I was still smiling at Frederico's revelation when I reached Beatriz and Rafael, the latter moaning about the weather. He tugged his cloak hood up around his head, seated atop his mount like a grumpy, squatting toad. He grumbled and complained, asking me how I could possibly survive in a kingdom with more rain than sunshine. Beatriz handed me the reins to my brown-eyed mare, studying my expression.

"Was my brother all that amusing?" she asked, while Rafael continued his litany of complaints in the background.

"Don't worry darling. It takes more than an angry brother to scare me off."

Her eyes flew back towards Frederico's tent and I chuckled, swinging myself into the saddle.

"Will you hurry up already? I'm almost soaked through and we haven't even left yet," Rafael complained. Beatriz, who seemed to have lost herself in her thoughts as she glared at Frederico's tent, shook herself from her stupor, rolling her eyes.

"You could always stay here, you know," she said, climbing into her saddle. Rafael fixed her with a flat, unimpressed look. Beatriz' cheek twitched up into a grin, her eyes slipping over me before she nudged her horse onward, leading us out from the forest.

We rode to the sound of Rafael's complaints, first about the water dripping from the trees, then about the curtains of rain blanketing the fields. I was too lost in my own head, eyes wandering frequently towards Beatriz, who'd thrown back her hood and seemed to be savouring the feel of the rain on her face, much to Rafael's indignation.

Something was happening between us. The thought ignited a warmth in my chest, an excited, sputtering little flame that seemed far too fragile but remained far too intoxicating. Frederico had all but confirmed that Beatriz had not obeyed when he'd ordered her to leave me alone, which meant that she enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed hers. It was a delicious thought, weaving itself among visions of her bare bronze skin and self-assured grin. Even Frederico's threats weren't enough to temper whatever had taken root inside me.

But there was a logical part of my mind begging for attention. As much as I hadn't enjoyed them, there was truth in Frederico's words. I would one day return to Pretania, as he'd said, but that day did not need to be soon, as he'd assumed. Not when all that awaited me there was a conniving debutante eager to sink her claws into me for the sake of a royal title. I missed my family, but I had a feeling I might miss this new Ardalonian family I'd been folded into too. One person in particular, the rain sluicing through her braid in front of me.

As we rode, the fields around us grew more organized, neat rows of crops springing from the earth. Squat, one-room cabins dotted the landscape, the farms growing more expansive as we rode. But no workers tilled the soil or harvested crops. It was an odd sight, such bountiful fields with no one working them. I would have assumed the peasants were huddled indoors to avoid the weather, but no smoke rose from the chimneys. Beatriz and Rafael didn't seem to take any notice, but coupled with my unease from earlier, my eyes finally tore themselves from the rider ahead of me to better survey my surroundings.

Besides the rain and Rafael's complaints, the day was silent. Not eerily so, but more silent than I'd grown accustomed to nonetheless. The insects did not hum in the fields, the birds did not call overhead. Just rain, pattering down upon us, with no one else in sight. Eventually, we crested a hill and our destination finally came into view. It was a humble thing, with only a few buildings taller than one storey, a busy inn dominating the north side of the central square.

"We'll go to the armorer first," Beatriz said, sliding a look to where Rafael had gone sullen and silent a quarter hour ago. "Then you can pout over a bowl of soup."

"Some days, I wish your brother cared a little less about you. Playing chaperone in this rain is torturous," Rafael grumbled.

"I can understand you, you know. Though I daresay Beatriz can handle herself perfectly fine without a chaperone to defend her virtue," I pointed out, breaking the silence I'd held since we left the camp. Beatriz slid that self-assured, amused smile my way, while Rafael cursed me for being a nosy, eavesdropping Pretanian.

He dismounted from his horse with a squelch into the mud, cursing as he nearly lost his boot to the ooze. I slid down more carefully, though the mud sucked at my footwear as well. Rafael entered the weapons shop ahead of us, with yet more muttered curses, shaking himself off and spraying water everywhere. I held the door for Beatriz, hoping to be rewarded with one of her tantalizing sideways smiles. She did not disappoint, brushing her soaked hair behind her ears as she glanced over at me in thanks.

"Good day, travellers," the shopkeeper said, peering up at us over his spectacles, abandoning the arrow shaft he'd been shaving.

I lowered my hood with more decorum than Rafael, attempting to shake most of the rain from my cloak in the entrance so as not to track it into the shop. Though shop hardly seemed the correct word. Weapons graced all the walls, the unmistakable roar of a blacksmith's forge echoing from somewhere in the back. Battle axes, shields, swords, pikes, lances, spears...it was a veritable armoury in the middle of a farm town.

