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“They’ve been raiding farms from here to Tritonia for the last few months,” he snarled. “Stealing food, belongings, gold coins—anything of value. At first, I thought you were one of them.”
What else had been occurring in Tritonia that I hadn’t been aware of?
He squeezed my hand. “Stay here. I’ll round up all my best men. It’s time to end this.”
“No,” I said, my nails digging into my palm. “It’s too dangerous.”
The last thing I wanted was for him to be murdered by those filthy pirates.
He left a quick and urgent kiss on my mouth. My lips burned long after he’d left me alone and had gone to announce the news to the men inside the dining hall.
Close to tears, I raced to the stables, thinking to calm myself with Poseidon. But once there, I noticed a golden glow on the horizon even as the sunlight faded. Sea God! Fire swept across the fields on the adjacent property.
Men marched down the track, including Shadow, his father, his brother, and a handful of others, all headed for the neighboring plantation.
Shadow!
My insides wrung tight. Something about him trying to take on the pirates with a small bunch of his workers didn’t sit right with me. Instinct told me that he was in more danger than he knew. I hurried to the stables, grabbing Poseidon’s saddle from the wooden stand it rested on, tossing it over my horse’s side, then fastening the girth. Poseidon neighed with disapproval as I dragged him away from his good night’s sleep in the hay. But this was important, and I wasn’t stopping now.
Screams from inside the hall cut through the night. People yelled. Glass broke. Something smashed.
What was going on?
I marched my horse around the corner. Fire licked at the walls of the dining hall. Raggedly dressed men jabbed swords at the female workers inside. A couple other pirates grabbed women by the hair and dragged them outside.
“Where’s the girl?” one roared. “We know she came by here. Our hounds tracked her.”
Ice trickled down my spine. My stepmother’s stooges had found me. How had they caught up so fast?
The fire in town. It was a trap to draw me out of hiding.
Shadow!
