Cedar receives fresh flowers and hot tea each morning from Ash, but their conversation is stilted, and neither tries to lighten the mood. They both struggle to make sense of the thoughts whirling in their minds, and the decisions that lie ahead.
After breakfast, she goes to check her traps and scout food sources while Ash works in the garden. They meet back at the house late in the afternoon for dinner.
Ash keeps his physical distance but does nothing to keep his imploring eyes to himself.
The evenings remain as they have been. There is solace there through the uncertain changes in their relationship. Ash reads aloud, and Cedar plays the cello.
She imagines what it would be like to live here with Ash indefinitely. She cannot believe it could be that easy. Couldthey live out their days here together, shutting out the world and all the trouble that surrounds them? It does not sit well with her to think of him giving up such a responsibility, but how could she stand publicly with him and resist the ordinances?
She knows that what keeps her from him goes by the name of fear.
Above all else, the fear that their happiness together could be stripped away in a single moment. It had happened once before, and she is still staggering from the loss of her parents. How could she have Ash, without risking the pain of such a devastating loss again?
She trips over a passage in the music. She pauses, waiting until the strings’ vibrations fade into silence. Ash’s voice fills the space, and she tries to remember what he is reading, but to no avail.
She plays the passage again and reflects on the wash of emotions it ignites. The composer of this song must have known happiness. Ash had read a biography to her about the life of this great man. She had been struck by how much he had suffered. Could he have made music that sounds so much like joy if he had not known it himself?
She plays the next measure of music. This passage is darker, and more troubled. She stumbles over it, but she hears the melody even if she cannot play it perfectly. The song continues in this way, plunging deeper into this quarry of sorrow, only to return to the joyous overtures with which it began. Joy and sorrow dance together through the entire song.
The dance tells her that happiness could be hers if she is willing to embrace the sorrow that comes alongside it. To have joy, she must make herself vulnerable to loss.
Music has answered her question. How had she never seen it before?
A smile breaks out across her face.
“Ash, I get it now.” She looks up from her reveries to find Ash asleep in his chair. She places her cello back in its corner. She picks up his blanket from the floor and drapes it around him. She presses a light kiss on his cheek.
“Tomorrow, Ash.” He stirs but does not wake, and she leaves him for her sleep.
CEDAR WAKES THE next day to see morning light casting rainbow colours on the wall. She has not slept so well in weeks. She smiles in anticipation for the day. A noise at the door captures her attention.
Ash stands there. He had never ventured into her room before, but then she had never slept with the door open until last night. He hesitates in the doorway. She sits up, bringing her blanket with her. She wraps it snugly about her chest but without her usual apprehension.
“Can I come in?” Ash asks, raising her steaming mug of tea with one hand, his mug in the other.
Cedar nods, and he is beside her in two long strides. He hands her the tea. She gestures for him to sit on the bed, and he does. He holds his mug without drinking, his gaze wandering to her bare shoulders, then back to her face.
“I didn’t take you for a naked sleeper.”
“I’ve never had my own room before. What did you think I wore to bed?” she says.
“I told myself I had no right to imagine,” he says. “Then I dreamt of a kiss.”
Cedar smiles and takes a sip from of her tea. She does not break away from his gaze.
“Tell me it wasn’t a dream, Cedar.”
The spell is broken by a demanding knock on the front door. Cedar spills her tea over the bedding as she jumps in surprise. Ash rises as she navigates her mug onto the floor beside her. He listens for a second knock, as though wishing the first had been his imagination. When it comes, he looks at her.
“Horrible timing,” he murmurs.
Her eyes sparkle, nerves soothed. They have been expecting this.
“I don’t suppose this will be quick. Come out when you’re ready?”
She nods, moving off the bed, wrapped in the blanket.
He watches her for a moment before closing the door behind him.
ASH OPENS THE front door of the cabin with all his princely assurance. That is not enough to keep his shock from showing when he sees a score of fully armed men standing in formation.
Ash knows the commander who stands on the other side of his door.
“Philip, hello. What’s all this?” Ash gestures toward the armed men.
“We have orders from your father to bring you home.” Philip meets Ash’s gaze, his face cold and severe.
