The rising sun bled pink over the encamped army as we emerged from the chasm in the cliffs. We all sagged in our saddles, but what worried me most was the princess slumped in front of me. In the watery light, the dark stain of Beatriz' blood leered ominously up at me through the bandages wound around her leg. Her arm fared no better.

"Come on, almost there," I leaned forward to whisper in her ear. It did not elicit a response. I tightened my arms around her, pushing my horse for what last of its strength remained.

Beside us, Nisha rode in silence. Her face was pale, her eyes ringed with shadows. She'd been lost in haunted thought since we'd stopped only long enough to re-bandage our wounds. We were all injured, but Beatriz fared the worst, with Nisha a close second. I hadn't trusted Nisha to be able to both support Beatriz and stay awake and strong long enough to make it back. Neither had protested when I'd insisted that Beatriz ride with me. In fact, neither had said much at all. There had been no time for talking, nor any time to delay, not while Dulciana's cavalry scoured the woods behind us. Not while the colonel stationed in Dulciana's fort was preparing messages for his queen.

Frederico jerked up out of his seat at the dining room table when the three of us stumbled into Genevieve's house. Breakfast was already laid out, but rather than rumble with hunger, my stomach simply twisted with nausea. The smell of food twined with the tang of dirt and blood that matted all of our clothes. Beatriz leaned heavily against me and it was all I could do to keep the both of us upright, even with Nisha helping on her other side.

"What happened?" Frederico demanded, shoving chairs out of his way in his haste to reach us. Nisha tugged one of them out and planted it before Beatriz, then collapsed into one herself.

Genevieve was humming contentedly to herself as she entered the room, only to freeze. The bowl of porridge she'd been carrying crashed to the floor. Her eyes swept over the lot of us before she turned and screamed towards the kitchen, "Fetch a healer! Now!"

At the noise of shattering porcelain, heavy footsteps sounded overhead, thundering towards the stairs. Frederico was kneeling in front of Beatriz, a horrified hand hovering over her bloodied bandages.

"What happened?" he demanded again, fire raging in his brown eyes as they hopped from Beatriz to Nisha to me.

"She knows." Nisha's voice was little more than a moan from where she rested her head against the table. "I couldn't stop him."

Frederico's head snapped back towards me, his eyes wide and wary at Nisha's cryptic words. Behind us, Rafael exploded into the room, sword drawn, chest heaving, until he realized who we were.

"Callum Winters. It was a trap." I managed as I lowered myself into a chair with a wince.

Frederico stilled. His lips parted with horror. His gaze turned inward as he leaned away from his sister, eyes darting back and forth as he connected the pieces together. The pieces I'd agonized over as we'd ridden through the night.

All our best laid plans, turned to dust.

"I'm sorry." Beatriz' voice broke as she lifted her head to meet her brother's worried gaze. She was so quiet I could barely hear her over Rafael's renewed shouts for a healer. Genevieve reappeared, clutching a healing kit much like Beatriz'.

Frederico laid a hand gingerly on her shoulder, ripping his attention from his thoughts back to her. "It's not your fault," he said, with more conviction than I would have believed possible, given the circumstances. "Better that we know now than later."

Bottles tinkled as Genevieve dumped the healing kit on the table and yanked it open. "What do you need? Do you need a bowl? Shall I boil some water?" she demanded no one in particular. Her fingers shook.

"Bandages and boiled water," Rafael said, crouching down to inspect Beatriz' thigh, then an ugly wound on Nisha's arm that I hadn't noticed in the darkness.

When his eyes turned to me, I shook my head. "Ladies first." I'd taken stock of myself as we'd ridden. A headache threatened to split my skull in two, and my stomach ached where I'd been punched and kicked. But I was not in danger of infection or bleeding out, as Beatriz and Nisha were.

"Thomas." Frederico's word was at once a question and a statement, a gentle demand for my attention. I tore it away from where Rafael was undoing the bandage Nisha and I had tied around Beatriz' thigh. I swallowed, nauseated anew by the sight of Rafael's careful stitches from the day of the duel, torn open and ragged.

"They weren't my father's men. It was Callum. They let the Carvalhos go so they could follow them to us."

Rafael's hands paused. He looked up at Frederico. The prince had gone still. Too still. Then, in one fluid movement, he seized a teacup and flung it against the wall with a bellow of rage. The porcelain shattered. Tea ran down the wall like a thin, liquid blood stain.

Frederico scraped a hand through his hair as he began to pace, as agitated as a caged animal. Genevieve reappeared in the doorway from the kitchen. Her eyes darted from the tea running rivulets down the wall to her husband. Beatriz reached out towards him, then hissed with pain. Rafael gently, but firmly pushed her back against the chair so she would stay still.

"Frederico," I said. My legs screamed in protest as I stood, sore from riding and running and everything it had taken to get back here alive. "Come with me."

I shambled towards Genevieve and the kitchen, not waiting to see if Frederico would follow. The conversation we were about to have did not need to be in front of all of them. Genevieve backed into the kitchen to clear my path, then uttered a few words in Vareinnian to the three servants there. They cleared out, one of them hauling a cauldron of boiling water into the dining room for Rafael.

Behind me, Frederico had followed. I leaned against a countertop riddled with sliced onions until Genevieve reappeared with a rickety three-legged stool. She planted it in front of me, then went to Frederico's side, winding her arm with his. Bracing him just as much as she was bracing herself.

"It's my fault." I licked my dry lips and shook my head. "I should never have gone. But I knew you weren't going to let the chance of securing my father's men slip away, so I agreed to go before you went in my stead. I didn't think it through because I was so desperate not to be sent away. I didn't want you to find out that the price of my father's alliance would be for you to send me home. I wanted to negotiate, and I was so distracted that I failed to realize what was happening before it was too late.

