Bride to the Cursed: a Snow White retelling

Chapter 29: Victory?

Alone in his tent, Dane sat on his bedroll by the flickering candlelight, clutching the small piece of parchment that had been tucked into the lengthy letter from his steward.

But instead of the calligraphic ink of Sir Alan, this note contained Cassie's inelegant scrawls which he'd read and reread for the fifth, or perhaps the fifteenth, time.

I remember everything, even if I do not understand it. Please stay safe. I miss you. We need you.

It was Cassie. Cassie, Cassie, Cassie. Not the wife he had married, but the woman he now loved.

The candlelight cast shadows over the note. Shadows that seemed to dance around the barely legible word 'We'. At first, he'd not understood what it was a reference to, didn't even think much of it, until he'd read the pages and pages of his steward's detailed report.

He didn't know how many times he'd read the report, too, only that by the time he looked up from the sheets of parchment, the late afternoon had long given way to night, and that he no longer needed all those pages because the words had ingrained themselves into his memory.

He hadn't realised, when he rode off valiantly to face monsters in battle, that the mess of a kingdom he'd left for his steward and council was that big of a mess. And old men being old men, were unequipped with the creativity needed to deal with unprecedented issues.

So it was she who quelled an uprising in Lyons, by convincing the council to rob their own noble guests.

She who recruited the rioting commoners and refugees in Lyons for the king's army who marched here with the Northerners.

She who saved the crumbling justice system within his court and thus prevented another potential uprising before it began.

Then she'd almost died at the hands of a mysterious woman from Meltec. Dane tucked that piece of information away. As much as he was tempted to storm into Princess Enora's tent to interrogate her about any suspicious characters she'd brought into his country, it was also the Meltecan seer who'd foreseen his brush with death and saved his life.

The more important thing was that Cassie was fine, apparently. And aside from accepting an assignment of personal guards to follow her everywhere, she continued to do what needed to be done: judging disputes on paper, consulting with his council and steward on matters relating to this war and the running of the palace.

Aye, war. Apparently, she also talked the council into ordering the Northerners to leave a handful of men at certain watch points on their march down south and to set up giant flammable beacons at each of these watch points. It was to serve as a long-distance warning signal, such that any guards who spotted anything untoward could light their beacon, which another watch point could see even from miles away and light its own beacon, too, until an entire series of beacons were lit to signify the need for aid.

Each watch point was also designated a different colour, and each set of guards were given various powders which, when thrown into the fire, could change the colour of the flames. The colour would allow anyone looking at a lit beacon to quickly pinpoint the original watch point that had first sighted the threat. The ingenious warning system was far more efficient than any bird, horse or messenger could be, and was, according to the steward, an idea she said she'd borrowed from 'Lord Ofterings', whom she'd mentioned back when everyone had thought she was mad.

Despite all that she'd done, she tried hard to hide in the background so as to not over-assert her role in court. After all, she was no more than a viscount's daughter with no place in war and politics. But anyone who went looking would have seen a diamond sparkling in the dust.