Swordpoint Diplomacy 14

CHAPTER 14

‘They didn’t realize I heard all of that? These people are hopeless. It’s really embarrassing for me that they took me hostage. They can’t fight their way through a conversation.’

She knew, as deeply as she knew her own name, that her twin was nearby. He was going to find her.

‘Of course Etienne came for me.’

Rose started laughing.It came out high and mean. Poor hapless Willame of Highcleff didn’t know what to do with that response to his gruffly veiled threat. His brow furrowed. He looked back at his Prince for reassurance.

‘Does he think I’m scared of him carrying me? He can’t hurt me, I’m their prize. And they’ll be down to one fighter if he has his hands full. The Chamberlain is just a normal servant.’

“I couldn’t possibly walk with my injury,” Rose lied cheerfully. It was a perfect excuse and satisfying to use, given that the asshole Prince had tried to taunt her about the injury. She’d been abed for hours, it had to be significantly healed by now. She felt her smile reach her eyes. She considered twisting the verbal knife with something flirtatious - “I’m all yours”, perhaps, or a blunt “take me in your arms.” But there was something she really liked about forcing someone to actually suggest the course of action they didn’t want to take.

It took him an excruciatingly long moment.

“Willame,” the Prince hissed. He was looking down the hall, tall and irritatingly gallant. He was even taller than the knight, though he didn’t have the sheer bulk that Willame did. Willame looked rather like a big meaty wall, if she was going to be blunt about it. He would make a decent carriage.

“Might I lift you,” Willame managed to grit out. He looked like he would rather carry a live serpent.

Rose extended her arm gracefully, beckoning him to cross the room. With her other, she concealed the diary within a pocket of her skirts. She’d had it on her lap the whole time those three men had been staring at her and hadn’t dared move it for fear of drawing attention to it.

He grimly rushed across the room like it was a battleground. To his credit, he barely hesitated over scooping her up with one arm under her legs. She reclined against his broad chest and let an arm trail over his back. Yes. She remembered him. He was the big warm jackass who had half-dragged her to the castle. He clearly didn’t feel as comfortable with it when she wasn’t drugged.

Mm, good.

Slowly, deliberately, she drew her nails across the back of his neck. She kept them short and blunt but he still shuddered at the sensation.

‘If I want to, I can break your neck with a slap,’ she thought lovingly. It wasn’t polite at all to say it, but she hoped that he knew it. It felt very good after how helpless she’d been.

When the Prince gave them a distracted look, she made a point of pointing her toes delicately and melting even further into his bodyguard. Her legs were largely exposed in this position, given that the dress the Castellan had resentfully delivered was a good two hands short of the proper length. At the sight Marcel’s mouth opened, and then he shut it. A muscle contracted in his jaw. “Let’s go,” he ordered gruffly.

Rose leaned back and enjoyed the ride. It had been a very long time since someone had actually carried her. It had been- well, the last person to do so had probably been her mother, she decided. Mother was physically affectionate, so far as she remembered.

Now that she was out of the insulated room where tapestries dampened sound, she could track the progress of what had to be Etienne’s personal squad. Prince Marcel was doing his best to lead them around to a winding staircase. Unfortunately for them they absolutely had to go down and out to evade the invaders.

‘Etienne won’t leave half the stairs unwatched. Someone is going to meet us.’

Prince Marcel met up with a few guards posted at the end of the hall and demanded for them to follow. The two jumped up and dropped in with them.

Affronted, Rose let her mouth drop open.

‘They really did. They had my guards posted all that distance away. They weren’t taking this seriously from the start. I could have broken the door down and beaten them to death with it before backup arrived.’ She glowered at the back of Marcel’s head. ‘This is his fault. He was so smug and slick. I wrongly assumed he was competent.’ He didn’t turn to look at her. He couldn’t possibly have known that she was angry with him. But his shoulders began to hunch up. The Prince stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eye.

She blinked.

‘Does he feel me radiating negativity?’ Rose wondered incredulously. ‘Is he that sensitive to my emotions?’

It seemed like a terrible way to live. She reigned in her irritation nonetheless. She was enjoying the situation, she really was.

‘But I really can’t let him die. I shouldn’t let any of them die, if I don’t have to. He’s an insufferable asshole but he’s right. We could end this war.’

It pricked at her pride that he had said so before she could. She was the one who would lose by agreeing to the match- she would lose her crown, she would have to live in a foreign country. It wasn’t her country that was suffering, really, though of course everyone lost in a war. By marrying him, she would be doing him an incredible favor. That was before factoring in her personal attributes and accomplishments, which was more than respectable enough.

‘I really don’t care for him. He should have been on his knees for the chance to kiss my hand.’

