Heartless by Anne Elisabeth Stengl Page A

study her fingers and desperately trying to remember what was considered a seemly response to this sort of situation. None of the etiquette books Nurse had shoved in her face had covered spontaneous hand inspection.
    At last Aethelbald raised his gaze to meet hers. “You are badly burned,” he said.
    She drew her hand back and studied her fingers herself. There wasn’t a mark to be seen. “I’m not.”
    “I see what you cannot,” he replied. She looked up to meet his gaze again. His eyes were dark, flecked with gold about the edges. And somehow, as she looked at them, she felt as though they weren’t quite human. All the wildness of the Twelve-Year Market, the breath of great distances, and the smell of the sky lay hidden in that gaze. For just a moment Una believed him.
    “Will you allow me to tend to your hurts?” he asked.
    The moment passed.
    “You have plenty of nerve, Prince Aethelbald.” It didn’t come out as regally as she had hoped. In fact, she thought she sounded like Nurse, which galled her. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve by ordering me around so!”
    “Ordering you around – ”
    “First bursting in on me at the market!”
    “Bursting in – ”
    “Then embarrassing me in front of the whole court!”
    “Princess, I – ”
    “And now all this rot about invisible injuries and interrupting Prince Gervais as he and I don’t see what business it is of I can do what I like and I think you’re simply and that’s that!”
    Una paused there, wondering if what she’d just said had made a lick of sense. Judging from Prince Aethelbald’s face, it hadn’t. “Well, now you know,” she finished, and took fistfuls of her skirts, preparing to sweep grandly past him.
    But he sidestepped to block her way. “Princess,” he said gently, “please believe me when I say that I care for you and am only concerned for your well-being.”
    “You can stop concerning yourself. My being is well enough, thank you. Good morning.”
    To her relief, he let her go. She crunched on up the path to the palace, telling herself that she wouldn’t look back. Heaven help her, she would not turn around to see whether or not he was still watching her!
    But she did.
    And he was.
    Grinding her teeth, Una fled to her chambers, determined never to leave them again.

8
    Trailing attendants behind, Felix hunted for Aethelbald in the practice yard. He saw the Prince of Farthestshore standing near the barracks, talking to one of his knights. His wooden sword slapping against his leg as he ran, the boy hurried across the yard. As he drew near, he realized that the knight standing before Aethelbald was not one of the three he remembered seeing at the banquet hall a few evenings ago. This one was tall and slender, with hair as golden as a dandelion. He turned as Felix neared, and the young prince came to a halt in surprise.
    The knight’s eyes were both covered by silk patches.
    Felix remained frozen where he stood, and the blind knight turned back to the Prince, speaking in a voice bright and merry but with an underlying edge. “Can’t say that I trust him a great deal, my Prince,” he said. “Begging your pardon, but he doesn’t have the most dependable reputation.”
    “I’m not sure you’re one to talk,” the Prince said. “Gambling, Sir Eanrin!”
    “Call it a bit of surreptitious research, my Prince,” the knight said.
    “All in your service, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    “But I don’t mind saying I’d like to get what he owes me. I won a good deal off that scoundrel and have not yet heard the clink of gold.”
    “I’ll take care of it immediately,” Aethelbald said. “Return to your duties. And, Eanrin?”
    “My Prince?”
    “No more surreptitious research for my benefit, please.”
    “Your wish is my command, my Prince!” The blind knight gave an elegant bow and, after turning his face momentarily toward Felix and wrinkling his nose, swept from the barracks yard.
    Aethelbald