Page 22 of The Prince or the Bard?
"What’s that, Your Highness?" As if I don’t know perfectly well. He’s too fixated on what Lady Taliana is screaming—the wrong dress was packed, and another still stained—to be thinking of me.
Thank the sea goddess.
"I thought she was the one."
Taliana?Curses and bargains, are we speaking of the same woman? How could anyone as foul as her be "the one" for any man of halfway decent character?
What?
I almost gulp audibly. Did I just think to myself that I find Prince Ruairí to have some redeeming qualities? The man responsible for the love of my life leaving me when our romance had barely begun? The man whosabotagedmy happiness because it wasn’t with him?
Thank the sea goddess I didn't say that aloud. No, it's best, I think, not to say anything at all.
“Well, if it isn’t her, I suppose I must look harder.” The prince’s smirk, for once, is not quite so annoying. The sadness in his voice seems to temper its irritatingly cocky nature. “This is not something I’m used to, you know, hard work.” He turns to me, as if truly noticing me for the first time. “How is the queen?”
“Recovered enough for the journey home. Or at least she will be, by the time the high king has come and is ready to depart again.”
His brows rise in dismay. “Did you think her too ill to make the voyage after—the other night?”
“The voyage? Oh, not that. We aren’t returning to the castle by ship.”
His brow furrows. “Not by ship? Then how?”
“We’re traveling the old fashioned way, alongside the king’s retinue. He’ll be arriving and then departing after a few days, all by horse, and we’ll be going by hoof ourselves.”
There’s something I enjoy about his surprise; I usually have the sense that Prince Ruairí has already heard about almost everything that happens, or at least believes he has. “You’re going to walk the distance as—as—”
“As unseelie púcaí, yes. Sir. There will be room in the caravan if Queen Fiadh grows tired. You know the high king never uses it if he can help it.”
Prince Ruairí nods, the lingering divot on his brow saying he understands but wishes he didn’t. “I should travel with you, to be safe.”
“Suit your—er, I’m sure your presence would be welcome, sir.”
He quirks a smile at that. After all these months, I’m still not quite used to the way I must speak to royalty and nobility. I don’t think I will ever be.
When he turns to face the sea, I do the same. We begin walking together down the rambling path, me a little behind him, though he keeps shortening his stride to stay closer.
I walk in silence, almost beside him, watching the sky changing colors in the west, while the gray waters churn loudly below us. And I almost can admit it to myself.
Prince Ruairí isn't half bad.
The week we spendtraveling to the castle is the best I’ve had since leaving Diarmuid’s Row. With High King Tadhg here at last and keeping the noble ninnies away, our ride is easy and free.
Fiadh's very appearance changes quickly. She looks healthier now. My royal cousinisa little better each day, her headaches nearly vanishing. Was this what she needed all along? More fresh air, and more time in her true púca form?
And while I’m careful to avoid any closeness to Prince Ruairí, he proves to be a good traveling companion. He’s rather self-sufficient, riding ahead and setting snares for mountain hares or hunting grey partridges and red grouse in the woods. Not quite the layabout prince he has a reputation as.
Then again, he seems to enjoy this freedom, the same as I do. The difference between us, then, is that I don’t let my distaste for a task stop me from doing it well, while he will only do what he enjoys.
Today, though, he helps without anyone asking him. And I can tell, each time he comes back with foraged food or a hare, that High King Tadhg is pleased. More than once, they go off to hunt together.
And he has never brought up the night he saw me and Fiadh in our unseelie púca forms. To my knowledge, he’s never even mentioned it to another. After the first couple days on the road, the royal caravan trundling along behind us, I stop worrying about what he'll say. Traveling this way, with an intimate royalretinue, seeing two unseelie fae has almost become mundane to our little party.
Sometimes, when I am back in seelie form for the night and we cross paths around the campfire, I chance to offer the prince a smile.
He always returns it, a touch too eagerly. I almost don’t mind.
For that week, everything is welcome and good.
