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Waiting was a privilege.
A simple fact, beaten into him by his brother long before he’d had the chance to squire. Before he’d seen real battle and what live steel could do to the far too fragile bodies of strong men.
Felix was conscious, his injury a mere inconvenience, not an emergency. Bad enough that he needed to be seen, sure. He wasn’t an overly proud sixteen-year-old who tried to stoically self treat an arrow through the chest.
Well, not anymore.
Stoicism came at a white-knuckled cost and his patience was wearing as thin as the cheaply made mattress he’d been shoved onto hours ago. The damn arrow itched nearly as much as it hurt.
He took a deep breath through his nose, refusing to scratch at the offending wound and make everything worse.
Waiting was a privilege. And like most of Felix’s privileges, he was damn sick of this one.
“Mercie, I found more of the— Oh!” An achingly familiar voice filled the med tent, followed by a near-deafening crash and a smaller, less confident, “I’m okay!”
For the first time in days, Felix smiled. He dared to turn his head, though his neck strained for the effort, to watch as Annette brushed herself off, a chaotic tornado of papers, herbs, and dust in her wake. She moved so elegantly for someone completely unaware of her surroundings, fetching jars and tools for Mercedes, somehow well versed in the minutia of healing despite her certification as a Warlock.
There was no one more entertaining in all of the Kingdom army. To watch Annette was to watch a circus with no defined end. Not that he’d ever let that thought slip— She’d insist he was teasing her and there was no way to tell her that actually she was a beautiful circus.
Not that he’d call her beautiful to her face. She’d misinterpret that too.
Annette bounded through the infirmary tent, arms full of empty vials until she stopped in front of him. “Mercie says she’ll get to you eventually, or she’ll have a Holy Knight or Bishop sub in once we have more free hands.” At his stiff nod her eyes narrowed. “Are you doing okay?”
Her concern sat as uncomfortably in his chest as the arrow. “You’re not a healer.”
Her tongue peeked out between her teeth, mock-seriousness fading. “Well you have a functioning memory. That’s good.”
Felix rolled his eyes at her not totally unwelcome attempt at levity. “Why are you working in the med tent?”
“Because I want to be useful while everyone decides what to do with my uncle.” She paused, quiet and something welled behind her eyes before she blinked it away, smile painted back on her face. “Mercie said I can be her extra hands!”
Ah, her uncle the Baron Dominic. The defector turned loyalist again as the army invaded the Western territories. Felix supposed as the Duke of Fraldarius he was meant to be helping to adjudicate that man’s fate.
It was his lot in life to weigh those sorts of things now. But he couldn’t see past the false smile on the woman who practically danced as she stood still.
He could do nothing to help her uncle while he was trapped under the authority of Mercedes von Martritz, her medical clearance the only key to the lock. Not that he’d help her uncle outright. Baron Dominic had helped them win the day, but he’d defected from the Kingdom before the Empire even reached his gates. Cowardice to keep his people safe.
The Kingdom army didn’t need cowards.
It did need forces. And hero’s relics. The Baron Dominic came with both.
And Annette looked so worried, though she tried to hide it.
Annoying Annette Dominic sounded better than trying not to scratch at his injury. So he poked. “You’re being useful by destroying our supplies?”
Her cheeks reddened. “Did you see that with the shelf? Mercie said it wasn’t anything important. Wait…” She threw her head back, her handkerchief going askew atop her head. “Don’t tease me, Felix!”
He’d been caught. Damn. He didn’t bother trying to defend himself. “Why aren’t you with Shez and everyone else at the strategy meeting?”
Her face darkened. “Because it’s my uncle, Felix. I can’t exactly be impartial.”
“Your father is there,” Felix said plainly.
“That’s… He’s…” she sputtered and the last thing Felix wanted to hear was an excuse for him.
Felix tried to keep the ice from his assessment. “Not exactly known for his tender fondness for his family?”
“That’s horrible.” Annette drew back, her emotion in full force. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, and I—”
“He’s not sentimental.” Felix clarified, far angrier at himself for always saying the wrong thing with Annette. Just because he hated his father didn’t mean she felt the same.
Even if she should. “He’ll put country first. I’m not in the meeting either.”
