So! I'm sorry about last chapter! People seemed quite shocked by what happened to Mathilda. I must admit I was a bit shocked myself by what I made her go through. It is all for her growth, I promise. I hope this chapter makes things better. Thank you so much for your never-ending support!

Happy holidays and Happy New Year! :)

For you, I Have to Risk it All

Only two candles had been lit. She didn't think she'd be able to fall asleep in complete darkness. Or alone. She had felt wretched and cowardly for asking Alfred to stay, but it was the only way she'd manage to get some rest. Alfred sat beside her bed, slouching in the padded chair. His eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn't sleeping. A wave of affection for the brash young man filled her chest, making her forget for a few seconds her woes. She was so grateful of him, of his trust of her, of his constant confidence in her. Many men would have turned away from a disgraced sister, but not Alfred. Alfred was too noble for such a thing. He didn't shout at her or tell her she had asked for it by walking around the camp on her own. He never once acted as if her disgrace shamed him. No, instead he swore he'd stand by her no matter what happened. Dear Alfred, his sweet understanding made the whole ordeal just a tiny bit more bearable.

Of course, the emperor had to be told of what had happened. Dan had been the unlucky one with the mission of summoning him to Mathilda's tent. He had come with his dozen of bodyguards, but with one look at his daughter's face, had ordered his men to wait outside. Alfred and Dan had stood by her, silently siding with her against whatever the emperor would say. Mathilda had explained the situation calmly, with detachment. It had felt as if her body had acted of its own, and she had watched from somewhere near the roof of the tent. She had seen every ripple of expressions on her father's face. His political mask had barely slipped, but it had been enough for her to spot something akin to pity. She hadn't expected it. She had expected hate or anger or disappointment. But nothing like pity. It had been a surprise that her father could feel pity. That new emotion had nearly been her undoing. Her lips had trembled and her eyes had burned with unshed tears, but she had managed to finish her story without crying. She knew her skin had been livid, a stark contrast with the blooming bruises and red scratches. She had been disheveled and still dirty from trampling around in the mud.

In the end, the emperor hadn't been angry at her. He'd been furious at the men hurting her and swore to find them whatever the cost. Mathilda had been touched by his concern. That was, until he had decreed that the war camp was too dangerous for her. For one second, she had hoped it meant she'd be allowed to go home. To rest, to heal, to mourn. But no. Despite everything, he still had plans for her. And so, she was to leave the camp to move to Amsterdam with her future husband in three days. She'd been too tired and heartsick to even think of protesting.

Now, thinking back, Mathilda almost felt sorry for lying to her father. He had looked so distraught by the news. Well, to be honest, at the time she hadn't been lying. She'd been lied to first, and she was only repeating what she had believed to be the truth. After her father had left the tent to make preparations for her hasty departure, Michelle had admitted that she hadn't been fully honest in her report of the princess' injuries. Most of it had been true, except for the part mentioning the parsley tea. Mathilda hadn't been given any such tea because she hadn't needed it. After hearing the confession, Mathilda hadn't known how to react. A part of her had been so relieved that she had wanted to cry. The other part had been genuinely hurt at the lie. Michelle had explained that Alfred had wished for the lie to be told, so when Mathilda retold the incident to the emperor, she would appear genuine. He knew she had a hard time being dishonest, especially to their father who had a knack of learning the truth. Furthermore, Alfred had expected the emperor to cancel the wedding between Mathilda and the Dutch counsellor. Sadly, her father hadn't even considered cancelling it. He simply said that Mathilda certainly wouldn't be the first woman to go to her husband's bed not a virgin. The comment had stung a bit, but it hadn't been said unkindly.

