Violie

While Violie willed her aching body out of bed, Leopold spoke to the soldiers still gathered in the village where the fight with the baron had taken place two days before—soldiers whose numbers had doubled overnight as word spread to the surrounding towns and villages and those willing to fight for Leopold and Temarin arrived with whatever weapons and armor they could scrounge together. In the end, seven hundred of them agreed to march on Bessemia, while two hundred elected to remain in Temarin to continue the fight against the empress's invasion on home soil.

Up to the moment they departed, just before noon, more recruits were arriving, some all too happy to remount their horses and join Leopold's battalion—Leopold even had to turn some of the younger ones away, making a rule that only those sixteen and older can fight, though there is no rule restricting the gender of soldiers.

Unsurprisingly, Daisy and Hester—the girls who vandalized and robbed the armory—are eager to join the battalion; their stalwart siblings, Helena, Louis, and Sam, are decreed too young and stay behind with their parents, though not before Leopold softens their exclusion by naming them sworn protectors of the village and knighting them in front of everyone.

Even as they make their way east, toward the Bessemian border, people are drawn to his ranks like magnets—shouts of Stars protect King Leopold! coming from the crowds that gather to watch him pass. More decide to join him on the spot, mounting their horses or following on foot, taken up by the euphoric hope Leopold instills.

Violie wishes Sophronia could be here to see him like this, fully and truly himself as he speaks openly with any soldier who brings their horse beside his, waving to the people who cheer his name but keeping his focus steadfast on the road ahead.

She can't help but remember the speech he and Sophronia gave to the people of Kavelle, the one that ended in a riot. Violie knows that Ansel instigated the riot, used the chaos as a chance to make himself a hero and rescue Prince Gideon, but all he did was strike a match. Even without Ansel's influence, that speech would have failed. Yes, Leopold's words were heartfelt, his sympathy genuine, but he couldn't fathom how deep the damage he'd caused his country went, didn't understand then that he couldn't simply declare problems solved and damage erased.

Now Leopold doesn't stop to give speeches, though many of the people they pass ask him for one. Yes, he has a gift for pretty words, but now he lets his actions speak more loudly. Besides, if he kept stopping for speeches, they would move much more slowly, and they both know that time is of the essence if they want to reach Hapantoile to lend their help to Daphne and Beatriz.

They don't stop until long after sundown, when the horses are exhausted and they've all reached a level of hunger that won't be sated by bites of dried meat and hardtack eaten while they ride, but when they dismount, Violie looks at her map and realizes they've covered more ground than she thought, placing them right on the border between Temarin and Bessemia. If they can continue at this pace for another day, they should reach Hapantoile by the late afternoon.

Violie finds herself sitting alone while the rest of the battalion clusters into groups around small campfires, holding skewers of meat, bowls of stew, and cups of ale or water. The mood at the camp is jovial and almost giddy, the sense of camaraderie thick in the air. Leopold is a part of all of it, moving from group to group and toasting with the soldiers, clapping them on the back with a smile and a joke at the ready for some, a solemn word for others. He tells stories and listens to tales with the same enthusiasm.

Violie envies him his ease with people, but as she sits alone with her bowl of soup, she finds she pities him for it too. The skill he has of that boundless energy for others is as remarkable to her as it is exhausting, but then—that's part of what makes him such a good king, just as her propensity for her own company is part of what makes her an excellent spy. She needs no one, can be seen by no one, and can move through the world with no ties or connections to give her away.

If not for the impossible circumstances that brought them together, their paths would never have entangled, she thinks. They might have crossed, brushing past each other in a brief moment that left no mark, but that would have been the end. She would have seen a privileged, golden, untouchable king and he…well, he wouldn't have seen her at all.

She certainly never would have fallen in love with him, and as she shovels another spoonful of stew into her mouth, not caring that it's hot enough to scald her tongue, she can't decide whether she envies the version of her in that alternate circumstance or pities her.

"Mind if I join you?"

Violie looks up from her stew to find Leopold standing over her, his own bowl in hand. He nods toward the log she's sitting on, the one big enough to seat two.

She nods, shuffling over to give him space, and he sits down beside her. She thought she'd given him enough room to sit comfortably, but his leg is still pressed against hers, the connection between them feeling like an anchor.

"Why are you sitting alone?" he asks her.

Violie gives him a half smile. "You're the hero king, Leo," she points out. "Let them come to know you—it doesn't matter who I am."

He shakes his head. "I've answered plenty of questions about you tonight—Daisy and Hester in particular were full of them. I think they might idolize you."

Violie looks across the camp, finding Daisy and Hester sitting together on the far side of the clearing, deep in conversation, but when they feel her watching, they greet her with a smile and wave, which she returns. They're only a year or so younger than her, but it seems an eternity.

"I'm a curiosity," Violie tells him. "The girl hit by a falling star, saved by a miracle from above."

"That isn't what made you send Janellia from the tavern even though it put you in greater danger," he points out. "It isn't what made you tell me and everyone else that I should let you die to save Temarin."

A flush works its way to her cheeks. "You made the right decision, you know," she tells him. "And even if you had tried to save me, the baron never would have kept his promise. All it would have done is delay the inevitable and doom you and all of Temarin, too."

"I know," Leopold says, his voice going quiet. "But that doesn't mean that it wasn't the most difficult decision I've ever made, that I didn't make it knowing it would haunt me for the rest of my life."

Violie looks up to find him watching her, his expression intent. Of course, she thinks, just as his inability to save Sophronia haunts him. She's glad she won't be another ghost lingering over his shoulder.

"I'm fine," she says, as much to assure herself as him. "I'm alive."

Dying is less painful than living,Sophronia's voice said when she was on the verge of death, desperate for a miracle.

Violie knows that's true, as surely as she knows that she could die tomorrow, when they reach Hapantoile. She could die at the empress's hands, due to her own stupidity, fall sick of some lethal illness, or any number of other ways. She could just simply not wake up tomorrow. And if her last brush with death taught her anything, it's that the pain isn't what makes dying so terrible—it's the regrets.

"What is it?" Leopold asks, his brow furrowing.

Violie braces herself, looking at him and letting the camp around them fall away.

"I love you," she tells him, saying the words plainly, even as they feel like they're dragged kicking and screaming out of her. He opens his mouth to answer, but she doesn't give him a chance, plowing forward. "You don't need to say it back, I know it's less than ideal and of course there's Sophronia and I understand that you're still mourning her, that you likely always will be, but when I was dying in that field, all I could think was that there were so many things I hadn't done, so many things I'd left unsaid, and that…that was chief among them. So I had to say it, and I'm sorry."

The words come out in a rush, but the more she says, the more confused Leopold looks, and in the silence that follows, Violie becomes certain she's made a grave error, that when Sophronia's voice promised that she might soon yearn for death, this is exactly what she meant, because suddenly she wants nothing more than for another star to fall from the sky and hit her, this time killing her instead of bringing her back to life so she doesn't have to sit in this discomfort, this shame, this mortification.

She opens her mouth—to say what, she doesn't know—but before she can say a word, Leopold's lips seal over hers, stealing whatever rambling words she might have cobbled together. He kisses her with a soft hunger, his hand coming to cradle her cheek, and Violie is so absorbed in the feel of his lips and the taste of his tongue that she doesn't notice the cheers from the camp around them until Leopold pulls back, his cheeks surely as red as her own.

"I love you, too, Vi," he says, quietly enough that she knows she's the only one who hears. "It's different from the way I loved Sophie, but no less real, and I think…" He trails off for a moment. "I think it's what she wanted when she sent me to you, for us to find each other, grow with each other, and I think wherever she is, she's happy for us now."