I walked amongst the fallen with Ridley, still covered in the blood of our enemies, armor shifting uncomfortably as I stepped over fleshy mounds that used to be men, boots squelching in the blood pooled beside them. We searched their faces, their limbs, looking for movement, seeking out injured. I raised a leg, preparing to step over a particularly large tangle of men fallen one on top of another, when I heard a groan from the bottom of the pile.

"Ridley," I spoke and the Captain was beside me in an instant, helping me lift a Rirdantan soldier from the top of the pile, the spear through his chest rolling off with him as we pushed. My legs nearly buckled beneath me in exhaustion as we pulled one corpse after another from the mound. And there, beneath, one of our own, groaning in pain, choking on his own blood. I reached out a hand and he took it, fingers weakly gripping mine as I pulled with all my might to extricate him from the soldiers fallen over him.

Ridley found his other arm and pulled but the man let out such a cry of pain that he dropped it and hoisted him from the waist instead. I was already calling for the stretcher as Ridley and I set the injured man down on the bloody ground beneath our feet. A healer arrived with the stretcher, already examining the soldier as he was lifted onto it. I sniffed, wiping my hand against my forehead and feeling the streak of blood it left behind. Ridley watched me with a frown but bit back the words I know he wanted to say, the suggestion that I sit down, that I rest, as I turned and resumed my search.

I wouldn't stop, couldn't stop, until I was satisfied that the injured were accounted for, that no one would perish overnight in this field while we slept in our tents, blissfully unaware of their death throes. Not another of our men would die today. Not if I could help it. So, despite my very bones protesting against me, my muscles strained to their limits, I pressed forward, searching that field littered with the dead, until far into the evening, until the sun dipped below the horizon and I couldn't see enough to keep looking. I paused, raising my head, feeling the cool night breeze on my face, caressing the hot flush of my cheeks, and breathed. Inhale. Exhale. And listened.

No grunts, no groans, no cries for help. It was silent, my only remaining company the dead.

"Draw the princess a bath," Ridley barked to a servant standing nearby, awaiting orders.

I stared across the vast expanse of the battlefield, at all of our fallen men, all those who bled and died for this cause, for this fight.

"Adelaide," Ridley said my name gently and finally, I turned. I must have looked more exhausted than I felt because Ridley's jaw clenched at the sight of me. "I'll walk you back."

I didn't have the energy to object so I simply lifted my boots to step over yet another body and followed Ridley off of the field to the horses awaiting us beyond. Most of the other commanders had left, their soldiers having departed long ago. Only a few men still searched the dead. They nodded to me as I passed, too exhausted to bow, and I nodded in return, feeling the same.

It was an effort to seat myself atop my horse. It took me twice before I managed to lift myself into the saddle. Ridley didn't offer to help, knowing me well enough to know that I would only bristle and likely injure myself trying to prove I didn't need it. He just waited patiently upon the stallion of his own until I was mounted. Then, without another word to one another, we rode back toward the camp.

Fires were already roaring at interspersed sites throughout the scattered tents as we approached. I saw soldiers walking to and fro, talking, drinking. No one was laughing, not tonight. Most of them were still covered in blood. Some had washed what they could from their skin the moment they were able, leaving behind that dark, ruddy smear so characteristic of blood having been wiped away. It was difficult to get the stain of blood from one's skin, particularly without the use of soap. And these men didn't have the luxurious bathing chamber attached to their tents that I did.

My legs were numb when I dropped from my horse onto the soft ground outside of my husband's tent. I only nodded to Ridley as he took the reins and led our mounts off to the posts to be tied up for the evening. I left the Captain to his own post-battle rituals and trudged toward the tent flap for mine, already anticipating the cold bath awaiting me.

What I didn't expect, however, was to find my husband in a compromising situation with one of his own lieutenants.

I snapped the tent flap shut behind me as quickly as I'd opened it so that no one beyond would have the chance to see. Brigham's gaze snapped up to mine from where he was entangled with the man upon our bed.

Face heating, I averted my gaze.

"Adelaide," he choked in shock.

I kept my eyes set firmly onto the canvas of the tent on the other side of the open space, refusing to look at him again, as I heard the rustle of sheets, then clothes.

"I-I thought you were staying in your own tent," he told me, as if that explained anything at all. "Ridley said–"

"I thought it would be better for our men to see us as a united front," I said. "After today."

I closed my eyes as the lieutenant, now dressed, rushed past me on his way from the tent. I took a deep breath, steadying my shaking hands.

"Adelaide, please. Look at me."

Brigham's voice broke and my heart with it. I turned to face him but, the moment my eyes met his, and the sadness beyond them, I forced them away.

"A bath," I blurted, suddenly remembering. "I need a bath."

I strode toward the bathing chamber attached to Brigham's tent as another, smaller one.

"Adelaide, please," he said, following me. "We have to talk- we should talk about this."

"About what?" I asked, still shaking as I reached for my hair, beginning to undo my braid with trembling fingers.

"Adelaide."