And so, despite having gotten the worst beating of her life, Mathilda didn't feel so bad. Oh, everything hurt. Even blinking hurt, but it could have been much worse. She wasn't really angry at Alfred or Michelle for the lie. She understood it had been necessary. Maybe when she felt better, she'd have the necessary strength to be outraged. But in the grand scheme of things, it appeared that this beating was quite a blessing in disguise. She was being sent to Amsterdam, a city Alfred, Dan, and she had planned on reaching as soon as possible. Being sent first, Mathilda would have a chance to assess the situation of the newly appointed usurper king. Did he have many followers? What did the people think about him? What did the army think of him? What was his grasp on the treasury and the soldiers? Was Amsterdam really a safe haven for the English army? Would there be food enough for everybody for the long months of winter? Mathilda had to learn everything she could as subtly as possible. She wasn't sure how she felt about the whole thing. A small part of her she hadn't known existed was thrilled by the thought of doing something so tangible. She had been in the war, but she had never been part of the war. All she saw of it were the aftermath, when the soldiers with broken bodies were brought to her for salvaging. She had been content with it, until now. She wanted it all to end. She wanted to be a healer who gave herbs to women who wanted children and to men who had bad digestion. She no longer wanted to sew wounds shut and set bones and cut limbs. She no longer wanted to fear for her family. She wanted to be able to settle down and have children.

On the chair beside the bed, Alfred grunted in his sleep. He didn't look much comfortable, sleeping upright. Mathilda felt a bit bad for asking him to stay, but there was no way she'd feel safe without his presence close. She tugged the sheets and duvet up to her chin and rolled on her side, eyes wide open. She was tired, but the shock of the attack was keeping her awake. Her ribs hurt no matter what position she lay in. The mattress felt too hard, the pillow too soft. Her nightclothes kept tangling around her limbs. Her feet were cold. She didn't want to lie there, tossing and turning and feeling chocked up by all her pent up emotions. By God, she had never felt so restless and confused in all her life.

Finally, after another hour of staring angrily at the dark canvas over her head, Mathilda decided to get up. Rest was the thing she needed to heal, but rolling about in her bed was anything but restful. Being careful not to wake her brother up, she slipped on her boots and wrapped a thick cloak over her shoulders. Alfred didn't even twitch, probably too exhausted to even notice her moving about. It made her smile. There was a saying she had heard that soldiers were able of sleeping with their eyes open. Alfred had said it wasn't true, of course, but that it meant that soldiers were never truly deeply asleep. They learnt to keep their consciousness alert even in sleep. Mathilda didn't doubt it. If it meant soldiers were always ready for action, it also meant they rarely got any good rest however. Thankfully, despite the discomfort of the chair, Alfred seemed sound asleep. It would do him good to get a proper night of shuteye.

On her tiptoes, Mathilda left her tent. She had no intention of wandering about the camp. She wouldn't go as far as saying that she no longer felt safe here, but the memories of the attack were still too fresh for her to walk on her own at night. The rain had thankfully stopped for the moment, but promised to come back in a matter of time. The sky was dark with black clouds being pushed along by a strong wind. The air smelt of damp earth and rain and upcoming cold weather. Standing by the door of the tent, Mathilda took in a deep, satisfying breath, ignoring the pain in her ribs. In a matter of days, she'd have a real home, with real furniture and a real bed to sleep in. She wondered if she'd miss the easy life of the camp, where she was allowed to mostly do as she pleased. Probably. She hadn't really known the true constraints of living in a real city for years.

When she heard footsteps coming towards her, she said, "Klaas, please, it really is not a good time to be lurking around me."

It didn't take someone with a perfect night vision to recognize the towering figure walking in her direction. She had grown used to the sound of his footsteps. At first, before he got closer to the torch planted by the door of her tent, only the tiny glowing embers of his cigarette were visible. As soon as he stepped into the circle of reddish light, he narrowed his eyes at her.

"What the hell are you doing out here in the middle of the night? I thought your brother was supposed to watch over you."

Despite the tiredness and restlessness, Mathilda found a smile for the grumpy man. "I can't sleep. I thought a bit of fresh air would help calm me down."

Klaas frowned in disproval. "Fine, but you should have asked your brother to go with you. You, of all people, know this place isn't safe."

