Chapter 28
We traveled hard the entire day, the horses’ breaths steaming in the cold air as the miles blurred behind us.
How quickly would the sheriff find us? Would he even be able to, without Baron there?
He wouldn’t even need to track us. He’d know I would want to free my father, and it was going to be a race to see who made it there first.
Baron guided us steadily northeast. He claimed he knew the general area of the castle, the safest roads, and the fastest paths. I had no choice but to believe him. My jaw tightened at the thought. After everything, I was still forced to trust him.
Dusk fell in slow shades of violet shadows when we finally made camp deep in the forest, where the trees provided plenty of cover from any prying eyes that might pass by.
I dismounted stiffly, shoulders knotted with exhaustion.
When Baron suggested taking first watch, I cut him off before he finished the sentence.
“I’ll do it.”
“Laurel, you should rest—”
“I said I’ll do it. I’m not tired.”
He agreed, disappearing into the tent without any more protest. Once he bedded down, I struck flint to kindling.
A small fire caught. Dangerous, perhaps, but necessary.
After the cold of the gorge and the relentless ride, I needed warmth as much as I needed clarity.
The dense trees muffled out the fire’s glow, and the canopy overhead swallowed the rising smoke. So I let it burn.
Baron’s snores eventually slipped into a rhythm.
The sound was steady, untroubled, but every inhale of his seemed to tug at the frayed edges of my thoughts.
I wrapped my cloak around myself and scanned the woods with sharp, restless eyes.
Nothing moved beyond the ring of firelight.
No hooves. No flicker of torchlight. No muttered curses from men who wanted me dead.
Alone at last, the thoughts I’d been outrunning all day surged forward.
I hugged my knees to my chest, glaring into the fire. Why couldn’t life be simple? If only Baron had been a heartless monster that was easy to hate, everything would have been so much easier.
Then there had been that kiss…
I crushed the thought before it could root too deeply, my cheeks heating despite the cold.
Infatuation, I told myself fiercely. That’s all it was. Proximity and desperation. It hadn’t been real.
The lie tasted sour, even when it went unspoken.
I forced myself to look outward again, scanning the stillness for danger.
Hours slipped by in a fog. I had half a mind to leave Baron now while he slept and journey on alone.
I could take both horses and he would never catch up.
But I discarded the notion. Because despite everything, he had saved me.
He’d kept me safe for months, cared for me, then freed me knowing it would cost him everything—his standing, his safety, maybe even his life.
He’d defied his only family to get me out.
Was I a fool for clinging to the version of Baron I wanted to exist?
I sighed. Before my imprisonment, the world had been sharp-edged and simple. Good and evil. Right and wrong. But now everything felt smudged with gray. Baron was both betrayal and comfort. Both danger and safety. I both hated him and still was desperately in love with him.
In the end, I made myself a promise: I would keep watch, stay alert, and guard my heart with both hands. But I wouldn’t leave him yet. It was easier to track betrayal when the betrayer stayed close.
Baron’s words from months before drifted through my memory: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” What if Baron was both?
I drew my cloak tighter around my shoulders and kept watch until the stars wheeled overhead.
Once my eyelids began to droop, I went to wake Baron for his turn at the watch. I crouched to duck inside the tent, the canvas brushing my shoulders as I wound my way toward the familiar rhythm of his snores.
“Baron,” I whispered.
Still half-asleep, he reached out for me on instinct, just as he had every night for months, hand searching blindly to pull me to his side. My breath hitched, ridiculous and involuntary, and I stepped back quickly before he could touch me.
“Baron,” I tried again, louder this time.
He startled awake, blinking owlishly, looking around in that fogged, disoriented way people do when dragged too fast out of deep sleep. Then his gaze found mine in the firelit shadows, and I watched as memory dawned…followed by relief.
“I thought you would leave me,” he murmured.
A warmth bloomed in my chest that I immediately snuffed out. “Well, surprise, I’m still here,” I said, folding my arms. “And it’s my turn to sleep, so move.”
Baron pushed himself upright, rubbing a hand over his face as if it would straighten out the last few hours. Then, as he glanced around the cramped space, some sense of propriety must have sparked to life.
“You can’t be in here,” he insisted firmly.
I raised an eyebrow. “Because…?”