She felt her teeth grind together. “I want to marry your state” indeed. All the respect and goodwill she’d had for him before that was dust now. It really was impressive that he was nearly as skilled as her in a fight. The time he’d tried to assassinate her was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. There was also something compelling about the fact that he had successfully outmaneuvered her once (with help on the inside). They had nearly reached the stairwell. She could tell by the echoes that the door below was already open- someone was there. They were just waiting to go up at the same time as the other group went up on the other side of the building.

‘But there’s no getting around the fact that he’s a really unpleasant and smarmy man. I want to slap that grin off of his face the next time he dares look at me like that.’

Well. She set her jaw grimly.

‘Necessity compels. My pride is still slightly less important than the war. I’ll still do it.’

“We should wait,” Rose ordered serenely. At her tone, the two guards stopped in their tracks and Marcel faltered. Willame never stopped moving. That made her like him a little. “If we go in the stairwell, it will be ugly,” she said idly. She tapped her fingers on Willame’s back. “Close quarters, spiral stairs- it’s a meat grinder. The sound will carry and echo and amplify, and you won’t even be able to surrender.”

Pretty good odds that she’d have to kill her own people to escape, if she was brutally honest. That was a bad place to meet an enemy if you didn’t want a fight to the death.

“We’ll just kill everyone in there,” Willame said gruffly. He nudged the group on.

She was really getting the impression that he didn’t like her.

Prince Marcel opened the stairwell door but seemed to hesitate.

“It’ll be hard to marry me if you’re dead,” Rose said mournfully. It wasn’t wholly put on. It would save a lot of lives. She liked combat, she really did, but she wasn’t a monster.

Marcel stopped walking. He turned and looked at her, frowning. He narrowed his eyes. “Do you swear on your honor that there are armed combatants waiting in the stairwell?” he asked.

Her eyebrows shot up. He trusted her?

“Yes,” she said. She didn’t have to lie.

‘I wonder if I would lie. …I probably would,’ Rose decided without a hint of guilt.

“You have to be fucking jestering,” Willame spat. She glanced up to see that red was rising in his face. “Marcel.”

“Could someone else carry her?” Marcel asked snidely. “If you want to be the first into the grinder to prove that everyone else is a liar.”

Rose felt her eyebrows shoot up.

The grip that Willame had on her tightened.

A shout echoed up the stairwell. It cut off the burgeoning argument entirely.

“Fuck,” Marcel said, quietly, heartfelt.

“Fuck,” Willame agreed. He turned partly back in time to see the door at the far end open.

Rose leaned back and squinted. “Hello, Etienne,” she called cheerfully. She waved.

Her twin bellowed something and started sprinting.

The shout was answered by a cry from the nearby stairwell and an immediate cacophony of booted feet running on stone.

“Back to the wall,” Prince Marcel ordered, flinging an arm out. He glanced between the two incoming threats. They formed a rough defensive formation with their backs to a tapestry. Willame tried to drop her entirely. Rose flexed and tightened her grip, keeping herself suspended by her left arm.

He looked down at her incredulously and awkwardly contorted, jerking his hips back to draw his sword despite her still being attached to his front. “What is wrong with you,” he hissed. Etienne was halfway there already, sprinting ahead of the poor bastards he was with.

Rose made a point to reach up with her free hand and pat Willame’s cheek. His mouth dropped open in a satisfying way.

In lieu of an answer, she extended her legs to touch the floor and disentangled her arm from around her mobile chair. “Brother dear,” she hollered. She pushed the soldier who was blocking her in. He hit the wall with a clank. “And Lady LaMott,” Rose added, delighted at the first face that came up the nearby staircase.

The older woman blinked and then grinned. She had rather a lot of blood on her front and sword. “Princess Rose,” she greeted.

Etienne stopped yelling as Rose stepped out of the dubious circle of protection without being manhandled. The clanking sound of his approach slowed dramatically.

“Are you having a nice time?” Rose asked, genuinely curious.

Lady LaMott grinned fiercely. “I love a good battle,” she said. Her sword angled ahead, toward Willame. He was probably regretting having been the one to hold her.

“I ap-”

Rose cut Marcel off by smacking him on the shoulder. “I’m afraid these ones are my prisoners,” she said regretfully. “I might marry one of them.”

Lady LaMott’s eyebrows shot up. Etienne, who had slowed to a jog as he met them, let out a soft “What?” Rose waited while Lady LaMott looked over the four men present. She dismissed the foot soldiers quickly, glanced between Willame and Marcel, and then pursed her lips. She nodded to Marcel. “I love a good wedding,” she declared, in the same cheerful tone.