Chapter 7 #2
Red face pressed against the wall, Fel snarled and flexed his muscles, as if he would shove away and continue the attack, but the blade cut slightly, drawing blood. Inflicting pain.
“Since you don’t trust me to protect your charge, Sergeant,” Vorik said calmly, “it might behoove you to keep yourself alive, if possible.”
Expression aggrieved, Fel looked sideways as much as he could while trapped against the wall, and met Syla’s gaze.
“Let him go…” Syla paused, considering using a derogatory term, but this wasn’t the time to antagonize the rider. “Let him go, Captain Vorik,” she said, struggling for a calm tone of her own. “Sergeant Fel won’t attack you again.”
Since she’d thus far had no luck in ordering Fel to stand down, she doubted Vorik would believe that, but what else could she do to win her bodyguard’s freedom?
“Is that true, Sergeant?” Vorik asked Fel. “If I release you, will you refrain from attacking me again?”
Fel seethed, lip curling, muscles flexing against the man restraining him. If he could have escaped without making any promises, he would have.
“If you won’t give me your word,” Vorik said, his tone growing icy for the first time, “then I must kill you. You won’t be the first kingdom sergeant I’ve put an end to.”
“Oh, I know,” Fel snarled, hatred in his eyes now.
He either blamed Vorik for everything that had happened in the castle and city above, or… he had some other reason to loathe him personally. Syla couldn’t tell, but maybe they’d met in battle before. After all, Fel had identified Vorik on that rooftop without hesitation.
“Your status as our enemy is what prompts us not to believe you have good intentions now,” Syla offered, though neither man was looking at her. They were too busy glaring at each other now.
“That is understandable,” Vorik said, his tone back to being calm and reasonable instead of cold and terrifying. “If we can depart this dangerous place, I’m willing to explain everything, Your Highness.”
Syla did want to depart, but it had more to do with finding her aunt and trying to engineer the repair of the shielder than listening to explanations from a stormer.
“Are you done trying to kill me, Sergeant?” Vorik asked again.
Fel opened a hand, as if to show he was without a weapon, but he said, “If you place a single finger on her, I will strangle you until your head pops off.”
Vorik looked at Syla, a hint of a rueful smile on his face. “I’m unclear on whether he acquiesced to me or not.”
His face had been handsome before, but the smile made it even more so. Much like the first warrior, he was striking, the kind of man a girl would swoon over in normal times.
The thought made Syla rock back with a realization, and she looked toward poor Venia’s body.
Earlier, she hadn’t seriously been thinking that her sister—her married sister—had come down here for a tryst, but maybe that was exactly what had happened.
Somewhere along the way, she’d met that beautiful warrior, and he’d wooed her, maybe talked her into meeting in secret in these tunnels for sex.
Would the intelligent thirty-three-year-old Venia have fallen for something like that?
Syla shook her head, having a hard time believing that her sister would have done anything to betray their people.
Her marriage to the much older Lord Telenfar had been arranged, and there hadn’t been a child yet, so it was possible a young and handsome suitor might have tempted Venia, but…
there was no way Venia would have led a lover—led anyone—to the shielder.
She wouldn’t have betrayed the kingdom for lust—or anything else. It was a foolish hypothesis.
“Sergeant?” Vorik prompted into the silence.
“I won’t attack you tonight unless you attack me,” Fel finally said, “but if you touch Princess Syla, I, as her bodyguard, will be compelled to come to her rescue.”
“I can’t touch her at all? What if she trips and falls?”
“I will catch her.”
“I see. Very well.” Vorik stepped back, releasing Fel.
Fel flexed his shoulders and shook out his arms as he turned. He didn’t put his full weight on the knee Vorik had kicked, but he did walk toward Syla without limping.
She stepped toward him, lifting his mace to offer to him, though she expected Vorik to stop her, to want Fel to remain unarmed. Vorik watched them but didn’t object as Fel clasped the handle of his weapon.
“This way.” Vorik tilted his head and walked into the tunnel.
Syla had no intention of going anywhere with him, no matter what explanation he offered, but there was only one way out of the chamber.
With Fel at her side, they walked out after Vorik.
At the tunnel entrance, Syla paused to take one last look at the shielder so she could etch the details in her mind and better relay them to her aunt.
As she did, she noticed the fallen warrior that Vorik had battled.
He lay on the lid of the sarcophagus where he’d dropped.
It occurred to her that someone ought to put that lid back on, that leaving the tomb open was a disservice to the dead.
But would she ask the injured Fel? Or Vorik?
It would involve shoving the dead stormer aside, so she hesitated, but something told her to put that lid back on, that nothing good would come from leaving a tomb disturbed.
“This way, Your Highness.” Vorik had paused a few steps ahead. “I’m eager to give you the explanation for my behavior so that I may gain a modicum of trust from you.”
“This should be good,” Fel muttered darkly.
He hadn’t paused to look back and didn’t appear concerned about the open sarcophagus. He walked with determination after Vorik, doing his best to mask his injuries.
With Fel in need of healing, Syla didn’t want to linger. She would have to return later to retrieve her sister’s body, and she could tend to the sarcophagus then.
“Your Highness?” Vorik prompted.
He watched Syla intently, waiting for her to join them.
“I’m coming,” she said.
“Excellent,” Vorik said.
Syla was certain it wasn’t.