Page 36 of Knight from the Ashes (Crown and Crest 1)

If so…I wish he’d come back.

It’s lonely here in the dark, with only the local predators’ screams to lull me to sleep. I sit on the bedroll, exhausted. Feeling like an overly emotional female, I draw my legs to my chest and clasp my arms around them.

“Are you all right in there?” Henrik asks, making me jump again.

“I was until you startled me,” I snap.

He laughs a little, but it’s not an arrogant sound.

I press my hand to my racing heart, telling it to stop overreacting.

“Bartholomew made tea earlier. Nobody else wanted it, so I think there’s some left by the fire. Would you…” Henrik pauses, sounding uncomfortable. “Would you like a cup?”

I pull back the flap. “Tea?”

The soldier sits in front of my tent, with his back facing me and his hands pressed into the earth behind him.

“How long have you been there?” I ask, startled.

He’s silent for several seconds, and then he reluctantly says, “Most of the night.”

“Why?”

He gives me a wry look over his shoulder I can just make out in the dark. “To protect you from insects and rodents…and possibly trolls.”

I close my eyes, sternly telling myself not to mutter to myself anymore—even if I don’t believe anyone is about.

Slowly, I stand, accepting Henrik’s hand when he offers it.

Once we’re on our feet, he frowns at me. Saurene, the smaller of the two moons, comes out from behind a cloud, giving us a sliver of silvery light to see by.

“What?” I ask self-consciously, running my hand over my riding gown, resisting the urge to tug my corset back into place.

Gruffly, he asks, “Is that comfortable to sleep in?”

“Terribly,” I answer immediately.

He nods, turning to the nearby fire, obviously having no desire to pursue the conversation further.

I watch Henrik take the copper tea kettle from the grate with a heavy leather glove. He then fetches a tin cup from a nearby pack of supplies and pours the steaming liquid into it.

“Bartholomew might have brought sugar,” he says, his eyes on the cup, “but he’s asleep. And I’m afraid we have no cream.”

I gratefully accept the cup, wincing at the heat through the tin, turning it to hold the handle. “I can drink it plain.”

“Careful,” he says quietly. “The metal gets hot.”

“Now you warn me,” I say, but I soften the words with a hesitant smile.

I shiver as a gust of wind passes over the clearing and take a tentative sip of the tea. It’s a little bitter from sitting so long, but it’s welcome all the same.

With a content sigh, I settle on a log someone pulled over to the fire earlier in the night.

Henrik rounds the log, apparently leaving me now that I have my tea. Which is fine.

The company would have been nice, I suppose, but I’m a big girl. I can sit alone by the fire.

I shiver again.

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