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“What are you doing up?” she asked, very much alarmed. “You should be resting.”

“I was only trying to see what is amiss,” Loric answered in his defense. Of the lordly man beyond the overprotective princess he asked, “Am I right in guessing that the steed giving fight to your men belongs to me?”

The man nodded, answering, “Yes. Come with me.”

The man strode away from the tent at a hurried pace. Loric hastened after him to deny Avalana her chance to object. The brightly armored man led him across the clearing to the other end of the encampment, where Loric saw a fiery red stallion amidst a ring of terrified soldiers.

The horse was standing tall upon its hind legs, with its chest thrust out, its deadly hooves churning and its manner daring those men to touch it. Black mane lashed about in the breeze, as the frenzied animal defended itself from one perceived threat after another.

Loric’s mind raced. His thoughts wandered to his previous night’s dream. He recalled

visions of the magnificent steed before him. The animal had pranced playfully about the fields of his subconscious, but now he was full of fear and wrath. Loric had to act quickly, before the animal inadvertently hurt or killed someone.

“Stand aside!” he shouted. “He is only frightened.”

The soldiers paused, uncertain what to make of the new arrival that thought to give them orders. They looked doubtfully to the man beside Loric, as if awaiting that man’s command. The delay annoyed Loric.

“Stand aside!” Loric repeated more firmly than before. “For your own safety, stand aside.”

Avalana brushed past Loric, who made a belated attempt to stop her. “Princess, no! It is too dangerous.”

The soldiers encircling Sunset made similar pleas, but Avalana marched on as steadily as one of their brethren in battle formation might do. Two men barred her way with spears and grim faces, but Avalana gently stroked their spears to the side and smiled kindly in return. She walked on, steadily approaching almost a half-ton of angry, frightened animal, flinging sharp, deadly hooves.

Loric made to go after her, to stop her, but a firm hand on his shoulder held him back. He glanced behind him, fully prepared to demand his release, but the hand belonged to the lordly fellow who had brought him hither. His green eyes followed Avalana’s movements with keen interest.

Avalana waved those soldiers away, and they reluctantly obeyed her. The stallion’s anxiety lessened visibly, but it was still rolling its eyes, its muscles twitching. Avalana spoke her strange language to the steed as she approached it. Sunset half-reared, his need to fight sated by the Princess of Regalsturn, who reached out to let him snuffle her palm. She touched his velvety neck with her trembling hand. Sunset responded by affectionately craning his head down to her in return.

“I’ll be....” said the lordly man.

Loric looked on, open-mouthed in amazement.

Avalana rubbed the stallion’s neck and spoke the equivalent of baby talk to him in her strange tongue. After a few snorts and splutters from the red horse, she smiled at Loric and called, “It is safe to approach your Sunset now.”

“So I see,” Loric remarked happily in return.

Loric strode toward his now-tranquil stallion, until he was close enough to rub its head and say, “How have you been, boy?”

Sunset snorted and puffed a squeal.

“I missed you too,” Loric replied.

Sunset nuzzled his master’s neck to reaffirm his affection for him. The friendly nudge unbalanced Loric. When the young traveler from Taeglin regained his footing, he turned to Avalana and said, “Fair princess, I see that your healing hands extend to frightened, angry animals as well as humans.”

Avalana blushed. “You are too kind,” she murmured.

“Thank you for your compassion toward us,” Loric offered with a bow. “We are ever at your service, Sunset and I.”

Chapter Six

A Promise to Swear

The mail-clad man began bellowing orders to his captains, saying, “The rain has broken and so shall this camp! I desire to have King Avalar and Princess Avalana safely within the walls of Moonriver Castle in no less than two full sands. We have delayed overlong already.”

The man turned to Loric, “I presume you are well enough to travel, Stranger? I had almost forgotten your injury,” he added apologetically, “but you do look ready to be up and about.”

Avalana opened her mouth to object.

“I am well,” Loric hastily replied. “A ride sounds good after the long rest I have had.”

