Nine Years Ago...
Skin sizzled against the glowing red knife, and though Mikhail did not cry out, the stiffled groan he tried to suppress behind firmly clamped lips sounded like a wounded beast.
The child set the knife aside and sat back, while Mikhail took several deep breaths, his entire body tensed as though waiting for another searing flash of pain.
"Do you have salve or grease - something good for burns?" she asked.
He lifted his arm to point at the jar he'd unwrapped earlier.
A moment later, a light cold stroke across his wound caused him to hiss an intake of breath.
"How do you..." He mumbled.
"How do I know how to treat injuries?" she guessed. "I've had training, of course. We've been at war my whole life. I'm not strong enough to learn combat skills yet, so Father takes me to the Temple every year during Ghela-- that's a lesser holiday. During Ghela, lots of healers come to the Temple from all over Vezda and even other countries. They set up tents and heal sickness and injuries for free and have meetings and discussions to share new medicines and treatments. It lasts a whole month! When I was little, I used to just listen, but the last few years, they let me assist in all sorts of things. I'm always sad to come home when Father comes to get me. He gives the final blessing at the Temple on the last day of the festival. I didn't like learning it at first. I wanted to go with the soldiers and fight like Mother does, but at least now I can help a little when they come back," she sighed.
"They... let you... a... a.... child... treat battle injuries?" he asked, slowly sitting back up to lean against the tree.
"Let me?" she scoffed. "I told you. I've been trained-- and a good thing for you!"
Prince Mikhail frowned but reached into his pocket for the last piece of jerky and held it out to her.
Her eyes lit up at once. She leaned forward to take it but stopped, distracted by the marks on his chest. With one small finger, she reached out and traced one of the scrolling black lines that ran just below his clavicle. He shivered involuntarily and quickly slapped her hand away.
"Ow!" she cried. "What did you do that for?"
"Don't ever reach out and touch a stranger's bare skin like that, especially not a man's! Have you no sense at all!?" he snarled.
"I do it all the time!" she yelled back, "I told you I'm a healer!"
Instead of answering, he grabbed his discarded tunic and, with a pained grunt, pulled it over his head. The girl watched him with a scowl, still nursing her slapped hand.
"It hurts a lot," she pouted.
"You weren't touching me for healing reasons just then. Don't lie," he warned in low voice.
"I was only curious. I thought it was paint at first, but when I got close, I realized it's not paint at all. There's scarring under it and--"
"They're tattoos. They're made with dye and needles and heat, and no, it never washes off," he explained.
"Why would you do that to yourself?" she wondered.
"Why do you go about dressed indecently? We have different traditions," he muttered.
The girl nursed her hand silently for a moment and then picked up the jerky strip she'd dropped, rubbed it on her ragged dress, and began gnawing on it.
"Where you're from... women aren't ever supposed to touch men?" she confirmed.
"That's right. Unless they're married or they're... or they're married," he finished quickly, stopping himself in time.
"And men aren't ever supposed to touch women unless they're married?" she continued.
"They shouldn't, but some men are not... self-disciplined," he explained.
"There's different rules for men and women about touching?" she asked, her face scrunched up.
"Women don't want to touch men as much as men want to touch women," he explained. "That's why!"
"That's not true at all!" The child giggled. "If Sir Aron ever told the court ladies that they could take turns drying off his body after sword practice for a silver a piece, he'd make a fortune! He has a very nice body, lots of muscles, did I tell you--"
"Yes, you have. How is your hand now?" he cut her off.
"A little better," she waved it dismissively. "Are you married?"
"No."
"Have you ever touched a woman before?"
"This is not an appropriate conversation for a child to have with a strange man."
"Hmmm... Oleg says that in the Empire, girls can get married as young as me..." she mumbled, biting off another piece of jerky.
"It does happen, but it is... not common."
"But they can. I could get married if I lived in the Empire, so I'd be a woman there."
Prince Mikhail did not answer. While she may have been correct under the terms of law, no rational man would consider the small girl a woman.
She held her reddened hand up and dangled it in front of him.
"So that means you're an unmarried man, and you touched a woman!" she accused.
"You touched me first!" he growled.
"But I didn't know your rules. I can't break a rule if I don't know it, but you know it well enough to teach me, and you broke it anyways," she grinned cheekily.
"I was reprimanding a child, not touching a woman," he clarified. "It isn't the same thing at all."
"You're only six years older than me. My mother and father have more years than that between them. No, by your own explanation, you broke the Empire's rules. You're a... what did you call it? An undisciplined man!" she said and giggled again.
Prince Mikhail scowled.
"You are an odd child. That you have no fear at all of an enemy three times your size to the point that you would prod and tease him even... and yet you're scared of the dark. It is... strange."
"Not as strange as you. You barely flinch when I press a searing hot knife against your wounded flesh, but I lightly brush you with a fingertip, and you act like you've been stabbed," she scoffed.
Prince Mikhail pressed his lips together and scowled as he studied her. In his entire life, no one but the Emperor had dared speak against anything he said. No one but the Emperor would taunt him or look back directly into his eyes. However, this child was royalty, born into the oldest royal line and was certainly used to being obeyed herself. She also had older siblings who were likely of the same temperament. Her mouth was a practiced one, her tongue likely sharpened by their own. Sharpened... sharpened... like a sword was sharpened, because it was her only means of defense!
