interrupting him. "So you had best explain yourself before you're forced to do so before the princess."

Sure enough, Beatriz had abandoned her saddlebags, stalking across the copse of trees towards us.

"I was only asking you advise him!" Rafael hissed, his face the same shade as the scarlet sky. "Frederico is my king, but more importantly, my friend. The last brother I have left! For you to even so much as suggest that-"

"Easy," I said, clapping him on the shoulder again. His jaw muscle clenched. Behind him, Beatriz had stopped beside my mare, conveniently within earshot as she undid the saddlebags.

"Of course it would be my pleasure to help, but I leave the decision up to your rightful king," I said, holding Rafael's gaze. His nostrils flared and he backed out of my grip, unwilling to swat at me, perhaps because of Beatriz' proximity.

"Much obliged, your Higness," Rafael all but spat, stalking away as he shook his head in disgust. I followed him as he stalked right up to where Frederico and the two men were still speaking. One of the two unknowns glanced my way after Rafael's approach, his expression unreadable.

"Who are those two men?" I asked Beatriz, pre-empting whatever she'd opened her mouth to say as she approached me, bearing the saddlebags. In response, she dumped them into my arms.

"We have many more nights of camping ahead of us. Don't expect your bed to be made for you as if you are still luxuriating in a palace," she said.

"Here I was thinking that I'd be getting the royal treatment. Shouldn't I be, as your honoured guest?" I asked, peering back over my shoulder to where two of Rafael's men had undone Frederico's mount's saddlebags and had already set up his bedroll in the most defensible position in the grove.

"I am not your maidservant," Beatriz snapped. In response, I fixed her with my most dazzling smile.

"No, darling. You are most certainly not a maid," I said.

The smile didn't work. The words didn't work. No heat rose into her cheeks, as it did whenever I used such a line on the girls back in Highcastle. She didn't giggle and look away. She simply regarded me with a dull look of impatience, crossing her arms as she readjusted her stance to the wide-legged, evenly balanced position of a warrior.

"Who are the two men?" I asked again, turning away from her to hide the disappointment that had, for some reason, welled up within me.

"Josepe Carvalho and Vicente Salcedo. Rafael's uncles," Beatriz said, gesturing to the saddlebags. "Are those getting heavy?"

I didn't want to admit that they were, having readjusted my grip a few times. She rolled her eyes when I fumbled with them again, taking me by the elbow to lead me towards a tree near where Frederico's bedroll had been set up.

"You sleep here," she said, pointing to a patch of moss. I set down the saddlebags, biting back my breath of relief at having released their weight.

"Dare I hope that you'll be sleeping there?" I asked, shifting my eyes from her to the square of earth between my patch of moss and Frederico's bedroll. Her brow furrowed in disbelief.

"You do realize that these flowery courtier words are useless now that we've left Relizia, right?" she asked. I huffed a single, defeated laugh.

"I'm palace born and palace bred, darling. Old habits die hard," I said.

"Stop calling me darling," she said, stepping over the saddlebags and making for where her brother had now taken a seat near the fire with Salcedo and both Carvalhos.

"When should I expect your return to change my bandages, darling?" I called after her.

"Once you've swallowed your antidote," she said over her shoulder. "I won't be saying please this time."

She ignored my laughter, my chest still huffing with it as I shook out my bedroll.

**A/N: Looks like our guy is up to his old tricks *wiggles eyebrows* He also has some new friends to make, now that it seems they're carting him along for the adventure. Do you think Frederico needs his help? Will he even ask or is he too proud? What about Rafael's uncles - to be trusted or not? Ah Ardalone, what a sticky pit of intrigue you are...

As always, if you enjoyed it, please take a moment to vote and comment!**