Page 42

Stig

ISTOOD AT THE RAMPARTS, MY HANDS DIGGING INTO THEancient rock, grit sliding beneath my shorn nails as wind buffeted me. The joints of my fingers ached as I watched her go, stone crumbling in my palms.

My gaze strained, peering through the morning air at the winding tail of warriors, a snake slithering away, fading into the distance.

This couldn’t be real.

Nothing about this felt real.

And yet it was. Permanent. Terrifying. All too real. I felt off-balance. Dizzy. Sick. As sick as I’d felt during the bedding ceremony. It was the stuff of nightmares. I’d tried to flee, to step out from the room, unable to bear it, unable to stomach the sounds, the knowledge of what was transpiring behind the curtains...

But my father had stopped me, his hard hand pressing into my chest as he hissed in my ear that I would not leave, that I would not run away like a coward.It’s your duty as captain of the guard to stay and maintain security. Now act like a man.

I’d stiffened my spine and remained, but not for the reason my father believed.

I agreed with him on one point. It was my duty to maintain palace security, and that extended to Tamsyn. So I had stayed put in that room just in case. For her. In case she needed me. In case she changed her mind and called out for help. Nothing would haveheld me back then. I’d stayed and endured, biting the inside of my cheek until blood filled my mouth.

I inhaled through my nose, trying to supply my shrinking lungs with air as I struggled to make sense of it all. One moment Tamsyn was here, with me. Now she was gone. And not just gone... but gone with him. The Beast. The thought of her out there alongside him...

Bile surged in my throat. She wasn’t safe.

It wouldn’t be permanent. I vowed that. My fingers clenched, tightening around the rampart. I leaned forward as though I could reach across the distance and pluck her from their midst.

It wouldn’t be forever. I wouldn’t abandon her. Somehow. I didn’t care what my father said. I didn’t care what the king decreed. I didn’t care that she had married another man. It was all a lie—something forced upon her. It would not stand.

I would see her again.

I would save her.

Part III

The Crossing

13

Tamsyn

THEY THOUGHT THE JOURNEY WOULD BREAK ME.

It was the hope. At least it was Lord Arkin’s hope. I had since learned his name after his not-so-vague threat. It seemed wise to know all you could about your enemies, and it was clear to me that Arkin was determined to be my enemy.

It was not yet clear, however, what I would be to Fell. Or he to me.

The other warriors cast looks of disdain in my direction as we made our way north. I was an outsider, a proven deceiver, and they did not hide their contempt. They viewed me as a bumbling, inept addition to their party. Little did they know, I was made of sterner stuff. Life had conditioned me for this. I was not glass. I did not break. I was bred to survive.

As arduous as the hours in the saddle proved to be, I ignored the discomfort and clung to my composure, studying the changing landscape. I’d never ventured this far from home. The coastline to the south of the City, where our summer villa was located, was smooth and flat with tall willow grass that curled like fingers in the sun-kissed breeze. It took only a couple of hours by carriage to reach there. This was decidedly more vigorous an excursion, and the sun kissed nothing here.

The farther north we progressed, the more untamed our surroundings became. The trees grew bigger, taller, greener; the brushwood wild and overgrown in a tangle of land. The terrain,laden with fog, undulated in soft hills and valleys, in readiness of the mountains to come.

I’d never before felt the throb of the world in my bones, the whisper of grass in my ears. Never heard the birds or animals shifting and chittering in the unrelenting press of the countryside. Even the rocks possessed a heartbeat. A flow. Blood whooshed through the veins of the earth beneath me.

It felt as though we were leaving civilization behind. There were no towns and few villages, and those villages we passed through were humble, meager affairs full of decrepit thatched-roof cottages. Dogs with jutting rib cages gave our party a wide berth. Children with dirt-stained faces peered out from shutterless windows into the misty air. Their hollow eyes made them appear far older than their tender years. Slump-shouldered, bone-thin women pumped water at the wells. Men were scarce, ostensibly breaking their backs somewhere in the mines or in the distant fields. It was scarcely the prosperity of the City.

“Not what you’re accustomed to, is it?” the dark-haired sword maiden beside me asked, her wiry body rolling easily with the motion of her mount as we followed the winding road into higher country. Her name was Mari, and she was the only one who deigned to speak to me, and for that she was my favorite person.

I cleared my throat. “No, it is not.”

“Deprivation isn’t pretty.”