Annette’s anger eased so quickly it made Felix’s head spin. She pointed one dainty finger at his chest. “You’re not in the meeting because you have a poisoned arrow sticking through you.”
“It’s not poisoned.” Felix shifted on the thin cot, trying not to agitate his wound further. It hurt, certainly, but he wasn’t poisoned. He wasn’t dizzy enough for it to be poisoned.
Annette snorted, her hands finding her hips, as if she could make herself intimidating. “It most certainly is, you can’t smell that?”
“... No?”
She came ever closer, her hair battle and chaos loosened from its braids and brushing over her arm. “Hemlock. It’s definitely poisoned. Did you not tell anyone? You’re going to mess up the whole triage list and…”
Great. Now she was worried about him. Annette had plenty on her plate without worrying he was going to die or something.
“Annette, it’s fine.”
“It’s absolutely not fine! How can you just sit around and do nothing while your whole body gets poisoned! Aren’t you the one who tells everyone that,” her voice went fake-deep, her face schooled into a scowl, “their body is a weapon and weapons need maintaining?”
Goddess. Was that an impression of him?
“No.”
“You liar, you said that to me back in school. I distinctly remember it!” She was far too loud for the med tent but Felix didn’t bother trying to change the unchangeable. “You tried to manhandle me out of the library!”
“No,” he snorted. “I don’t say that to everyone. I said it to you.”
And he did manhandle her out of the library. Not that he’d bring it up. In an academy year cut frustratingly short it was one of his fondest memories. She’d been wearing a shawl made of something fantastically soft to keep the cold out and it was the first time he realized she had muscle underneath that uniform. That she wasn’t just swinging axes around as some sort of elective lark.
He hadn’t expected the tiny mage to be anything but feather light and the feel of her in his arms, the one extra iota of effort it had taken to lift her from her hard library chair, it stuck with him.
Everything with Annette always required that extra push of effort. He found he didn’t mind.
So he stayed stoic, pedantically pushing her buttons because this fight was idiotic but at least she didn’t sound worried anymore.
“Felix, you can’t exactly go playing with your life—”
“I agree,” a silky baritone cut in, souring Felix’s stomach. “We can’t have dukes dying from easily fixable injuries.”
Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius stood proudly before him, dried blood still splattered across his cheek. He’d survived the day. That was positive, Felix supposed, at least for the greater good.
“Why are you here old man?” Felix grumbled, annoyed as Annette took a step back out of what was probably deference. As if his father deserved any deference. As if his father was going to be of any use while he sat and waited to be poisoned to death.
The telltale burn was starting to spread through his chest.
His father clicked his tongue, condescending as he reached for Felix’s shoulder, undoing the straps of his cloak to get a closer look. “What’s the use of the Aegis if you let yourself get hit?”
Felix groaned. “If this is about my performance today—”
“It’s not,” his father said quickly, pulling out a tome from his robes. “My skills were requested. They’re rather shorthanded today and I am a Holy Knight. It is best to remove the projectile before clearing the poison. Miss Dominic, would you mind assisting?”
Annette’s eyes widened and she spoke before Felix could form a protest. “I’m not really- I can break off an arrow but someone stronger would do it more cleanly and I—”
How like Annette, to refuse to admit she couldn’t do something outright.
His father’s voice remained soft as he flipped through his tome. “No, simply, would you help my son brace himself? Hold him steady.”
Brace himself? What was he, twelve? He knew how to clear an arrow. “I’m not going to flinch at—”
“I insist,” Rodrigue said to Annette, ignoring his protest. “Go on, hold here.” Rodrigue guided her hands to Felix’s torso, directing Felix to brace his hands on her shoulders.
Great, now he was touching her, the proximity better for grappling for healing. She still smelled of the battlefield. Sweat and dirt and the metallic tang of blood.
And apples. Always apples.
“Annette you don’t need to do this,” Felix gave weak excuses. “I’m perfectly capable.”
Annette laughed, far more unfazed at the contact than he was. “You did punch Lindhardt back in school when he healed you after the mock battle.”
“Instinctively,” Felix grumbled. “And maybe I was just looking for an excuse.”