She sighed. "I doubt I would be attacked so close of my own tent. And anyway, one shout and Alfred will come rushing after me." She nodded to the left, where the vague dark shapes of other tents stood. "And my father placed more soldiers around." She looked up at him, eyebrows up. "Where were you, anyway? I thought you'd come back after my father left."

Fearing that the emperor might blame Mathilda's bodyguard for not keeping her safe, Klaas had been asked to leave the tent when her father came to talk to her. He hadn't looked very pleased to be kicked out in the rain, but he hadn't complained. And it was still dangerous for him to be around. Jakob Rijnder, the man who had usurped his throne, was still a guest of the emperor. He had come with a small retinue of servants and guards, and there was no certainty that one of them might not be walking the camp at any given time. It wouldn't do for Klaas to come face to face with someone who might recognize him.

"I was with your annoying, immature cousin." He ignored her insulted look. "We went back to the place where you've been attacked. We thought we might find some clues as to who did this. There wasn't much to be honest. Just some blood and torn cloth in the mud. The best way of finding the bastards is probably to have every man of this camp checked for a broken nose and broken teeth. Who knows, he might just turn up in the medical tent."

Mathilda crossed her arms over her aching ribs. "That would be too good to be true. Please, don't lose sleep over this, Klaas. I don't really mind if we don't find them."

Klaas looked shocked at that. "What?! You don't want them to be brought to justice?!"

"It's not that. I just don't want to be constantly reminded of the attack. And, honestly, what good would it do? It wouldn't stop my ribs from hurting."

The expression on the older man's face clearly showed that he didn't understand her reasoning. Mathilda tried to think of a better way to phrase her thoughts, without much success. It wasn't that she wasn't angry at what had happened. Anybody would be angry at having be so thoroughly terrified. She was angry at the men for shattering her ideas that, somehow, she was above pain and above fear. All her life, people had always made sure she wouldn't be scared or hurt. Her nannies, then her brother, then her fellow healers. They had been hurt and scared numerous of times, but always, they made sure that she was fine. She had never really noticed before, but after the happenstance of the evening, she realised that she had been living in a cocoon of protection. It was probably why she had always refused when Alfred or Dan had offered to teach her some self-defence, or why she had never considered taking a bodyguard with her. She was angry at the loss of her illusions. Or something like that. Shattering her bones had been the only way to shatter her small world of illusions. And the latter hurt far worse than the former.

But this wasn't the kind of thing she easily could explain to someone like Klaas. Klaas, or Alfred, or Dan, were hard men. Not cruel, not evil, but they had been hardened by the harshness of their lives. Some could even say they had grown jaded. They tended to expect the worst of everybody, and therefore, were never surprised. She hadn't understood their way of thinking before. And she wouldn't go as far as saying that she understood everything now. She refused to believe that every human being was, at his or her core, bad. There were still good people. But, as the saying went, it takes good people to wage wars. Doing what was needed to survive didn't make someone a bad person. Mathilda had realised, simply, that she had been like a real princess; sheltered, protected, weak. Somehow, it was what angered her the most. And she was almost ashamed of how she had looked down on others. She remembered how, on many occasions, she had looked down her nose on people who acted in certain ways in order to survive. Prostitutes amongst the camp followers, women choosing abortion rather than raising their children in poverty, men working many shifts rather than going home to nothing, soldiers taking to the bottle to forget the horrors witnessed in battle. In an absent-minded way, she had lorded over them all because she considered herself so straight, so noble. She now understood why Klaas had said that she was too weak to survive this war. He wasn't wrong. On her own, she would have reverted to compost years ago.

"You're weird," Klaas said with a frown. He was looking her up and down, as if she had somehow altered in appearance in the last hours. "You're different. Are you okay?"

"Truth be told, I feel better than I have in years."

The frown of puzzlement didn't ease. Then, bold as you please, Klaas reached out his hand and rested his palm on Mathilda's bandaged forehead. Her eyes widened and her face heated.

