Chapter 5 #2
“Cheats,” one of the men supplies gruffly. “Swindlers.”
“Exactly.”
Tristan’s secret glee at our task turns my stomach. Any kind of person who takes delight in the suffering of others is one to watch closely and keep at a distance.
I don’t trust him. I never have.
“I understand,” I snap.
Better than anyone else, considering my parentage.
Tristan stomps at my side and I’m grateful when he lapses into silence. The soldiers around us keep their footfalls soft as we span out through the trees, the better to hunt our quarry.
The battle doesn’t end when the fighting does—the clash of swords is our opening move. I’d rather not find anyone, and I pray we don’t.
One of the soldiers with us stops, bending low to push through a thicket of briars, then cursing when the thorns snag his skin.
“I’d be careful if I were you,” Tristan says with a grunt of laughter. “There are nettles as well.”
Tristan is the type to kick a man into the nettles just for fun and a good chuckle.
I step around the soldier, who hastily stands and trots away from the briar and nettle patch.
Even the birds are silent today. Do they mourn the loss of the herd? Do they even understand what happened, or were they spooked by the arrival of the dragons? The woods are pretty and empty outside of us.
The intruders.
“Eyes open, Kieran.”
Tristan lifts his index and middle fingers to his face, pointing them at his eyes and then at mine. What an insufferable nettle-spine.
The woods thin out the further up the crest of the hill we traverse. A rocky trail meanders through patches of green and purple flowers with their blossoms tilting toward the sky. We’ve tainted this place with our presence and the thought turns my insides into mush.
A sharp scream sounds from my left and I jerk back in time to see Tristan slice his blade across the neck of a man attempting to run. The metal cuts deep, the cut clean, and the man lets out a wet gargle before falling on his stomach.
The man must have been a farmer. His shirt and pants are streaked with mud, the same as his boots, and small bits of hay cling to the dried areas.
Tristan sneers and wipes the blood on the back of the man’s tunic before he slides the blade back into his holster.
“This is what happens when you try to run,” he tells the others. “Do not hesitate if they try to attack.”
One soldier simply stares at my cousin. “I thought you said we were keeping them alive, sir.”
“This one would have made a poor servant. Can you imagine someone like him serving roast boar at one of the state dinners?” Apparently, the image is too ludicrous for Tristan, and he grips his stomach against a roaring belly laugh.
The sound of it hounds me up the side of the hill. Okay, maybe nettle-spine is an understatement. Maybe sadistic maniac is a better description for my cousin because no one should delight in death the way he does.
Ignore him?
Mozi prowls the skies above us.
He makes it impossible to ignore.
Which is why, back at our castle, I try to keep my distance from Tristan. It will be impossible once we both move into DragonSpear in a scant week.
I pick up the pace to separate myself from the rest of the group, my attention on the uneven ground. General Ryson won’t be satisfied if we come back empty handed, and we all know it. There’s a difference between turning a purposeful blind eye and not trying.
Resigned, I force my vertebrae straight, working my neck from side to side against the throbbing ache in my neck and arms.
I stop long enough to glance over my shoulder, a mistake as soon as I do it. From this vantage point, the killing field spreads out like an unraveled tablecloth. The entire plain burns steadily. Ether take me.
I drag my fingers across my scalp until the slight pain brings me back into my body. An hour ago, I’d been out there.
It’s a steady march upward and, around a corner, the land opens up enough to grant me a glimpse of a dark opening at the side of the mountain. A flash of red flickers ahead. My nerves fire as the red solidifies into auburn braids trailing across the spine of a beautiful girl.
The beauty ducks back inside the cave but not fast enough.
Ah, dragon dung, this is a fracking mess, isn’t it?
Indecision tears me in two pieces. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone. Instinct turns me in the opposite direction.
I see nothing.
She’s a lone spark of life in an otherwise dismal day.
“Kieran!” Tristan calls out to me. “Having any luck up there?”
“Nothing here.” My voice holds firm.
“Are you sure? Seems to me like you found the perfect spot for us to survey our quarry. Or maybe you’ve identified the perfect place for survivors to hide.”