His father broke off the end of the arrow and Felix grit his teeth in anticipation, the jostling of the wound pale in comparison of what was to come.
His fingers tensed around Annette’s delicate shoulder. Every tendon in his body screaming to return pain with pain as he’d been trained to do.
“Felix,” Annette said softly, her face open, concerned but not at all frightened.
There was something about having known someone the way he’d known Annette. He wasn’t going to punch her, her sheer presence calming his nervous system. And somehow she knew- though she was quick to point out his flaws. Her reputation may one day be at risk if he’d dared to share her secrets. But her safety?
No. She knew as well as he did that for whatever reason, he wouldn’t punch her.
“And that’s why I’ve enlisted extra hands,” his father smiled. “My son’s reputation with his fists precedes him.”
And then, without warning, he pushed the arrow through.
Felix refused to cry out, letting out a hiss through his teeth, focusing far more on not hurting Annette than the spreading coolness of white magic as the poison left his body. Her blue eyes locked on his, the med tent quiet in the moment. His mind mustering a thought, effort going to keeping it inside.
I’d probably heal faster if you sang for me.
“You’re doing great!” she smiled, and if it were anyone else in the world he would have punched them for being patronizing.
A second spell released from his father’s tome, and the wound in his chest knit back together. He supposed it did burn like hell, now that the pain was gone.
“Thank you for your assistance, Miss Dominic.” His father gave a quick nod as Annette responded.
As soon as the glow of magic faded, the skin of his chest pink and healed, his father returned to business. “Now, Felix, your presence has been requested, and it is my medical opinion that you’re well enough to walk.”
Felix didn’t hide his annoyance. “Medical opinion. Bah.”
But he gave Annette a nod of thanks as he rose.
“Good luck being useful.”
She looked like she didn’t know if she should thank him or hit him— for once, he’d chosen the right words.
Waiting was a privilege.
His dear friend Matthias had told him that once, deep in grief as he looked over letters of dowry offerings. Life moved on and it was the duty of a noble to keep pace, sprinting on broken ankles or broken hearts. To hold a title, to hold land, all necessitated keeping the future of such a house.
For all the pain it brought, men of his generation did their duty. But the men of today?
“He won’t even consider it, Rosimand,” Rodrigue threw up his hands, burying them in his hair. He so rarely had the opportunity to visit home, to take his evening tea in the comfort of his own chambers. Six months of painful stalemate. They were to set out for a parlay with Claude von Riegan in two days time. There were far more important things to do than rant about his son and yet, here he was.
The fireplace roared, highlighting as former Duchess Fraldarius raised a dark eyebrow from her comfortable armchair. “Did you directly suggest something to our son?”
As if such a thing would make him an imbecile. Not a father. Not a duke, even former. Not a keen political mind who wanted nothing more than the world to be better than he found it.
“I merely reminded him that it would be in his best interest to attempt to cultivate a reputation that was less than terrifying,” Rodrigue defended with the bit of fire left in his stomach. He was so tired of this foolishness.
Rosimand’s silence rang louder than a church organ, clearly thinking that perhaps Rodrigue was attempting to be political rather than honest. And perhaps he was. And perhaps he should have learned decades ago that he could pull nothing over on his wife, who was frighteningly stubborn in her own right.
Marriage portfolios did not list the stubbornness of potential brides, and that was a failing of their system.
But Rosimand was waiting, her hands folded neatly in her lap, still as the night as she let her silence stretch.
Ah. All saints. He knew better. “And perhaps implied that it would make finding a bride harder when this all ended,” Rodrigue acquiesced.
Rosimand pressed her pink lips together, a ghost of a smile hidden in the firelight, still saying nothing.
Had Felix written to her? He must have!
But no. His wife simply knew him too well.
“He should have married when all this started!” Rodrigue blurted out, his feelings unchanging but terribly clear.
“He was a boy when this started,” his wife stated flatly. “He’s still a boy now. Barely twenty and the sense to match.”
At least she’d admit Felix lacked any sense at all. “You baby him. He’s a duke and a goddess-damned war hero. He has responsibilities—”
Rosimand Fraldarius laughed in the face of her husband. “We all know his early inheritance was political. I handle far more of his responsibilities than I’d expect some inexperienced, pampered twenty-year-old heiress to manage.”
