This was the moment. His hand reached out. His fingers brushed the soft gold of the petals. He was shaking, his heart at war with itself. It would be such a crime to destroy a beautiful thing like this. He felt sweat on his forehead.
“Oi, you!” said a voice behind him. March stood bolt upright, his fists by his sides.

Striketrue March, his heart racing, turned to face the owner of the voice that had just made itself known. The girl, dressed in the neutral tones of a gardener, set down the bucket she was carrying on a table and strode up closer to him.
“Only his high-and-mightiness the Prince is allowed in here on his own,” she said. “Who are you, and how did you get in here?” She folded her arms. March guessed she was about fifteen, with servant-short black hair and suspicious eyes that didn’t seem to have any colour in them.
“I am a knight,” said Striketrue March, “of the Order of the River of the Source Lands, on a vital mission from Lord Simas and Lady Kalila. And my name is Sir March.” He paused, and then added: “And his highness let me in.”
The girl’s eyes immediately lost their suspicious cast and grew wide with awe. “You’re a White Knight, aren’t you? Wow. I’ve heard stories about you.” She picked up the bucket. “Here, help me with this, would you?”
March looked into the bucket. It was full of meat, red and bloody and fresh from the butcher’s knife. “What on earth is this for?”
The girl shrugged. “Plant food,” she said, hefting it into his arms. It was surprisingly heavy.

As she lead March onwards, she continued on her earlier tack: “I thought there weren’t any White Knights left. My dad says it’s because of the Moral Decline of Society. Mind you, he usually says that after a couple of drinks. It must be pretty hard to learn the tricks, I suppose. Tip a bit out into that cage,” she said, pointing to a steel-barred planter on the left that held a beautiful, striking crimson flower bush. Dutifully, March did so and was shocked to see the slab of meat that fell forth almost instantly be absorbed into the earth with an indescribable noise.
“Carnivorous plants?” March said. “This is a strange collection indeed.”
“You’re telling me. I don’t know what half of this stuff is called, and there’s no bloody point to any of it,” said the girl. “Pardon my language.”
“It seems to bring the Prince a lot of joy,” said March.
“Oh, the Prince,” the girl said dismissively.
“You’re a very odd servant,”
“You’re an odd sort of knight. I thought you were supposed to serve the people.” March stopped, and she nearly walked into his back. “Why did you stop?”
“Does this plant need feeding?” he said, gesturing to a big wooden box with no discernible sign of life in it.
“No, it- here, give me that-” said the girl and walked in front of him – and he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her against the box. She cried out, and tears formed in her eyes.
“I serve my oath!” March said through gritted teeth. “My oath to my liege and lady of the Source Lands, from whence my power flows! Do you understand, girl? Without them, I have nothing!” She saw the desperation in his eyes and, fearing what it may mean, struggled free of his grasp and ran.

March looked at the gravel, at the blood spilling forth from the upturned bucket. It was close to his boots now. He knelt down and touched it, feeling it between the tips of his fingers red and slick and staining.He held his hand up and let it roll down into his palm and settle into the lines and grooves that had been moulded by years wrapped around the grip of a sword. He knew what he had to do. All that remained was to do it. He wiped the blood from his hand on his plain tunic, a dull brown stripe.
“May Uulan not desert me in my hour of need,” he muttered to himself over and over as he returned to the gold-inlaid shrine to the Aligey that he had come from. His hand outstretched to capture the little flower he instinctually leapt to action at the sound of a key in the lock of the door nearby. His heart was racing from the tension, and it was only by the quick thought as he recognised the plain garb of the Prince Estilo that he avoided launching the devastating blast that was surging, crackling like lightning, down his left arm. He clenched his fist and the power found nowhere to go and turned back on him, arcing and striking up his shoulder towards his heart so that he gritted his teeth and fell to his knees.
“Gods! March, my friend!” said the Prince, catching March and propping him up quickly. “Fortunate that I arrived when I did, eh? Quickly, let me take you to our physick. He will be able to help you, I’m sure-”
“Get off,” grunted March. Estilo made a questioning noise, and March repeated the command. “Get off me!” He shrugged his strong shoulders and the Prince went staggering, and March fell to his knees again. “Wait,” he said, laying his hands on the gravel and pressing down hard.
When he was done, he looked up at the Prince, who was silent.
“If I startled you, I’m sorry,” he said, looking quite upset.
“Don’t,” said March, breathing in and out slowly. “You still don’t know why I’m here.”
“Why… why you’re here?” said the Prince.
March put his hands on the edge of the plant box and pulled himself to his feet, his shoulders sloped, resigned.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and plucked the Aligey.

It took a second for the Prince to register what had happened. “You… you saboteur!” he said, and lunged at March, hammering at his chest ineffectually as March folded the flower delicately in the scrap of cloth that Lady Kalila had given him. There was blood on it, where he had wiped his hand clean earlier. “You scoundrel! You scum!” he continued. March, his glittering blue eyes dull, said nothing. “That’s what you came for, is it? To provoke me into starting your dirty fight so your precious liege needn’t bloody his own hand?” growled the Prince, looking like an enraged terrier. “You’ll have your war after this, mark my words!”
March only shoved him aside. The door fell away after a moment’s pressure on the hinges convinced it that horizontal was a much more advantageous position for a door than vertical, and the cold automaton of a man of honour strode out onto the glass and grass and looked for his escape. Behind him, the Prince staggered out, calling for his guard. The walls were high, but not so high as to be insurmountable, so March dropped into a sprinter’s stance for a second and then ran as guards raised their bows…
He drew up next to the wall…
A dozen arrows were notched by a dozen guards…
Power fizzed along the length of March’s powerful body and he leapt as the guards let loose their arrows, and he flew over the top of them, up to the lip of the great stone wall in a single stroke. He turned, and saw that the guards were already pulling their next black arrows from their quivers, and leapt down from the wall as lightly as if he was stepping off a pavement. He rolled at the bottom and came up running – the Prince’s men would no doubt already be after him, circling round to prevent him from getting away with his dubious spoils. Had Vitriol even said that picking the flower would work? What if it robbed the plant of its healing properties? March offered a silent prayer as he sprinted down the hill through the city, hearing the cry go up from the castle gates to find him and grab him. Perhaps when all this is over I’ll return and make my reparations, thought March. But not yet.
He skidded to turn perpendicularly when he saw an intent-looking guard coming up towards him. Could the message have already gotten down further than he had? No sense in risking it, he thought. The end of this side-street that curved slightly with the hill was just out of sight when he entered, and when he saw the end, he came to a sudden halt as if a chain around his neck had just snapped taut.
The soldiers advanced slowly, but with all the menacing inevitability of a rolling stone. Oh, it’s a long way off now, but it’s only going to get closer…
March groaned. Channelling this much power in this short a time would definitely come back to haunt him later…
He leapt up, hitting the wall halfway up the second storey of the building in front of him – and kicked off and up, his muscles fizzing with the exertion as he landed on the roof across the street. Now, now nobody could touch him. He ran from rooftop to rooftop until he recognised the stable where he had left Mist, and slipped in through a window in the hayloft.

As Mist’s hooves beat the road, and stone gave way to a dirt track, March looked back over his shoulder.
Six horses were coming down the trail after him, each rider armed with a brace of pistols. And at the lead of it all, fury burning in his eyes in the cool moonlight, was the Prince.