Three sharp knocks at my door stir me out of my dreamless sleep. My anxiety about the day ahead kept my mind too occupied to rest fully. No voice follows the knock, the noise feeling more like a secret signal than anything else.

  I don’t need to question it, I already know.

  We ride out today.

  The cold bites before I even push the bnket aside. My shift has slipped off one shoulder during the night, and I tug it up with one hand while rubbing the sleep away from my eyes. I get dressed quickly, putting on the same uniform. I’ve lost count of how many days in a row I’ve worn it. The only reason it doesn’t reek is because I’ve been scrubbing it every night in damn my washbasin. Even worse, this damn closet doesn’t have any air flow, so some days I have to go around with wet pits.I really need to chase Ni up about getting another one.

  When I open the door, Caspian is already waiting in front of his bed. The soft candlelight highlights the curves of his cloak. It’s not his usual one. No fur. No crest. Just bck wool

  His eyes sweep over me briefly. “Where is your pack?”

  I stare at him and gesture to myself. “Thisismy pack.”

  His brow lifts.

  “I don’t own anything else,” I add ftly. “Not even a comb.”

  He nods once, turning heel and walking over to his table. I watch as he passes his bed, covered with supplies. A bedroll, a folded bnket, leather satchels and a few wrapped bundles I don’t recognise sit in a neat spread.Is that bedroll for me? Is he pnning on making me camp as he stays in an inn or something?

  He grabs a square cloth from the edge of the bed and ys it ft on the table. He then opens his drawers and takes out a few items from each. In the middle of the cloth, he folds a tunic, trousers and a pair of thick woollen socks, before tying it up, pressing the bundle into my hands.

  “Here.”

  He then takes a bck cloak id on the bed and drapes it over the bundle. “Put that on before we go outside.”

  I nod once, setting the bundle down on the table so I can fasten the cloak around my shoulders.

  He hands me two of the lighter bags to carry down. I take them without argument and follow him out of the room.

  We wander through the empty halls of the castle, its occupants cast to sleep by the early hour. We reach the courtyard, the sky is still nearly bck, but the first tendrils of sunlight greet the nd. We walk to the stables, and a lone horse stands outside, tied to a post.Why is only Caspian’s horse out?

  Caspian takes the bundles from my arms and begins strapping them to the horse. I awkwardly stand beside him, trying not to get in the way. I watch as he pulls the leather straps and tightens the buckles.

  I gnce around, noting the ck of people. There are no guards, servants or even Ni around barking orders.

  Just us.

  “Are the other knights still asleep?... Where is the rest of our party? ”Don’t tell me I could’ve slept in.

  He doesn’t look up as he tightens the st strap. “There isn’t one.”

  My brows lift, and I’m taken aback. “We’re going alone?”

  Caspian turns to me, adjusting the ces on his leather gauntlets and then flicks up his hood. He then steps closer, and without permission, pulls mine into pce as well “Even among my ranks, there are eyes I don’t trust.” He murmurs. “A band of knights heading to the border draws questions. Two travellers do not.”

  My mind went back to the teenagers yesterday; they may have been bratty, but they did mention something curious. “To one of the far posts, I think. Just the two of them.” Nobody, except those in the war room, knows this meeting is happening…

  I study him for a moment. The pin cloak. The silent hour.This is a ghost mission. A secret meeting…

  Spies, huh…So, he wasn’t just teasing the girls yesterday. He was warning them.

  He gnces at me and notices my stillness.

  “Come, I’ll show you how to mount.” I give him an apprehensive look, remembering how I embarrassed myself st time, trying to get on.

  A moment passes, and I begrudgingly step next to the horse, Caspian hovering his hands over my figure in case I fall.

  “Left foot in the stirrup. Hand on the pommel.” I look at him, our faces close, as he nods to each. “When I lift you, pull up.”

  I blink and scoff. “I can try—”

  “It’s best you know,” he says, his hands now cmping on my sides. “Especially if things go wrong.”

  The words hit harder than expected.If things go wrong…

  If we’re exposed or if…Pavlore betrays us.

  I don’t compin, I just take a breath and follow his instructions. He hoists me up, and I scramble awkwardly into the saddle, adjusting myself like Caspian had shown me.

