Counting Shadows (Duplicity)

should be trapped by a simple piece of leather. Him, a prince. Royalty. Part of a prophecy. And yet here he is, trapped as a Guardian to a disgraced princess. It’s not fair.
    But life’s not fair.
    We approach the end of the beach, where a cliff-face interrupts the sand and juts out into the ocean. Our horses slow and then stop. No one moves. At first the only sound is the heavy breaths of my horse, and the slight wheezing of Lor’s aging stallion. But then others begin to filter in. The calls of seagulls, and waves carrying their cries out to sea. Sand skittering along the shoreline, driven by the wind. Those sounds have become so steady and monotonous, I have to focus to hear them. But, when I do, they create something natural and harmonious.
    “It’s pretty out here,” Lor says. I can tell by his hushed tone that he doesn’t want to interrupt the sounds, but he does anyway. Of course he does. He can never seem to resist hearing his own voice.
    I nod and dismount from Tamal. My boots strike the sand with a heavy crunching noise. It’s the same sound as breaking bones, and it’s always bothered me.
    Lor clears his throat and taps his knuckles against the saddle, his rhythm just as bad as before. He stares down at the sand below him, his eyebrows furrowing as he tries to judge the distance between his saddle and the ground.
    “Is there anything you’re
not
scared of?” I ask.
    He clears his throat again. “Of course. Horses just aren’t one of those things.”
    I sigh and lead Tamal over to the jutting cliff. A rocky alcove has been carved into the base of the cliff over the years; it floods at night when the tide comes in, but during the day it makes a fine little hideout. Although I’m not exactly sure what I’m hiding from. There’s no sun to evade today, and the wind is nothing but a small nuisance. Perhaps it’s the castle I want to escape from. The sights of royalty, the sounds, the smells. None of them can reach me in my familiar little alcove.
    I ground-tie Tamal by the base of the entrance. He’s the best trained horse of the royal stables—a retired cavalry mount—and he’ll stay stock-still for as long as I allow his reins to touch the ground. Sometimes I wonder what kind of training could make a horse act so obedient and unnatural. Nothing pleasant, that’s for sure.
    Lor leaps off the back of his stallion, landing in a crouch. He has Ashe’s grace, the type that should be odd and unnatural, but is instead simply mesmerizing. As he stands, he reaches his arms above his head and leans back. It’s meant to be a simple stretch, but he may as well be screaming for all nearby eyes to gawk at him.
    Unfortunately, I’m the only set of eyes nearby. And I can’t help but to gawk. His tattoo is mesmerizing, the swirls of the flames nearly hypnotic. I stare at his chest, following the tattoo from his shoulder to the place where the inked flames lick at his collarbone.
    I shouldn’t stare. It’s ridiculous. How many times have I seen this tattoo? Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. Ashe was good at hiding it, but I was better at catching glimpses at the amazing ink-work. I should be over it by now.
    But I can’t be over it, because staring at Lor’s tattoo is like staring at a piece of Ashe. It’s beautiful. It’s painful. And I never want to take my eyes from it.
    Lor raises an eyebrow at me. It’s become his customary response when he finds me staring at him. He’s given up with the winks and cocky grins; he’s no longer amused by my continuous stares. No, he’s annoyed now. I can see it in the way he bites his lip to keep from frowning. He doesn’t like the look I get in my eye when I stare at his tattoo. I’m not sure if I would like it, either.
    “What are we doing here, princess?” he asks.
    I shrug.
    Lor sighs and rolls his eyes. He sticks his hands in his pockets and turns toward the ocean, giving me a view of the full tattoo on his back. He stands stock still for a long moment, but then his foot begins tapping out another one of those uneven rhythms.
    I slowly take my eyes from Lor and join him in staring out to the ocean. The water is rough today, and no ships have dared to venture out to fish. It’s odd seeing the ocean so empty.
    “Your ocean is a strange color,” Lor says. He shakes his head and sighs again. “It’s so…
dull
. But then I suppose most things in this land are dull.”
    I walk deeper into the alcove, where the rocks form worn-down seats. My back is