“Well… I thought you might have decided to take the opportunity to get rid of me,” Erik said, carefully watching her face for… something… anything to explain why she had done what she did. 

Risking her life to save him? He just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Sure, he had done the same for her, but he was a knight, a trained warrior. She was a princess, a lady, a young woman! He wanted to know not only why she had risked herself for him, but how she had managed to escape the attack without a scratch. 

But the why was a bit more important. 

Karissa’s eyebrows knitted together. Confusion? Or is she trying to think of a quick response? Suddenly Erik felt ashamed for insinuating that she wished him harm. Shouldn’t he just be grateful? Yes, he should be. Especially now that she, a lady, was tending to his wounds herself, superficial as they may be.

But then she didn’t answer. Just looked down again, the wisps of auburn hair shrouding her face, and continued winding the bandage around and around until it was all used up. Why didn’t she answer? There could be only one explanation. 

“So you had thought about it,” he said. A statement, not a question. Her green eyes snapped up to his again, angry this time, finishing his bandage with a sharp tug on the knot.

“So that’s what you think of me?” she demanded, her voice low. “That I’m ungrateful?” Then she stood quickly, her long braid whipping around her, and left him there, dumbfounded and at a loss for words.

Ungrateful? The word did not make sense to him in that moment. He had been sent to conquer her kingdom, he had executed her father. Ungrateful? The Duke stood and followed Karissa around the two pack horses, putting some space between them and the guards and knights.

“Ungrateful?” Erik asked, causing her to spin around, her hands on her hips just like when she had been surveying the ruined carriage wheel. “What could you possibly have to be grateful to me for?” 

“My life, for one!” she exclaimed, placing a hand to her chest. “For my family, for my people!” The confusion was threatening to melt his brain into a pile of sludge. None of what she was saying was making any sense.

“I killed your father! I forced your mother to sign a treaty with the emperor! I handed your kingdom over to a man who thought it prudent to then marry the daughter of a newly conquered nation to the very man that conquered it!” Karissa straightened, letting her hands fall to her sides. 

“Is that why…” she trailed off, then sighed. “Duke, I am grateful to you. Truly.”

“... I don’t understand,” Erik admitted. 

Karissa crossed her arms, seemingly becoming smaller before his eyes as she looked off into the trees for a moment. Then she looked back at him, and he was surprised to see that her eyes were welling up with tears.

“My father… was a tyrant. No, he was a monster.” She paused to swallow and wipe at her eyes, then continued. “He beat me, my siblings, my mother… anybody, really. Whenever he felt like it. He worked the people to the bone.” 

Erik shook his head, not quite believing what she was saying. The spy reports the emperor had sent the Duke prior to the war had painted a much brighter picture of Kyleon. They supposedly had a bustling city center, lucrative trade deals, and plentiful food for its citizens.

“He brought war upon us when he refused to allow the empire’s trade routes to pass through our lands,” Karissa continued. That, at least, the Duke knew to be true. Now that Kyleon was conquered, it took half the time it used to for traders to reach the capital of the empire from the kingdoms near the coast. “If he had just agreed, the trade taxes could have helped us through the famine. We were suffering, Your Grace.” She paused again, then actually smiled at him. “Then you came, and freed us all.” 

“Our reports didn’t say any of that.” 

Karissa smiled again, but ruefully. “My father was adept at capturing messages from your spies. He changed them so the emperor would think we were stronger than we were. The harvest before the war was the last in a string of poor years. If you hadn’t come, I don’t think most of the people would have survived another year. That treaty you made my mother sign? That was a blessing. Don’t you remember the only request she made?”

Erik thought back to that day months ago. Karissa’s mother, now the Regent of Kyleon, sitting at the desk in her late husband’s study arrayed in black. The woman had the same hair color as Karissa, though it was streaked with gray. He remembered how she had read through the treaty twice, then looked up at him with a commanding air, and made her one request.

“... That the emperor would send supplies every winter for the citizens, so long as they need it,” the Duke said slowly. He shook his head again, finally beginning to understand and to believe what his new wife was telling him.

“The emperor kept his word,” Karissa said. “He sent more than we could have hoped for. We didn’t starve like we always had through the winter.”

“If all of this is true… then you owe the emperor your gratitude, not me. I only did my duty by following his orders.”

“Perhaps. But still,” Karissa paused, taking a step towards him. Her eyes were now clear of tears, and she smiled at him again. “I thank you all the same. For myself, and for my family and my people.” 

Erik looked into her eyes, convinced now that he had been completely wrong about her. The Duke looked down at his arm that she had just bandaged, again feeling shame wash over him for thinking that she would have wanted to harm him. 

“I am undeserving…” he mumbled.

“I disagree,” she said simply. But something was still nagging at the back of his mind, and he looked up again, wanting to see her reaction to his words.

“Then what about the emperor forcing us to marry? Surely you can’t be grateful to be saddled with an older, scarred, hardened man like me for a husband. This marriage is ill-fated, at best…”

“I don’t see it that way at all, Your Grace.” Karissa answered, cocking her head to the side. 

Erik’s mouth ran dry. Was she really not upset about the marriage? Yes, he now understood that she didn’t resent him for killing her father, but…

“Then how do you see it?” he asked.

Karissa didn’t answer for a while, just returned his gaze and seemed to ponder the question. 

“... Maybe I’ll tell you another time,” she finally said.