“Because!” he sputtered, fully awake now, but apparently not fluent in sentences. “You’re a girl and I’m a boy.”
A laugh escaped before I could choke it back. “Defending my honor now, are you? And the last several months of sleeping together don’t count because…?”
His eyes widened in horror. “You’re making it sound like something happened. We were just keeping warm! We never… I didn’t… We were chained together! We had to.”
“Well, alright then, Mister Chivalrous,” I said with exaggerated politeness. “It’s your turn for watch. So, shoo. Go defend my honor from a respectable distance before my reputation is ruined beyond repair.”
Baron gave a resigned, flustered groan and crawled out of the tent, leaving me alone. I slid into his bedroll, still warm from the lingering heat of his body and still smelling of that intoxicating combination of forests and leather and campfire that I loved so much.
My heart gave one traitorous flutter that I did my best to ignore.
I adjusted the rolled blanket he had been using as a pillow, punching it into shape with more force than necessary. His scent stirred with each movement and for a moment I allowed myself to inhale deeply, imagining that Baron was still next to me.
Just infatuation, is it? the tiny voice in the back of my mind needled smugly.
I glared at the bedding as if it were personally responsible for my lack of emotional clarity.
I had too much to do and too much to plan to be distracted.
I needed to plan a jailbreak and figure out a way to rescue Father and the Merry Men, all while anticipating what the sheriff may do. I couldn’t afford distraction.
I rolled over and tugged the blanket around myself, eyes squeezing shut.
But the problem with lying in Baron’s bedroll was that the memories seeped in with the warmth, from his steady breathing beside me for months, the way he’d instinctively reached for me just now, and the fact that he’d worried I might leave.
I forced my mind toward strategy, toward escape routes and contingencies. Anything but the gentle way he’d said my name earlier. Anything but the fear in his eyes when he thought I might be gone.
I exhaled slowly. Arm’s length, I reminded myself.
Even if those arms felt far too easy to fall into.
It was still dark when Baron called softly from outside the tent, “Laurel…we need to get going soon.”
When I crawled out, he already had a pan sizzling over the rekindled fire. The faint, savory smell of salted pork drifted up through the cold air. He handed me a plate, his expression half-hopeful, half-wary.
“Peace offering?” he asked. “Or are we still enemies?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I muttered, though my stomach growled as I took the food.
We ate quickly, doused the fire, and broke down camp, taking great care to cover up that we’d been there.
When I finally examined the supplies he had hauled out with him, I blinked in surprise.
There was bedding, food, tools, weapons…
everything we’d need for a long journey and jailbreak.
“Did you take everything from camp?” I teased.
“No,” Baron said with a mischievous grin.
“But more than a few of their weapons might have accidentally fallen off the cliff into the lake. There was also the unfortunate loss of the paddock’s lock snapping off.
Most of their horses happened to get loose.
They’ll be busy chasing livestock for awhile, but odds are they’ll blame you.
I hope you don’t mind, but I left a trail for them so they will suspect that you got loose and caused mayhem. I thought you’d like that.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Well done!” I clapped him on the back—
And Baron recoiled violently, drawing a sharp breath through his teeth.
I froze. “What’s wrong?” The alarm in my voice startled even me. I had never heard Baron make a sound like that, not even when I’d done my best to injure him during our fights early on.
“It’s nothing. Just…a few bruises,” he said, much too quickly. His tone tried for bravado, but there was strain in it.
“You’re lying,” I said, savoring the rare chance to throw his own words back at him. “Let me see.”
“Laurel, it’s—”
“Take your shirt off,” I demanded, arms crossed.
He stared at me as if hoping I’d change my mind. When I didn’t, he sighed, released his cloak from around his shoulders, reached for the hem of his jerkin, and pulled it over his head with a wince.
“I don’t know what it’ll look like today—”
I gasped.
A few bruises didn’t even come close to describing what I saw.
Black and purple bruises covered his entire torso and back like some grotesque tapestry.
Angry welts rose in swollen ridges. Some cuts were fresh enough that dried blood still flaked along the edges.
Long red lash marks carved merciless paths across his skin, intersecting old scars: white, ghostly reminders of wounds long since healed.
It hit me all at once, hot and nauseating. This was the price he had paid for me.