Page 16 of Artemysia

“She knows who her daddy is.” - Riev

A fter five hours of travel, the elk need a short rest. They’re fast sprinters, but their endurance is tested on long haul journeys, so they need frequent breaks.

A small offshoot of a stream runs through a grove of deerleaf spruce—bluish mint-scented trees—with a few river willows scattered throughout.

I check my watch with a flick of my wrist. “One-hour stop. We’ll still make it to Limingfrost before dark,” I say. “Eat. Refill your canteens.”

Throg dismounts and shucks off his leather armor and boots. He unbuttons his shirt and peels it off. Belt unbuckled, he kicks off his pants but leaves on his underwear.

“What’s he doing?” Ivy unloads my pack and collects my elk from me.

“Part of his charm is that he claims all fabrics constrict him, and that he overheats. ”

“He doesn’t like clothes?”

“Wears as little as possible in his downtime.” It’s just one of his quirks, and it makes me laugh. When I’ve brought up safety concerns, he insists muslin and leather won’t make a difference for him in an ambush or a fight to the death.

Two hefty gold chains drape over his bare chest. I know for a fact that he shaves his chest because of those chains. He says the links pull at his hair, but he refuses to go without his accessories.

Throg wades into the stream and squats to scoop up the frigid water to splash his face.

Ivy leads our elk upstream to drink, though the whole time her head is turned around backward like an owl, gawking shamelessly at him.

Riev swings off his elk, landing gracefully. He stretches a hand into his saddlebag and pulls out a dropper bottle.

“Lie down,” he orders his copper elk. She obeys, kneeling onto her front legs before settling on her belly, her legs tucked under.

When she lifts her head to him, he applies three drops in each eye as she blinks.

I sidle up to him, curious.

“She needs eyedrops,” he says, wiping the excess from her face with the back of his palm.

“I’ve never seen any elk do that voluntarily.” On the farm, my father and I distracted them with oatcakes while sneaking in eyedrops when necessary.

“She knows who her daddy is,” Riev says, patting her on the head. “Good girl.”

Damn him for being sexy right now.

He probably doesn’t know it. Or maybe he does and is showing off, if he’d paid any attention at all to how much I love elk. Either way, I force a frown to hide how impressed I am.

Throg catches my eye as I return to our packs.

“Daddy Riev, huh? Do you wish you were that elk? Lie down. Do as you’re told.

Get pet on the head if you’re a good girl,” he whispers loudly, to my mortification.

I launch a fist to jab him in the waist, but he pedals back in time.

“Don’t take it out on me. I’m not the one who’s turned on when someone demonstrates proper elkmanship. ”

“I’m not missing again, Throg,” I warn, showing him my knuckles.

Thankfully, Riev doesn’t seem to have heard. He’s wandered away from us, treading deeper into the grove. I keep watch with a sidelong glance in case he has unannounced plans.

Oddly enough, he strolls from tree to tree, weaving between them as if he were tracking or hunting for something.

He finally stops under a low, wide willow with smooth bark.

He toes the grass around his chosen tree and lowers himself to the ground in a crouch before reclining onto his back.

His head nestles against a bulbous root.

“Ivy, wake me up in an hour,” he calls out, covering his brow with a forearm as he shuts his eyes.

“Nope. You’re the meanest creature alive when someone tries to wake you up,” she hollers back, shaking her head where she stands in the middle of the stream. She’s peeled off her boots and socks, rolled up her breeches, and waded knee-deep into the water.

“Captain? Unless you want to ditch me on purpose.”

“Then who would bring all the lone-wolf energy to the group?” I ask. “We’d miss your sunshine and giggles.”

Throg edges beside me, handing me a wedge of bread and a boiled goose egg as I throw my head back for a sip of water from my canteen.

“We should just leave the infuriatingly handsome psychopath,” he says, gnawing off a piece of chewy bread as we watch Riev kick out his feet and cross them at the ankles.

A voice behind us cuts us off. “Oy, Colossus! Come look at the fucking beautiful rainbow fish here.” Ivy beckons Throg upstream to stand in the water with her.

“Fish? Let’s see, little demon.” He winks at me and happily obliges Ivy, trudging over to her. I settle onto a tree stump to peel my egg, offering the shell to my elk when she eventually wanders over and snuffles the back of my head.

An hour later, Ivy and Throg (with his shirt and pants back on) mount their elk while I weave around a large tree to find Riev.

He’s in the midst of a dream, his fists clenched, muttering curses in his sleep.

He kicks a leg out and swears he’s going to kill something, but his mumbling turns mostly to gibberish.

“Time to wake up,” I say, my voice flat, feeling silly that I have to wake a grown man from a nap in the middle of the day.

Who the heck takes naps but babies and the elderly?

He’s still lost in his violent dream, punching the air, twitching his legs, so I kick him in the side of the ribs with the inner heel of my boot. Just a poke.

Nothing.

“Riev,” I repeat, nudging him repeatedly with my foot before finally bending over to grip his shoulder.

I shake him once.