Tristan widens his stance, his hands on his hips, our men gathering behind him. He is the brute image of leadership, and they follow him without question. They would even if he weren’t the right hand to the General.
“Sorry to disappoint you. I know you were getting worked up at the thought of hunting practice,” I reply in quiet threat. “But there’s nothing to see.”
Tristan chuckles, casting a glance at the men before gripping his weapon hilt suggestively. “There’s time for that later.”
I’ll lead the party in the other direction, away from the cave. If Tristan gets so much as a whiff of survivors, he’ll clamp down, more stubborn than a starving dog.
Tristan’s eyes go sharp, latching on something beyond my head. The men move into position with their weapons drawn and the underbrush breaks beneath their hurried footsteps.
The world erupts into movement and sound.
I turn in time to see the beauty ducking back into the cave but not fast enough. Why did she have to come out again? I’m too late to stop Tristan from sprinting ahead and disappearing inside the mouth of the cave.
Too late to stop his hand from grabbing all that pretty red hair and twisting the braids around his wrist.
“Look what we have here, boys!” Tristan crows out his victory.
Our men span the entrance, blocking anyone from escape, and my heart drops.
The palm resting on my cuirass goes sweaty.
The girl was trying to hide and protect her people, dozens of them.
Her eyes widen at the sight of my uniform, and the ones worn by the other soldiers, the deep black and sapphire of General Roman Ryson.
She knows we’re the ones who burned her home.
Only for her to be caught by my cousin.
Her hair hangs loose in two braids down her front, her brown and green tunic the color of the forest below. Movement behind her gives the rest of her people away.
I quickly count heads and the air shoots out of my lungs. She’s got roughly fifty people hidden with her.
“Fiery little viper, aren’t you? Putting up a good fight. Too bad it’s not enough.” Tristan reacts and his dagger graces his palm a second later. He holds it to her throat. “I like it better when they fight,” he whispers.
The redhead twists wildly in his grip, unafraid of the blade pressed to her skin.
She stomps down on his boot then uses her knee to go for his groin. Unfortunately for her, she’s a slight thing, delicate and fair boned. She might be able to hold her own in a fight with someone else but not my cousin. I’m helpless, trapped in a cobweb snare, watching the unfolding.
Why hadn’t she stayed hidden?
Rage comes quickly and travels through the entirety of my body. The harder I fight against it, the more it grows, until my hands sting and my eyes burn. For half a second, I consider punching Tristan in the face, hard enough to cave in his nose and send him flipping over.
But if any of the men note my fury, they say nothing.
Tristan maneuvers her around and bands his arm around her midsection, trapping her arms at her sides. He’s got the bulk and superior height and strength.
There’s no way for her to win.
And her people are no help. The soldiers have them corralled and push them into the rear wall of the cave.
“What’s your name?” Tristan steps forward.
I watch the girl take a hitching breath, watch her work her thoughts into some kind of order. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out.
Is nothing better than a lie?
The rage boils higher inside of me. These poor people. They have nothing to do with the corruption in their village leaders. They probably had no idea that their leaders brought on the wrath of the general.
“Well?” Tristan laughs, a curt sound, the kind that straightens spines and forces hands to go to weapons. “You know the punishment for cheating the crown? A slow death. Punishment.”
“I don’t know anything,” the girl insists.
Tristan pulls her closer. Her gaze snaps down to his belt of weapons, then skitters over to mine, resting on the jeweled hilt of my dagger.
“I’m willing to bet you know more than you’re letting on. And if you don’t speak, you will die a traitor’s death, girl,” Tristan snarls.
No.
I’ve seen too much death in one day. I can’t bear to watch another innocent life be taken.
She’s a frail creature with curling hair and almond-shaped wide eyes.
Not an enemy. Somewhere buried underneath the charred remains of my heart, I recognize that the girl’s future is entirely in my hands, and that her family is dead in the field beyond.
This is recklessness, Mozi says.
Tristan’s muscles bunch, the blade ready and eager to slice the girl’s throat, and I can’t let it happen. I open my mouth to stop him, to burn him with some of the acid pooling in my mouth, but the girl’s eyes meet mine and stop me.