Chapter 171 - It's Raining When We Are in Love

Alexa tensed,

"Did he talk about me ...?"

"You know how sentimental people are at a funeral ..." he smiled carelessly, but then his eyes changed, stained by some worrying or sad thought. Then Magnus put her standing beside him. "You guys met in a sad situation, it's a fact."

"...!" Alexa still didn't know what to think.

Changing the subject entirely, Magnus cleared his throat,

"Ahem, the farmer said we could use the onions and beans we'll find somewhere around here ... And there's a tripod with a cauldron there. Ah, there's some cured meat in the bag… We'll resume our travel after the rain, so we'll rest here for a while," he gave the tip, looking at her with an expectant smile.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" the princess tried to play dumb.

"I'm hungry."

"I'm hungry too," she nodded, sensing where the conversation would lead to. It was true. Alexa had eaten her last meal several hours ago, and her stomach would growl at any moment.

They stared at each other for a while, until Alexa bit her lip, distressed,

"Do you want me to cook?"

Magnus looked around,

"I'm not seeing any servants or an inn."

"Yes, I am seeing what you are seeing. Can't we buy a proper meal from the farmer?"

"Can't you cook us a soup?"

"Ehhh… Are you really going to trust a person who puts a sleeping potion in your water? I thought you said you didn't trust me."

Magnus sighed, shrugging,

"I had already been cautious. I couldn't leave someone like you walking around with drugs, after you lured me with a kiss to give me a potion ... I changed the contents of the bottle for another one, while you were sleeping."

"But it was for your good!" Alexa protested, outraged that he was comparing the two occasions. And that he had been such a rascal to change the potion!

"But it was you being a cheater in first place!"

"You are also the cheater type. You kissed me while giving me wine!"

He seemed to remember the fact, since a bright smile appeared on his face.

"Well ... Do you think you have already had your rematch, or are you still going to pay me back?"

Alexa shook her head in denial, throwing herself into the hay,

"Nothing good happens when I'm on an empty stomach. But the fact is ... I never learned to cook. And I didn't even expect that, just after I became a princess, someone would ask me to cook something...Is it something a princess should do?"

"Hm," he looked disappointed, and for some odd reason, Alexa didn't like what she felt in her chest.

"What's it?"

"I like women who cook well ..."

'Oh! What?!' "I don't think Lady Duvignes cooks ..." she mumbled at the Prince's obvious lie. Not even in the convent, Alexa learned to cook, and only helped with other tasks.

The Prince looked at her strangely, and getting up, he went looking for the items to prepare something to eat. Alexa looked at the constant rain outside, realizing that, as Magnus had predicted, they could not resume their journey for now.

Magnus handed her the bag of peas, and he took some onions to peel.

They started work in silence, and continued for a few minutes like this. Alexa peeled the pods and cut the tips of the stems with the tip of her dagger, and eyed the prince discreetly. He was frowning in concentration, peeling some shallots.

"What would your future subjects say when they learned that the mighty Prince Magnus von Wuttenfal peels onions like a commoner?" she teased.

"They wouldn't say anything because they won't know, never," he replied without looking at her. Alexa couldn't help being amazed that, even with her unusual life full of ups and downs, she never imagined that a princess and a prince would be found peeling onions and peas in an old barn. 

Magnus sighed as if out of a nostalgic memory, and confided,

"I have few good memories of my boyhood. Alexander's mom used to take me to the castle's kitchen, and I watched her cook for me and my dad."

Alexa looked up at him, curious,

"You never talk about her in anger. And you didn't even bother when I told you she's with Alexander ..."

"Do you think her ghost would let Alexander get hurt? I met her in life, and the best years of my life were while she was alive... I think I hope she will do her best for as long as she can ... I know we should be running to Languedoc to find the alchemist, and I would rather be doing this instead of sitting here chopping onions…"

"If one of us gets sick because of the rain it'll cause more delays… And we had enough of them," mused Alexa. She thought the same, but did not have the same trust in the White Queen as Magnus.

Perhaps in the Prince's mind, who had in his memories the image of a stepmother who saved him from death, Gisela differed greatly from the powerful and dubious Shade the Lightbearer met.

"Well, as soon as the rain is over, let's rush back to our mission!" Alexa exclaimed, trying to seek enthusiasm within herself. She tried to push fear and uncertainty to the bottom. The gentle pattering of the rain and listening to Romeo, the original nightingale, happy singing from somewhere out of sight, helped a bit.

