Madeline watched as Mynera disappeared behind the cover of the trees. She sat up fully.

"Can't sleep, Your Grace?"

At the very sound of the voice, she stiffened. The cold breeze wafted past her neck, cooling the nape as her thick blond hair fell over one shoulder. She closed her eyes and instantly took a deep breath, as if breathing normally would erase that voice – and him – out of her head and out of her life. Sadly, life never turned out the way she wanted it.

She heard someone shift behind her and that breath she had warming her lungs rushed out with a soft whoosh. She could hear him, coming closer. Madeline stared out into the thickness of the trees even as she felt his smirk weighing on her back before she turned and shot him the deadliest glare she could conjure.

"Leave me be," she hissed. Her voice was a harsh whisper, designed to make him back off. Instead, it seemed to beckon to him and his smirk grew.

"I could sing you to sleep if you'd like."

She'd be damned if she ever gave him the time of day again. Everyday, for weeks riding together on the same damned horse, they've been bickering. Her with her annoyed lashes and him with his noncommittal drawls. She was fed up with this dirty, lying, murderous loot! She hated his dirty, stringy hair. She was tired of his amused blue eyes. She could not stand the way his teeth winked at her whenever he smiled. And to make the iceberg of hatred even bigger, she couldn't bear the thought of him traveling with them for who knew long. She didn't know him, she didn't like him and she didn't trust him. Mynera was a fool for ever thinking he would be of used to them. All he knew how to do was get on Madeline's last nerves.

"Thinking about it, Your Grace?" his voice broke back in.

Madeling felt herself stiffen, but then she bit her lip, easing her anger out with another release of breath. "I don't even want to hear you talk, much less sing to me."

"I beg to differ, Your Grace." Her head whipped around to face him. Under the pale moonlight, he saw a frown mar her features. With a grin, he continued, "If you indeed didn't want me to talk to you, you wouldn't answered me. No, instead you would just ignore me until I gave up and stopped trying to talk to you altogether. I think you secretly, deep down, love hearing my voice."

Madeline felt her cheeks get hot in the face of his knowing grin. She opened her mouth to speak, readying to forget all her manners, everything she had been taught to put this rogue in his place but he raised a finger, cutting her off. His eyebrows raised into the air as he pointed down on a sleeping Hale. "Don't want to wake him," he whispered, that devilish glint in his eyes sparkling at her.

How dare he speak to her like that? She was his queen! He should have more respect, more honour, more sense to know what would happen when she was back in her castle and her son was on the throne. Despite all the layers of grime and awfulness on him, Madeline knew he had some sense lingering underneath all that. Yet, he insists on pestering her this way.

All that and more sprung to the tip of her tongue, ready to be let loose but she held it back. Instead, she got to her feet and made for the treeline.

Her anger and hatred lingered long after she left the two behind. It lingered well after she was among the comforting sound of crickets and the nice feeling of the night's breeze on her face. She stopped her frantic walk and just stood there. Madeline looked down at herself. She took in the dusty clothing, the drab colours and was hit – once again – by the fact that this was who she was now. A fugitive. A fugitive on the run with a son who barely said two words to her unless it was necessary, a girl who she was beginning to believe was stronger than herself, a man who was constantly trying to make everyone feel better in the midst of this terrible situation, and a rogue who she believed was hell bent driving her mad.

As the woman she used to be, she would have cried. No doubt, she would have broken down and sobbed out all her sorrows, screaming injustices into the air. That woman probably wouldn't have made it this far.

It was a good thing that woman was no more.

The woman that stood here in the commoner's traveling clothes, hiding away was a woman who knew how to get back up again when she was hit down. Madeline didn't get where she was, sitting beside the king, by crying and acting weak. She dug her way to the top and she would be damned if just one man took that away from her.

Something cracked behind her. Madeline stiffened but didn't turn. Whoever it was came closer, a shadow over hers.

"You okay, Your Grace?"

"I thought I asked you to leave me alone."

Barron stepped forward. He came to stand beside her, looking at her face while she continued to stare dead ahead, before he leaned up on a tree and folded his arms. "You don't look okay," he commented.

A retort was fast to reach her lips but suddenly she felt tired. Too tired to even try keeping this up. She released a silent sigh and sank to the ground. As a queen, she would have never sat on the dirty ground but months out here broke her into some new habits. Sitting anywhere was one of them.

"I'm not sure if I am," she said after a while.

Barron was silent for a moment. "High and mighty Queen Madeline feeling unsure?"

Madeline shot him a short lived glare. "I'm still human. Just because I'm the queen doesn't mean I'm supposed know everything all the time."

"Never said you should." The comment was meant to get a rise out of her, she knew, but she really couldn't be bothered. The kind of tired wasn't a physical one but she was tired in every other aspect: mentally, emotionally, psychologically.

Barron must have realized this because he came to sit beside her. "Damn," he whispered.

"Language."

"You can cry, you know." He looked at her as she looked at him. Blue eyes met blue eyes. "You can cry, let it all out."

"I don't cry."

"No one would blame you. We know how hard this is."

"Oh, you know how hard this is? Says one of the men who helped slaughter innocent people and kill my husband?"

Barron sighed and looked away. "I've done some pretty horrible things, I know."

"Horrible is one word for it."

"But, I had my reasons."

"What reason could you possibly give for what you and your friends and Lord Gavin did?" Madeline sounded incredulous.

"I've got people to take care of." Madeline blinked at his confession but his eyes were looking ahead, a little lost. "My mother was a good woman, taught me how to speak properly, taught me manners and all that. I even played with the son of a lord once. It was good then."

Madeline did not expect this. She'd been ready to let loose all her complaints on him but this turn was not one she was ready for. Madeline found herself leaning closer nonetheless. "What happened?"

