Page 114 of The Freedom You Seek

“Holy shit. You all must have been extremely amused when Bryon said he wanted to get a pardon for me with a royal favor, considering who you are.”

“Mmhmm.”

“What about you?”

“Jama, you’re too curious.”

“Alternatively, you could still choose to tell me why you call me Jama, Dion.”

“Wicked woman.” His chuckle vibrated through me, and I could tell that despite everything, he was amused by me.

“I have the rank of Field Marshal.”

Stunned, I remembered to close my mouth just a few seconds too late. “FieldMarshal?” I knew little about the army, but I’d heard the term before and knew this title was damn high. “Isn’t that like second in command?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.” Dumbfounded, I turned my upper body to stare at Dion. “Why aren’t you in charge here?”

“Who says I’m not?”

“ButFig—”

“If you fell for the ruse, so would everyone else.”

I groaned. Why didn’t I see something big like this before? If I’d ever paid attention when people talked about the army, would I have recognized the men much earlier? How deep was this rabbit hole?

“Aren’t you too young for such a position?”

“Who cares about age when magic is involved?”

“The king knows that you are Wielder?”

“Of course.”

“Treason. Definitely treason.”

“Told you so. Will you keep quiet for a while now?”

I was stunned and turned back into a more comfortable position. I had a lot to think about. Everything Dion had told me made sense and answered at least some questions, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was still missing something big. Something important.

We stopped for the night later than usual and stayed close to the road. The men agreed that the merits outweighed the risks. We’d lose too much time searching for a more remote resting place. Instead, Dion decided we’d have two people on night duty at the same time—because yes, he’d taken over from Fig as leader. I still had a hard time wrapping my head around this revelation. I offered to take a shift as well, but Dion and his raised eyebrow turned me down.

So I crawled into my bedroll between Dion and the small fire and soon fell asleep. However, I woke up again after a few hours and wasn’t able to sleep anymore. Too much was going on in my head. After a few unsuccessful attempts to return to dreamland, I silently got up to move my legs a bit. Dion twitched in his slumber but didn’t stop me.

After a few steps, I found Ireas sitting on the edge of the camp, and I wandered over to him, seating myself next to him.

“Are you tired?”

“No, I just started my shift a few minutes ago. Thain’s around here somewhere too.”

I scanned the young man. His normally already-tousled hair was even wilder. He definitely needed a good hairbrush, if not a barber. It was weird that someone who didn’t care about how his hair looked always made sure he was clean-shaven. That was something he had in common with Dion and Thain. All three of them seemed to hate body hair, at least as far as I could see, and ever since the towel incident in Rastialla—no, I wouldn’t think about Dion’s nearly naked body again.

“Dion told me that I’m probably not the most wanted person in our group anymore.”

“Oh, did he? Well, yes.”

“How do you feel about it?”