His eyes flick open, unfocused. With a terrifying roar, his arm shoots out, a strong hand crushing my windpipe.

My back slams down on the grass as I kick out at him. My boot connects with his stomach, but it’s like kicking a brick wall.

“What the hell?” I gasp, the words dying in my throat. My voice is barely audible as his fingers tighten their grip, closing off my air supply. He pins my legs with his knees and knocks away my attempts to punch him. His free hand comes down over my mouth.

His eyes flare wildly. They’re still vacant, and he’s not looking at me.

He’s still asleep. Breath constricted, I fight the urge to thrash and struggle unnecessarily.

Focus . In this vicious state, even trapped in his own dream, he wants a fight.

His subconscious is so chaotic that violence rules him even in his sleep.

I knee him one more time in the groin, hard enough that even Throg would cry, but it doesn’t even register.

Just like when I fought him in the alleyway, he will fight until he has the upper hand.

I have seconds to think. If I keep struggling, he will only retaliate, especially in whatever dark state he’s lost his mind to right now. Strategically, I could break his wrist or jab him in the throat, and he might let go. Chances are he’d fight harder.

It’s a risk, but I calculate that this is a fight in which capitulation is my answer, and I surrender.

Going one step further, I curl my fingers over his on my neck and press down as if helping him to strangle me.

“You win. I’m not going to hurt you back,” I rasp out, gagging.

He still muffles my mouth. I have no idea if he understood or even heard me because his eyes are still glazed with that faraway look, but I do my best to relax.

My chest deflates, and the hand covering my mouth jerks away .

He still grips my throat, but when I soften, he does too, almost immediately. Not in the way that someone would do if they think they’re winning. If you’re strangling someone to death, and they begin to slacken, you make sure the job is done by clasping harder.

I know this because I’ve had to do it.

Even when sparks of white light invade my vision and I’m about to pass out, I let him win.

I reach up and brush his cheek softly with my knuckles as I would a scared child. “Wake up, Riev. It’s Delphine,” I croak.

Just as I give up hope that he can hear me, that I’ll need to break his wrist, his eyes blink out of their sinister haze and his palm releases from my neck.

His pupils expand, eclipsing his pale irises. He jolts back, a stunned expression marring his face. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorr—”

From the corner of my teary eyes, I watch Throg’s massive form launch through the air.

As he tackles Riev off me, they roll onto the ground in a heap.

When Throg rises to his feet, he yanks Riev up with him, grabbing him by the front of his collar, towering over him.

Throg has no need for words. His first punch lands on Riev’s jaw.

Riev staggers back, his pained gaze swiveling back to me. “Are you okay?”

Throg hammers Riev in the face again with his other fist, and as his head is thrown back, blood pours from his nose.

Those stormy eyes never leave me. He doesn’t fight back.

“Throg, stop! He was asleep.” My throat scrapes as I choke out a cough.

“What the fuck was that, asshole?” He lunges forward again, but Riev makes no move to dodge or lift his arms in defense. He allows Throg to pummel him once more before I stagger between them.

“Get on your elk, both of you. Let’s go. Riev, clean up your face in the stream.” It’s hard to swallow, and the skin around my neck burns. Bruised, probably.

“Captain,” they say simultaneously, Throg in protest, and Riev I can’t read. He lurches toward the stream to wash the blood off his face, but Throg moves to follow him.

My hand shoots out to grasp his forearm. It’s as if I grip a log. “Throg, stop. He was asleep, having a nightmare. ”

He whirls to me, his eyes flashing the color of the stream beside us. “I should have been watching. By the time I saw, your eyes were rolling back like you were about to pass out. You know how to release yourself from a chokehold! It looked like…you let him? What the hell?”

“I wanted to see if he’d come out of it if I let go. I didn’t want to have to hurt him.”

“So you risked yourself.”

“It was my decision. It worked.”

“Don’t take risks like that, Delphine,” Throg says, giving me his back. Rarely does he use my full name. It’s Elphie or my rank.

He only uses “Delphine” when he’s absolutely furious with me. How long he’ll be mad depends on how hungry he is.

It’s Throg; he won’t stay angry for long.

“I didn’t want to hurt him, but I also wanted to test if he cared about hurting the people around him. I wanted a look into his subconscious. What I saw was unhinged brutality, but also a response to submission and surrender,” I say. “Maybe even a response to kindness.”

How I use it to my advantage will determine how we work together for the rest of the mission.

“That’s elkshit. What he responded to was you. You . But if he hadn’t recognized you, you’d be dead, Delphine.” Throg walks away from me to collect his elk from Ivy.

Taken aback, I have no reply. There’s no way I have that kind of power over him.

I’m still reeling as I swing my leg over my saddle, the need to figure out how to handle Riev consuming my thoughts. Will he fall in line, or will he rebel against my commands?

What controls his impulses? Can he control them?

Either way, all I know is that it’s imperative to unite this complicated team before our first Syf encounter.

I’m nothing if not up for the challenge.

Our success depends on it.

Mostly because, if I cannot, we are all as good as dead.