24 Eira #2
Who he was. He silently begged her to keep quiet, to understand. Eira’s mind was a blank. She didn’t know what to think. Hugo
had saved her time and time again since she had gone with him, but what did that mean when he’d also been lying to her?
“Well,” the voice that was likely Jason spoke. “We made our stop. Let’s get back to our patrol.”
Eira listened to the shuffle of boots grow distant as the two soldiers stepped away from her ransacked home. Hugo waited,
hand still pressed to Eira’s lips as they both waited a beat longer than they needed to.
When the silence fell into a near ringing in her ears and Eira knew it was safe to finally move she immediately shoved Hugo, causing him to take a big step back. “Commander?” was all she said.
“Yes,” Hugo said flatly, emotion wholly absent from his voice.
“How could you not tell me?” Eira asked, shoving at his chest again, the rage blooming inside her white and hot. “What did
you do?!”
“You don’t want to know,” he answered, stepping back into the kitchen and leaning against the countertop. “And nothing I’m
proud of.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” Eira said as she followed him, anger rippling through her as she stormed in his direction.
“I deserve to know if I’m supposed to trust you.”
He exhaled loudly, running his hand through his hair before looking back at Eira. “I was given the rank of commander due to
my exceptional work during the coup,” he said without emotion, but Eira could see fear and sadness shadowing his eyes. He
wasn’t proud of this, and he was afraid of how she’d react.
Good. He should be afraid of how she would react. “Did you kill my family?” she asked.
“What?” This seemed to startle him, and he shook his head in shock and held up his hands placatingly. “No, Eira. I didn’t
kill your family. I told you that already.”
Eira knew that it was the question she’d asked, but it wasn’t the question that was twisting her gut into knots right now.
“What did you do after the uprising?” Eira whispered, backing away from Hugo. She didn’t want to know the answer to this—she needed to.
Hugo shook his head gently, silently begging her to take the question back.
“Eira, don’t,” he pleaded.
“Tell me,” Eira hissed in response. Silence fell between them, Hugo’s mouth opening and closing half a dozen times as Eira waited for him to answer the question she already knew the answer to.
He would have answered already if it wasn’t exactly what she thought, what she already knew it was going to be.
“I hunted witches,” he finally said.
Eira closed her eyes—he’d hunted her people. “No,” she whispered.
“I’m not proud of it,” he said quietly, voice nearly breaking as he took a step closer.
Eira held her arm out. “Don’t.”
“Eira,” Hugo said, keeping the distance she’d asked for. “The Iron Empire. It . . . it was intoxicating, and I fell for every
lie until I finally snapped out of it. I . . .” He paused, his breath shaky. “I understand if this means you don’t trust me
anymore, but I am not the man that hunted those witches now. I’ve grown from who he was. I can hardly sleep at night because
I’m haunted by the things I did in the name of an empire that ended up doing nothing but harm when it promised a better world . . .
I—”
Eira heard his voice crack as his eyes welled up with tears. She watched him blink them away as he turned, sitting heavily
on a cracked bench in her kitchen that the Iron Retinue had somehow left unturned. Eira had always, at least in her three
years of memory, believed that people could change. But killing her people? Killing innocent witches for the Iron Empire?
“When did you stop?” Eira asked, her voice cold and alien to her own ears.
“Eira, this . . . I don’t think that will help—” Hugo pleaded.
“Tell me,” she snarled.
“I was a hunter for the first six months of the Iron Empire before the lord general called me back to Astrad and had me working
by his side on more strategic efforts.”
Six months. Six months of making Eira’s people afraid to exist. But that also meant he hadn’t been hunting for three whole years.
“Eira, I didn’t enjoy any of it. I couldn’t say no to the lord general. You don’t understand—”
“You’re right, I don’t,” Eira said sharply, cutting him off.
“I don’t even know how I feel. I’m angry you didn’t tell me before.
If you told me before . . . I don’t know.
” Eira shook her head, frustrated. If he’d told her before, it would feel different; that she was sure of.
Finding out the truth from two guards as they hid in her ransacked home . . . it was awful.
Eira took a deep breath. When people show you who they are, believe them. It was a phrase that had served her well. What had Hugo shown her? That he was actively fighting against the Iron Empire,
that he was willing to protect her as a witch with illegal abilities, and that he was ashamed of what he had done.
“That’s completely reasonable,” Hugo said, interrupting Eira’s thoughts.
They stood for a moment, frozen. Eira couldn’t help but wonder what Viscountess Eira would do if she had all of her memories
right now. Would she forgive him? Eira hated to admit it, but there was a part of her that had already forgiven the lie.
“We do need to go,” Hugo said after a long, silent moment. He was right. The guards were on patrol, so there was a small increment
of time before they came back for a second round.
Eira nodded and they set out, more carefully than before with the knowledge that they were officially fugitives in Cilirien
now. Eira had initially been shocked that the Iron Retinue had lied about her and Hugo committing crimes, but now she assumed
it was a strategic choice. The knights could explain away the bodies and simultaneously provide a good excuse for the Iron
Empire to give chase.
Eira followed Hugo closely through town, silently saying her goodbyes as they left the alleyways and rushed through the farmlands
again into the forest. He didn’t try to hold her hand this time, and she was grateful for that consideration, however small
it was.
Just as they were about to enter their camp Hugo stopped her, holding up that same finger from at her house to his lips.
“I hear someone,” he whispered, tilting his head to the campsite that Eira could barely through the trees.
Eira’s heart started racing—what if someone had found Pennyroyal and Arthur? What if there was another ambush waiting for
them?
The two of them crept forward, Hugo with a dagger in his hand as he looked around. He silently motioned to Eira, telling her
to wait by the tree line as he curved around to another part of the campsite.
Eira slowly took a step forward, and a tree branch cracked loudly under her foot.
Shit.
A gasp emanated through the trees from the campsite, and Eira heard footsteps begin to recede.
She lunged into the clearing as she saw the blurred outline of Hugo in the distance do the same, desperately hoping they could
at least catch a glimpse of the person in their campsite.
“Stop!” Hugo yelled as he leaped out of the trees, his dagger pressing into the dark-haired woman’s back as she ran away from
Arthur. “Tell me what you’re doing here right now, or I’ll kill you,” Hugo growled.
Eira stepped around the clearing to stand beside Arthur, Hugo and the woman just ahead of her. She willed her body to be ready
to try to cast something if she needed it as she listened for more sounds through the trees. Eira could feel the Flow gather
around her as it waited for her to tell it what she wanted.
“Shit,” Eira heard the woman curse before she turned to face them. The woman was beautiful, with olive skin and luscious deep
brown curls.
Hugo gasped, dropping his dagger and stumbling back before falling to one knee. “Your Highness,” he said, head bowed.
“You weren’t supposed to get back this fast,” Princess Evangeline De Clare said.