Page 39 of Knight from the Ashes (Crown and Crest 1)

Henrik

“What’sthe matter with your hand?” I ask Clover as we crawl down the road on the seventh day into our trip.

The roads are worse than I remembered—or perhaps worse than I realized because I’ve never come this way by wagon—and we’re making terrible time.

Clover scowls at her finger, pressing the tip of her fingernail into the skin. “Splinter. It’s been there for days.”

“Do you want my knife?”

She smirks to herself. “Do you trust me with it when we’re sitting so close?”

I shoot her a look, to which she rolls her eyes.

I let her fuss with the splinter in vain until we stop to give the animals a rest and let the men stretch their legs.

Before Clover can get down, I capture her wrist and examine her finger.

“What are you doing?” she says testily.

“Removing the splinter.” I pull out my knife. “Hold still.”

“Who saidItrustyouwith a knife when we’re so close?”

I chuckle despite myself, once more cursing Camellia for charging me with this sharp-tongued woman.

A woman whose hands are soft and who faintly smells like flowers, likely thanks to the bathhouse she insisted we stop at earlier so she could bathe.

The scent fills my nostrils, distracting me. I have the oddest urge to nuzzle my nose against the crook of Clover’s neck, see if the fragrance is stronger near the heat of her skin. The bizarre impulse takes me by surprise and fills me with irritation. I would never act on it, but it’s there all the same.

But Clover isn’t accompanying me so I may enjoy her company—she’s here because Camellia suspects her of sorcery.

Ridiculous, an inner voice scoffs.

If Clover is a necromancer, then Bartholomew is an axe-wielding berserker.

“Hold still,” I say as I locate the splinter and press the tip of the blade to her skin.

Clover freezes, not entirely trusting me.

I carefully coax the fragment of wood out, and then I lean down and blow it away.

Clover’s soft intake of breath startles me, and I turn my eyes up to look at her—a mistake.

She’s drawn her full bottom lip between her teeth, and she stares down at me with the strangest look on her face. A blush dances across her skin, flushing her neck and cheeks.

Not for the first time since I’ve taken charge of the lady-in-waiting, I think of kissing her rose-stained lips—proving that she should be careful about spreading false accusations.

Clover makes the softest noise, and it brings me to my senses. Immediately, I drop her hand and move away, busying myself with sheathing my knife—a chore that takes all of five seconds.

“Stretch your legs,” I command as I step down from the wagon, unable to look at her. “We’ll continue again soon.”

* * *

Nine days into the trip,we reach Denmel, a large village only a day from the northernmost guard post. After crossing the Ileastra River, we began to climb, leaving Caldenbauer’s rich farmland as we entered the lower mountains.

Autumn has fully cloaked the landscape at this higher elevation, turning the groves of grespit trees and the oar-oak brush that grows beneath them shades of gold and russet. The first snow of the season could come any day, though the afternoon is still warm enough.

The breeze that blows from the west is not.

---