But why would farm townsfolk need so many weapons? Were we near a garrison of some sort? And if we were, to whom were they loyal, Dulciana or Frederico? Deciding it would be best not to draw attention to my foreigner's accent if indeed this shop served an unfriendly garrison, I turned away to examine a display of lethal little knives.

"We're in need of a longbow," Rafael said, his steps heavy and waterlogged as he crossed the shop. Beatriz plunked a satchel of gold down on the counter. Even from afar, I could tell that it was far more than any of the bows on display would cost. Nonetheless, she she did not object when the shopkeeper weighed it in the palm of his hand, granting her a curt nod.

"We have several, depending on your taste," he said, gesturing to the weapons on display. A simple bow of un-ornamented wood occupied the lowest rung, while the other two on display were exquisitely carved and polished, inlaid with gold filigree and silver foil. I studied them from the corner of my eye as the shopkeeper laid them across his counter. Rafael chose the plain one while Beatriz inspected the gold one. Each of them experimented with the bowstring, Rafael spinning his around and testing it as a club.

"Well?" Beatriz asked, handing the most ornate bow to me. It was a thing of beauty, inlaid vines and leaves of gold and silver curling around the carved wood. It was exactly the sort of bow I would have bought for myself in Highcastle, all shine and glamour.

But I was not in Highcastle anymore. All that shining metal would be a poor choice, especially when trying to remain hidden among the trees and swaying grasses. I handed it back to her, looking to Rafael's bow instead. Beatriz arched a surprised eyebrow, as I tested the plain bow, finally setting it down on the counter.

"This one," I said, hoping my accent was not too foreign-sounding.

Still surprised, Beatriz tore her eyes from the plain bow to haggle with the shopkeeper over arrows and a quiver. Rafael was testing the heft of a war hammer, clearly longing to swing it and see how much damage it could cause, but unwilling to do so in the tight little shop. I inspected the display of swords, the blades even and well-crafted, hilts unadorned and utilitarian. They looked every bit like soldiers' swords.

Coins clinked again and I turned to find Beatriz handing over yet more gold to the shopkeeper. I frowned, inspecting the quiver and bunch of arrows she now handed to Rafael. They were not worth that much, not by half, especially with the purse she'd already handed over that the shopkeeper had already swept under his counter. Were they paying him for his silence? Were Beatriz' distinctive scars why Frederico had wanted Rafael to be the one to accompany me?

"You may want to stop for a meal at the inn before your departure," the shopkeeper said when Beatriz and Rafael turned to leave. He offered a bow to the princess. He knew who she was, I deduced. But Beatriz and Rafael simply exchanged a curious look, neither of them seeming particularly alarmed that the man they'd just paid for his silence had revealed that he knew who he was dealing with.

Beatriz thanked him for his advice and we left, Rafael stowing the purchases under his cloak to keep them dry. The rain had not abated outside and I found myself longing for hot food that, as Beatriz had mentioned earlier, was not cooked by a soldier but rather by someone who excelled at the craft of cookery.

We mounted up and rode across the town to the inn, its windows glowing golden in the dreary day. I kept my questions about the bizarre farm town armoury to myself, deciding they were better answered when we were alone, on the road. Rafael led the way, eager to get out of the rain again, but careful not to lose a boot when he dismounted again. But when he opened the door, rather than hold it for Beatriz, he froze.

Her hand going instinctively to the sword at her hip, Beatriz peered around him, sinking back into an even-footed fighting stance. My new bow and quiver clattered to the floor, Rafael's hands going slack.

"Rafa?"

The voice belonged to a little girl. I leaned around Rafael's other side, his bulk occupying most of the doorway. A chair scraped as a girl of about seven or eight years old came sprinting towards us, slamming into Rafael as she threw her arms around him. She was dressed in mud-splattered breeches and a torn shirt, only her voice and the length of her hair giving her away as a girl.

Beatriz released the hilt of her sword with a startled curse, pushing around Rafael to hurry to the table, where two boys sat. One was barely thirteen, while the other, with soup splattered around his mouth, was no more than five. Both were filthy, dark stains crusted into what was once likely a formal jacket on the eldest's back. He looked up at Beatriz with weary, circled eyes, so exhausted that he swayed in his seat. She brushed the hair from his forehead, murmuring something to him as she looked back to Rafael, her eyes wide in shock.

Rafael had sunk to his knees, his big arms closed tight around the little girl, heedless of the rain puddle forming around his feet. She sobbed into his wet cloak and, from the way his massive shoulders quaked, I gathered that he was sobbing as well. At the table, the youngest took another slurp of soup, his dulled eyes on where his sister clung to Rafael.

"Finish eating. You're with us now," Beatriz was saying to the eldest, whose eyes had fallen to his plate. He'd sagged with relief in his chair, all the tension that had kept him sitting upright, alert, falling from his shoulders in a rush. It seemed to take all of his effort to lift his spoon to his mouth. A tear tracked down his cheek.