She picked up a crochet hook as if to show him just how unimportant she found his opinion. He loved his wife, truly he did, but she enjoyed playing games with people. Him most of all.
Fraldarius, the shield of Farghus, was a house built for war.
And if his wife wanted a battle, he’d give her one. Felix needed to be married. The war wasn’t getting easier, even if it was looking more likely by the day there would be a future for their house. He wasn’t getting younger.
He swung with words. “You just don’t wish to give up your power.”
She parried. “Nor did you, my love.”
“But I did! I took responsibility, I gave up my title! For the greater good!”
Hah! Have her argue with him now!
Rosimand purled a few loops. “Felix will act in the best interest of Fraldarius. He’s shown it time and again. He simply doesn’t believe his heart is part of that. I love our son, but I don’t think he’d notice a young woman unless she was pointing a spear at his heart.”
“Or spilling lentils on him,” Rodrigue muttered with a laugh.
For the first time since he’d broached the topic Rosimand’s brown eyes were on him with full focus. “What?”
Aha! Now her interest was piqued.
Twenty five years of marriage taught him one thing. When dealing with his stubborn, manipulative, brilliant wife, it was best to have her fantastically interested. “Do you truly think I’m foolish enough to put marriage into Felix’s head without someone in mind?”
Her eyebrows practically raised into her loose hair, and near panic took his wife. “If you tried to betrothe our son he’d torture the poor girl until she swam straight to Morphis—”
“Not her,” Rodrigue smirked.
“Her?”
Battle ended. Winner, Rodrigue Fraldarius.
“Sir Gustave’s daughter,” he explained. “If you need Felix to do something, anything at all really, it has to come through her. I’m sure one of them is blackmailing the other in some way from the way they bicker but I can never tell which of the two of them has the leverage.”
Rosimand’s laugh sounded like a cork out of sparkling wine, effervescent even in the darkest of conversations. “Maybe it switches.”
He joined her, relaxing into his armchair. “This is why I consult you. I’d never considered blackmail could so easily go both ways. But it is obvious that he’s deathly smitten with Miss Annette Dominic. What I need, love, is to move things along.”
She shook her head, her hands still on her crochet. “It sounds like there’s no issue at all. The more you push him towards marriage the more resistant he’ll be. You must let it happen in its own time.”
That’s what he feared she’d say. “Perhaps.”
But waiting was a privilege. And they were at war. His son would realize eventually, but eventually could be decades away. No. He needed his thick headed son to see what was in front of him post-haste. He wanted Annette off the battlefield and learning the territory from his wife.
Crested heirs so rarely came on the first try. He would not go to war for his country, give up his title, only to let the territory fall to his son’s stubbornness and unlikability.
Miss Dominic seemed to like Felix. Such a woman did not grow on trees.
“Rodrigue,” his wife’s voice pulled him from his anxious spiral. “I expressly forbid you from trying to meddle. If our son catches a whiff that you want him to approach her, or even that you’d approve he’d—”
“Avoid her like the plague. No, I’m rather thinking I’ll do the opposite. The daughter of a knight? For a Duke?” He schooled his face into utter disgust, hoping his wife would find him a convincing actor.
“Darling,” she laughed, obviously finding him lacking. “That won’t do either. He’ll suspect your motive. I order you to do nothing.”
“On whose authority?”
“The only authority that matters.” She dared him to challenge, but he was not so foolish. “Now, come, drink your tea. The tides of war turn in our favor, but there’s much left to be done. Leave the matchmaking to mothers, as it’s meant to be.”
There was so much left to say. An inkling of pain, a betrothal that never came to fruition for a son who never became a man. A pain that never truly left though life insisted on happening despite the hole that lived in his heart.
Marriage was insurance against the fall of his house. Something unthinkable to a younger man, but Rodrigue was not young.
He watched his son on the battlefield and faced head-on the fear he’d been forced to carry since that tragedy.
What if he lost both sons?
Heirs. Lineage. Succession. All ranked higher on the priority list than his own fears. He should wish for Felix to marry because they were at war and he had to secure their future.
