THIRD POV:
In the camp, the atmosphere was a pressurized chamber. Lord Kaldric stood by the main fire, his eyes fixed on the dark treeline.
He had told himself he didn't care. He had told himself that if she was foolish enough to wander off, the forest could have her. Yet he sat, his eyes locked on the slightest sound that arrived, hoping it was her.
But as the minutes stretched into an hour, a different kind of darkness settled in his gut. It was a cold, sharp distress he hadn't authorized.
"Still no sign of her?" Sir Aldwin asked, his voice uncharacteristically grim, worried for her.
"That woman had sworn to exasperate me to an intolerable point." He let out a long, infuriated sigh before rising from his seat.
"What you call an exasperation is your bride, your responsibility." Sir Aldwin corrected him.
Lord Kaldric didn't answer. He simply grabbed his claymore and marched into the rain. He didn't take a torch; he didn't need one.
He moved through the woods unfamiliarly. He was hasty, abrupt, overflowing with dismay, his silver eyes cutting through the gloom.
The horse was also not used to its master's unforeseen movements either. He was wandering off and heard rapid footsteps reaching him.
He caught a flash of blue wool and felt a surge of fury so potent it nearly choked him. He stepped into the clearing, ready to roar a command, to shake her for her incompetence.
"Ardelle!"
She bolted from the shadows.
"My- My Lord?"
"What are you doing here, woman? Do you not know the Bandits are lingering. How could you–"
A sense of relief washed over her along with shock that off all people, he was there with a distress gaze.
Before he could utter a single insult properly, she collided with him.
Her arms wrapped around him, her small frame shaking violently against his wet armor. She buried her face in the gap of his gorget, sobbing into his skin.
"Take me away, My Lord." she begged, her voice was a fretful whisper.
"Please, My Lord. We have to go. We have to leave this place right now."
Lord Kaldric froze. His hands, usually so ready to push her away, hovered in the air for a confused second before one landed heavily on her back. He could feel the terror vibrating through her.
"What is this theater?" he rasped, his brow furrowed. "The bandits are near, Woman. I am not taking you anywhere but back to the safety of the perimeter either."
"Please do," she cried, pulling back just enough to look at him, her eyes wide and pleading. "The woods are frightening, My Lord."
Lord Kaldric's expression shifted. He looked past her into the darkness where she came from and saw the wet signs of a distinctive pair of boots.
He understood now. She wasn't afraid for herself, but him.
"You're trembling," he muttered.
He didn't ask for more details. He saw the sincerity in her panic and the way she clutched him, a vacuous attempt to conceal his silhouette from the bandits not too far.
Without a word, he swept her up with one hand, hoisting her against his chest as if she weighed nothing at all.
"We are going back,"
He turned and strode through the rain, carrying her toward the camp.
Lord Kaldric didn't set her down until they were deep within the safety of his private pavilion.
The interior was lit by a single, flickering lantern, casting a warm glow that contrasted sharply with the cold violence of the forest.
"Now." He placed her down, "Tell me."
"They- they–" Ardelle spilled the words out in a frightened rush, her teeth chattering so hard they clicked.
She told him of the men, about their camp, the connection between the coup and the bandits, and the terrifying truth: they knew he was injured.
"They were waiting for the Obsidian Pillars to crumble… I didn't want you to find them alone. Their camp was in the opposite direction." she whispered, clutching her damp arms.
"I saw at least twenty of them."
Lord Kaldric stood motionless, the water dripping from his hair and soaking into the rugs. He processed the tactical information with the cold precision of a general, but his eyes remained fixed on her.
Muddy, shaking violently, rubbing herself but all her cold was non-existent for her. She was only worried for his well being.
"Enough," he commanded, hand mid-air.
"The scouts will verify the location. You... you need to get out of those sodden rags before the fever takes you."
Ardelle looked outside, the rain, he couldn't- won't go elsewhere, then back at him, a deep flush warming her pale face.
"My Lord... I... I cannot. Not while you are here."
Kaldric let out a low, huffing sound that might have been a laugh in a kinder man.
"I have seen every inch of your body, Ardelle. I have tied the laces of your bodice myself. Do you truly think a glimpse of your body will bulge the resolve of a man like me?"
He turned his back to her, stepping toward the small table where his sharpening stone and oil lay.
"Change. That is an order. I have a sword to tend to before I deal with the vermin outside."
Embarrassed but shivering too violently to argue, Ardelle retreated. She began the clumsy process of peeling off the wet wool and saw another black dress in the trunk.
"Oh? When did we get this one…?"
"The demon from Aldwin's dream got it…." 'himself.' was silent as he muttered
"Oh, I see. What a considerate demon."
Kaldric sat on a low stool, unsheathing his claymore. The steel was dull from the rain and the blood of the previous day.
He took up the whetstone, the shhh-shhh of the stone against the edge, the only sound in the tent.
But as he tilted the massive blade upward to inspect the bevel, the polished surface caught the light, and a perfect, moving reflection.
Through the silver mirror of his weapon, he saw her.
He saw the curve of her shoulder as she shed the heavy blue dress. Her small back in his view, compelling a buried portion of his soul to cascade the gaze to her hips, her slender legs.
He saw the divine skin drying his throat, inducing an unexplainable vexation that glitched him. He watched, his attention shifted to her.
How smoothly he held the ownership to stare, to touch at what every man who laid his eyes upon her only imagined about.
She was a vision of fragile, unsuspecting beauty, completely unaware that the man who claimed to be made of stone was watching her every movement through the very instrument he used for death.
Lord Kaldric's hand faltered. The whetstone went still. His breath caught in his throat, his silver eyes darkening as he watched the reflection of the woman he had called a 'burden.'
A moment later, the rustle of dry fabric signaled she was finished. Lord Kaldric snapped his gaze back to the blade in his hand, his jaw tightening as he applied a frantic, unnecessary pressure to the stone.
She had no idea the knight had just observed her, again. Every. Exposed. Part.
"I am ready, My Lord," she whispered.
Lord Kaldric stood, sheathing the sword with a sharp, final clack. He didn't look at her directly, his face returning to its frontage of cold command.
He walked to the tent flap, pausing only when his hand was on the heavy canvas.
"If your information is correct, the ambush begins within the hour,"
He turned his head just enough to see her out of the corner of his eye.
"You will stay at the center of the camp, by the main fire. Within my line of sight."
He paused, a rare, heavy hesitation hanging in the air.
"And be... careful." His words were so faint that they didn't even reach her.
"Did you say something, My Lady?"
"I said don't get caught this time and increase my burden, woman." He hissed.
He vanished into the rain, leaving Ardelle alone with the realization that for the first time, he hadn't told her to hide.
He had told her to stay where he could see her, and she had no idea why.