“Splendid,” said the mail-clad commander. “You will ride with me, for there are things I would like to discuss with you. In the meantime, Princess Avalana will escort you back to your tent.”

“Lord, it is much too soon for Loric to be about all this activity!” Avalana cried.

Loric had to stifle his grin when the lady looked to him for support.

“We must away, princess,” the man in charge assured her.

Avalana’s face turned pink, but she meekly responded, “As you wish.” To Loric, she said,

“Come.” Then she stormed away.

As Loric hesitantly followed the angry princess, he heard the lord bark orders to his captains, who in turn relayed those instructions to their lieutenants. Loric wondered what in the name of the Great King the man had to discuss with him, but that was another subject, for another time. Avalana was fast leaving him behind, so he turned his attention to the fore and hastened his steps to catch her.

Loric expected to need calming words to sooth the fuming Princess of Regalsturn, but she was prim and composed when he eliminated the distance between them. “So that was your Sunset,” Avalana said pleasantly, as she and Loric made their way back to the tent where he had awakened. Her admiration of the stallion was evident in her tone. “He is very beautiful--and more independent than I had thought possible.”

Loric was amazed by the transformation in the lady beside him. Moments ago, she was

ready to pour forth her wrath, and now she was sweet, demure Avalana once more. It

confounded Loric.

In response to his quizzical expression, Avalana responded, “Soldiers do have fondness for exaggeration.”

“Yes, of course, milady,” Loric agreed. “A free spirit indeed--that’s my Sunset. Although,”

he hastily added, “he is quite gentle to ride. He is as fast as they are bred to run, too. His speed saved my life, when he carried me away from bandits at the Moonbeam. I think he knew I was ready to die to keep him from that lot. In any case, he has been my loyal companion since I left my home.”

Avalana nodded and fell silent.

Back at the tent, Avalana began gathering up her many bottles and pouches, neatly securing them in small wooden chests with compartments to protect glass vials from rigors of the road.

Loric watched her, his eyes easily lured to her face and form. He caught himself slipping into a daydream that could never be, so he shook himself back to reality. He assessed that the princess was storing her healing potions and herbs, so he moved to assist her. She stopped his hand, anxiously saying, “No! No!”

Loric stepped back and drew a tense breath.

Avalana apologized. “I am sorry, Loric. These things have a specific order, and I must keep them exactly so, else I could do terrible harm instead of great healing.” She smiled hopefully, asking, “You understand, no?”

Loric returned her kindly expression and nodded. “I see blankets that need folding,” he offered. I can do that.”

“Take it slow,” Avalana cautioned him. “You should not be moving around yet.”

Loric felt the truth, even as he heard it, but he was not going to admit that to the princess.

His head was feeling sort of stuffed, as if he had a cold or he had gone too long without sleep. It was similar to his recent hangover, which had not been too severe to keep him from leaving home. He would carry on with his activity, thankful to be up and alive. Outwardly, he offered a flat expression that twitched into a quarter-smile for a bare instant.

Loric folded blankets, rolled a bedroll, and packed trunks and crates, which he hauled out of the tent as he filled them. The portable table slowed him down because he could not figure out how to release its legs. Avalana let him puzzle it out on his own, for she objected to his exertions with every shake of her head, every frown. Loric tinkered with the legs for several minutes before he figured out the tiny corner levers operated locks on its legs, but then he broke the table down and carried it out with the other baggage.

“Loric, you must rest,” Avalana pleaded with him.

He suffered a dizzy spell, which nearly knocked him down, so he stopped to insist, “I feel fine.” He was thankful to lean on the table for support, as he continued, “You, a princess, have been a servant to me while I was unable to care for myself. Now I shall serve your needs. This I will do for as long as my good health lasts, because I am forever grateful for your mercy and compassion.”

Avalana lowered her eyes and turned away. After that, she offered no further objections to Loric’s strenuous labor. She looked on with appreciative eyes. Loric secretly wondered if he had embarrassed the lady by his frank manner, but he set such thoughts aside, as was his wont to do while he was busy about his tasks.