And yet he was only a man. Only a father. And sentimentality, a want for his son’s happiness. A love he could see blooming with that young woman.
Perhaps, after the war…?
No. Waiting was a privilege. And doing nothing was not an option.
Waiting was a privilege. There was always something to be done. Uniforms to repair. Medicines to restock. Songs to write in confidence.
Waiting was a privilege. One Annette had tried to avail herself of, but the cat… or the horse, she supposed, was out of the bag. Err. Stable.
“It’s terrible!” Annette hid her face in her hands, ignoring the wafting smell of dinner. Humiliation spoiled even the best dishes.
Felix put his fork down, a clatter against his stolen dining hall plate. “It’s not your best song—”
“Felix!” Annette’s voice echoed through the abandoned greenhouse. “You’re not supposed to agree with me!”
He made a frustrated growl in the back of his throat, taking another bite of smuggled dinner, but it did little to hide his infuriating smirk.
She should kick him out. She’d tried four days ago when she heard soldiers singing her incomplete song at dinner and ran, horrified. The army was leaving Garreg Mach, finishing the war at last. Annette would have to rejoin the rank and file and face her mistake head-on. She wanted to stew in embarrassed privacy for as long as she could.
Felix had found her admittedly not great hiding spot. And insisted she eat. Somewhere in the past year, her definition of private expanded to include his surly, annoying presence.
“The horse with a human face is so embarrassing. It's the sort of thing I’d have sworn you to secrecy over!”
He shrugged. “You never believe me, even when I do swear.”
True. She smiled despite herself. “That’s because you’re a villain.”
“A villain who brought you dinner.” He nudged her plate closer in yet another attempt to get her to eat.
Fish sautee from the Garreg Mach dining hall. She was sixteen again, worried about exams and certifications and the swordsman who heard her singing. Edelgard was a classmate. Not an Empress. Not whatever shell of a human she’d become in the cathedral.
The war wasn’t over. Not yet. Wouldn’t it be nice if war were like an opera? So nicely tied up with a bow at a decisive victory?
Her stomach soured from more than the embarrassment of her silly songs out in the world. “I’m not hungry.”
“Tough. We’re marching tomorrow. You need your strength.”
And there was that famous Felix Fraldarius empathy. “See? Villainous.”
He rolled his eyes, but didn’t move out of her orbit. His long hair was a mess, and she felt the itch, the same one she did when she saw a dusty room—the undeniable urge to tidy.
Annette reached into her pocket, looking for a spare bit of cord. “Did anyone ever teach you to braid?”
“No,” he answered with a mouthful of dinner.
“Can I teach you?”
“No.”
She refused to let him stomp out her fun. “Why not? It’s pretty simple.”
Wait. No! She was thinking like Annette. She had to think like Felix! “It would probably improve your efficiency on the battlefield, keep your hair tighter. It’s always slipping out into your face, that can’t be good for your swordsmanship.”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “I can’t walk around with my hair braided.”
“What’s wrong with braids?” Annette gasped, reaching for her own meticulously styled hair. Did he have some horrible grudge against the most practical and adorable of hairstyles? Against her signature look?
“Nothing– Agh. My father would just—” He clenched his jaw, as if he was too angry to speak. Their playful fight landed back in the heavy realm of reality.
Was he mad at his father? Annette thought things were better between them. She’d seen an easing of tension when they were together. Rodrigue was nice, actually. He’d told her about the Fraldarius library and all of his magical studies. She had an open invitation to visit when the war was done, which was needlessly kind.
Rodrigue had blanched when she mentioned her intent to teach at the school of sorcery after her time in the Kingdom army, and his disapproval had hurt even though he wasn’t, really, anyone to her.
Rodrigue Fraldarius was intimidating to say the least. She could only imagine what it was like to be his son.
“What would your father do?” Annette asked, trying to be a good friend. She certainly knew about difficulties with fathers. She could relate.
But it was the wrong question. Felix, doing the most Felix thing imaginable, shot up. He did love to run from her when he didn’t want to talk. This was how half of their conversations ended, even now. She tried not to be disappointed.
Felix’s retreat meant that she mattered. She could rattle a man who was unshakable. That counted for something.
