I could have slept for decades. It was not a particularly comfortable bed, but the fact it was not a bedroll on the ground meant it might as well have been my own feather bed back in Highcastle. Despite the sun peeking through the curtains, I rolled over, eager for more dreams of rooftops and dark hair and stolen kisses.

Somewhere outside, Beatriz laughed. My eyes flickered open as the sounds of scuffling and fists against flesh followed. Despite my half-asleep fog, my mind jolted awake with a wave of disappointment. Lazing around would mean missing morning training, and I wasn't about to pass up such an opportunity.

I rolled out of bed and nearly crashed into the wall opposite, having forgotten how tiny my room was. I tugged open the curtains, expecting to find Beatriz and Rafael duelling. Instead, Beatriz' mysterious friend Nisha looked up towards me as Beatriz pushed herself up from the ground. Both were already attired in armor – Beatriz' the same leathers I'd grown used to seeing her wear, but this set was scarred and faded, whereas Nisha's was snug around her midsection to leave her arms and shoulders free to move. Nisha's smile turned wicked as she said something to Beatriz when she helped her rise. In response, Beatriz pivoted to look up towards me. I bowed with a sly grin of my own, not even a little embarrassed that I'd slept without a shirt on. Beatriz simply rolled her eyes and shook her head as she said something that had Nisha tipping her head back to laugh. But her laugh ended abruptly when Beatriz sank down and dove at her.

I'd been reaching for my shirt when Beatriz had leaped at Nisha, but I froze at the swiftness of their sparring. If Beatriz had ever leaped at me or Rafael that way, she'd have easily tackled us, but Nisha somehow ducked and whirled, throwing Beatriz off with the momentum of her dive. The pair of them moved so quickly it seemed more like a brutal dance than the sparring matches I was used to between Beatriz and Rafael. They struck and dodged and dove and rolled and kicked so quickly that it was hard to determine who was winning until Beatriz ended up flat on her back in a cloud of dirt, with Nisha's knee in her stomach and elbow at her throat.

No wonder she'd taken such pleasure in knocking me onto my arse. It seemed like she'd come by it honestly.

I dressed quickly, eager to watch them spar up close, and hurried down the stairs, only to stop on the landing halfway to allow Genevieve and her voluminous skirts of cobalt blue to pass. Behind her, a pair of older men with tools strapped to their belts followed.

"Bon matin, Tommy. I do hope you got enough sleep last night, what with all the racket on the roof." Geneveive punctuated her knowing grin with a wink, before turning her attention back to the men behind her and continuing in Vareinnian, "Come, I'll show you the damage through here. I simply don't know what happened. It must be the wind that keeps knocking these shingles loose."

I bit my cheek to keep from grinning as memories of shattered shingles conjured more memories from the night before. I was almost out the front door when Frederico's voice erupted from the dining room to my right.

"Thomas," he snapped. "A word, please."

"Be back in a moment, Coco dearest," I said, and sailed out the door.

This time, Nisha was the one on her back in the dirt, writhing with laughter, while Beatriz stretched out an arm and massaged a shoulder. When she noticed me, the corners of her lips twitched before she tore her gaze away. But she wasn't quite quick enough to hide the blush that rose in her cheeks.

"I keep forgetting how skinny he is," Nisha said in Ardal, propping herself up on her elbows to study me. "What a terrible task master you must be if he's been training with you for weeks. Have you forgotten to feed him?"

"He's a Pretanian prince. He couldn't fight to save his life when we found him. All he could do was sip tea and sling insults." Beatriz pushed a piece of hair from her face as she helped Nisha rise.

My eyebrows hopped. "Sip tea and sling insults? I'll remind you that I'm an excellent shot – among my many other talents, darling."

"Darling?" Nisha repeated, her devious grin sliding to Beatriz, whose cheeks flamed darker.

"Less talking, more training," Beatriz said in Pretanian. "Go fetch some staffs or practice swords."

"Aren't you going to spar with him?" Nisha asked archly, "Perhaps we could ask him to take his shirt off agai–"

She ducked away from Beatriz' swat.

"I think sparring practice sounds like a wonderful idea. After all, if I'm so terribly skinny, I should be an easy victory." I said, shaking out my shoulders and rolling my neck.

Beatriz sighed, but her twitching cheeks betrayed the smile she tried to stifle as she shook her head at me. Beside her, Nisha had bitten her lip, inspecting me as if I were a delicacy on a platter. When she took a step forward, into the scuffed circle they'd traced into the dirt, Beatriz' hand landed on her shoulder.

"I'll go first," Beatriz said, tugging Nisha back so she could step into the ring. "Before you push him too far that you break him."

"Break him?" Nisha feigned affront. "I only want to play with him, sister."

"Said the cat to the mouse," Beatriz muttered, before gesturing to me. "Well, come on. Unless you're afraid."

"Never, darling." I stepped into the ring. "Though would you prefer me with my shirt on or off?"

"Off," Nisha called from where she'd perched atop the stone wall that encircled Genevieve's house.

Beatriz didn't answer, she simply lunged for me. I attempted the move that Nisha had so elegantly used to throw Beatriz off, but I was too slow. My breath whooshed out in a huff as her shoulder connected with my stomach and knocked me off balance. Her fist flew up and I just barely managed to knock it away.

"I fight the loser!" Nisha called out again.

Neither Beatriz nor I replied. She was too busy seizing my arm and locking it with her own as she tried to hook my leg and knock me down. I was simply trying to remain standing while trying my best not to think about the last time we'd been so entwined. I tired to pivot out of her grip and realized too late that I'd put all my weight onto the foot she was so close to sweeping out from under me. But rather than jerk her knee and send me into the dirt, she twisted too.

