“What…what do you mean?”

“Never mind. It is not your fault. I could have wished you would have made a busybody of yourself somewhere else, though.” Barrick lifted his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them.

“Do you know why I followed you, Highness?” The bleak surroundings seemed to be getting into Vansen’s blood and his thoughts like a cold fog. Soon I shall be as mournful and mad as this prince. “Because your sister asked me—no, begged me to do so. She begged me to keep you safe.”

Now Barrick showed fire again. “What, does she think I am helpless? A child?”

“No. She loves you, Prince Barrick, whether you love yourself or not.” He swallowed. “And you are all she has left, I suppose.”

“What do you know of it—a mere soldier?” Barrick looked as though he wanted to hit him, despite the shackles on his arms. Gyir, sitting a few paces away, turned to watch them.

“Nothing, Highness. I know nothing of what it is like to be a prince, or to suffer because of it. But I do know what it is like to lose a father and others of my blood. Of five other children in our family, I have only two sisters left now, and my mother and father both are years in the grave. I have lost friends among the guard as well, one of them swallowed by a demon-beast in these lands the first time I came here. I know enough about it to say that sometimes carelessness with your own life is selfishness.”

Barrick seemed startled now, both angry and darkly amused. “Are you calling me selfish?”

“At your age, Highness, you would be odd if you were not. But I saw your sister before we rode out, saw her face as she begged me to keep you safe and told me what it would mean to her if she lost you too. You call me ‘a mere soldier,’ Prince Barrick, but I would be the lowest sort of villain indeed if I did not urge you to take care of yourself, if only for her sake. That is no burden, from where I see it—it is a mighty and honorable charge.”

Barrick was silent for a long moment, anger and amusement both gone, absorbed into one of his inscrutable, cold-faced stares. “You care for her,” he said suddenly. “Don’t you, Vansen? Tell me the truth.”

Ferras realized that even here in the dark heart of the Twilight Lands, on the way to what was almost certain death, he was blushing. “Of course I do, Highness. She is…you are both my sovereigns.”

“Back home I could have you whipped for avoiding my question like that, Vansen. If I asked you whether we were being invaded, would you say, “Well, we’ll have more guests than we usually do at this time of the year?”

Vansen gaped, then laughed despite himself, something he had not done for so long that it was almost painful. Gyir twisted his featureless face in a way that might almost have been a frown, then turned away from them. “But, Highness, even…even if it were so, how could I speak of such a thing? Your sister!” He felt his own face grow stern. “But I can tell you this—I would give my life for her without hesitation.”