"Callum bound me, but he didn't intend to turn me over to Dulciana as she'd ordered. He planned to sail home and trade my life for an end to his exile. Beatriz and Nisha found us and gave chase, along with your men and more from the inn. Even with them, it wasn't enough. We couldn't stop them when they fled to the fort, sounded the horn, and lit the signal fire for reinforcements."

Frederico stoically absorbed each of my words, never wincing as each blow landed. He studied the onions on the chopping block behind me before he squared his shoulders and turned to Genevieve.

"Have someone fetch Shahnaz. Tell her to send her best riders to the fort. They're to follow and kill any messenger who leaves and, if we're too late and none emerge, that they're to infiltrate the fort and sabotage their defenses. We march by midday and lay siege to it tomorrow morning." Then, he took Genevieve's hand and brought it to his lips. "And you are to pack your things. You and the children."

Genevieve's arm tensed as she blanched. "I'm not le–"

"You are going north, to your father." Frederico said gently, as he searched her face. He reached his other hand towards her stomach. "You must, amor."

Genevieve stood still and silent. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, then she bowed her head.

"We knew it was coming to this." Frederico tipped her chin up with his finger.

A tear glistened down Genevieve's cheek, before she dashed it away and straightened, closing her hand over his on her stomach. "You are not allowed to leave us alone in this world. You will come back, and that's final."

Frederico's lips lifted into a sad, haunting smile. "To the farthest reaches and back again."

Genevieve's face crumpled as she tried to smile at whatever those secret words meant to them. More of her tears spilled free now and she didn't bother to dash them away. She leaned over to kiss him, resting her fingers against his jaw, before she whirled and fled, already calling out for her servants.

Frederico watched her go and I couldn't stand the pain on his face before he scrubbed it with a hand and turned back to me. His armour was in place again.

"We were supposed to be allies." Frederico folded his arms. "Allies don't hide things from one another."

I nodded, facing the words and their scolding head on. "You're right. I should have trusted you. But I didn't think you'd have listened to a word that I said, not when you're so livid that I'm in love with your sister."

The words hung between us. I still felt the old urge to flee from them, to slide on a smirk and make a joke of them. But I brushed it away. This was different. She was different. It was nothing but naked truth to admit that I was in love with her. More in love than I knew was possible. Enough that I finally understood why Andrew had done all that he had done to be with Libby. I'd do the same – if not more – for Beatriz. There was no use hiding it any longer. Not when all our plans lay in ruins because of me and my secrets.

I lifted my gaze and met Frederico's, unashamed. Unflinching. Determined.

But where I'd expected a firestorm of curses and shouts, I was met with calm. My words hadn't ignited an argument, as I'd expected. Instead, the prince unfolded his arms and leaned back against the counter behind him. "Have you told her as much?"

I hesitated, wary of a trap. "Not exactly."

He inspected me for a sobering moment. "You should. Because now I am asking you to go, and I won't take no for an answer. But it's not because of Beatriz, that I swear to you."

"Fred–"

He shook his head, a sad, slow motion that betrayed the weight of the burden upon his shoulders. One that he'd carried for so long, unbowed, but that was now coming to a head. "Dulciana knows where we are now, Thomas. We've lost the advantage of surprise. We might still lose Vareinne, if she threatens them. We need you. We need Pretania, or we'll lose. We'll all lose."

He faced me now without his armour. Sadness and desperation lurked in his eyes, the gaze of a prince without a throne. A prince whose only hope at winning back that throne was now compromised. Because of me.

He was right. He knew it. I hated it, but I knew it too.

He went on, unaware that he'd already swayed me. "Dulciana will never let her live. My life has always been forfeit, but even if Beatriz swears fealty, she'll be met with a blade in her throat or a bolt in her heart."

"Because she sided with you?"

A sadness so profound it clouded his eyes had every one of his features drooping. "No. Because she was competition. She was father's favourite. We both were. Gatitia y perrito, he called us. His little cat and his little dog – total opposites. She feared nothing. She trusted everything. I feared everything and trusted nothing. We were best friends, and that made Beatriz far more valuable than any of the others. For who wouldn't want their son wed to the future king's best friend and twin sister? But Dulciana made sure that would never happen. That she, or at least Ana-Cristina, would be father's favourite daughter. She made it look like an accident. A freak attack while Beatriz was in Lower Relizia. They carved her face like claw marks, a cruel reminder of father's beloved nickname."

My fists clenched. I couldn't fathom it, the hatred Dulciana must have held towards Beatriz, to do something so brutal. Bile rose in the back of my throat at the mere thought of something so violent happening to Anne. At what I would do to avenge her.

"If you won't do it for me, Thomas, do it for her." Frederico regarded me, not bothering to mask the plea on his face.

I hated it. I hated every bit of it. But there were no other options left. We needed my father's alliance. We needed Frederico on the throne.

I extended my hand to him. "You'll have Pretania's alliance. Whatever it takes, I'll win it for you."

Frederico clasped my outstretched fingers. "Then you should sleep, while you can. You'll ride for the coast when we march. Hopefully my troops will be enough of a distraction to buy you time to run."

**A/N: I think you all know what that means...we're almost back to Pretania, folks! But first:

How do you think Beatriz is going to react? What will she do, now that Thomas is leaving for real?

Do you think Frederico will manage to take the fort before Dulciana's armies march?

And finally, will Thomas be able to convince his father to back Frederico?

As always, if you enjoyed it, please take a moment to vote and comment!**