"You don't feel like you have a fever."

"I don't! As I said, I feel perfectly fine. I'm a healer. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"I've heard healers are the worst kind of patients. I wouldn't be surprised if you were in pain and didn't say anything about it."

"Of course I'm in pain," Mathilda muttered with an exasperated sigh. Why were her cheeks so warm all of a sudden? "It is bearable. I swear I'll live."

Klaas made a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat and buried his hands deep inside the pockets of his jacket. Grey ash fell from the tip of his cigarette to flutter away in the bracing wind. He was looking to the side, shoulders tensed as if he were expecting a blow. As if tired of it, he spat his cigarette to the mud and grounded his foot on it. Mathilda stared at the grumpy, throne-less king as the flames of the torch danced across his angular face. Her heart skipped a beat before starting on a faster tempo. It kept slamming against her aching ribs, but the pain was almost… sweet. She might have been a sheltered princess, but she had read enough romance novels and poems to know what that feeling growing inside her stomach meant. She hurriedly turned her head to the side, forcing her eyes to focus on the churned mud on the ground. But they were treacherous and they found their way back to Klaas. Klaas and she weren't standing terribly close. Nothing that was improper, of course; Mathilda knew what kind of distance to keep with men. They had stood closer before, close enough to feel body heat, but back then, there hadn't been that fluttering feeling inside her chest. She wasn't sure if her feet moved before she thought about what to do, or if she had made her mind up a while ago. She wasn't even certain if she were thinking at all.

With one outstretched hand, she pushed the torch over. The ground was so soft it offered no resistance. The wooden shaft fell soundlessly and the flames were extinguished in seconds. As soon as the closest light source had disappeared, Mathilda grabbed a fistful of Klaas' jacket, pulled him to her and pressed her lips against his. Awkward wasn't a strong enough word to describe the situation. He'd frozen up when she'd pushed the torch. And she had never kissed anybody before, so she wasn't sure how to place her lips or move her mouth. And he wasn't exactly leaning in, which forced her to raise herself to her tiptoes. And he wasn't responding.

Realising with a rush of horror what she was doing, Mathilda stepped back hurriedly. She was panting as if she had run a mile and her ribs screamed in agony. Her face must be as red as a tomato! God, she just wanted the ground to swallow her up whole. What madness had just seized her?! Tired of being good was one thing, but forcing a kiss on an unsuspecting man was another one completely.

"I am so very, very sorry!" Mathilda exclaimed in a hurry. "Please, forgive me! I have no idea why I did that!"

There wasn't much light to be had, so it was impossible to see Klaas' face. The sound of rustling clothes indicated that he was shifting a little. He exhaled loudly.

"That's fine. Better a surprise kiss than a surprise punch, I guess."

Mathilda wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the levity of his tone. Coming from someone usually so sarcastic and direct, she guessed such a comment meant he wasn't angry at her.

"Nonetheless, I apologize."

"Oh, stop it. No need to apologize for every impulse you have. It's probably the first time you've done something by impulse, anyway."

It stung. "No, it's not the first time. Saving you from that pile of bodies was an impulse too," she snapped.

"An impulse, or your need to feel good about saving someone?"

"You're an arse! I wonder why I bother with you! I hate you!"

"Then why did you kiss me?"

This time, the impulse was more to slap him rather than kiss him again. She couldn't tell in the dark, but she was certain he had a smug grin on his stupid face. She opened her mouth to reply, but there wasn't much she could say to that. So they remained silent for a few moments. Mathilda wanted to go back inside, but she felt as if she'd be losing ground if she did. Damn that pride of hers.

There was the squelching sound of boots in the mud, and suddenly, Mathilda felt that Klaas was standing much closer to her than before. She could feel his body heat despite their respective layers of clothes. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes widened. Despite the lack of proper light, he leaned so close over her that she could see his face almost perfectly. She took a step back out of surprise, but felt the canvas of her tent behind her shoulders. All the while, her heart beat an erratic tempo inside her chest and her breath had caught inside her throat. Her mouth felt dry and her face heated up again. Klaas leaned in further, so close that their noses were almost touching. He had one arm extended over her shoulder, the hand probably resting against the wooden frame that held the canvas of the tent up.

