Page 14 of The Royal Curse

His eyes darted from me to our surroundings, clearly torn between looking for the threat and examining me.

“No,” I said hoarsely. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. There could be a sheer drop just out of sight. A river down in the gorge. Anything. Or my bag could be right there within reach if I simply leaned over the edge. I had to keep it together. “No, I’m not hurt. But my saddlebag fell down the hill.”

Andreas relaxed visibly, his shoulders losing their hard tension. “Then there’s no problem, is there? You’re carrying your notes in your coat, aren’t you? We can replace anything else in the next town.”

If he’d been right, if the only things in that bag had been clothing and oddments, then I’d have been touched—and a little surprised—by how well he understood me. My notes were terribly important, and things in and of themselves didn’t matter that much to me.

But my notes were only the second most important thing I’d brought with me.

“I need the bag, Andreas.” My voice came out thin and shaky. The potion, at least in my case—every twilight mage had a different cycle—had to be taken every forty-two hours like clockwork to keep the pain at bay, down from the forty-three hours it’d been a couple of years ago. And it’d been…fuck, it’d been thirty-five hours already, give or take. I’d need to get out my pocket watch to confirm it. I glanced around; the rearguard had ridden up to overtake us and lingered a few feet away.

Leaning down to put my face near Andreas’s felt so intimate, but I simply couldn’t have any more people than absolutely necessary knowing about this. Andreas leaned in to meet me. “My potion is in that bag,” I whispered.

Watching his expression change might’ve been fascinating if I hadn’t been able to feel my heartbeat vibrating in my extremities from the force of my terror and anxiety. Andreas’s smile faded, and his brow furrowed, lips pressing together tightly.

“Fuck,” he said. “Sorry, Your Highness,” he added.

“Don’t apologize. ‘Fuck’ sums it up.” I tried to smile and failed.

Andreas nodded, sheathed his sword, and strode away. “I need ropes!” he called out to the guards. “Find a good anchor. Get the horses out of the way for now…”

Andreas’s deep, commanding voice washed over me, sanding the rough edges off of my fear. I took a moment to bow my head over Fluffy’s neck, breathing deeply, shoving away my incipient panic. The last time I’d forgotten my dose had ensured I’d never forget again. Searing agony, like flame racing along every vein and nerve in my body, my lungs compressed, my throat raw from screaming, every muscle cramping as I curled into myself and thrashed…

Gods, I couldn’t go through that again.

And it sounded like I might not need to, because Andreas said, “I can see it. It’s on that rock. Give me the end of the rope.”

I looked up to find him shrugging out of his coat and then unbuckling his sword, making to tie the rope around his own waist. And I froze, my blood running cold.

“Don’t,” I said. And then more loudly, “Stop!”

Andreas turned back to me, eyebrows raised. “I can see the bag, Your Highness. I’ll have it for you in a moment.”

I’d swung my leg over Fluffy before I even realized I was moving, dropping into the thick mud of the road with a squelch and slogging to the edge of the cliff. Andreas dodged in front of me, an arm out to keep me from getting too close. With a twinge of irritation, I craned my neck. Yes, there it was, about five yards down, tauntingly safe on a flat outcropping of stone. It had landed perfectly; two feet to either side and it’d have been gone forever. But to reach it, Andreas would have to scramble down over a truly filthy and slippery stretch of mud, climb around several large rocks, and push his way through a thorny bramble.

Damn it. “If it’s not safe for me to stand by the edge, it’s hardly safe for you to climb down with that stupid rope around you! The ground looks so saturated those rocks might not hold your weight. And do any of you even know how to tie a decent knot?”

“I do,” Carlo, one of the older guards, piped up from behind me. “My whole family are fishermen. Grew up on a boat. I can tie a knot that won’t unravel, no-how.”

“You sound like the queen,” Andreas said to me, his eyes glinting with mischief. “She listed a great many ways we could all die on this journey when I spoke to her.”

Well, damn and blast it—damnhim.

“I do not sound like my mother!”

“You look like her, too, Your Highness. With your nose in the air like that. Very regal. I’m going down the hill, Carlo will tie the knots, and it’ll be fine. Besides,” he added, pitching his voice low for my ears only, “there’s really no choice. And I’m not going to ask one of the men to do something I won’t do myself.”

“But that’s precisely what I’m doing!” I protested. “I ought to be the one to climb down. I’m a lot smaller and lighter than you are, too. Out of all of us, I’m the best—”

“Out of all of us, you’re the worst possible choice, for reasons that are glaringly obvious and don’t need to be discussed,” he said briskly, although he had an odd look in his eyes that didn’t quite match his firm tone. “Besides, you’re not in command of this expedition, remember? So you’re not making anyone do anything, and that logic doesn’t apply. Now stand back, Your Highness. If you please.”

That wasn’t a request, and we both knew it.

And I stepped back, obeying him instantly without any resistance, a strange heat pooling in my belly. Embarrassment? Shame? Both, maybe. But when he spoke like that, without the slightest question that he’d be obeyed, no one could possibly have the will to argue.

He looked as confident as he sounded, standing there all broad-shouldered and sturdy, his black tunic and trousers and tall black riding boots silhouetting his muscular frame against the snow. Carlo tested the knots several times, tying the other end of the rope around a rock on the other side of the road, and two of the guards took hold of it to pay it out as Andreas descended.

The clouds had crowded back in again above us, driven by the icy wind that swept through our group and set me shivering. The horses stamped, their breath making even larger plumes than the humans’.

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