Maybe he’d punch someone who was singing her incomplete song when he was pissed off later. She could yell at him for that. They’d start again in the dance they’d been doing since they were teenagers.
Bicker about the stupidest things possible until Felix ran away. Move on and act like nothing happened not five minutes later.
“Okay. Bye, I guess,” Annette muttered to his retreating back.
One day Felix would leave and he wouldn’t come back and she’d understand that too. Annette wasn’t someone who was kept around. She was useful. Her uncle made sure of it. But she wasn’t born to be someone of note. Not like Felix, Duke of Fraldarius, major crested, war hero, was. One day he’d move past the need to play with her and she’d forgive him through the hurt. She was already too familiar with the sight of his retreating back.
She was less familiar with the hesitation, the moment of pause, Felix’s scarred hand on the glass doors of the greenhouse. “I’m not leaving until you eat something, Annette.”
Something shifted in him and he returned. His heavy booted footsteps echoed across the stone floor, each step lightening her heart. Letting her breathe more easily as he returned to her orbit.
She waved her fork at him. “I’m not eating until you tell me what’s bothering you about your father.”
“He breathes,” Felix deadpanned, lowering back to their impromptu picnic.
She took a genial bite. “More specific, please.”
Felix grew quiet, practically curled into a ball as he sat on the floor, his fingers tense. “He keeps dropping hints about after the war. We march through a territory and he starts telling me the family who runs it and can’t help but mention…” Felix’s neck began to flush, and it bloomed up to his cheeks.
She’d seen it before, and it had never grown less tantalizing. “Mention what?”
“He’s an idiot. An old-fashioned idiot,” Felix said to the floor. Not an answer.
Utterly confused and more than a bit concerned, Annette asked, “And this has to do with braids because?”
“Because he’d know that a woman taught me!” Felix glowered, as if the mere act of answering her was a defeat.
So Rodrigue didn’t want Felix talking to women? No. Why was he bringing up territories and ruling families?
Oh.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want Felix talking about women. Old-fashioned. “It’s about marriage with him, huh?” Annette guessed, noting how his flush spread to his cheeks. Wishing it had been something clever from her lips that brought it out.
“Yes.” Felix’s misery was palpable, and Annette, for reasons she wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge in herself, hated it.
Silly. Felix not liking the idea of marriage wasn’t her problem, really. It was, frankly, predictable. She could cheer him up even as the knowledge soured her stomach more than the humiliation of her leaked song. “It might not be a you-specific thing. Your father seemed awfully disappointed when I mentioned I wanted to teach after the war. Which is quite old-fashioned of him. The school of sorcery has had women professors for at least a decade.”
Felix let in a sharp breath and the air turned suddenly ozone and tense. “He was asking about your plans after the war?”
“Casually,” Annette answered, not quite understanding how misery turned so quickly to rage. “We were chatting–”
“My father does not chat. What was he saying to you?” It sounded like an accusation, one Annette couldn’t parse.
“Nothing really,” she defended, leaning back on her arms, the cool stone of the greenhouse floor rough beneath her palms. “We were talking about magic and I mentioned one of the side effects of the crest of Dominic—”
“You told him you have a crest!” He was nearly apocalyptic now, and Annette wondered if he was going to draw his sword and challenge her to a duel for how he was acting.
“Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not!” His response came like a Thoron, fast and violent, his chest heaving from the effort.
Violent, but not frightening. Annette wove her emotions like music. Felix like weapons.
In years of friendship, Annette had so often been the one to escalate. But something deep in her told her to stay quiet. Firm, but quiet she ordered, “Then stop yelling.”
“I’m not,” he said, more subdued, his breath still frenetic, his face still a battlefield of emotions he refused to show. A second passed, another, and then Felix said, his face cast in shadow, “Don’t talk to my father, Annette.”
Before she could answer that she could talk to whoever she pleased. Before she could ask why he’d gone so violently angry. Before she could remind him they’d been talking about nonsense only five minutes before, the handle of the greenhouse began to rattle.
“Who’s causing that racket?” A familiar voice asked. Instinctively, Annette shoved Felix into an overgrown plant just as the door opened.
“Ah. Miss Dominic.”