“And you need a small army for the task?” Ash leans against the doorjamb and crosses his arms. He hears Cedar walk up behind him. She stands beside him like a princess in full self-possession. Ash is more annoyed than ever at the interruption.
“Your father is familiar with your stubbornness, and my orders are to bring you home. Alive enough to be nursed back to health is the sole condition.”
Ash does not adjust his stance against the door. He makes a quick mental inventory of the weapons each soldier would carry. He stands no chance of resisting, even were he not concerned about Cedar being caught in the crossfire. He is weaponless, and while he held up well in training, he is no superhuman. He considers his other options.
“You could maim me for life. That will not rest well with my father,” Ash says.
Philip’s cold eyes wander to where Cedar stands beside him.
“He will have no such qualms about the collateral damage of bystanders.”
Ash stiffens. “When did our army begin considering innocent citizens collateral damage?”
Ash feels Cedar brush against him as she moves closer. He wants to scoop her into his arms and carry her into the forest, somewhere even more isolated than he had hoped this cabin would be.
“Don’t do this for me, Ash,” Cedar says.
Ash scans the men before him, and his heart sinks when he finds the two he is dreading. He is not sure he can keep Cedar safe if she comes with him, but he also cannot risk leaving her behind. He can tell that at this moment, Cedar is afraid for him, not for herself. She does not know her danger.
“You would treat your prince in this manner with no thought to the consequences?”
“I fear my present ruler more than my future ruler,” Philip replies.
Ash freezes, digesting the meaning behind Philip’s words. “Your future…” Ash begins, but before he can say anything else, Philip’s shin connects with Ash’s upper right side and Ash collapses to the ground. He can see Philip make his move but is in too much pain to warn her. He reaches out an arm in a desperate attempt to stop him, but Philip steps out of his reach. The man takes out a gun and holds it against Cedar’s temple.
CEDAR RESISTS, BUT the man pulls her easily back. He moves several steps away from Ash.
“Do exactly as I say or I will put a bullet in her,” he says.
Ash rises slowly to his feet, never breaking eye contact with her. She thinks if he looks away, she might fall apart.
“I’m not going to do anything,” Ash says.
“Put your hands behind you.” Philip motions to one of the soldiers. “Cuff him.”
The soldier climbs the porch steps and pulls Ash’s hands together, clicking on a pair of cuffs.
“This is extreme Philip, even for you,” Ash says. Cedar stands taller under Ash’s steady gaze, restrained though she is by Philip’s arm.
“I have orders to retrieve you by whatever force necessary.”
“My father’s orders?” Ash asks.
Philip grunts. “King Marcus is aware of what he can expect from you. King Orion’s orders are to make it clear that you have no power to derail the current trajectory.”
“Where is my brother?”
“First things first. You will go with my men to the boats. Once you are secure, they will radio me. I will leave the girl here, unharmed.”
Cedar’s legs begin to tremble.
“What reason do I have to trust you?” Ash says.
The man releases some of the pressure of the gun against her head. “I follow my orders. If you do your part to see that those orders are followed, I have no reason to harm the girl.”
Does he believe the man? They seem to know one another, though liking is another thing entirely. Cedar watches Ash scan the formation of men on the grass.
“Slate stays, to see to her well-being,” Ash says, looking back at her with a reassuring nod.
Philip grunts. “Only until we are ready to leave. Slate, you heard the prince.”
“Yes sir.” A man steps out from the formation and joins the growing party on the porch. His hair is grey, but he holds himself as upright as any of the others. He looks at her with kind warmth.
“Once we’ve left, any soldier caught even trying to leave our party suffers the full punishment of desertion,” Ash continues.
There is an exasperated sigh from Philip behind her.
“Anything else, your Highness?” Philip asks.
“One final thing.” Ash raises his voice. “If any harm comes to her, I will not rest until I am shoveling the dirt over your mangled body.” He is not looking at Philip, but at the men who stand on the grass. Cedar does not dare to turn her head to look at the men herself. Ash may not believe Philip will pull the trigger, but she cannot claim the same assurance as she feels the weapon bump up against her temple.
