The day began with threatening clouds low in the sky, the rumble of rain not too far in the distance. The camp was packed up at a record speed, with each and every individual eager to get moving. Their nights of sleeping rough were nearly over; they were within a day's journey to Lady Kanata's manor, a stronghold where they had summoned envoys of the Order of the First Saint for a parlay. Not at the manor proper, of course. But it was close enough to the assigned location that it made for an ideal base.

Back on the road, Rey found herself riding with Finn, enjoying a companionable silence. His steady presence was a relaxing and easy counterpart when it came to the rather... Intense presence of her husband, and she found herself appreciating the change of pace.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, they passed another small hamlet in the distance, little columns of smoke rising into the sky from the cluster of cottages.

"Finn," she asked, staring at the thatched roofs and fields that rolled out beyond the homesteads, encouraging evidence of livelihood and prosperity. The land was rich and fertile in these parts. "What is the normal punishment for poaching?"

He gave her a bit of an odd look. "Branding, sometimes. A fine, if the Lord is feeling lenient. But after the first time, almost always execution."

"Does that not seem harsh?"

"Of course. But poaching almost always occurs on land owned by the nobility, and they aren't generally known for mercy, Your Grace." His mouth twisted a little as he spoke. She only knew a little bit about Finn's background, but she knew enough to be aware that he wasn't from landed nobility.

"If…" she tightened her grip on the reigns and moved her gaze to the road ahead. "If it was a third offence, is chopping off a hand a merciful response?"

"Comparatively," he replied, head tilted curiously. Having stayed out with the men to keep an eye on things when they passed through the last village, he hadn't seen the incident with the poacher- and clearly, no one had told him about it. "If it can ever be considered merciful, it would probably be then. At least this way he might still be able to make some use of himself and feed his family."

Rey thinned her lips.

"Is there something on your mind, your Grace?"

Sighing, she shook her head, unwilling to talk about it. Once again, she had overreacted- perhaps a bit too harshly, and she didn't necessarily feel like sharing her mistake with anyone yet. Or ever. Jumping to conclusions was beginning to look like an ugly habit, and she wasn't sure that she liked it in herself.

With a shrug, he dropped the subject, and they rode along for the rest of the afternoon in a pleasant silence.

When they reached the last river crossing, they were greeted by the sad remains of a destroyed wooden footbridge.

It wasn't entirely surprising. Rains in the area had been only too evident from the muck underfoot. Rey's dappled horse was beginning to almost look as dark as Ren's, the spattered mud reaching as far as her knees.

Still, it was an incredible inconvenience. The river was swollen from the rains and it was clearly too high and choppy to try and ford. Even if the horses could possibly manage, there was no way that the carts could. Partly for convenience and partly for safety, Rey was unwilling to divide the party.

A map was dug out of a pack somewhere and after some quick consulting, it was agreed that they would proceed to the indicated bridge five miles north. It meant that they would have to camp again, the general mood turning sour as everyone's hopes for a proper meal under a dry roof were dashed. The mud only grew worse as they went upriver, to the point where most of the riders had to dismount to try and prevent the horses from slipping and falling with the added weight on their backs. Tired and worn out, when they finally reached a clearing, there was a painful lull while everyone struggled to set up the tents and cooking fires on the damp grass.

Finally in her tent, Rey stripped efficiently out of her damp clothes, accepting Jessika's help in wiping down her exposed skin and rubbing the flecks of mud off of her face. She couldn't even wait until Ren came in, sighing with relief as she slipped into a dry and clean shift, collapsing into bed and falling straight asleep.

In the darkest hour of the night, Rey opened her eyes.

For a moment, she was disoriented, unable to see and with no knowledge of why she had awoken. Rubbing her palm against her eyelids, she propped herself up slightly, blinking to adjust to the lack of light.

In the shadows over the bed, she saw a glint of metal.

Her scream froze in her lungs, and there was suddenly a hand over her mouth and nose, smothering her cry. Fear stripped her senses, the world narrowing down to the point of what was surely a knife, every inch of her gripped in the immediate fear that she was going to die. When everything had barely begun, it was going to be over, and her legacy would be that of a foolish girl who tried to take on the leadership of a country. Thrashing, she tried to move, but she was paralyzed by fear and the assailant was too heavy-

In a scuffle of movement, the hand was ripped away from her face, and she sucked in a ragged gasp of air. Her first scream came out as a whimper, dulled by panic and a rasping throat, but the second tore out of her like the cry of a wounded animal.

In moments, Finn burst into the tent, lamp in one hand and crossbow aimed high in the other. With the introduction of light, Rey could see why she was still alive: Ren was holding a man aloft by the throat, her assailant's feet dangling a foot off the ground.

As she watched, the assassin withered as the apple tree had under his hand, twitching and growing more hollow and pale until he took a shuddering breath and stilled, mouth falling open with convulsing finality. Rey had been so focused on watching the gruesome death that she only moved her eyes to her husband now- to find a feral snarl, teeth bared, blood slipping across his face from a cut that traced from brow to chin, between his eyes and over his nose. She cast a panicked glance at Finn to find that he was apparently as stunned as she was, gaping with his crossbow still vaguely pointing into the middle of the tent.

"Husband," Rey said hesitantly, sliding towards the side of the bed and reaching a hand out, uncertain if he could be touched as he was. "Kylo-"

At the sound of his name the body fell from his hand, crumpling on the ground. When he turned, the light illuminated what the dark had hidden: the hilt of a blade buried in his chest, a terrible red bloom gradually growing against his nightshirt.

Finn regained his composure first. "A physician!" he shouted, leaning out of the flaps of the tent. "Call for the physician! Now!"

