Before their dance could even begin, an interruption,
“and to my niece, Shehzadi Ranya, and Prince Askel of Varian!”Stratya was just getting into position, hand partway up Ambrose’s back, when that announcement was made, and by a voice she rather disliked already. Her gaze sharpened as her eyes shifted, a cold leer sweeping across to her shoulder. Since she’d been attacked following their clash over a dog, she had Clearwell put together a dossier on the man. What she received didn’t seem to indicate anything terribly amiss, but there were.. oddities. She had to admit to herself that any suspicion she felt was at least partially based on bias from their previous interaction, yet she remembered how he had oozed that careful kind of cruelty. Had he been so nasty because she had slighted him, or was that typical?
Instead, her gaze found
him - the churchman in black, his emerald gaze like a wicked promise.
The church’s personnel files were not easily accessed. Could he? She’d tried to curate what it would say - what it
could say - about her, stepping carefully since her knighting. However, there was a period in her life when she had not been so careful.
The look Edin had given her did not make her skin crawl like it normally did. Instead, it made her dread. He looked dismissive, maybe even irritated with her. That cleric would present an easy way to get rid of an eyesore.
“Ambrrose.” Trepidation, her hand in his tightened ever so slightly.
“Do ya see ‘im? Th’ clerric.”Footsteps dragged slow across the floor, Ambrose moved to look without a quick change of direction.
A flicker of motion caught his attention, so he guided her into the next move, slow and precise, pivoting just so the room slid into view without making his searching eyes obvious.
That’s when he saw the cleric in black.
There was something sharp in the way the man looked at Stratya. Not just glancing but settling. His gaze stuck, heavy on her with uncanny stillness.
Ambrose pressed his hand more firmly against Stratya’s back as they continued to dance.
“I see him.” From his lips came the whisper, shaped only for her ears as their dance took them through another turn, sliding elegantly across the wood.
“Stay with the step,” he murmured, his eyes briefly touching hers again.
“Do not give him the satisfaction of knowing he has unsettled you.”He offered her a gentle smile.
“And if he intends to approach you,” Ambrose said, guiding them into another turn,
“then he will have to do so in front of witnesses, through a crowded dance floor, and past me.”His expression remained composed, almost serene in its restraint.
“I suspect he will find the last part very inconvenient.”She’d intended to seek Ambrose as a mutual escape, but her own problem was proving aggressive and persistent. Against that serpent’s encroaching presence, Ambrose stood fast. The gently possessive press of his hand that asked for her, rather than demanded; the assuring, private whisper to her ear; they felt like sure footing beneath her shaken heart.
Stratya wanted to believe his promise could be enough; that Ambrose could just
body everything, yet the clergyman’s words threatened something bigger. Her smile, yearning to be true, was laced with a creeping fear,
“I am.. afrraid ‘is plans arre nae sae simple,” a moment to beat back this fear of an enemy that did not wield a weapon but words and status,
“he spoke of t’ King. He means tae have me dismissed.”Dismissed didn’t sound so bad. She’d still have a reputation, she could still go home. She’d have money to travel, if she wanted. That wouldn't be so bad. She and Freyja would need to figure something else out for authoirty, and she would miss this taste of luxury.
A particular word flashed through her mind.
“Ambrrose,” her hand pressed against his back in the face of strange, unfamiliar fear,
“I suspect tha’ he’s got somethin’ on me in his ken. He means tae see me disgrraced,” the clergyman had said,
“humilia’ed.”No secret traveler would be allowed near a castle worth its salt, she would lose any chance to see Marina or Ambrose. Her ability to protect Anastasia would be absolutely destroyed. The Elders of her people were already suspicious of her after her father’s death, this would be yet another failure in their eyes. Might they exile her? The only thing that would be left to her, at that point, would be to travel with Freyja as her bodyguard in anonymity.
His eyes seemed so steady, their resolve seemed to be the only thing to stay the desperation and ache rising from old scars.
Ambrose was quiet for a moment.
Not because he doubted her but because he understood the shape of the fear in her voice. It was not only dismissal she feared. It was disgrace… and the look that came after. The moment when service, honor, and sacrifice were all buried beneath one ugly word from the right man’s mouth. If you could call him a man at all.
His hand remained steady at her back as the dance carried them onward.
“Stratya.” He used her name carefully, his voice low beneath the music.
“I do not take my measure of people from sick men who enjoy watching others kneel and burn their lovers alive.”His gaze flicked once toward the king, and even the cleric that had been tormenting her. Her heart lifted, the breath she drew was delicate and hopeful.