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
“Sorry, sir. I, um, saw a centipede. Hate them. Always have,” Annette rubbed the back of her neck.
Rodrigue Fraldarius gave a gentle smile that obviously didn’t believe her. “You haven’t seen my son, have you?”
“No sir.” Annette matched his smile, sweat beading on her brow as his eyes traced the two portions of fish saute on the floor of the greenhouse.
“What an interesting dinner venue.”
“I wished to be alone. The centipede refused to cooperate.” Annette’s stomach twisted as she lied to a duke. Former duke. “If I see Felix I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”
He nodded, a discerning stare more evaluating than any teacher she’d had. Annette did everything in her power not to turn towards Felix’s hiding place.
“I wanted to ask,” he filled the silence with flowing words. “Your father, he’s no longer your guardian, correct?”
Annette wished, truly, to sink into the floor as a genteel man poured a handful of salt into a still open wound. “No. Um. My uncle is still my guardian now that he’s once again a Baron of the Kingdom of Farghus.” She couldn’t shake the image of Felix’s furious blush and his yelling about chatting, and it gave her the courage to ask, “Why?”
Rodrigue froze for a moment, almost imperceptibly quick, a familiar panic in his blue eyes. “No matter, really. An errant thought.” He recovered into, “If your territory needs building after the war—”
“It’s not truly mine. I’m merely his niece. But your offer is kind, and I’ll be sure to mention it next time we speak.”
“Please do. I shall take my leave. Have a good,” his eyes dropped to the second plate, “solo dinner, Miss Dominic.”
She wasn’t sure if she’d won or lost that bout, her head spinning with different definitions of each word he said. The doors remained closed for ten endless seconds before Felix joined her back on the floor.
“That’s why I don’t want you braiding my hair.” His frown was practically a snarl. “Eat.”
Between silent bites of fish sautee, Annette tried to unpack exactly what Felix was saying. He so rarely implied things, typically direct to a fault.
His father asked about her father, about her guardianship, about her territory, and it was obvious that it wasn’t about a charitable bid to rebuild the country.
So, Rodrigue, old-fashioned, mentioning marriage constantly Rodrigue, was giving her attention.
Was she being evaluated as a potential match for Felix?
No. Silly. Her family name wasn’t half so weighty. Was it because she and Felix were friends? Felix had other friends who were women. Surely.
Well, Ingrid.
And she probably wasn’t an option because she’d been engaged to Glenn. If that were viable, it would have already been arranged.
And they’d have killed each other.
No. It couldn’t possibly be about her and marriage. Felix wasn’t avoiding her. That would be the smart thing to do if he saw a match coming. Stage some sort of big public fight… Though she and Felix bickered in public constantly. A fight wouldn’t throw Rodrigue off.
No. Felix would have to ignore her entirely. So what was he doing eating dinner with her? Or walking with her? Or sitting next to her at strategy meetings?
She definitely had affection for Felix. She liked being with him. They were friends. He was handsome in a sharp, dark sort of way. Like a rebel knight in a storybook. Not that Annette ever really thought about him like that.
He certainly didn’t think about her like that, so it would be a waste of time to let her heart want something. Someone.
Except that his blind panic at her talking to his father had to mean something. Either he didn’t wish to marry her, and didn’t know how to let her down easy—
No. This was Felix.
Maybe he might want to marry her, but hated that his father approved.
Which was just about the stupidest thing Annette could imagine.
Because if he did feel that way, why hadn’t he said something?
Oh. Goddess. What if he said something? Annette swallowed, goosebumps breaking out over her arms. He was sitting right there, staring her down if she paused too long between bites of dinner she could no longer taste.
The proper thing to do would be to let their mothers handle such a thing after the war.
The safe thing to do would be to wait Felix out, get more information. She could watch him a little more closely for signs he might like her. Though that would take weeks of careful observation and it wasn’t like he wouldn’t notice.
Waiting was a privilege. And Annette was so sick of waiting.
“Your father wants us to get married?” Annette guessed with as much bravery as she brought to the battlefield, her face as red as her hair.
Felix choked, coughing violently and banging on his chest until he took a wheezing gasp.
