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CHAPTER 4
Rune
It was raining—again. I avoided a large mud puddle as I strode through my army’s camp toward my tent. We had been stationed along the border to the rebelling noblemen’s lands for months. The welcoming, but temporary, peace treaty was more torturous than it was kind. It was like a small shimmer of light in an endlessly dark sky, and nobody knew for how long it would last.
I entered my tent. It was simple for that of a knight: a desk, a wooden bed, and some fur on the floor that was wet and muddy more often than it was dry. But for me, it was enough.
“Sir Rune.” Bibo, one of my most loyal soldiers, stepped in. I took a seat at the table and looked up at him. His bony, short body often made me wonder how in the name of the gods he was able to swing a sword, but somehow he was, and surprisingly did so better than many.
“There is a message,” he said, stretching out his hand with a letter in it. I almost told him to keep it and leave. Just the thought of another note from my father made my head hurt. I had given this man everything—yet he wanted more and more and more. Out of all the wars the North had ever fought, this one was the most pathetic, and it was his fault and his fault alone. His greed and the suffering it had caused our people would tarnish the royal bloodline for many kings to come, his reputation ruined for eternity. I often wondered why I was even still fighting for him. I was bound to the man by blood, had been given the honor of knighthood after I fought for him in the last war, and yet every time I closed my eyes, I heard the screams of men dying on the battlefield. He was a monster. But, the problem was, so was I.
Without honor and loyalty, a man has nothing. And the knighthood he gave you provides for your mother,I reminded myself before toying again with packing up camp and taking my men back to my lands—and getting hanged by my father, for all I cared. At least it would all be over then.
I sighed, almost feeling sick. “What does he want this time?” I asked.
Bibo shrugged. “I would know if I read your letters, which I don’t,” he joked. “But I assume he wants a golden pony this time, or your right hand chopped off for him to prove you are still devoted.”
My deep laugh echoed through the tent. If anybody outside the camp heard Bibo talk like this about the king, he would be hanged. But here, among my loyal soldiers, I didn’t mind some of their colorful personalities.
I opened the note and read it. At first, I thought it a joke, so I read it again. Then again, and again.
“Sir, what is it?”
I ignored Bibo and read it one last time, then flipped it to look at the wax seal. A stallion.
“Impossible,” I mumbled.
“Does he really want your hand?” Bibo sounded serious. “Now you have me worried.”
Dropping the note on the table, I leaned back in my chain and narrowed my eyes at it.
“I wish that’s what it said.”
“That bad?” Bibo wondered, his forehead wrinkling above raised brows.
“It’s an impossible request—from one of the only people who has ever shown kindness to my mother and me.”
“The Kulgrat family?”
I tilted my head. I was shocked that Bibo knew so much about the matter. But then, the whole North knew about the misery my mother and I had to endure all these years before I was knighted.
My silence confirmed it.
“They are deemed rebels now. The enemy. Burn the letter right now, sir. Then we will never speak of it again.”
He was right. That’s exactly what I should do. And yet...
The memory of my mother dancing cheerfully with me at House Kulgrat forced itself into my mind. It was one of the only times I remember her ever laughing.
As the mistress of a heartless king, life for my mother and I had been horrific, to say the least. That she’d been forced into the arrangement didn’t matter to society in the least; it made them hate her almost more. Nobody had shown us kindness back then or invited us to events. Nobody but Lady Wilbrandt from the mountains of Kulgrat. Those few times House Kulgrat had invited us to their feasts were maybe what had kept my poor mother going for all these years. A few evenings of dancing and being treated as a human being meant the world to her—until she had finally lost her mind a few winters ago.
“Do you want me to burn it, sir?” Bibo asked.
Yes. Burn it right now!
“No.”
Bibo scratched the back of his head. “What does House Kulgrat want from us? To join the resistance?”
