AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her breath caught as she remembered, and she tore her bag from her shoulder. She'd brought so little, the burden so light she'd all but forgotten.
She pulled out her scissors and launched herself forward.
A halberd swung for her side. She dropped to the ground and kicked off the floor to launch herself upward and drive the end of her scissors into the guard's stomach. The tip of the closed blades couldn't pierce his gambeson, but she hit hard and he doubled over as the air left his lungs.
Another guard came at her over his back and she slammed her scissors against the halberd's blade. The polearm shattered against Kentoria's finest steel. The guard stumbled, but another was fast to take his place. Thea snapped her scissors open as an axe descended on her, catching the pole and wrenching it sideways. Rilion went in under it, his quick stabs sending the guard to the ground.
They pushed through the swarm in the antechamber of the King's Hall. Suddenly, the way before them parted, the guards flowing to either side, rushing to aid their king.
Rilion planted a hand against her back. “Go, go!”
They sprinted forward together to burst into the daylight, already short of breath. Warning bells clanged across the fortress. The ranks of soldiers had already grown thin, and the courtyard teemed with panicked bystanders.
Rilion threw down his polearm and jammed his dagger into its sheath. They'd escape faster if they blended in.
Thea didn't know what to do with her scissors. She glanced at their blades before she rammed them into the dagger's sheath.
The main gate was open. People spilled from the fortress to the valley like a cascade of water, hundreds more people than she'd fathomed.
“There.” Rilion pointed. On the slope, their horses trotted back and forth, avoiding the surge of unfamiliar faces.
Thea cut that way without guidance. Her legs burned and a stabbing pain shot through her side. She clamped a hand to it and pushed onward. As they grew near, Rilion gave a sharp, staccato whistle. A tone the horses knew, for they perked their ears and turned toward them. She no longer needed help mounting, so she ran to Molasses and dragged herself into the saddle. Her arms shook so they almost gave out.
“Where are those boys?” Rilion growled as he climbed onto Nib. “They're supposed to be watching you, blast them.”
“Be grateful they aren't.” Thea reined her horse toward the slope they'd climbed that morning, then paused.
The third horse tried to follow them. Rilion turned him around and gave his rump a slap to set him in the direction of the fortress gate. Then he urged Nib downhill. “It's the best we can do,” he said between breaths.
She looked back toward the gate as Gil's horse trotted toward the flow of strangers. She watched—hoped—for something more.
Don't look.
Ashvin's last words whispered in her thoughts.
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
They'd riddenfor over an hour when Rilion called a halt. They were back in the wilds, little more than a rutted trail telling them where to go. The hoofprints their horses left behind the day before still lingered, bold against the mingled tracks of farmers and animals they'd followed. Those farmers and animals were long outpaced, if they were coming this way at all. Would they abandon the fortress so readily? Thea thought they might stay put after it became clear they were in no danger, but then she second-guessed herself. They'd abandoned their lives in Kentoria, Ranor, and who knew where else, and they'd held those far longer.
Thea's sides ached when she clambered from the saddle. She held them both and stifled a groan.
“There's a brook over there. Cuts through the rocks.” Rilion pointed toward a ridge not far off the path. So what was why they'd stopped here.
She led Molasses over the rocks so she could drink, though her muscles protested every move. The mare trudged along and her step gained more spirit when she noticed the water. Thea let go of the reins and sank to the ground, rubbing the muscles in her calves.
For a time, Rilion stood in the middle of the trail and gazed back the way they'd come. Then he sighed and led his horse to the water, too.
Thea smoothed back her hair and let her head hang.
Don't look.
The same words had echoed ceaselessly in her head as they fled the valley. She'd fought to keep her eyes trained on the trail ahead, to guide her horse behind Rilion's, to focus on the escape. Now she could breathe, and the voice of doubt reared in her mind a dozen times over, all at once.
She'd failed in the one thing she'd wanted to do. To ride at his side, to see things through to the end. She'd let herself be herded away, crumbled when the price was most dear. They'd abandoned him to die.
Yet didn't he deserve it? After all he'd done, all the lives he'd taken, the life he'd beenaboutto take—
