“Are you two fucking imbeciles?” Commander sat at the desk in her tent with her head in her hands, her tired, stringy brunette hair braided back into a bun. She had been looking over maps when Charden and Morgen entered to give their status report, but their news seemed to have taken her attention away from the war room. 

Charden leaned back against one of the chests holding various texts and war strategies, arms crossed over his chest and shrugged. “You told us to gather intel. We gathered.” 

“You gathered a Princess!”

“So we overachieved.” Charden tossed an apple he’d snagged from the supply tent on their way over into the air and caught it, polishing it on his shabby leather garb before taking a bite.

Commander lifted her head to glare at him with her sharp, hazel eyes. She was not amused to find Charden smirking back at her. She sighed, pushed herself out of her chair, and trailed her fingers over the wood of her desk. 

“I’ve sent her to the medical tent for treatment. She has a laceration, which is being patched up, and a bump, but she is otherwise unharmed, which is good news for us. Maybe this way, her father—King Allister—will have mercy on her when you two take her to the Underground and return her to Albienna.” 

Morgen, who had been quietly trying to disappear into a corner the entire time, suddenly snapped his attention to Commander. “What? You want us to take on the maze? Even the King’s men get lost in those tunnels!” 

Commander pinched her nose as if genuinely pained to have Charden and Morgen in her presence, despite them being two of her top-performing mercenaries—ever—and Charden having only joined recently. “You two made this mess. I’m not wasting good men cleaning up after the likes of you.” 

Charden scoffed. “Um, aren’t we missing the big picture here?” He set his apple on the chest and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “The Aeglusian King—our King, on a technicality—had his enemies' daughters kidnapped. Isn’t that pretty huge?” 

Commander stared Charden down, her eyes like daggers. “We don’t know that they were kidnapped. The girl has not yet woken up.” Her right eye twitched, and her jaw was tense. 

“They seemed pretty keen on getting away from Narrex,” Charden challenged. 

“Narrex? General Narrex? King Valinex’s nephew?” 

Morgen flashed Charden a look. 

Oops. Charden forgot they were going to leave his involvement out of their report. They had just gone with “a high-ranking general.” But since it was out there, Charden squared his shoulders and held his ground. “That’s the one.” 

“Gods, have mercy.” Commander looked up to the fabric of her tent as if she could plead with the sky for forgiveness. “Both of you are Unmarked. Going up against a noble—that’s not just stupid. That’s reckless.” 

“Well, we made it out unharmed, didn’t we?” 

“Unharmed except for the princess,” Morgen mumbled, and Charden nudged him with an elbow. 

Commander took a breath and walked forward. She had a tall, lanky frame—willowy and withered—but that did nothing to dampen her intimidating aura. “Need I remind you, Charden, that it is imperative you—of all people—do not end up in the hands of King Velinex?” 

Charden’s jaw tightened, and he twisted his lips to the side. “No.” 

“Good. You’d do well to remember what we’re doing here.” Commander sighed, slicking some of her stray stress hairs out of her face. “Your Princess should awaken any time now. You should be there when she does so she may lead you to her palace. Perhaps her father will consider allying with us should he see the safe return of one of his daughters.” 

“She’s not my Princess,” Charden protested. 

“And we only saved one of them. Her sister is on her way to Vlenexia as we speak,” Morgen helpfully reminded. 

“And I’m not wasting any men on this. We may be strong fighters, but we are spread thin. We must assure the safe return of this princess, and then maybe her father will grant us some men to get the other one from the palace. But it won’t be the two of you.” 

Charden huffed, crossing his arms over his chest again. “I could complete a mission like that, and you know it.” 

“Charden. I won’t give my directive a second time.” Commander sat back down at her desk and folded her hands over the map. 

Even Charden knew when to back down. He sighed, snagged the rest of his apple off the chest, and walked out of the tent. Morgen was close behind, chastising the whole way. “I told you she’d chew us out! That is the last time I go along with one of your boneheaded ideas—”

“Boneheaded? We saved a princess.” Charden took another bite of his apple. “You’ll change your mind when she’s swooning over us for being her heroes.” 

“She tripped over a root, and we dragged her to a foreign camp run by rebels. We can’t even get the magic inhibitors off of her because we don’t have any magic here,” Morgen deadpanned. 

Charden flapped a hand at him. “Details.” He finished off the apple and tossed the core into some of the bushes surrounding the camp. “She won’t care. You’ll see. All nobles are the same.” 

***

Watching an unconscious girl wasn’t just sort of creepy; it was downright dull. She hadn’t moved in a while, and since she was all bandaged up and the bleeding had stopped, the doctors had moved on to more pressing matters. Morgen ended up leaving after a while, but Charden stayed. He watched her sleeping face, a little twisted from the pain, just in case something happened and her condition worsened. 

Alone in the tent with nothing else to do, he’d finally gotten a good look at her. She was shorter than him, with broad shoulders and skin whiter than falling snow. Her hair was just as white—actually, all of it, including her eyebrows and eyelashes. 

Her cloak, which had been removed and set to hang on a standing wooden coat rack in the corner, was made of rich red velvet. The silks draped around her body as her afkara were dyed red, in a swirling pattern cascading like petals down to her feet, where it collected into clumps of roses just above a golden hem. 

Her nose had a distinct bump in the ridge and sloped down until it curved up to a little point. Her delicate skin looked almost like porcelain in the dim lamplight of the tent. She was undeniably Daevana—the enemy, or so Charden had believed for many years. 

Suddenly, her eyelids fluttered, and she made a sound. She groaned as she turned onto her side, her long hair falling over her shoulder as she pushed herself upright. 

Charden moved quickly. “Woah, there! Don’t try to get up so fast!” 

“What happened?” Her voice was low and husky, likely from head trauma. She lifted her fingers to the bandages around her head and blinked her eyes open. 

When they locked with Charden’s, they were—almost red. A color unlike anything Charden had ever seen. 

He cleared his throat and rubbed his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants. He had changed out of his leathers and into some common fabrics and even pulled his hair up into a bun to keep it out of his face. “Sorry, we don’t have any fancy magical medics like you’re probably used to. Just some textbooks and a lot of trial and error with herbs. But it should hold well enough.” 

Her attention fell to her wrists, where the silver cuffs still sat, dampening her magic. With the cloak gone and her afkara showing her arms, Charden could see her marks clear as day: roses circling her arms on blooming vines with no thorns. 

So she was who Charden thought she was. 

Even in war, the noble families on each side of the coin were known across the lands. On one side, King Valinex and his daughter, children of Insanity, rulers of Uptop and crown of the Aeglusia—followers of the Aeglus Gods. They were as ruthless as they were cunning. Then, there was King Allister and his daughters Ellenna, daughter of Nature, and Karibana, daughter of Wish, rulers of the Underground and crown of the Daevanna—followers of the Daevan Gods. They valued ethics and authority above all else. 

Two halves of a pantheon doomed to extinction from war and greed. There was nothing to be gained in a fight like the one they were in—only a power struggle. That was why Charden defected and became a rebel. But for the first time in a long time, he felt like he had a chance to make a difference for his people: the other Unmarked trapped in a magical fight they had no real stake in. 

All he needed was the help of a Marked.

“You’re a long way from home, Princess.” He noted quietly. 

Karibana raised her eyes to meet him, and she said nothing.