"You prefer men," I blurted again and his eyebrows raised. "I know that."

"You do?"

"Two years, Brigham. We have been together, as husband and wife, twice in two years. I'm not a fool."

"I know," he said, his voice softening along with his eyes. "I know you aren't, Adelaide. You're one of the brightest people I've ever met."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He froze, staring at me in wonder, even as I began to peel away my armor.

"How could I?" he breathed. "You would hate me. As you undoubtedly do now. I stole your future, Adelaide. With my secret, I stole your chance at happiness. My own as well."

"I don't hate you, Brigham," I told him, unbuttoning my shirt and sliding it down my arms. His eyes didn't even flicker to my chest. I wasn't surprised. I stepped out of my boots, then my pants, and slid into the cool water, hissing against the cold. Then I looked back up at him. "Does he make you happy?"

Brigham just blinked at me, stunned.

"I-he–" he stumbled, searching for words.

"I don't care, Brigham," I told him. "Our marriage was never a match made for love, for romance. I was never so foolish as to expect that from you. That doesn't mean I hate you. What reason would I have to feel such a way? I care for you, you are my husband, we are bound together whether we wish to be or not. I want you to be happy, Brigham, even if that happiness has nothing to do with me."

He just blinked at me as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing, as if he never dared to hope for such understanding. It made my heart ache, how stunned he was by this most basic compassion I had offered him.

"My concern," I said then, allowing my voice to become slightly firmer, more serious, "is the matter of succession."

His gaze darkened, lips pulling together into a frown.

"As a woman, particularly as a princess, I am required to produce heirs whether I wish to or not. If you are not inclined to take up the task, I can find someone who is."

I trailed my finger in the water, watching it ripple where I touched, to avoid looking up into that horrified expression I knew he wore. Hiding his little secret was one thing but what I was suggesting, reproducing outside of the royal lineage, outside of our own matrimony, was downright treasonous.

"Who?" he asked and my gaze snapped to his. He had that look of envy on his face, the expression men wore when they suspected, usually incorrectly, that you were more attracted to someone else. I just rolled my eyes at his audacity.

"No one," I snapped, thoroughly scolding him for the blatant hypocrisy. He had the grace to look ashamed as I lowed my gaze to the water once more. "I just think we can make an arrangement."

"An arrangement," he repeated in disbelief.

"That any children I bear will have the protection of your name."

There it was. The crux of the issue. That Brigham will have to claim any child which comes from my womb as his own, that he will have to live with the knowledge that the son whom will inherit his fortune, his lands, will fall in line for our country's throne behind only my brother's own children, will not be his own and, in fact, may come from a man he does not even know. My choice. The only choice I'd ever truly had. And he could give it to me. As I had given him his.

"I do not judge you your proclivities," I told him, my voice quiet in the silence that descended upon us as he considered my offer. "I have my own. We all do. I only hope for an open understanding and an agreement to deal with whatever... consequences. Together."

The tent fell silent again as Brigham considered.

"And the man with whom you will bear your children?" he asked. "Won't he wish to claim them as his own?"

"He will know he can't," I confessed, my heart heavy with the thought. "And I won't take him into my bed unless his does."

Brigham thought for a moment.

"This marriage can be a friendship, if nothing else," I told him. "I want to be on your side, Brigham. We may not love each other in the way of a husband and wife but I can love you as a friend, as a skilled general, as a leader of men. I respect you for what you are. I only ask that you do the same for me."

He nodded at that.

"I do," he told me. "And I will think on this... arrangement. Thank you, wife."

As he leaned over the tub, kissing the top of my head before striding from the room and leaving me to my bath, I knew he was thanking me for more than my shrewd plan. He was thanking me for that understanding, that compassion that others had not shown him. Not for this.

I closed my eyes and sank beneath the water and did not come out until my fingers and toes were wrinkled and cold.

I rose from my bath and dressed in one of the court gowns my brother had insisted I bring along. I piled my hair atop my head and stepped from the tent into the cool night air beyond. I breathed deeply, inhaling the crisp, fresh air outside of the tent.

The soldiers were milling about near the fires or trudging off toward their own cots in their own shared tents. Nearby, Hawk and Calder raised pint glasses in salute. I smiled kindly their way before setting off on a walk around the edges of the camp, not straying too far so that Captain Ridley wouldn't lose his mind and come in search of me, but getting the fresh air and distance I needed from the camp, from the soldiers I had helped lead into battle.

I stopped at the very end of the camp in a spot of darkness nestled behind a cluster of commanders' tents. I looked up at the stars twinkling brightly in the dark sky and breathed deeply. I wasn't sure how long I stayed like that but I remained long enough to find some semblance of peace in the face of what I'd done, how I'd spent the day. And when I turned my gaze away from the stars and back to the world below them, I saw a flicker of silver at the edge of the forest. I squinted into the dark, my eyes having adjusted to the moonlight in the time I'd been standing out here in the night, and I saw him.

Tyne of Vyndoli, still fully armored as he snuck silently into the trees, crossing enemy lines.