"When you're married to Jakob and you sleep with him in my bed, in my castle, will you be thinking of me? Is that me you'll picture in the dark with you so you won't feel too wretched to be married to such a spineless coward? Will you raise his children, wondering how our children would look like? Will you imagine it's me you're saying yes to in front of the altar? Will you wonder what kind of king I would have been if you had ruled beside me?"

Klaas had spoken in such a low voice that Mathilda had to strain to hear him over the pounding of the blood in her ears. Surely, she would wake up now. This had to be a dream brought on by the poppy juice she'd been given. There was no way she would have dared kiss Klaas, and there was no chance Klaas was the one saying such things to her. Yet the heat she felt throughout her whole body and the thrumming of her blood appeared real enough. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. She had to keep her fingers clasped tightly behind her back so she didn't reach out. Reach out for what, exactly? To push Klaas back, or to pull him in? Or simply to assess if he were really there and wasn't merely the result of her drugged mind? Her breath came out in a small gasp. If this were a dream, she wouldn't be feeling so awkward, wouldn't she? She'd be confident and brave and bold. And would Klaas be torturing her so, in a dream? But it felt real, and if it were real, it meant she had to do something. She couldn't simply stand there like a halfwit, gaping at the older man. So many things could go wrong from here. In her mind, she clearly saw the train wreck in waiting. However, maybe there was a small chance that things wouldn't go wrong. How many people kissed in the dark and went on with their life afterwards? It could later on be blamed on a spur of the moment, on the poppy juice, on the dark cold night, on almost anything.

Mathilda decided she wanted to bet on the possible good that might come of it. And so, closing off her mind so her thoughts would stop swirling, she unclasped her hands and rested them on Klaas' chest. She didn't rush to kiss him again. Despite the shyness and slight embarrassment, she didn't want to rush this. He had been right, the bastard. If, by a bad turn of fortune, she really had to marry Jakob, it would be of Klaas she'd be thinking of. There was no doubt in her mind about it. So she rested her hands on his chest, feeling the strength of the muscles and warmth seeping through his clothes into her chilled fingers. She didn't avert her eyes as would be proper. She stared at him, making sure to take note of his features so she could remember them. She knew he didn't love her. And even though it hurt a bit, she could read some kind of respect and admiration in his hazel eyes, and that was enough for the moment. Klaas was a man of the world, how could he be expected to fall for a sheltered little princess in a handful of days? Maybe Mathilda didn't really love him either. Maybe it was simply the allure of having a male friend outside of her family relatives. Maybe she was attracted to him because he was the complete opposite of her; strong and willful and direct. Or maybe she was infatuated because his presence here was dangerous and it was exciting to be doing something behind her father's back.

Whatever the reason, when she kissed him, he kissed back. His lips against hers were almost enough to stop her heart from beating. His gloved hands were in her tangled hair and his tongue down her throat and his body was so close to hers she could feel his heartbeat. She had no idea what to do with her own hands, so she went for his hair too, shoving her fingers into silky soft strands of light brown. His mouth went from her mouth to her cheek, to her bandaged forehead, to her neck, and when it brushed against her ear, she clearly heard when he asked if they should kick Alfred out of her tent. Mathilda wondered if she might faint simply because of the tone of his voice. It was only thanks to his hand on the small of her back that she didn't crumple to the ground. Her knees had turn to jelly. She nodded at his question, not even thinking about the consequences. She'd deal with them later. She was so tired of always thinking ahead. For once, she wanted to live in the moment. Maybe it would be her last chance to do so.

A/N: It is important for me to say that, being asexual, I've never really understood sexual attraction. I'm sorry if the way I pictured it is unrealistic.