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“I never spoke of this language to anyone, because I was too afraid.” She looked over her shoulder at the woods. “They will be coming soon.”
“Who?”
“The village men, to finish Stian. They don’t feel the elder made the right choice in banishing him after what he did.”
Agata swallowed. “What he did?”
The woman nodded. “He slew his parents,” she said in a soft voice.
Agata felt her eyes widen.
“But he didn’t do it because he enjoyed the kill. He did it because his mother and father hurt him countless times.”
Agata looked over at the hut, saw the big, shadowed body of Stian in the window, and felt her throat close. She remembered all those scars on him, ones that were probably not all from battle. “What?” she asked in a shocked, wavering voice.
The woman couldn’t have been much older than her late forties, but she looked far older with the worry and strain around her eyes.
“He was but a mere child when he took the lives of his parents while they slept. The elders found him the next morning, crying and covered in blood in his hut, his parents dead. He didn’t deny it, and even if we all knew he was abused, it isn’t our custom to get involved.”
Anger the likes of which Agata had never felt filled her. Those bastards had known Stian was abused, stood by and probably watched it happen, and when that little boy couldn’t take anymore, he found his solution.
She wasn’t about to try to understand this world, but where she came from, a child was to be protected.
“He could have been sentenced to death for his crimes—”
“Even as a child, even though he was just protecting himself?” Agata asked, outraged.
“Shh, please,” the woman said, then nodded at Agata’s question. “Yes, in our culture, anyone who takes a life is subject to death, and now that the elder is dead, they’ve come to collect on his life.”
It made no sense to put a child through that when they were abused, condemning them to death when they were in a horrible situation and had no other options, but again, she wasn’t going to try to understand this world or culture. She just wanted to make sure Stian wasn’t alone anymore.
That realization had her motionless for a second, had her stunned she felt so strongly about making sure Stian wasn’t alone anymore. Knowing that, knowing she’d protect him as hard as he protected her, made this warmth fill her. Then she heard it, the sound of a horn being blown.
The woman grabbed Agata’s hand, squeezed it tightly, and said in a rushed voice, “You can still run. I can show you to safety.”
Agata shook her head before the other woman could even finish speaking. “I can’t leave him. I can’t run when he could very well die with these heathens coming after him.”
An arrow came flying through the air, and Agata landed on her face, the arrow barely missing her as it slammed into the tree beside her. Breathing out, dirt moving around her face, she grabbed the hilt of the sword she dropped, looked around, and saw the horde of men coming at them.
They had axes, swords, knives, and bows and arrows. They were shouting, blowing a horn to clearly tell everyone they were attacking. She turned around to look at Stian, scream for him to get ready for the ambush, but he was already outside, his sword in hand and his arm wrapped around her waist.
“Come, I need to get you to safety,” Stian said and hauled her off the ground. They ran toward the hut, and he pushed her inside. He had a rug pulled up, and a trapdoor was on display. “Go. Inside, and take the tunnel all the way to the sea.” He pushed her forward, and before she could tell him she’d stand and fight these assholes, he was gone.
Agata still had the sword, but it was bulky, and she saw a hand ax on the table. She picked it up. The handle was long, the blade rusty but sharp, and it wasn’t as heavy as the sword.
This shit was going down whether she fought with him or not, but she wasn’t going to stand back and let Stian go into this alone.
She would fight beside him, because for the first time in her life, she felt like she belonged somewhere, and she wasn’t about to let that go.
20
Stian didn’t look back to see if Agata listened to him. She was a stubborn, strong woman, but he needed her to leave and find safety. He could handle these men who thought to come here and take from him. It didn’t matter that he was outnumbered or if he died tonight.
He would take out as many as he could, and do so, sure with the serenity in him that his wife had gotten away. There was no doubt that if they killed Stian, they’d kill Agata. But before they took her life, they’d torture her, rape her, and wouldn’t stop until she no longer breathed.
