The feeling was so... alien. Not only the emotion itself, but the feeling of being certain of it. Wasn"t HE the one experiencing the sensation? It was frustrating how there seemed to be a tiny voice inside his head that was bent on asking, are you sure you"re sure? Are you really, REALLY sure?If he acknowledges the existence of that voice, Leal did know one thing for certain: once the doubting starts, it would s...o...b..ll, it would spiral, it would never, ever end -- not until he puts an emphatic stop to it, and maybe not even then.
"Best not start," he decided coolly as he also reached the foot of the hill and climbed. The information was coming from no one but himself, after all. Why doubt what his very own body was telling him?
Despite this bit of clarity, the feeling of newness and unfamiliarity persisted. It made him fit as strangely in his own skin as he did in his borrowed armor, yet it also made him aware of a few things.
For instance, that he"d been so rude all this while, staring so fixedly at Hilde whenever and wherever he wished, even before feelings other than curiosity and amus.e.m.e.nt had manifested themselves.
He himself abh.o.r.ed being stared at. It was so hypocritical of him to have the expectation, no matter how unconscious, that she"d hate such a treatment any less. Of course she would feel at turns distressed and angry over it. She was a fighter too. If a man had done that to him, he"d probably be raging to throw the first punch as well.
"All this while, I have been setting myself up for rejection, haven"t I?"
Keeping a huff to himself, he pushed on up the inclined path. Alas, he still couldn"t help but do that bad habit this time either.
Hilde had stopped short of entering the gate to the fortified Royal Palace. She was waiting to one side, ostensibly so the others who"d been behind her the entire way could pa.s.s first this time, but if he wasn"t wrong, she was also waiting for...
He stopped himself before he could complete the a.s.sumption. He might be turning out to be a fool when it came to certain matters, but he would put his foot down at becoming deluded as well.
It was while he was thinking this that Hilde felt his gaze once again only to do a double-take at what she was looking at.
"Ah, h.e.l.l..." Leal maintained a neutral expression even though he wanted to curse up a storm. "I forgot. I didn"t want her to see me like this."
He watched as she raised a hand to her mouth. She appeared horrified, at first -- because of the huge risk he"d obviously taken; because she had been trailing a lit dynamite in her wake and had known absolutely nothing of it.
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For a moment, it then appeared like she would blow up in an explosive rage. She turned her face away, mouth pressed tight under her white-knuckled hand.
As he drew nearer until he was almost level to her, Leal managed to note the strange way her "anger" was making her shoulders shake.
Because it wasn"t shaking, he soon realized, it was convulsing. And that wasn"t anger she was failing to keep leashed, it was pure hilarity.
Before he could decide how he should take that reaction, the unexpected moment of release was cut short by the raised voices of excitement below, so reminiscent of recent events. It was followed by the sound of running footsteps approaching them where he and others at the tail end of the column had stopped.
***
Hilde thought she was way past feeling alarmed at that point. Not only did it seem like she should have used it all up by now, she was also just beginning to dare believe the day"s problems would end at last, that everything else could safely be relegated to the following morning, which should come soon enough, much to her lament.
She had celebrated too soon, enjoying the sight of Leal hiding right under everyone"s noses without anyone suspecting -- their own biases would hardly permit that from entering their minds, and the man himself...
His beauty would put other women"s except her cousin"s to shame. It was a wonder it didn"t draw attention to the point of getting seen through.
Before the footsteps" owner reached them, she"d taken the chance to look at the other men around her. Hilde saw that Captain Judda was only just realizing Leal was back among them -- and this only after noting the presence of the female soldiers.
When the other soldiers had first taken a surprised look at their fairer fellows, many had locked on their attention almost at once at the fairest among the lot. Long moments of stunned appreciation and interest had pa.s.sed before some began to realize "she" looked familiar, and thus far, they were still puzzling out why.
The runner was a palace soldier from the barricade. Upon arrival, he reported the only thing left that could go wrong for them: a Lysean was being mobbed.
While the soldier gave more details, including how other palace guards had already been deployed by their captain to help, Hilde looked at Leal. His rigidly controlled emotions showed only in how still his body was. Right away, whatever he was thinking, she knew she wouldn"t like wherever it would lead to, for different reasons.
If she were in his shoes, her guilt and struggle would be between doing the "right" thing over another "right" thing -- an impossible choice. Would he make his decision as a prince or as a man?
"Don"t do it," she found herself saying before the man even moved.
Leal quirked one corner of his lips but didn"t answer her. He turned to his escorts.
"Do you know where Tailors" Street is?" he asked in all calmness, referring to where the guard had said a Lysean lord was stranded inside a building. At one soldier"s nod, he continued, "Lead the way."
Many who heard the smooth male voice come from the "female" soldier"s mouth choked.
Her teeth clenched, Hilde said, "Prince, please go inside."
When they finally identified who he was from being named thus, his would-be admirers flushed bright red and looked anywhere but at Leal"s face again.
The brat pretended not to hear her.
"This...! Why is he so stupid!"
Even while she was thinking this, her feet had also moved to follow. She reached up to her neatly tied-up hair and released it to its original, free-falling state. Her eyes stony and blazing, she called in a cold, steady voice, "To me!"
"Princess!" she heard Lord Alfwin call from inside the gate, having been alerted of the situation. Only the soldiers at the tail end remained -- the civilians had all gone ahead, she saw when she looked back.
She was about to say "I"m sorry" but stopped herself. Don"t decide to do something if you"re only going to apologize for it. Instead, she shook her head minutely, hoping to convey, "This is the kind of p.a.w.n you have in your hands, Uncle -- take it or leave it."
With this, she turned forward and caught up to Leal, not bothering to check whether anyone else was following her, but gratified to hear the clatter of armor from behind nonetheless. She hoped that someone else had ordered Inge to stay put; she herself couldn"t do it without inviting unwanted comparisons.
His ears now working perfectly, the foreign prince seemed to have also heard the approach of others and created a s.p.a.ce to his side where a person coming from behind might step in.
"There"s no point in you going," Hilde snapped at him without preamble upon filling that s.p.a.ce. "Get inside, no one would think less of you for it."
"But that is a lie," she added silently. "I might have, if you had chosen as a prince. And that get-up..."
She kept a fresh bubbling of laughter to herself as well.
Like her, Leal was staring ahead, keeping a swift pace as he answered, "You get inside. Aren"t you supposed to be in recovery?"
"It"s fine," she bit off. "Adrenaline can see me through this too."
He felt him look at her strangely. "Adrena... what?"