A brazier glowed in the center of Nisha's tent, beneath a narrow vent hole open to the sky. The orange clouds shone overhead, as bright as the four lamps that flickered around the perimeter of the circular tent. Patterned rugs, soft blankets, and plush pillows of all sizes littered the floor. Had it not been for the snake of a woman coiled in their midst, I could have almost considered it comfortable.

"How punctual," Nisha said, glancing up at the sky through the vent hole in the tent before she returned her attention to the brazier. Skewers of marinated meat sizzled against the open flame. She said something in Bazeran to the sentry and punctuated it with a wink that set my teeth on edge again. The bronze coins tinkled as the sentry left us.

I stood just inside the entrance, inspecting the tent. More pillows and blankets were concentrated towards the opposite end, atop what must have served as Nisha's bed. As soon as I noticed it, I wrenched my eyes away. The armor she'd worn during the duel sat on a rack, oiled and polished and glimmering in the light from the brazier. Beneath that, metal winked from an open chest. Knives and swords and metal-banded bows – an armory for one.

"Well, come sit down." Nisha said, a faintly amused smile on her face. She'd wrapped herself in a blanket and I wasn't sure I wanted to know what was underneath, not when she'd clearly already removed her armor.

"I'd rather not." I said stiffly.

She rolled her eyes and shoved the blanket from her shoulders. Where I'd expected her to be attired in some form of undress as an attempt at seduction, instead she wore a loose, overlarge shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, and a pair of soldier's trousers like she had that morning. She unfurled her legs from where they'd been crossed beneath her and stood.

"Tea, then." She crossed to the opposite side of the tent from her armor. A table with a clay teapot and a pair of cups sat before a single chair. Her hair hung loose and unbound down her back, straighter and finer than Beatriz'. When she turned back towards me, she held out a cup of steaming liquid. I regarded it with narrowed eyes.

She loosed a frustrated sigh and made a great show of sipping from both of them, her eyes on me, before she offered me one again. I took the other one and earned another sigh.

"I suppose I brought all this suspicion upon myself," she grumbled, as she resumed her seat beside the brazier. "But I'd rather not have you longing to rip my head off all evening. You can relax, Your Highness, for I have no interest in bedding you."

I didn't trust the relief that loosened my shoulders. "Then why demand me as a prize? You'll have to lie a little better than that to convince me."

She fixed me with a withering look. "You're a scrap of a man, Thomas. When I like men, I like them like Rafael. Big. Muscled. Competent with a blade." She turned her attention back to the brazier and took a sip from her tea, wincing when it touched her bruised, split lip.

Well then. I wasn't even affronted by her words. Instead, the wariness that had prickled across my skin since I'd stepped into the tent settled. This was not the Nisha I was expecting. Gone was her swagger and all the lustful looks she'd laid upon me whenever we were in Beatriz' presence. Instead, she scowled at the smouldering coals as if she were the one being compelled against her will to be here. Carefully, I took a seat on the pillow across the brazier from her. She didn't even glance up at me, and instead focused on rotating the skewers.

"Why am I here, then?" I ventured eventually, with a sniff at the cup in my hands. The tea was thicker than I was used to, perfumed strongly of mint.

"Because Beatriz needed to be reminded that she's not as good as she once was," Nisha replied, as she pulled two of the skewers from the brazier and separated them onto plates. She lifted a cloth-covered bowl of water with floating slices of lemon and ginger and handed it to me. "Here, wash your hands."

After a beat of hesitation that earned another annoyed purse of her lips, I did as she asked and dunked my hands in, then wiped them clean. "That doesn't answer my question at all. What do I have to do with any of this?"

She handed me one of the plates with a skewer and fixed me with another unimpressed look. "What would motivate you to fight your hardest, Thomas? To push yourself beyond what's comfortable and easy, to the brink your abilities? A threat to your family, perhaps? Your own death?"

"Certainly," I replied, watching as she slid the cubes of meat from the skewers with her fingers and popped one into her mouth. I mirrored her actions and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was good. Not as good as Genevieve's cooks' food, but good enough for a meal I thought I wasn't going to enjoy in the least.

"If someone challenged you to a duel for Beatriz, would you fight your hardest?" Her eyes bored into me over the fire.

Ah, so that's was what all this was about. I leaned back and chewed, holding Nisha's gaze until I swallowed. "What are you asking me, Nisha? If I would lay down my life for her? Or something else?"

A flash of her feral smile returned and she dropped her attention to her plate. "She always liked the clever ones," she mused, before she chewed another piece of meat and surveyed me again.

I waited for her to finish and continue, unwilling to spill my secrets so easily.

"She wasn't trying this morning, when we sparred," Nisha went on, "She was weak. Distracted. I needed to fight her when she was focused, when she was throwing everything she had at me, to see if she really had lost her touch since she'd left for Relizia. Or if it was all because of...something else."

"Because of me," I prompted.

She tested the skewers still on the fire, a faint grin curving her lips. "You, or perhaps the threat of war. The real possibility that she and her brother could be dead before the year is through, if the force he's gathered here isn't enough. That her sister might kill more of her friends and loved ones before they can stop her. Would you like another?"