As quickly as she had pinned me, I was suddenly the one with the advantage. I planted my weight and heaved and Beatriz flew over my shoulder to land in the dirt.

I'd won. I stared down at her, her chest rising and falling as she pushed herself up onto her elbows, and wondered if I'd somehow gotten good enough at sparring that I could finally beat her.

"Cheater!" Nisha cried, vaulting off the wall. "You threw the match, you little snake!"

Beatriz thrust her hand up to me and I took it, helping her to rise.

"You said you'd fight the loser." She released me without looking at me and brushed the dirt from her shoulders as she faced Nisha. "Which means now you get to fight me."

Nisha spat out a word that must have been a Bazeran curse, before she said, "Then I changed my mind. I want to fight the winner."

"Those weren't the ru–"

"Oh I see how it is," Nisha interrupted. She stalked around the pair of us like a cat. "You're afraid he might enjoy sparring with me more than he enjoys 'sparring' with you." Her emphasis on the word sparring had Beatriz' cheeks flushing again.

"You're insufferable." Beatriz shook her head and used the hem of her shirt to wipe the sweat from her face. "And I'm starved. I'm not going to argue with you when there's a perfectly good breakfast being laid out inside."

Sure enough, the smell of frying bacon and fresh baked bread had filled the air while Beatriz and I had sparred. My stomach grumbled.

"Breakfast sounds lovely," I began, but when I held out my elbow to Beatriz, she ignored it and turned on her heel, towards the dining room.

Nisha slid a knife from a sheath in her boot and threw it so it buried itself in the dirt in front of Beatriz. The princess halted, staring down at the hilt of the blade. Her fists clenched. When she made to sidestep the blade, another knife landed to the right of her right foot.

"Do you dare step over my blade, sister?" Nisha asked, another knife ready, her eyes on Beatriz' left foot.

"Really, Nisha?" Beatriz massaged the bridge of her nose, but her feet remained immobile.

"It's my right to challenge you upon your return and you know it. Besides, you just lost to a Pretanian prince. I think you need to prove your skills. And I want him to be the prize."

Prize?

Nisha licked her lips at the surprise on my face before her eyes slid to Beatriz. Beatriz sliced her with a glare over her shoulder. After a beat of hesitation, she stepped over the blades, holding Nisha's predatory gaze.

"You're uninvited from breakfast," Beatriz snapped at her.

"I'll see you at noon, then. You know where," Nisha called after Beatriz, who stormed towards the dining room. Nisha's chuckle followed me as I hastened after the princess.

I caught up to her just before she entered the doorway and barred her way with my arm. "Did she just challenge you to a duel? Over me?"

Beatriz' dark gaze slid up to mine. Frustration filled her eyes, mirrored in the set of her jaw. "Why else would she have thrown a knife at my feet?" She ducked under my arm.

"Where I'm from, duels are started by tossing gloves, not knives." I followed her, slipping around to stand in her way.

She folded her arms. "Why do you care about the rules? Are you planning on challenging someone to a duel, idiota? Because I'm afraid you'd probably lose."

"I just beat you," I offered, with a grin at the unimpressed arch of her eyebrow. "Unless you really did throw the match because you didn't want me 'sparring' with her."

Beatriz' arms unfurled as her eyes shifted between mine, calculating. She lifted her chin and took a step closer to me. I didn't back away. "You're standing between me and my breakfast, Tom. Do you really think that wise?"

"I'm simply concerned, that's all. If you're willing to throw one sparring match, what's to say you won't throw the next one to see me carted away as Nisha's prize?"

Fire sparked in her eyes. "I didn't pick up the knives, did I?"

"You've lost me, darling. What would picking up the knives mean?"

Beatriz reached over to brush some dirt from my rolled sleeve. Her fingers lingered. "Stepping over a blade means accepting the challenge to a duel. Picking them up would be doing Nisha a service – like bowing before her." Her eyes slid back up to mine. "I don't bow before anyone."

My hand found her waist. She was already so close that all it would take was a simple tug for me to–

Rafael cleared his throat. Beatriz stepped back, away from my touch, and glanced over to where the burly Ardalonian leaned against the wall.

"Our king is waiting," Rafael said. He fixed each of us in turn with a look before unfolding his arms and stalking into the dining room.

I massaged the back of my neck and offered Beatriz a guilty smile. "Ladies first."

"Troublesome prince," she muttered as she led the way into the dining room.

Frederico was seated at the head of the table, surrounded by papers and servants bustling to serve his breakfast. A map dominated the center of the table, held down by Genevieve's candlesticks. Rafael had taken the seat to his left while Beatriz made her way to the seat on his right.

But Frederico seemed to only have eyes for me. "A group of Pretanians has checked into the inn where you found the Carvalho children."

I stilled with my hands on the back of my chair. Pretanians?

"Pretanians?" Beatriz blurted out. She paused too, her hand suspended midair as she reached for a piece of toast.

I sank slowly into my seat, wary of the intensity of Frederico's gaze. "What do you mean, Pretanians?"

"I mean men with pale skin and Pretanian accents, asking around about you."

It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. Not now.

But of course it would be now. That's how father operated. That was his preferred timing – the most inconvenient for all my plans.

**A/N (Jul 26, 2019): *ducks from the rotten tomatoes thrown at me because of the cliffhanger* I know, I know, I'm the worst. Not only is the update late, but I also left you with a cliffhanger. Then again...if you've read my other stories, you all know that as soon as something good happens, a twist is coming. Especially if King Graham has anything to say about all this! *evil laughter*

That said, who do you think is going to win Beatriz and Nisha's duel? 

What do you think Frederico is going to do about the Pretanians?  And will Thomas listen?

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