Page 91 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

“We’re not telling you shit,” the lancer spat back.

Kora snagged the haunted gaze of the female. “Tell me now!” The female’s thin body trembled. Kora had one shot to guess, but her instincts roared with certainty. “Was it the Skytors?”

They all faltered for a moment—just a moment, but it was enough to know.

“Don’t tell her anything,” the eyeless male stepped forward. “They said to bring ye in alive . . . but they never said in one piece.” He flashed an ugly smile.

Kora transitioned into another fighting stance, her arm bleating with pain, and she winced. The curve of her daggersgleamed like the brilliant red sands of Scarlet Bay, and she exhaled, her muscles falling into the memory of her fighting techniques.

“If you won’t tell me . . . there’re other ways to make you talk.”

“She knows,” the female pressed. “Just tell her!”

“No, Mags,” the lancer snapped. “Kill her. She’s not important anymore.”

“Jason, if she knows the Skytors, then maybe she’s not what we think!” Mags barked.

The eyeless male waved a hand. “We don’t knowwhatshe is. And stop revealing your names!”

“Shehas a name, too,” Kora interjected, twirling a dagger.

“We don’t care!” Jason seethed. “Let’s use her as leverage instead and—”

A throwing knife plunged into Jason’s neck and Mags screamed, her shaking hands flying to her mouth.

“What the—” the eyeless male hissed as Jason sagged to the ground—Theron stood behind him, his silver armour flashing in the sun.Oh, thank the gods!

“I’d get back on the ground if I were you.” Theron’s voice was so low and dark, a portentous feeling overcame her, as if she were in the presence of something—or someone great. The two exiles eyed Theron’s embellished stag symbol on his silver chest and collapsed to their knees.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he approached, after unarming the eyeless male.

Kora nodded curtly, squishing the anxiety down. Too stunned to speak. Guilt shone in his shadowed eyes. She hadn’t brought herself to ask how he was faring after last night; the effect that banishing Callan had on him; whether he was worried about the repercussions from the king.

“We-we didn’t know,” Mags stammered, her hands shaking as she clasped them together in a prayer. “Please . . . we beg forgiveness.”

Kora lifted a brow at Theron. Wearing the uniform certainly had its perks. The eyeless male scoffed at his counterpart, but Mags’ eyes brimmed with tears as she repeatedly begged for mercy.

Blake, Ivar, and her crew shortly joined, panting as they sheathed their weapons. Blood, dirt, and sand coated every inch of their clothing and faces.

“They’ve all been taken care of,” Blake murmured quietly to her and Theron, jerking his chin to the massacre. Theron inclined his head once in response. “You’re hurt,” Blake stated simply as he glimpsed Kora’s arm. He reached out to inspect the wound.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, edging away. The movement didn’t go unnoticed. “Just a scratch.”

“A scratch my arse,” he parroted her words, but she couldn’t smile. Not when she was drenched in blood. Not when she’d killed blindly on an epic scale for the first time since the trials. But the trials had been survival, a means to live.

This had been . . . murder. Bile crept up her throat, threatening to upheave her stomach.

With a tense exhale, Blake turned to their two captives, and she observed warily as he began his interrogation. “What are you doing this close to the border?”

“We don’t know what ye mean,” the male feigned ignorance.

Samuel grunted at that. “Everyone knows where the grass begins is where the desert ends.” The navigational master clenched his fists, his grey eyes boring into the eyeless exile.

“Fine,” the exile snapped. “We go where we please. We don’t abide ye petty rules.”

“The rules of the kingwillbe obeyed,” Theron’s whipping voice cracked. “The territories are marked for unity. For prosperity of the land.”

The exiles’ branded foreheads glared back, and Mags placed a shaking hand on the eyeless male’s arm. “Don’t anger them, Doran.”