Also, to her surprise, despite the troubled events of the previous day and even the morbid way in which she got there, she felt the same sensation as that other morning. A morning that seemed so far away, when she and Magnus also spent a rainy night and morning together.

"Yes, we are going. I can't wait to go back home," he said in a gloomy tone, and Alexa felt the determination and the dark intentions in his words.

Magnus started cooking, while the princess peeked here and there, her hunger stimulated by the boiling content in the cauldron. The Prince-turned-cooker kept her away from the cauldron all the time, with his elbow or the ladle,

"You know… I'm sure it will taste awful… My stepmother Gisela said if you don't cook with your heart, you don't feed the body… What will come from a person like me?"

"Do you mean it will taste awful because you suck?"

Magnus just ignored her impertinent question,

"I was a little boy, and that was my new mom. I still had dreadful dreams… All the people who died the day my mother died and the day I… when I died. There were in my dreams. In the beginning, she kept me with her everywhere... While I was recovering from it," he gestured vaguely towards his chest, "I learned later that I didn't speak for an entire year. I just remember her talking to me ... Always smiling. She cooked a lot... and used to feed me herself. I saw her belly grow bigger and bigger..." he stopped stirring the stew, and Alexa saw a sad shadow pass over his face,

"Well, she's gone ... Apparently she is not gone, is she?" he finally took the pot out of the fire. The matter might have gone further, and the princess didn't know whether he wanted to end sharing his memories at this point or the stew was really ready.

"How does it taste?" Alexa asked, coming close.

"Your hunger will be the best spice. That's what they say in a military camp..."

She identified with the saying, and the feeling, of course. He sat down with the pot carefully, and she sat down next to him again, barely hiding her impatience.

The First Prince looked at her confusedly for a moment,

"I don't think we have a spoon, do we?"

"Oh! No. Just this ladle!"

He made a face, but taking some food with the ladle, did his best to cool the stew, before offering her,

"Eat."

'Did he have to be so imperative?' Alexa didn't think so, but she leaned her head forward to eat from the ladle he served her. The food was a little spiceless, but as Magnus said, the hunger that hurt deep in the stomach made her not very demanding. It was palatable enough, for a first time. And Alexa had already eaten worse things.

The Prince and Princess of Holstein shared the simple meal, alternating the ladle between them and laughing a little at the situation. Then they lay side by side in the hay, over Alexa's dry cloak.

"I'm relieved by your testimonial on Princess Gisela's earlier personality," Alexa confessed to Prince Magnus. "I'm just worried about what she wants in return ..."

Magnus, like her, stared at the barn ceiling thoughtfully, and the princess felt his hand slip into her hair absently. Before answering he played with Alexa's hair,

"She must have an important reason. Each of them tried to get close to you ... But Letitia wanted you to kill my father. Gisela wants you to save her son… I think you have an obvious distinction there."

"I still don't understand what's going on ... But I think you can be right," she heard Magnus's sleepy voice, and remembered that he was awake for many hours. The Princess wished it had been instinctively that her fingers also searched for Magnus's hair to play with, but at least in her case, her heart pounded faster until he accepted it without even seeming to realize what she was doing.

"Just don't try to outsmart her, Alexa. Don't cheat. Can you do it?" he asked with a lazy yawn. She couldn't blame him. Despite being rested, unlike him, the constant and serene pitter-patter of rain was also making her sleepy. Romeo flew to her to snuggle close, also fully sated and ready to sleep.

Alexa remembered how she and Magnus met and how her opinion about him changed day by day. Magnus still had a lot of flaws, but she couldn't deny that he was especially careful that she was fed... even in the strangest ways. 

Glancing at the prince lying beside her, Alexa realized that Magnus was sleeping. Or pretending to sleep, maybe?

She couldn't trust him, of course.

But she turned to look at him better.

Her gaze went to the little spot on the right cheekbone, next to his nose. Alexa liked that.

Observing him sleeping with a serene face and closed eyes, relaxed facial muscles, the princess felt a strange and warm sensation in her chest. A huge affection with a bitter root, which went down to her belly, where the fear never to see him again lived.

The awareness of this sensation was like an avalanche in her mind, and Alexa put her hand on her chest, feeling her heart ache at the realization,

'Am I in love?!'