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Byron turned away. “Doesn’t make it easier.”
Dex nodded with an expression like he understood that more than he could ever put into words. “Never does,” he replied quietly.
“Princess…”
Lord Thomas’s voice came from behind me, and I tensed.
Oh hell.
I turned.
With only a few of his guards still at his side, Lord Thomas stood thirty feet away across the courtyard, staring at me. At my men too. His bodyguard, Valeria, was doing the same.
And her crossbow was aimed right at Byron.
“Don’t.” I held up my hands. “Please. He’s not your enemy, I swear.”
“What was that?” Lord Thomas demanded coldly. “What did he do?”
Ruhl swirled into the form of a wolf behind the lord and his guards. His green eyes went between Lord Thomas and Valeria, and I could see the evaluations running there.
He could tear the woman down before she could fire. The lord would be next.
My heart hit my throat. “Please,” I begged, hoping the wolf understood I was talking to him too. “No one needs to attack anybody here.”
Dex carefully lowered his sword to the ground, drawing Lord Thomas and Valeria’s attention. “We’re not your enemies. Not if you aren’t ours.”
“What are you?” Lord Thomas demanded.
Dex’s eyes went to me, questioning.
“They’re the men who saved my life,” I said. “And I’m… me. But the rest is complicated.”
Screams came from the town. A burst of fire rose above the rest of the flames like something had just fallen.
“Please,” I persisted. “Those people need help. You have my word we mean you no harm.” I looked back at my men. “But we’ve got to help them.”
There was a question in the statement, and the giants heard it. Grimness filled their eyes, but reluctant acceptance was there too, and it broke my heart all over again. Each man knew how badly this would go once the truth was out.
But none of them were willing to let people die.
“Lars.” Dex lifted an eyebrow. “Take point?”
The blond man nodded.
“Byron, back him up,” he continued. “Clay, do what you can but don’t risk the buildings falling. The rest of us’ll shore things up and save as many as possible. Got it?” He turned to me. “You should stay back.”
I was already shaking my head before he finished. “I’m not leaving them. Or you.”
He scowled but didn’t argue.
Bracing myself, I turned to Lord Thomas. His brow had drawn down and a questioning sort of wariness now filled his eyes. “When this is over,” he said. “We’re going to talk. All of us. Understood?”
There was no compromise in his tone, and even though I wasn’t his soldier, I knew that didn’t matter right now.
This moment was balanced on a knife’s edge.
And meanwhile people were dying.
