Mace drew his cloak tightly closed, wincing against the blistering cold of the wind. It was an early morning on market day, and the brittle ground crunched underfoot, and the former Captain’s wallet was too light on a day like this, too light by far to accomplish what he’d come for. Their rag-tag rebellion needed blankets and fuel and a laundry list of other things God himself would be hard-pressed to provide. They relied on smugglers for most of it, or raids on Mordred’s caravans, but the former had been delayed that month, and the latter were becoming wise to their strategies. They needed some new tricks, but first they needed coats.
Mace had done what he could.
His contact in Oliford had been very unhappy to see him unexpectedly; he was keen to remain outwardly neutral in the conflict, worried for the safety of his family. Mace could understand, had explained that only the direst of circumstances would make him take such a risk, was met with a displeasure that verged on hostility. But even raw-boned and exhausted, Mace had the bearing of a Commander – the merchant tempered his antagonism under the weight of his stare, agreed to leave supplies at a dead drop a few days hence. Mace left feeling successful but coercive, unlike himself.
He could have really used a drink, but the funds would not allow for an overpriced glass of whatever swill passed for Ale in the Grove. Instead he moved through the sparse crowd as inconspicuously as he could manage, hunching his shoulders and letting his gate skid unnaturally on the frosty gravel, looking over the booths for anything useful that was small enough to carry home. His eyes were drifting over coils of jute rope when he felt a stillness fall over him, like time had slowed, and he looked up, and saw her.
Mace stood very still. The noise of the market had gone quiet, and the sound of his pulse pounded through his ears. He supposed he should have considered the possibility that she might be here, had just been too afraid to hope. She was wearing that midnight blue dress that he loved, beneath a cloak of silvery fur, attending to some villager’s story. A few coils of raven’s feather hair had escaped her hood and were twisting in the breeze. He felt his heart constrict.
When she moved, he followed her.
It was stupid. They were in the middle of this public place; presumably at least half of those gathered were loyal to Mordred. She could not be seen with him. He could not be seen watching her. But it was too great a temptation, she was too close, and Mace could not help himself. He kept to the opposite side of the road, tracking her covertly, keeping his hood low and his face in shadow. When she finally turned in his direction, as if sensing his eyes upon her, he turned smoothly to examine a stack of bruised apples with rapt attention. “One doubloon a’piece,” the purveyor rasped at him, and he nodded mutely, too preoccupied with the shape of her in his peripheral vision. His thumb dragged across the apple in his hand thoughtfully.
He couldn’t go to her, but what if he could get her alone? She was casting her gaze over the crowd, no doubt wondering what it was that had brushed against her attention, and Mace thought he knew a good way to capture it. He tossed the apple lightly in the air, then tucked it in his pocket, and began to walk away.
“Hey,” the apple merchant began. Then more loudly: “Hey! You thief!” Mace smirked to himself, cast a backward glance over his shoulder just in time to see Morgana’s eyes settle on him, narrowed with suspicion. God, she was beautiful when she was angry – he could tell even from a distance. “Thief! Come back here!” the merchant went on helpfully, and Mace moved hastily through the growing crowd, jostling shoulders.
Once he was sure she was in pursuit, he started running.
Mace had spent enough time skulking around Oliford at night to know its layout like the back of his hand; he knew Morgana did, as well. The trick was to think like her, find the place where alleys overlapped and she could catch him in close quarters, and think she’d headed him off. It was oddly exciting, picturing the chase through her eyes, imagining her strategy for catching him unfolding in her mind, using every bit of alliance training to set this trap for her. What would his commanding officer have thought of that, he wondered? He was grinning as he ran, darting down one narrow street and then the next, the sound of her footsteps behind him, an occasional shout. She’d be panting when she finally got the drop on him. He could picture it exactly: her ragged breathing, her furious eyes.
The footsteps behind him had gone silent, and Mace had to stifle a wild whoop of laughter as he slowed his pace, approaching the place where he expected her to emerge on the right…but the long knife that appeared from the shadows came from his left. He halted abruptly, hands lifted, as she backed him against the alley wall. His mouth was smiling wickedly, lips parted to accommodate his labored breath – he tilted his chin back a bit in offering. It was an effort to regulate the rise and fall of his chest, each exhalation condensing into a puff of mist between them. The knife bit into his skin.
It shouldn’t have been arousing, but it was.
“Are you going to cut my throat, Morgana?” he rumbled, rolling her name over his tongue as if she was offering to do something very different.
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