Ash leans towards Slate and says something she manages to hear. “Who do you trust?”
Slate whispers a name. With one final glance at her, Ash walks down the steps. Philip turns Cedar so they can both watch as the men part, giving way to their prince as he walks between them. When he passes by the last of the men he turns, and with bound hands says, “Finch, you have the rear guard. No one breaks rank. To the boats, men.”
A young man moves with military precision from his place in the column to outside of the ranks where he can see every man. He holds a rifle in his arms. The soldier on the porch who had handcuffed Ash climbs down the porch steps and joins the formation.
With that, Ash marches away, leading the men to the river. Cedar’s heart sinks as she watches him leave.
“Insolent boy,” Philip growls, holstering his weapon. Without a glance at Cedar, he tosses something at Slate before he strides down the step. “Stay with the girl until I radio you.”
Slate walks over to her, and rests a hand on her shoulder. “He’s a calculating man, but only cruel if it is the only way to see his orders through to the end.”
“Will Ash be okay?” Cedar asks.
“Philip means him no ill will, at least not that he will pursue without orders. Many of the others trained with Ash years ago. There’s a brotherhood in army life.” He hesitates before adding, “But his struggles won’t end once he is home.”
Cedar knows he is right.
“If I could stay to protect you, I would. You will be safer here than in our midst, but a prince’s…” He hesitates, “Some of the men will want you for no other reason than that you belong to Ash.”
She does not correct him. They both stand looking at the edge of the clearing where the party had disappeared into the forest until the radio clipped to Slate’s waist crackles. He speaks a quick response into the device before turning to face Cedar.
“Listen. Some of the men are animals. Or have become animals in the course of carrying out their orders. Keep yourself armed and do not sleep in the cabin. As soon as I can arrange it, someone will come to escort you to safety. Listen for a blue jay’s mating call.”
They share no further words, and she watches him leave.
CEDAR STANDS ON the porch until she sees a deer walk into the clearing. She realizes how long she has stood there and moves quickly to make up for lost time. The deer lopes for the tree cover. As the reality that she can do nothing for Ash hits her, she becomes feverish with the need to do things she has some modicum of control over.
She thinks of the books first, because she knows Ash loves them. She brings the two pots to the bookshelves. Her hands shake as she runs her fingers along the spines of the books. She pulls out the ones he has read aloud, and others she has seen him reading.
She hauls the heavy pots into the forest before she remembers the stone. She runs to the cabin and retrieves it from her drawer. She carries the pots deeper into the forest, moving one pot at a time until they are both near the tree where she and Ash had hung a bird feeder they had built together in the workshop one cold winter day. She returns for the shovel, then digs a hole in the moisture-laden soil. She nestles the stone in among the books, sealing the lid overtop.
She will need a way to mark the spot. She transplants a young tree sapling on top of the freshly dug earth. She takes some stones and places them about the sapling.
Back at the cabin, she takes some books down to the cellar, wrapped in old clothing, and tucks them behind jars and in dark corners. She tucks books away in drawers, under the bed, and among tools and wood in the workshop.
She carries the canoe to the river. She stashes Ash’s handmade paddle in the boat and paddles a few miles downstream. The use of old familiar muscles makes her ache with homesickness. She cannot think about that now.
She carries the boat into the forest. She hides the boat and paddles in the brush.
It is growing dark by the time she returns to the cabin clearing. Her legs are scratched from her walk through the brush, and the adrenaline of the day has left her fatigued.
She goes into the cabin to look at the cello, still sitting up against the wall in the living room. She is at a loss as to where she could hide it out of sight and safe from the elements. Finally, she takes it to the workshop and arranges it on the top shelves. She piles wood in front of the instrument.
She pulls wood from the other shelves, and out from under the large center worktable. She piles the wood around the perimeter of the table legs. There remains an opening in the center, under the table. She hammers nails in to hold the precariously balanced, narrow stacks in place. She brings blankets, food, and a knife from the house into her cramped hideout. She pulls a small sheet of plywood across the hideout opening, sealing herself in darkness.
Her thoughts are erratic, and she doubts the effectiveness of what she has done.
Exhausted, she pulls a blanket around herself and sleeps.