Oh no. What had she done. Annette froze, panic overtaking her. She needed Mercie. Or maybe she should try to fish the food out. Ah! How did she always muck things up like this?
“Give a man some warning, all saints,” Felix’s voice was hoarse as he re-established his breathing.
Well, she’d already almost killed him. Might as well try for a real answer. “I’m asking because I want to know if it’s a you need to get married thing or a we need to get married thing.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Am I just convenient?”
“You’re not convenient,” Felix answered, blunt as ever. “Your family is a mess with a territory that needs far too much work to rebuild for what you’d provide.”
“Can you not be mean for five minutes?”
“I’m being honest. I’m answering your question. It’s not that you’re convenient.”
Annette gripped her fork in her hand, daring to look at Felix, heart hurting as she asked, again, “But it is about me?”
Felix rose from the floor, pacing the greenhouse, his energy turned frenetic. “He thought he was being subtle. He never mentioned you but he’s talking to you about your future. Saints. He thinks he’s being clever. I swear I’m going to–-”
“I don’t care what he thinks!” Annette’s yell stopped Felix in his tracks. She stepped close though to approach a man in a rage was objectively foolish. She was objectively foolish and she’d spent a lifetime looking like a fool in front of Felix. “I care what you think!”
He braced himself, his shoulders going square and his voice deliberately cold. “I think that if you were smart, you’d go running from this conversation. You’d at the very least want to have it later. Not… Not when we’re marching again.”
Later. What was later to a soldier? How many of their classmates thought later would come? No. Waiting was a privilege. One she didn’t have.
Annette stepped in, her boots touching his, the hem of her dress brushing against his coat. Here she could feel the warmth that radiated off of him, the pull of magnetic energy that she’d never been able to ignore with him. Here he couldn’t run.
She craned her neck up to meet his eyes, her jaw set as her nerves went wild from the proximity.
From the courage she felt in every word she spoke. “Don’t avoid me like we have endless time. Are you mad because it’s your father proposing it or are you mad because it’s about me?”
Fear spread through the man who faced death sword drawn. “I don’t know. If my father wasn’t so eager. If he wasn’t putting all the pressure in Fodlan on my neck. If things were different—”
She refused to let him dodge, her hands grabbing at the front of his coat. Nothing had ever been so urgent. “But they’re not! Maybe there’s a world where this war never broke out and we went our separate ways at the end of the year. Maybe there’s a world where we didn’t have Dimitri anymore and there was no Kingdom army left. Maybe we were like my cousin Simon and joined the empire. That’s not the world we’re in! I am asking you, Felix Fraldarius, right now, in this greenhouse, just us… Does the idea of us together make you angry because you hate it, or because you hate that you like it?”
Annette readied herself for an answer she knew could crush her. Felix’s hands found her face, rough and strong, bringing her on tiptoe. Like with the arrow months ago gentle despite the strength. His lips met hers and warmth exploded through Annette’s body.
Answers in movement. Surety in the sharp intake of breath and the folding of bodies into one another. Hundreds of other worlds, possibilities faded into the background as one moment solidified an answer to a question neither of them had asked.
To be kissed was to be wanted. To linger. To possess.
Felix broke the kiss, a small, shocked smile nakedly showing pure relief as his fingers traced the shape of her jaw. Annette could hold no emotions so tightly, her grin broad and eager, a dance filling her body, bouncing back into his orbit to kiss him again.
He wanted her. He liked her. And that knowledge sent Annette into the sort of spiral she so rarely got to enjoy.
She liked Felix! Of course she liked Felix! Felix who was honest, who was easy to read in his avoidance, who chose her over and over again even when he pretended he wasn’t. Felix who could clear a battlefield but worried about hurting her.
Felix who made her want to write songs and see tomorrows. Who valued effort nearly as much as she did. Who made everything a fight because things that mattered were worth fighting over.
Annette had read too many books to not know what happened next. She laid her head on his shoulder, basking in his presence, in the fire of their kisses. Now was the time for romantic words. Confessions.
But Annette was who she was, and unfortunately what came out was, “So, your father will be thrilled.”
Felix snorted, his hand resting on the small of her back. “Are you always going to be this annoying?”
“Yes.”
End.