It wasn't that the child was too stupid to be afraid of him. The child was defending itself against him so well that it was almost imperceptible. At the start, he'd almost convinced himself to break her finger or cut her and move on, but instead, he'd been drawn into a conversation for hours, had even given her a knife, allowed her to tend his wound, given her food, and most importantly no longer had any intention of harming her at all.
She achieved all this through a sort of manipulation. While speaking, she switched rapidly between childlike naivete and cynical wit. She teased, complimented, scoffed and praised in rapid-fire manner. She inspired anger and frustration and humor and pity in a listener within the span of a few minutes, and always kept a person guessing as to what would come out of her mouth next. You won't cut a person's throat if you're interested in what they are about to say, he realized. Her confidence and her complete lack of awareness about her situation was most likely an act that functioned as a shield. It was so effective a shield that her opponent did not even realize she was dueling him.
"You're doing that thing with your lips again," she observed. "You do it whenever something's bothering you. Like this!"
She pressed her lips together so hard they disappeared into a thin line.
"It's funny," she continued. "It looks like you're trying to swallow your feelings. What are you thinking about so hard?"
"I was trying to decide whether I should cut your neck or let you live," he lied.
Her eyes grew large, but she continued to stare at him and then took another bite of her meat strip and grinned at him.
"You do that a great deal," he recognized.
"Do what?" she asked.
"Stare a person directly in the eye and smile at them. It makes you appear confident and unconcerned while you're trying to figure out what to say next. It's clever," he noted.
She almost smiled again, but her lips faltered, and for a brief second, he thought he saw a flash of fear in the blue-green eyes. It passed quickly.
"I don't suppose you have any water?" she asked. "These strips are quite salty."
When he shook his head, she sighed.
"Well, it would be rotten luck to get my throat cut when I'm this thirsty. Even if I drank buckets of water, it would spill right back out of the hole in my neck! Do you know what time it is?"
"It is almost the fourth hour of morning," he said.
"Almost sunrise," she realized. "Can I ask you one question before you decide if you're going to kill me or not?"
Prince Mikhail nodded his permission.
"Why did the war start?"
"It is hard for me to believe you don't already know the answer to that question," he muttered.
"When I ask mother or father or Oleg why we're having a war, they tell me we fight because the Empire attacks. When I ask why the Empire attacks, I am told that it is what the Empire does. It invades and takes other countries. But there are plenty of other countries for you to attack. We don't have any treasure or food or anything at all that's worth taking... so why attack Vezda? I don't understand."
Prince Mikhail searched the child's face and realized that the question was an honest one. He thought for a moment.
"It began as a disagreement between your King and the Emperor. The Emperor asked for an alliance with Vezda, but your King rejected the alliance and then insulted the Emperor," he began.
"Which Emperor?" she wondered. "Was it the Old Man Emperor?"
"Old Man Emperor?" he repeated.
"That's why everyone calls the last Emperor. They call him the Old Man Emperor or Old Aleksi... because he was very, very old," she explained.
"Yes. It was Emperor Aleksi who disagreed with the King of Vezda," Mikhail confirmed.
"But when the old Emperor died, why did the new Emperor keep fighting against Vezda? He didn't have any disagreements with their King," she wondered.
"Emperor Grigori attempted to end the war by offering a new alliance. This was also rejected by the King of Vezda."
"You make it sound like it's the King of Vezda's fault we're at war, but the Empire's armies are on our land, burning our towns, and starving our people, and they have been for as long as I can remember. If the King of Vezda prefers this to an alliance, then the alliance must have somehow been worse. What was in the offer of alliance?"
Prince Mikhail made no answer, and this perhaps bothered her more-- as he knew it would-- for it was glaringly obvious that the King of Vezda had never disclosed the terms of the Emperor's offer to his youngest daughter.
"It is the Fourth Hour of Morning," he said, his voice low. "The sun will begin its rise over the ridge very soon."
Using the tree for support, he rose to his feet, ignoring the burning pain in his side. He still had a small piece of hutteroot. It would be enough to keep him on his feet until he reached Dreyva.
The girl froze. Her eyes darted left and right and then back to him. For the first time, he could read her thoughts on her face. She was considering whether or not to run.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asked. She stood and brushed off her filthy and tattered skirts while she waited for his answer.
"Not today, Princess Talia of House Eosin," he said.
She smirked and took a few steps back.
"You knew who I was the whole time," she confirmed.
"Yes," he agreed.
"I had a feeling you did," she admitted. "I also knew you wouldn't really kill me."
"You didn't know that for sure," he chided.
"Yes, I did," she confirmed, a smug grin on her face as she took a few more steps away from him. "You probably thought no one noticed, but I noticed."
"Noticed what?" he growled.
"That you tackled your own man on the battlefield when he tried to cut me in half! After that, I knew you weren't even a quarter as scary as you pretend to be. One more thing, I have a message for your brother, Emperor Grigori. Please tell him that Princess Talia of House Eosin says..."
She stuck out her tongue and began to blow a loud, long raspberry. Prince Mikhail took one menacing step toward her, and she squeaked in surprise but giggled as she ran.
The woods were bathed in smoke that had risen from the town, and in the fog and the dim grey light of early morning, her small form soon disappeared. As he shook his head and turned in the direction of Dreyva, he realized that he was smiling. He hoped she hadn't noticed.