For all the times that Rhiane had withdrawn from his touch, she did not do so now. There was a fleeting resistance when he tried to brush her cheek and pull her closer, though her expression was that of overwhelming guilt rather than the blush that he had grown to expect, as if she felt herself unworthy of his compassion. In her mind the princess elect only let herself cry on his shoulder because she didn't want him to injure himself further trying to dry her tears. The reality, however, was that she wanted to hold onto him. Even a wounded Luke felt safe and reassuring. Too often people believed that words alone could bring comfort to another in distress. Rhiane knew from experience, however, that a more tactile affirmation was exponentially more effective. It was why even familial relationships became strained over long distances with the passage of time. Humanity was meant to interact with one another beyond simple speech.

And Rhiane was more vulnerable because she liked Luke. She could not realize it and would not admit it to herself, much less aloud, but somewhere in the depths of her heart she liked him. It was not because he was prince, or wealthy, or handsome, but because he had proven himself to be so much more than she had imagined. Luke felt a responsibility to the kingdom that she admired, and even if he was callous and occasionally vindictive, he made decisions carefully rather than in the heat of the moment. He went to sleep late so he could understand issues better rather than rely on advisers, argued with her when it would be simpler to lie to her face, and had moments of mischief when she thought she could see glimpses of his father's love, the person that Luke could have been without a crown, the strength of a half-peasant that he wildly underestimated.

It took several long minutes before Rhiane's sobs began to abate with his diligent efforts. Her right hand clung to the same shoulder her face was buried in while her left arm dangled at her side. He could see her move it, shift it slightly with her shoulder or twitch a finger, and there were no bones protruding, but there was something clearly wrong with the limb. When the vehicle had flipped and rolled during the crash she had kept her hands locked on the steering wheel. The placement of her left arm had put it closer to the door, making it entirely possible she struck it unintentionally on impact, or had damaged it when she was tossed by momentum in that direction. Regardless of the cause she was turned in such a way he could not inspect it without causing alarm.

"I... I did step on the brake," she finally answered. "Nothing happened." She lifted her head to wipe away the tears. Her make-up team had applied mascara that had now bled away and stained his shirt, though there was nothing either of them could do about it now. Rhiane rubbed away some of the black smudges under her eyes and, while she was coherent and mostly soothed, she was visibly not convinced that this wasn't all her fault. Her gaze met his only once before drifting away. She sniffled and took a small bandage out of the box to wipe away the blood on his brow that made it so hard to look upon him without being consumed by regret.

"I knew I would die when I became princess elect," she admitted softly, "I knew I'd have an expiration date. I was okay with that, and I still am. I just didn't think that you could be hurt or killed." It was naive but she clearly understood that now. The panic she had over seeing him harmed was genuine. A normal person would have the opposite reaction; valuing their own life above others. It was exceedingly rare for the reverse to be true as it was with Rhiane. Firefighters regularly demonstrated such conviction, but soldiers and law enforcement did not as often as the world believed, and every nation spent large sums of cash to cover up how quickly the brave could become cowardly when their mortality was on the line. Rhiane might have made an exceptional servant of the community had she a touch more impulse for self-preservation.

"We'll need to rip your pant leg," she said with a gesture. Rhiane could do it herself but given that she was only moving one of her two arms she would give Luke a chance to do it himself it he preferred. There was no chance that the farmer would be remotely precise with her tearing of the fabric. It was better to preserve their clothing as much as possible. When the rescue arrived their attire would be the least of anyone's concerns, but until then they had to contend with the chill of a day approaching night, and the possibility that the cool temperature of the mountains would make them increasingly uncomfortable.

"I don't understand," Rhiane said as she rolled over the spray of the anesthetic in her palm and stared down at it. "I don't understand why all of a sudden they want to kill you." Her voice was so quiet it was barely audible with the calls of nearby birds in trees.

Luke had not revealed to Rhiane that she had been the intended target of the poison. No one had. She was as ignorant as the common peasant to the fact any attempts were being made on her life at all. This had been a strategic decision but made her oblivious to the machinations of the rebellion. For years the queen had obscured the successes of the revolution, of their violence against the heir and throne, of the losses that they had suffered. Queen Camilla and Crown Prince Luke were not to show any weakness. Because of this, however, Rhiane could not appreciate that there were as many casualties as there were, that the reputation she was saving was as poor as it was, and that the stakes were as considerable as they were. Rhiane was approaching her marriage as a PR stunt just as the numerous ones before it; no one had informed her that the stakes were higher than the last generation.