Beatriz caught my eye as I approached the table, motioning for me to follow her to where the barmaid was waiting behind the counter. The two boys watched me warily as I passed, the eldest attempting to straighten, dashing the tear from his cheek as he held my gaze. Attempting to be brave before the stranger. The sight nearly broke my heart.

Beatriz ordered more food from the barmaid, leaning back against the counter to survey the children as I approached. Rafael had gathered the little girl in his arms, carrying her to the table. He did not release her as he crouched down between the other two, tears glistening plain on his face now.

"They're the youngest Carvalhos, aren't they?" I asked Beatriz. She nodded, her jaw muscle working as she watched them. The youngest had turned his empty eyes towards Rafael before returning to his soup, no words coming when Rafael spoke to him.

"Teodoro, Valentina, and Gabriele," Beatriz said, shaking her head in wonder. She loosed a sigh, scraping the hair from her forehead. "I'll kill whoever spilled the blood they wear."

Sure enough, now that I studied them from a different angle, it was clear that all three of Rafael's younger siblings were splattered with dark, old blood. Teodoro, the eldest, seemed to have taken the brunt of it on the back of his jacket, but even young Gabriele's filthy shirt was speckled with it.

Rage blazed inside me. They were children. Whatever they had endured, whatever they had seen that had stolen the light from the youngest's eyes and had them fleeing halfway across the country in blood-spattered clothing, was something no child should ever be forced to witness. The messenger all those days ago had said that Dulciana had sent men to the Carvalho residence to finish the job she'd started when she poisoned the duque, his heir, and their wives. Men that these children had somehow, miraculously, escaped.

Beatriz and I lingered near the back, allowing Rafael and his family some privacy as he finally took a seat, Valentina still on his lap. He helped her with her soup, conversing in low tones with Teodoro. Gabriele, the youngest, remained mute, his eyes on his meal.

"You once asked me why I kill my sister's men on sight," Beatriz said, her voice low and dangerous, etched with heartbreak. I looked over at her, at the tears brimming unshed in her eyes before she dashed them away, her teeth clenched. "That is why," she continued, her gaze on the broken family before us, "So that one day, when my sister issues a blood order, there will be one less man sent to slay a family. One man whose death means that a child won't be skewered in their own bed."

She turned and brought a fist down onto the counter, tempering her strike so as not to scare the children. She kept her fist pressed into the wood, her entire body writhing with the same anger I felt coursing through my veins. Her chest heaved as she battled her emotions, her eyes pressed closed.

Seeing the horror written on Gabriele's haunted face, the desperation with which Valentina clung to Rafael, I now understood. I understood why Beatriz had scoffed at me, why she'd hunted and killed every last soldier on that battlefield. I understood why Frederico had given the order of no survivors. I understood what I'd once foolishly thought to be senseless cruelty when I'd dared to lecture Beatriz and Frederico on battlefield etiquette.

There was no battlefield etiquette here.

Teodoro's jacket was proof enough. He'd likely tugged it on for his evening meal, when his parents and eldest brother had gone to the palace for a state dinner. They'd never returned. I didn't want to imagine the horrors he'd faced in that jacket, what he'd done to protect the other two that had stained it with blood. Was it blood of men sent to kill him or blood of a family member who died defending him? The thought chilled me, especially since he'd kept it on for so many days after that fateful, murderous dinner.

Children had no place in warfare, but now, seeing this hunted family, I understood the wicked lengths to which Dulciana was willing to go for a crown. These children had escaped, but how many had died under her orders? How many children, infants, and unborn babes in line for the title of Duque Delmar had been slaughtered so that Armando could bear his father's title? How many more would die or suffer by Dulciana's hand as she consolidated her power?

"We're going to stop her," I said, resting my hand atop Beatriz' fist, heedless of the risk she might stab me for touching her when she was in such a state. I said it with all the conviction residing in my soul, more determination than I'd ever thought I was capable of mustering in my veins. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was to care for something as fervently as my father cared for his country. I wanted justice for this broken family of Carvalhos, for all the families shattered by Dulciana's reign. I would not rest until it was delivered.

Beside me, Beatriz bowed her head, swallowing to compose herself.

"We will," she managed with a nod, her body returning to its usual stillness as she straightened. "No matter the cost."

She didn't pull her hand out from under mine as she met my gaze, the same fervour raging through me reflected in her eyes. She seemed to recognize it in me, the pain on her face congealing into determination as we stared at each other.

"I'm very glad you stayed, idiota," she said finally, her hand still under mine.

"So am I," I replied.

~*~

**A/N: Since you guys are awesome with voter polls, what do you want to see next in the chapter header art?

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