Loric only let on that the work was meant for more than one person once, when he asked,

“Princess Avalana, have you no servants or courtiers? I would think that someone of your high standing would have many men and women waiting at the ready to handle your belongings and see to your needs.”

“Father tells me I am to stay at Moonriver Castle for a time,” Avalana began. “While I am there, Lady Elena is to teach me Beledonian Etiquette, to broaden my knowledge of the social graces,
he says.
I do not doubt that the noblewoman he has selected for this duty will teach me more of how to snare a Beledonian Prince than anything else, regardless of what my father, the king, tells me.”

“I do not entirely follow you, Princess Avalana,” Loric said with a wince, considering her words. He was a little abashed that he needed an explanation, but the lady had caught him being inattentive. His mind was busy tumbling a question that had popped into his head, where it had become stuck. There was no answer to the query, no matter how hard he thought on it.
Why is it
all right for Avalana to describe a woman’s intent to find a husband as setting a SNARE when I
cannot name it so?
he asked one last time before he finally gave up hope of understanding it and turned his full attention to the princess.

“Well,” Avalana started, displaying mild arrogance Loric had little seen or heard in her manner or her words, “I told my father that if I was to learn
Beledonian Etiquette,
then I should select Beledonian Courtiers to attend upon me when we arrive at Moonriver Castle. After all, how am I to broaden my knowledge of the social graces when I am surrounded by the same chortling hens of Regalsturn that have always been there with me?”

“How indeed?” Loric responded amiably. He then posed, “King Avalar raised no objections to your decision?”

Avalana’s eyes went wide. “Oh,
he tried,
Loric,” she said, wearing a wry smile that seemed incongruous with her glorious face, “but he has trained me to impose my will upon others when I must. While I find it a trifle sad that I most often put this lesser talent to use against him, I find great comfort in knowing that
he
drives me to it, and therefore, I am not to blame.”

Loric was not sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question, but he loosed it anyway, begging, “How do you impose your will upon a king?”

Avalana wagged an admonishing finger before him and corrected, “No, no, no! Never do

this upon a king, Loric. That is poor etiquette in any country. But upon my father, it is proper and just.”

Loric gulped down that lesson and rasped, “I see,” although he was not sure that he did.

“I simply told my father that I would come here alone or I would not come at all,” Avalana went on. She sighed, “Of course, he responded with a half-hearted threat to bring me here under guard if I resisted his will.” She expelled a contemptuous breath from between petulant lips and ended, “I chased that thought from his mind by informing him that I was not above running to his highest lord for protection from him until he would see reason. I know he brought extra courtiers with him. The nerve of the man! Does he think me blind, Loric?” Avalana did not wait for Loric to reply to her question, but instead spoke on, answering, “I know he brought them with intent to place them at my disposal. He risks much, for I have warned him against forcing his will upon me. I told him,
Beloved father, I see your desire to show your love for me by providing
servants to attend on me. However, should any one of them lift a finger to do anything on my
behalf, I will claim that servant as my own--and seeing that I have need of none such, I will pass
him or her to the first lord or lady I meet in Beledon.”

“Interesting, Princess Avalana,” Loric breathed quietly. “Truly remarkable,” he added, but his tone did not give his statement much credence.

Loric turned back to his work. That was the first time he had seen a rich girl with a childish temper in Avalana. He was not sure he liked that side of her. It gave him much to ponder. His thoughts only muddled his mind. It was unfair to judge Avalana harshly for one tirade against her father, yet her words had been so bitter that it was hard not to do so. In the end, he decided that she wronged King Avalar by this tantrum, but her wrong was no less than his had been against his father and mother.

Loric found renewed energy with the onrush of his anger. He was disobedient. He was also a thief, who would have lied to cover his thievery if it had become necessary.
I cannot change any
of that unless I go back, and I cannot return to Taeglin,
he thought.
There is too much pain there,
he decided.
I am not ready to face Barag and Belinda.
Loric used such thoughts to fuel his drive and finish his labors.