  “So you can learn,” he teases, swinging himself up onto the saddle behind me.

  The horse shifts under our weight, and Caspian closes the gap between us. I feel his hard chest press against my back, his arm brushing against mine to grab the reins. As he pulls the horse into a trot, he pces his hand onto my hip for bance, removing it a moment ter. I freeze for the briefest second under his touch, forcing myself to breathe the second it is removed.

  The castle fades into the morning fog as we ride out. Passing through the lower gate. I gnce over my shoulder and catch a glimpse of the Arken banner being consumed by the morning shadow.There’s no turning back now. It’s just me and him…

  I settle into the rhythm of the horse’s steps, forcing myself not to lean into him, as we ride out of the city’s outer zone.

  “How long until we reach the border?” I ask quietly, the silence adding to my anxiety about the situation.This meeting might cause a war…and I’m just a history teacher. I do not have the qualifications to be here.

  “By noon tomorrow. That’s if the roads don’t turn to ice.”So, we are sleeping overnight. I hope to God that’s his bedroll and not mine. I’m more of a gmper than camper.

  The wind breezes freely now that we’re free of the walls. We take another path, different from the one we took to Arken. This one stretches into trees and a pale mist. The frost hasn’t fully set in yet, but I can feel it coming, carried in the sharp gusts that bite through my cloak and sleeves.

  We travel for hours, passing through distant vilges and scattered farms. The silence between us is held in a careful bance, it being neither comfortable nor strained. Occasionally, Caspian will lean in to adjust the reins, and every time he does, his jaw brushes dangerously close. Close enough that the heat of his breath skims my ear, sending a sharp jolt through me I refuse to acknowledge.

  He doesn’t speak unless necessary, and my own need to talk lessens as more time passes.

  By mid-afternoon, the trees begin to thin, and the light from the sun dims without warning. The grey clouds above settle lower in the sky, a sign that rain is to come.I hope these cloaks are waterproof…

  The horse slows slightly beneath us, ears twitching at something I can’t see. Caspian doesn’t react, but I can feel the subtle tension in his posture.

  “What is it?” I whisper, my heart picking up its pace.Is it Krehvins? Please, God. If you can hear me, if you exist here. Please don’t let it be a Krehvin.

  “Nothing yet,” he mutters, as if whatever it is, is not a problem for us, yet.

  We ride on.

  So far, we haven’t stopped to eat. Instead, we’ve just passed around a fsk of water and a handful of dried fruits as we move. Caspian shares his portion without compints, handing the food bundle in my p, as if it were just another task to complete.

  By the time the sky turns a dark grey, the forest has opened up into a small clearing of scattered trees. A thin underbrush surrounds the open patch, and the horse begins to slow as Caspian begins to dismount.

  “We’ll camp here,” he says, his voice strong, just as though he were hiding his nerves of the future as well.We’ll camp here? We? I hate camping.

  Caspian swings off his horse with a practised ease. He turns to me without speaking, his eyes dragging over my face before putting his hands on my waist. He lifts me down slowly, and I momentarily forget how to breathe until my shoes touch the ground. The warmth of his grip lingered longer than it should.I don’t think I’ll ever get used to his touch.

  “Stay with the horse.” He says, stepping away from us without gncing back.

  He stands in the heart of the clearing, the moonlight caressing the ground with its light. He moves slowly with a deliberate grace and unsheathes his sword, the steel reflecting the glow of the night sky. Lifting his left hand, poised with a silent purpose, he draws a breath.

  And speaks.

  “Isehte teal eiar nasaseanaeh na sataseais anma ’ara teta teal Nutamasa ta na maseate.”

  The words are spoken in a soft, deep chant. The words feel akin to a prayer, an offering, as though they were ced in an ancient oath. Each sylble is like a whisper through time, trembling the air and the forest itself.

  A symbol etched into Caspian’s hand begins to glow orange. He draws the bde across his decorated palm, slicking the bde with his crimson.

  Soaked in red, the steel ignites. The colour is like embers of the sun rather than the deep scarlet of fmes. They’re not the same as the wild bze Caspian had when fighting the Krevhins. No, these are soft, light, they dance on the bde, flickering like firelight caught in a trance—I’m caught in a trance. Lost for words at the beauty of his words and movements. What should be a gory sight of blood put to sword, is instead a graced dispy of a practised rite.