“If there is truth they mean to twist, I would rather hear it from you. But if all these fools have is poison, then let them choke on it before I drink a drop.”The way those bronze-lined reservoirs looked at her, it didn’t seem like his gaze would bend for anything.
Betrayer. Kinslayer.
“Ambrrose, no mat’er what they call me, owt they may say,” she searched his eyes for a time, as though looking for a seam or a crack, something that might give way under the weight of her past.
“can ya still look at me th’ same?”His expression softened.
“No…”He let the word sit for only a breath before the faintest dry edge touched his mouth.
“I suspect I would look at you even more dearly.”She let out a soft but heavy sigh, a tension that had threatened to break suddenly dissipating.
Another turn placed him again between her and the cleric’s line of sight.
“But dismissal?” His brow lifted slightly.
“Good.”He allowed the word to land, but then clarified.
“If Caesonia is foolish enough to cast you aside, Varian has need of good knights.”She pouted at him as she reddened gently.
“Foul tease,” she almost hated it.
Almost.His gaze briefly found Marina across the room.
“Askel is becoming quite the knight himself, but between you and I… Keeping track of Marina and Sylvia is becoming increasingly difficult, between the mischief, the machinations, and those girl’s private war against common fucking sense.”His eyes returned to hers, accompanied by a smile.
“Come to Varian. Protect them with me. I have seen what kind of knight you are.”His gaze slid from her eyes, down to her mouth, and back again.
“And it would be an honor to spend more time with you.”Part of her wanted to go immediately, but she knew it wasn’t
his call to make. He would put in a word with his King and Queen, and they would make the decision. Between Ambrose and Marina, it seemed nigh certain.
She would be leaving a lot of things here undone. She’d be further from her people.
“If,” she had left a breath for her next statement, prepared to continue, a smirk pulling at her lips as she gave Ambrose his own teasing.
More shouts disrupted the false peace. Lorenzo was making a fool of someone else, this time - the King, at that. She didn’t need to hear too much to know enough of what was going on. Oh, and there, Charlotte, and Cassius, and Olivia disappeared behind Ambrose and emerged together from his other side. That last addition concerned her. Somehow, though, Stratya just couldn’t be bothered right then, and her presence would probably only irk Edin further.
She suddenly reviled the thought of taking a single order from the King. It was
really freeing to have a backup offer, especially one so appealing.
“When,” Stratya corrected herself, somewhat joking though some part of her wasn’t,
“I ge’ dismissed. If I can ‘elp it, I still ‘ave things tae do here.”“Howeverr,” thoughts of days spent watching over Marina and this sister of hers alongside Ambrose warmed her again. Perhaps she could help Askel get stronger, too.
“I’d be happy tae assist, until then.”“No rush.” He said calmly, that steady voice of his offering what reassurance it could.
“We are scheduled to be here for some time. So just know that you won’t be alone here, and just like me… the offer is not going anywhere.”As her mind eased, she realized her body had been following his the whole time. He’d been leading her. She had let him.
A new vigor found her steps, her hand on his back pressed confidently.
“Shall I,” take a turn leading? Take a turn guarding?
Ambrose nodded with a grin, shifting his body to relinquish control.
She began guiding him, through a dance still disciplined, but a little more wild. Unscripted. In the music itself, she heard what movements to accent and what steps to flourish and how. Where to break from the script and when to come back. He matched her pace, followed the flourishes of controlled chaos, and relished in every second of it all. The man was a much better dancer than he had previously implied.
With the hands they held together, she directed him to spin her. Her feet were accustomed to pivoting, her balance and his hand allowing her to stretch the motion to the music.
As her foot returned to the ground, she took a firm pose and tugged him into her with the lowering of her arm, stepping in and back into form to the music. Ambrose smiled at her with pride.
“One thing is for certain, Stratya... You are one hell of a leader.”She felt her cheeks flush, warm like sunlight. Stratya grinned, cheeky,
“finally, folks tha’ can tell.”She turned her head before her eyes left the man she shared the dance floor with, her gaze drifting out to find Marina. The grin softened with adoration and a touch of amusement when she found her, for the way the Princess’s feet fumbled slightly on the dance floor.
It seemed to her that princesses were never what you expected them to be - though she’d only ever really met two.
…
Whose hood is that?
A different sort of alarm pulsed through her body before she could control it. Alarm was not a normal response to a sibling, and she would
really rather not have to explain-
Ambrose would be patient with her. Stratya found herself relaxing into him, and knew he must have noticed. He’d started leading again.
She looked up at him, sheepishly biting her lip before she confessed what had spooked her this time,
“my, ah, my sisterr is herre.” Stratya's eyes narrowed ever so gently for how conspicuous
“the hood” made Freyja.
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