I held my plate out to her and she nudged another skewer from the fire onto my plate. "Thank you," I said, "It's better than I thought it would be."

"And polite too?" Nisha chuckled. "She won't be used to that. Tell me, what did you think it would be?"

"I thought I would come here, present myself for the sake of upholding Beatriz' honour, and then explain very fervently – perhaps with a weapon – that I have no interest in bedding you."

"With a weapon?" Nisha repeated, with a laugh. "Were you not watching today? If you'd brought a weapon, I'd have skewered you with it and gone on with my dinner."

With a purse of my lips, I leaned down to pull Genevieve's dinner knife from my boot. I set it on the edge of the brazier and Nisha stared at it for a moment before she tipped her head back with a peal of laughter. She laughed so hard she nearly fell over. Tears streamed from her eyes as she leaned over to pick up the knife and twirl it between her fingers before handing it back to me, hilt first.

"A word of advice, Thomas: bring a proper weapon next time. A dinner knife as blunt as a spoon won't do you any good. Not unless you're buttering bread," Nisha said, still chortling with amusement.

I pointed my half-eaten skewer at her. "Perhaps if you hadn't put on such a grand show of flirting with me and demanding me as a prize, then I wouldn't have felt the need to bring something to defend my virtue."

Nisha's chuckles abated, but the laughter still shone in her eyes. "Your virtue is safe, from me at least." She shuddered in disgust and it was my turn to fix her with a withering look.

"I needed you as the stakes and her jealousy as the motivator." Nisha said finally, staring into the fire as she toyed with her bare skewer. "She's my best friend and I'm worried about her going soft when she needs to be at her best. I think losing, especially because it meant losing you, will be enough of a wake up for her." Nisha set down her plate. Her expression sobered. "Was she all right, afterwards?"

I studied her, at once fascinated and frustrated. She'd been awful, taunting and teasing Beatriz during their duel, saying things no friend would ever say. And yet here she was, sincerity written all over her face as she worried about Beatriz. Perhaps they really were friends and this was just Nisha's way of showing it. After all, her plan – foolish and cruel as it was – did make sense. I'd even done the same to Andrew by asking Libby to the opera, back in Highcastle.

"I couldn't find her," I admitted. "She disappeared somewhere with Rafael."

"She disappeared to spend time with another man?" Nisha's hiss of a wince was colored by a playful grin. "That must sting."

I fixed her with another unimpressed look.

She laughed and gingerly took a sip of her tea, careful to drink from the opposite side as her split lip. "I'll offer you an olive branch and say that you have nothing to worry about from Rafael." She studied me over her tea. "She likes you. Very much."

A thrill raced from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine. I don't know why Nisha's words spurred such a reaction, especially given that Beatriz had proved as much last night, on the roof...

Then again, when she'd looked at me at breakfast, it had been as if I'd broken her heart.

"If you only needed me as leverage, then why not simply claim your victory and forget the prize?" I asked, hoping that Beatriz wasn't hurting right now, thinking of what Nisha might be doing with me.

Nisha considered the question, then considered me, as if deciding whether I was worthy of the answer. "Because sometimes I'm blinded by pride. It wouldn't do not to claim my prize with the entire camp watching. They'd think me soft and stop taking me seriously."

"And yet you have no issue leading your best friend to believe that you wanted to bed the man she 'likes very much'?"

Nisha shrugged. "It wasn't my most brilliant of plans, but it did get her attention. And it got her to fight me, properly." She touched a finger to her lip. "I never meant to draw blood, though. With the way she sparred this morning, I thought I'd have her on her back in a matter of minutes. But she fought hard for you. Harder than I'd anticipated."

"You didn't have to throw your sword at her."

She fixed me with a look. "Spoken like a true prince and not a warrior." She huffed a dark laugh. "If you'd ever been seized by battle lust, you'd understand what it does to you. I didn't mean to hurt her, I only meant to win. But sometimes instincts overrule logic."

She stared into the fire for a few minutes, as if remembering something she didn't want to share. Then she shook herself free of it. "You can leave whenever you'd like. I never intended to keep you here until sunrise, anyway."

"Then what did you intend?" I asked, and tipped back the last of my tea. It was refreshing, after the spice of the meat.

"To get your measure." Nisha surveyed me over the brazier. "To decide if you're worthy of her."

I held her gaze. "And?"

Amusement flickered across her face. "I'll be sure to pass my thoughts along to Beatriz." Laughter danced in her dark eyes before her expression sobered. "She's not as good as she used to be, Thomas, and she might not remember that, even after today. If you care about her like I hope you do, you'll watch out for her. Just as I would, if I was the one she spent all her time with."

I recognized that warning – the unspoken threat of a best friend to a new lover. But this one was paired with a plea only someone who loved Beatriz like a sister would ask.

"I will, you have my word." I reached out, across the brazier, to offer her my hand. She took it, her grip firm and calloused.

"Go find her," Nisha released me and reached behind her for the blanket she'd discarded upon my entrance. "And tell her she needs to practice harder, or I won't be so gentle next time when I challenge you to duel me in her place."

**A/N: Well well well, Nisha didn't turn out to be what a lot of you expected, did she? What do you all think of her now?

And what about Beatriz, how do you think she's going to take Thomas' return?

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