  Caspian takes the bde and draws a circle in the clearing, the fmes carving its path. Like careful brushwork, he moves with precision, and in the centre, he traces the same symbol etched into his palm.

  When he draws the st stroke, the fmes fsh blue and die out. In the corner of my sight, I swear I see the tips of my fingers briefly glow the same hue.Must’ve been a reflection.A gust of wind brushes past me with its extinguish.

  He stands for a moment, then turns to me. “Bring the horse.”

  I blink back into awareness and pull the reins of the steed, guiding him into the circle. It’s small, but decent.Can he only make them so big?

  Caspian takes the reins and presses his bloody thumb on the horse’s forehead. He ties to a nearby branch within the scorched perimeter, and then steps towards me.

  “Sorry about this,” Caspian mutters, before grabbing my sleeve, marking it with red.Ew, what the hell?!

  “What are you—”

  “’Tanaete seasa.” He breathes out, swiping the blood from his bde and flicking it within the ring.

  In an instant, a sharp whoosh of steam rushes around the circle’s edge, chasing the line as it spins. At the same rapid speed, the blood from my dress and the horse’s head vanishes.

  “There. Only us, in or out.” He mutters.Why? What else is…out there?I take a quick, anxiety-filled scan of the trees before giving up.Just trees…

  We’ve already eaten on the way here…the only thing left now is to sleep, I guess. I hate camping. I hope they don’t have a weird, freaky version of mosquitoes here.

  He walks over to the horse and unbuckles the supplies from the saddle, and tosses the bundles into the centre of the circle. He then reaches up, breaking off two low-angled branches from the tree above us, and stabs them into the ground with the hilt of his dagger. He takes the folded sheet and drapes it over the top.That was a tent sheet? It’s small. Very small. Does he pn for us to sleep together?

  My stomach twists.

  Caspian finishes strapping the horse and tosses down the rge bedroll. He crouches, checking the seams inside the makeshift tent before gncing over his shoulder at me.

  “I’ll know if something crossed the boundary,” he says in a neutral tone. “But by the time I got to you…” He tugs the tent into pce. “It’d be too te.” He says as if that justifies the situation.

  He takes a step back, as if to assess the structure of the tent, seeing if it’ll hold.There is no way I’m doing this again. Maybe those girls were right, maybe he is lonely? I refuse to be a bed warmer for a man I’m not with. I’m not ‘loose’.

  I cross my arms, a frown etched onto my face. “So, what? I’m supposed to sleep next to you now?”

  His brow twitches. “Unless you’d prefer the cold. Or to sleep with what roams the trees.”

  I blink, a smile of disbelief on my face. “Are you—” I lower my voice. “Are you, like… starved of affection or something? Because this has been happening a lot.”First the tavern, then his room and now this?

  He gnces at me, unimpressed. “You’re not that important, Genevieve.”

  A pause, just long enough to feel personal.

  “If I needed affection, I’d find it elsewhere.”I’m just an unknown girl to him, whom he doesn’t know what to do with. Or trust to leave by herself.

  It’s obvious. Known.

  Then why does it hurt?

  I don’t say anything, I just look around. Anywhere. Anything but him, the awkwardness, suffocating.

  “This isn’t about comfort,” he adds, quietly this time. “It’s about survival. That’s it.”Yeah, I suppose we are hiding from prying eyes…It’s just survival.

  He steps into the tent and pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders. There’s no fire, no obvious signs that we are here besides the tent.

  “Get in. No one’s touching anyone.”

  I hesitate for a moment. Then I duck inside, shuffling awkwardly into pce. The space is tighter than I expected. When I lie back on the bedroll, my shoulder grazes his, and our legs almost touch. But he doesn’t move away.

  And neither do I.

  The only noise is that of the critters, pying their songs as the night grows darker. I try to focus on the noise. To fixate on anything other than the fact, I can hear his slow, steady breath just inches away from me.

  One exhale brushes against my cheek, and I unintentionally hitch my breath.

  Caspian notices…but remains silent.

  The air between us stays quiet. And that, somehow, is louder than anything either of us could say.