She shakes Sophronia out of her thoughts and focuses on Bairre, who is frowning at her, an expression she’s grown familiar with and even become somewhat fond of. He’s been pacing for the last few minutes, his hands clasped behind his back. “You don’t know Rufus—he won’t ask anything of me.”
Daphne knows she should feel annoyed with him, but she’s surprised by the hint of jealousy that pricks her, that he seems to genuinely believe that. Maybe he was right about her. Maybe she is mercenary, but only because she’s had to be. Sophronia’s voice barges into her thoughts again—I need your help, Daph—but again Daphne pushes her out.
“I can guarantee you that before the hunt is over, he’ll pester you to talk to your father about lowering his region’s taxes,” she tells Bairre.
Bairre considers this. “I don’t see why we couldn’t,” he says. “I’ve been hearing stories about how this past winter was more difficult than anticipated. A lot of the highland clans are struggling.”
They’re more than struggling, Daphne thinks. They’re plotting.
“Just don’t make promises you won’t be able to keep,” she says, her thoughts straying again to her sister. Sophronia promised loyalty to their mother, she promised to do as she was told. Those promises have been broken now, and though Daphne pities her, she’s also angry at Sophronia. How difficult could it have been to just follow orders?
“Daphne?” Bairre says, looking at her strangely.
She shakes her head, trying once again to clear Sophronia from her mind, though she feels her lingering in the corners like cobwebs. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Are you all right?” he asks, frowning. “You seem out of sorts.”
“I’m fine,” she says, with a tight smile. “I didn’t sleep well last night, I suppose.”
Bairre opens his mouth to reply and she suspects he will push her on that flimsy excuse, but his eyes catch on something over her shoulder. His expression shifts and he raises his hand in a wave. Daphne turns to follow his gaze and sees a group of six coming toward them—all with the same bright red hair. She counts three girls and three boys, the oldest of whom must be Rufus. She knows that he and Bairre are the same age, but as he comes closer she realizes he must tower over Bairre by nearly a foot, and over her nearly double that.
“Rufus,” Bairre says, holding a hand out toward him, but Rufus ignores it and crushes Bairre in a hug instead.
“Good to see you, Bairre,” he says when they pull apart, his highland accent so thick that Daphne can barely dissect the words. “I was so sorry to hear about Cillian.”
“I was sorry to hear about your father as well,” Bairre replies.
Rufus nods his thanks before turning to Daphne. “And you must be the charming Princess Daphne we’ve heard so much about over the years,” he says, taking her proffered hand and kissing the back of it before releasing it and straightening up. “Might I present my sisters, Liana, Della, Zenia. And my brothers, Verne and Teddy,” he continues, nodding to each in turn.
“Theodore, now,” the youngest boy, Teddy, insists.
“Right,” Rufus says with a smirk. “Theodore. You lot remember Bairre—Prince Bairre. And this is his bride-to-be, Princess Daphne.”
The cluster of siblings bow their heads toward her and Bairre.
“Your Highnesses,” they murmur.
Daphne smiles in response. “Now then,” she says. “Shall we hunt?”
* * *
—
The bow feels good in Daphne’s hands. The second she lets her first arrow fly, hitting a fat pheasant midflight, she feels a strange peace settle over her. Everything else might be a muddled mess, but this she knows.
“Good shot, Princess,” Rufus says over his shoulder with an appraising smile.
“Daphne,” she tells him, reaching behind her to pull another arrow from the sling. “It’s only fair, Rufus.”
“Daphne it is,” Rufus says, turning toward Bairre. “Quite a markswoman, isn’t she?”
“Indeed,” Bairre replies, his eyes scanning the woods around them for any sign of movement. “Daphne is all kinds of deadly.”
The way he says it, Daphne isn’t sure whether he means it as a compliment or an insult. She decides to take it as a compliment.
“Do you hunt often, Rufus?” she asks. “I’ve heard the game up north is even more plentiful.”
She still isn’t sure of him, at least not in regard to whether he’s sympathetic to the rebels. His affection for Bairre seems genuine, but Daphne knows that it’s quite possible for a person to smile at you one moment and stab you in the back the next.
“Our deer grow to nearly twice the size of the ones here,” he tells her. “Though they’ve been scarce the last few months.”
“Hush,” Rufus’s middle sister, Della, says. She glares at them over her shoulder. “You’ll scare away the game.”
“She’s very serious, Della is,” Rufus says to Daphne, his voice a somber whisper. Still, his sister hears and shoots him another glare. “You have sisters as well, don’t you?” he asks Daphne.
“Yes, two,” Daphne says, keeping her voice quiet as she searches the woods for any hint of movement. The mention of her sisters feels like a knife in her chest, though she tries not to show it.
“Older or younger?” Rufus asks.
She glances at him, surprised. No one has ever asked her that question before, she realizes. Everyone has always known her, and her sisters, as a unit almost. “We’re triplets,” she tells him. “Though, technically, I’m the middle one. Beatriz is the oldest, Sophronia is the youngest, though only by a few minutes each.”
I need your help, Daph. The voice echoes in Daphne’s mind no matter how she tries to drown it out.
“You must miss them,” Rufus says, oblivious to her thoughts. “Though I admit, there are plenty of times I’d like to put a few hundred miles between me and my siblings.”
Liana is the only one of his siblings to hear this, and she fixes him with a glare.
“How are you finding being a new lord?” Daphne asks, changing the subject. If she doesn’t get the topic away from her sisters, she thinks she’ll go mad. She needs to focus on the task at hand and gather information for Cliona. “I’m sure it’s a lot of responsibility to have taken on so suddenly.”
Rufus winces. “It’s a position I was raised for, though I never thought it would be so soon,” he says, then pauses. “And it has been a difficult year, even before my father passed. Our crops didn’t produce their usual amount, and as I said, the population of deer and other game seems to have gone down. Our people are struggling.”