5
Jeryn
I came for her. My boot heels struck the wharf as I dismounted from the great stag and thrust my gaze toward Summer’s castle. The fortress stretched across a bluff, extending horizontally instead of vertically. Its towers, parapets, and colonnades spanned a cliff range, with gold banners punching the wind.
One tower in particular claimed my attention. The structure rose like an exposed target. A clean shot.
Winter knights cantered to a halt behind me. Taking my descent as permission, they disembarked from their own stags, having led the fauna from our ship upon docking. Around us, the ocean thrashed like a colossus smashing its skull into the surf. Quite the invasion of sound compared with the calculating silence of Winter.
Nicking my head sideways to loosen a kink, I pinned my gaze to the Fools Tower. Choking the reins once, I released the animal, knowing it would follow. While dissecting the edifice, I stalked forward, an order corroding on my tongue. “No one touches the prisoner but me.”
My retinue would not be a problem. The instruction had been intended for Summer’s warriors, to whom the order would be dispatched. They would obey or have their intestines extracted.
As we strode toward the fortress, the knights fell quiet. Something had registered to them—a glaring, grammatical error—a half-second before the knowledge spasmed through my consciousness. They hadn’t said it, but they’d heard the mistake.
My fingers stretched, preparing to squeeze something until it shattered. Prisoners. Plural. That’s what I should have said.