Facing the world was hard. Putting on a brave face and going to the markets and interacting with others who had taken events in stride took energy Ciara was never sure she had. By the time she crossed the threshold home, she was exhausted and would crawl into bed again. But cataclysmic devastation or not, ferrying outlaws into the forests required food and supplies and acting like Arthur’s throne wasn’t being soiled by the murderous usurper. It had been years, and though it hadn’t gotten any easier to face the prying questions and piteous looks, Ciara was finding her stamina improving slowly. Or perhaps it was that the chatter in town had strayed from political intrigue to housewives’ gossip about affairs between the butcher and the cartwright’s wife.

Occasionally, discussion about the prince would prickle Ciara’s skin, first out of concern that Tristan was being ratted out, then fading into jealousy for Queen Gaiane, who had her son and his father and no fear for the future or nostalgia for the past. Even today as the market chattered about some recent tournament and the festivities and which girl had been favored by the champion, Ciara made only noncommittal grunts and half-smiles.

Basket filled with eggs and bread and salted pork, Ciara brushed past a few knights on their patrol. She felt one or two glance back at her but she didn’t bother to see what thought might have pulled their attention. That blue turned her stomach. Once, she might have flirted with them, but that was a lifetime and a half ago. Sexual magnetism or morbid curiosity about the late king’s friend made no difference in the disgust rising in her. One of the men – or perhaps it was some other man in the crowded market and not one of the knights at all as Ciara hadn’t seen him – whistled and she spun around. Anger and bite vanished at the small boy in the back of the knights’ cart.

He was Arthur’s spitting image. It had been a long time since the Shady Labyrinth had played host to Ciara and her brothers and the other abandoned children of the Mallos generation, since she’d seen Arthur that young. It didn’t matter. The grey hairs from stress and fine creases from years of worry and thought and command, the dark circles from countless nights being awoken with one crisis or another, Ciara always saw past them. The memories were still there. And she couldn’t move.

Nalani, seeing the boy herself, flew closer and perched on the side of the cart, watching the boy quietly, with furtive glances at the knight seated directly beside him. How were either bird or mother going to get whoever the boy was, and Cia had her hopes and suspicions, away from his captors – and captors they were, no matter how benevolent they may believe themselves to be. If the knights took the boy to the castle, Mordred would know. Neither the boy nor Ciara would be safe.

Luckily, Ciara didn’t need to come up with a plan at all. A gang of ruffians, likely from Laketon only in Oliford to make trouble, intervened. Supplies were desired by outlaws and knights and petty thieves and gang leaders alike, and knights always seemed to have spare supplies on hand. It made them easy targets. Enough force would break a cartwheel and leave a target unable to flee from the ambush. Ciara watched it happen, but it wasn’t until one of the thieves, a burly man with dirt and grease on his face and a long piece of crude metal in his hands that she ran forward, shoving her basket of goods at another bystander to hold.

Ciara didn’t flinch as she forced her way through the ensuing fight between men, although she took an errant elbow to the arm. She smiled, hopefully a kind and supportive, loving smile and not one filled with longing and despair and sadness.

“Come on, let’s find a safer place to watch, hmm?” she suggested, trying to avoid another rogue limb or deflected blow while nodding toward the side of the road, away from the fighting but with a view. She didn’t drag him or pull him, giving him time to decide on his own, but pleading with him in her mind to get away from the danger.