"What happened?" He laughed humorlessly. "You're probably expecting a big story, huh?" He looked at her then, then laughed – with real merriment this time – when she stared back at him wide eyed and interested. "It was nothing like that. There was no gruesome killing or anything. She got sick. That's it. Sick enough to kill her and leave me and my six siblings on our own."

"Oh my."

"I joined the mercenary guild because I needed a way to care for them. I wasn't even the eldest but I had to step up."

"Couldn't you have done something less illegal?"

"Something less illegal wouldn't be enough to provide for all of us." He faced her then. "So now you know. I don't do this by choice. I do what I'm told, get my money and be on my way."

Madeline turned away from his heated stare. She didn't want to think of his situation anymore. It was too sad, it was making her hatred fade away and she didn't want to let go of that hatred.

They stayed like that for a while, sitting on the ground, surrounded by nothing but trees, Barron staring at her while Madeline got lost in her own thoughts.

Suddenly, he turned away. "What about you?"

She almost jolted. "What about me?"

"What made the queen stop crying?"

"You think I have a story?"

"I know you have a story."

"You're right." She sensed him perking up but she didn't look at him. If he could talk about his past, then so could she. "I'm not all I seem."

"Figured that."

"I'm not a pure bred noble."

"Damn."

"Language."

"Sorry, Your Grace. What do you mean you're not a pure bred noble?"

"It means I wasn't born rich and influential. I was born in Colossio –"

"Funny. So was I."

"Funny," she agreed sarcastically. "May I?"

Barron raised his hands, indicating that she go ahead.

"I was born in Colossio. My mother was a baker's maid and my father was a blacksmith. I was poor and I hated it. With everything in me, I hated seeing my parents work all day, even nights, and watching them come home tired with only a few coins to hold us over. It made me mad and sick all at the same time and I vowed that I wouldn't live that life. Luckily for me, I was a pretty girl."

"That's an understatement."

For some reason, that made her laugh. "The girls in my town were always jealous of me because of it. One day, when I was seventeen, I was in the town's bakery sweeping because my mother was ill and needed someone to take over for her. A man walked in, a really handsome man, He was so young and had such a nice smile and –"

"Moving on, Your Grace," Barron said impatiently with a roll of his eyes.

Madeline couldn't help the small smile. She didn't feel like reprimanding him for speaking to her that way anymore. "Okay, moving on. He saw me and complimented me on my beauty. Then he said he had position open in his manor as his daughter's handmaid."

"Bet you were disappointed."

"I was," she admitted with a nod. "But the opportunity to was too much to pass up. So I took it. I left my parents behind, and went all the way to Cyrello. Spent four years there, befriending the daughter, learning the ways of court. Sometimes, she would even allow me to come with her to balls. And then, one day, she took me to a ball held at the king's castle and the king noticed me."

A shadow of a smile appeared on her lips. "I was twenty one then, way past the age of marriage. I was stuck being a handmaid, despite my face and figure. I thought no one would want me, let alone the king. But when he saw me, he instantly declared his intentions to court me. Two weeks later, he was asking me to be his wife."

"The best part of it all was that I almost broke my fingers trying to climb that high. I was constantly picked on because of jealousy, I was being put down whenever I tried stepping past my line as a handmaid. I realized that being nice wasn't going to get me anywhere. I had to be ruthless and cunning. I guess that's when all my tears dried up."

"That's too bad."

That she did not expect to hear. Her head whipped around to him. "What?"

"I would have like to see if you would get ugly when you cry." He looked at her and grinned. "Somehow I doubt it."

Madeline couldn't smile. Her eyes were too busy widened, her thoughts was too busy tripping over themselves, and her cheeks were too busy getting unbearably hot. She quickly looked away. "I don't believe it," she whispered.

"Don't believe what, Your Grace?"

"That I could ever stop hating you."

"You don't hate me anymore, Your Grace?"

"I don't think so."

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't hate you either."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

Barron's smile widened. Madeline looked at him, a frown slowly appearing. "What is happening?"

"What do you mean?" Barron asked.

"I mean, my heart. It's speeding up. Is this safe?"

His chuckle escaped into the open air and his eyes sparkled. "I think you have a common illness, Your Grace."

"What?"

"I heard it was going around. Tell me, do you have sweaty palms?"

She looked down at her hands, feeling panic creep up on her. "I think so ..."

"Does your stomach feel tingly?"

"Oh my, yes!"

"You've got it then." He laughed louder this time.

Madeline's frown deepened. For the life of her, she couldn't understand what was happening to her. "Why are you laughing then? Your queen may be fatally ill and you laugh?"

"Don't worry about it, Your Grace," Barron snickered. "I already have the cure."

"Then what are you waiting for? Give it to me right this instant or else I'll –"

A pair of lips blocked off the rest of her words. She could feel hair on her forehead, she could feel someone's cheek touching hers, and she could most definitely feel a hand pressing lightly on the back of her head. But she couldn't imagine why. Her eyes stayed open, frozen wide with shock.

Barron is kissing you, her mind told her. Barron the mercenary was kissing her. Barron whose last name she didn't even know. The Barron who has been the bane of her existence since the moment they've met. That same Barron was kissing her, his lips melding so perfectly with hers it was as if they were made to fit.

She didn't know how long it lasted, but it felt like hours before he pulled away. Her eyes sought his, saw the humour under the surface.

"There," he said. "All cured." He looked up at the sky, probably looking between the leaves of the trees around them. Madeline didn't know, her eyes never left his face. "I think we should head back before anyone notices that we're gone. Come on."

Barron leaned over and kissed her cheek. Then he sent her a cheeky grin and got up, disappearing from her sight. Her eyes followed him all the way.