Rey knew without question that it was too late for that. She had cared for enough travelling pilgrims and dying poor to know that no physician had the skill to reverse a wound so great; no medicinal knowledge on earth could heal that. It simply wasn't possible.

But something else might be able to.

This was something that she had never actually tried. She had soothed some fevered brows with a little push from her gift, but that was staggeringly different in scale from trying to reverse a knife wound. But her gift was stronger as of late than she had ever felt, and she had to try. She couldn't lose him. She couldn't.

"Leave us," she said sharply to Finn, scrabbling off the bed and hoping the raging fear was absent from her voice.

He hesitated, confused. "Your Grace-"

She yelled it this time. "Leave us!"

As he quickly drew out of the tent, barking at the other guards to back away, she turned her attention back to Ren. He was fading quickly; even if she could barely see it, she could sense it, the way that his life was ebbing away with each passing second. Dropping to her knees, she gripped the hilt of the blade between her hands, yanking it out of his skin with a grotesque slick and crunching sound. He yelled out in pain as the knife pulled away, but the sound slid into a groan as she tossed it aside and pressed her hands to the wound.

"No no no," she muttered, desperately, feeling the blood bubble and slip between her fingers, sticky and pulsing. "No, you stubborn bastard, no-"

He made a rasping sound and raised a bloody palm to her cheek. "Are you-" He took a rattling breath. "Are you hurt?"

His question made so little sense that she almost didn't understand it. "I- what? No!"

To her disbelief, he made something that could only be a feeble relieved noise before he let his head and arm fall to the ground.

Why- why in God's name would that be his concern in this moment-

She couldn't think about it now. It was hard to concentrate when the fear was so overwhelming, but his words echoed in her head. Just let it happen. Kicking a bit of the carpet aside, she anchored her toes in the damp grass, letting her gift ripple out. There was so much life around them- in the forest, in the people, in the rush of the air. She only needed to harness it.

Just let it happen.

Gritting her teeth, she silently prayed for guidance, willing the strength to pull up through her feet and into her arms. The terror and panic made it difficult to centre herself, but she had never needed to focus more.

Her gift was sluggish, reaching her in oozing waves rather than the sharp and clear rush that she normally felt when she was with him. And it was slow, too slow, he was fading too fast and she was going to lose him, and everything was going to be over before it had barely begun-

Suddenly, she felt something feebly begin to knit together under her fingers.

She focused on the feeling, ignoring the way her teeth were starting to chatter. The wound was deep, far more than just in the flesh, so she tried to send her gift as far into his chest as she could manage, willing the molasses-slow swirl to go further. He moaned in pain as bone and gristle clicked and moved, but she didn't let up. Just a little more. The skin began to join, inching across the gap like earth worms, sealing up the wound. Just a little more. Soon, the slip of blood was over firm skin and unbroken flesh, but she could still feel the extent of the damage below. Just a little more. Her arms were beginning to shake from exertion but she had to hang on, it was too close to let go now, when success was just in reach. Just a little more. As the last of the veins slid into contact she nearly let go, relieved to be finished-

But his face. There was still his face. In a final feeble burst of energy, she splayed her fingers over the laceration; as she ran her hand along it, she felt it seal shut.

At last, heart hammering so loud in her ears that she could almost see her pulse, body shaking and lungs screaming, she yanked her palms away and slumped against his chest with a shuddering gasp.

For a few moments, she panted into the air. "Kylo?" she finally whispered, afraid that she had simply made an unmarred corpse.

He broke the silence by taking a deep and wheezing breath. "Why," he rasped, blindly reaching for her, arms raising clumsily to pat at her body like he was trying to confirm that she was real. "Why."

The question made no sense. "What do you mean?"

"I don't understand. Why would you save me?" He jostled her a little as he whispered, voice gradually gaining strength, fingers gripping her arms so tightly that it hurt. "It's one thing to pardon me, to forgo execution- why would you go out of your way to save me, when you had a chance to be free?"

Why indeed? A few answers about political expediency and the catastrophe of having the heir murdered in her tent flitted through her mind, but they were pathetic excuses even in her head. In the moment, there had been such primal fear that it could only be attributed to… To…

She was too tired to think about it. Blearily looking down at him, barely able to make out his features in the dark, she went with what first came to mind. "You are my husband."

If only she could see his expression.

Slowly, tenderly- almost reverently- he cupped her face, fingers reaching to the nape of her neck. Before she knew what was happening, he pulled her down and his lips were on hers, gentle and soft; almost deliriously relieved, she leaned into the kiss, some of her rattled nerves easing at this visceral proof of his being alive. His heartbeat thumped steadily under her hands and in some ways, she could feel an invisible line being crossed. One that it would be desperately impossible to come back from. He tasted like blood and iron, but it was the sweetest thing she could imagine because he was still moving, still breathing, fingers now skimming down her back.

"Thank God," he murmured, when he finally pulled away.

"Thank God," she agreed, putting her head down against his chest before she slid into the enticing embrace of oblivion.

Author's Notes:

Infrastructure was an ongoing problem in the medieval era. It was generally assumed that local lords would take care of their surrounding roads and bridges, but that always went to shit as soon as there was any kind of strife. It made it hard to plan travel, as one can image. If you were travelling alone, there was also the obvious (and very real) threat of bandits. Not so much of an issue if you're lugging around an enormous armed retinue.

Assassination has an interesting place in English history. It was attempted with a few different monarchs, but to my knowledge, it was never successful (unless the person in question was already basically under arrest, like Edward II or Henry VI. And we're not even certain that those were assassinations). But it never stopped people from plotting!