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Dex twitched his chin in a motion for us to get going. “Best we listen to them.” His eyes flicked back to where Byron was tucking away the rag, and then over to me and Casimir. “Just in case.”
15
DEX
It had been years since I’d been surrounded by this many armed Aneirans, and back then, they’d all been debating whether to kill me. I’d just revealed myself as an Erenlian, even if I looked more like a human than one of my own kind. I’d tried to stop them from slaughtering a village of nothing but women and children, and the gods knew that had all gone horrifically.
I wasn’t sure this would go any differently, not if these people learned the truth about us.
All of us.
I kept myself from glancing back toward the princess, if only to avoid heightening any suspicion in the Aneirans watching us. That they were not trained soldiers was clear. They didn’t hold their weapons correctly, and their body language wasn’t quite right. They were tense because they were nervous, not because they were readying themselves to strike.
Which wasn’t to say I would let my guard down. Frightened people with weapons could be infinitely more dangerous than a trained soldier any day. For the gods’ sakes, one of the Aneirans on the wall had even shot at us by accident.
And now we were walking into a whole city full of them.
My teeth ground, and I stilled the reaction with effort. Gwyneira wasn’t wrong that we needed help if we were going to take back her throne, stop the Voidborn and possibly her stepmother, and ultimately free the giants from their imprisonment too. Up against those odds, I wanted nothing short of a damned army.
But this… gods, it was not that.
My eyes flicked across the guards atop the wall as we started through the gate, and the pit in my stomach grew deeper. Old people with battered helmets. Young ones too, their grips bloodless on their swords and spears. There were no children to be seen, but I suspected everyone old enough to hold a weapon had been conscripted to fight.
What in the hell was going on in Aneira?
I kept walking, even though everything around me felt like a march to the hangman’s noose. And that feeling only grew as the gates closed at our backs. These were the people you called up when all hope was lost. When there was no choice but to fight because everyone else who could have protected you was gone.
But I knew better than anyone the size and might of the Aneiran army. If they were not here, it could only be for a truly terrible reason, and I could think of precious few options for what that might be.
Another nation had chosen to invade in a perceived moment of weakness.
An internal uprising had swept the nation, tearing it to pieces.
Or the Voidborn.
I knew where I’d place my money.
The crowd parted ahead, revealing Lord Thomas as he approached. I remembered him—or at least the stories. The Lord of Sinaria had been late to join the war, and for a short time, that had caused private murmurs of derision among the ranks. But then he’d personally turned the tide of battle at the Azure Pass and ridden to the rescue of a hundred Aneiran soldiers trapped in the Elorian Gulch, to say nothing of the victories he’d racked up across great swaths of Erenelle itself.
The man was an Aneiran war hero. He should have a garrison supporting him, not this ragtag collection of civilians. And here we were, aiming to ask him and his army of farmers to help us retake Gwyneira’s throne and free all the prisoners he’d helped lock away.
Gods, this was a mad and desperate plan.
For a long moment, the lord regarded us with an unreadable look in his dark eyes. I kept my expression calm and nonthreatening, though I knew how we must appear. Seven armed men who would rival the height of the tallest human males, with muscles built by mining and survival. Weapons upon every one of us and bearings like we could use them. Even Niko knew well how to defend himself—of that, I’d made damn sure over the years—and although Casimir wasn’t as tall as us, the vampire radiated the cool calm of someone who knew down to his bones that you weren’t a threat, because he could kill you before you could land a single blow.
And at the center of us stood the princess, every bit as regal and powerful as the queen she would rightfully be. There was an otherworldliness to her beauty. A stillness to her even when she breathed, like pristine snow lying on a steep mountainside.
Like that snow, if she unleashed her power, no one would stand in her way.
Whatever he saw, Lord Thomas’s voice gave nothing away when he finally said, “What business does the disgraced princess of Aneira have with us today?”
Outrage rolled through me, along with the overwhelming urge to punch the man who spoke like that to my treluria, and I knew I wasn’t alone. I could practically feel the fury pouring off my friends at my back. Only the fact I’d spent years among the Aneirans and honed the skill of not reacting to their offhand comments about my own people meant I had the control to restrain myself.
But I still gritted out, “There is nothing disgraced about Princess Gwyneira.”
Lord Thomas’s brow arched. The urge to punch him grew stronger, especially when he turned his attention back to the princess as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “You are accused of murdering our beloved king,” he said, his voice pitched so all the crowd could hear. “Of poisoning him like a coward and seeking to do the same to your stepmother too. What say you?”
I cast a quick look back at Gwyneira, checking on her reaction to this verbal assault, and then I paused. There was no fear in her eyes. No weakness or hurt in the face of his questions. She stood before the crowd and this arrogant bastard like every inch of the ground upon which our feet rested and even the air itself was hers, unquestionably.
