36 Hugo
Hugo
Hugo woke with a start, panic seeping in for the briefest of moments before he realized where he was. He held Eira, her soft
body enveloped in his as she breathed gently, still asleep. The sun shone through the windows, the fire in their room nothing
but embers in the early-morning light. Hugo had wanted nothing but this for so long he almost didn’t know how to process it.
Eira’s sweet scent was closer to him than he’d ever had any right to even dream. He squeezed her closer to him, a sigh leaving
her lips as she curled closer to him in her sleep.
It might have been the most peaceful moment of his life, until someone began furiously banging on the door. “What’s happening?”
Eira’s eyes shot open and she sat up. Within a fraction of a second, Hugo’s beautiful moment was shattered.
“Hello! Let me in!” a woman’s voice yelled from the other side—a whisper-yell, trying to be quiet while also not stopping
the banging for a moment.
Hugo jumped up, pulling on his pants as he watched Eira frantically look around the floor for her clothing, her body covered
with the blanket they’d slept under.
“Stay here,” he said, buttoning his pants and running to the door, a dagger in his left hand. He had barely opened it before Evangeline pushed through the doorway and closed it behind her.
“You both could have at least told me that you were going to stay the night together,” she said before looking at the dagger
in disgust. “Really? You didn’t recognize my voice?”
“Evangeline, did you really need to beat down the door?” Hugo asked, still frustrated that she’d already ruined his morning.
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Wait, why?” Eira said, wrapping the blanket around herself and standing. Hugo’s body stirred, seeing the outline of her curves
and knowing she had nothing on under that thin blanket.
“There are Iron Retinue soldiers downstairs!” Evangeline whispered.
Hugo snapped to attention, “City guard?”
“No, they had plate on.” Evangeline shook her head. “I was going to go down and get some breakfast since you two decided to
sleep in and there they were, talking to the barmaid from last night. She looked at me and I knew she was telling me to get
away before they saw me, so I bolted.”
“Shit,” Hugo said, searching for his shirt. “We need to go.”
“Agreed,” Evangeline said. “I’ll grab our stuff from the other room and meet you here in five?”
“In two,” Hugo said, opening the door and shutting it quietly, silence enveloping him and Eira as they quickly dressed. He
hoped that someday he wouldn’t be running, wouldn’t be fighting . . . that someday he’d be able to wake up next to Eira, and
relax. He mapped the escape routes in his head, remembering the back door they’d used last night to sit out by the lake. It
was their best shot. A soft rap on the door a minute later had them on the move.
Hugo could hear a commotion from the bar as they wove through the back hallways, Eira and Evangeline behind him. He slowly
opened the door to a thankfully empty boardwalk.
They just needed to get to Arthur and their other horses. If they just got to the horses, they could ride away from here.
The three slowly walked around the building, trying to not seem too conspicuous but still heading to the stable as quietly
and quickly as they could. Hugo was untying the knot on Arthur’s reins when he heard the front door of the tavern creak, looking
to Eira in a silent hope that she and Evangeline would hide. He couldn’t bear something happening to her.
Hugo held his breath as he watched the front door to the tavern slowly creak open, three knights stepping out of the building.
Two of them looked normal, but the other . . . the other looked like Saoirse had. Grayish skin and a cropped scalp with scars
all over it. Except they weren’t scars, Hugo finally noticed. They were cuts held in place with staples—unhealed skin, raw
wounds that should have healed by now if these knights had been chasing him from the capital.
He knew Dr. Balet had given him a bad feeling, and he knew he didn’t approve of the decision to work on these knights, but
this was even worse than he’d thought, even worse than the lord general had ever told him. Lord General Kerrigan had confided
in Hugo about the Soulless Knights, how they’d need them for what was coming. And no matter how much he’d pried, the lord
general wouldn’t tell Hugo what was coming. All he knew was what little he had seen in the documents he had stolen when he
fled the capital, the only proof he had of the lord general’s scheme.
Hugo looked back at Eira and Evangeline as the three knights noticed them—he hadn’t told them about the papers yet, and if
they didn’t all die here, he needed to. A shiver rolled down his spine as the Soulless Knight turned its head and looked at
him. Hugo stepped out from behind Arthur, recognizing one of the faces in front of him.
“How are you three?” he said, spreading his arms wide in greeting.
“Hugo Venton,” the tallest one, Sir Franklin, said. “You are an enemy of the Iron Empire and have been sentenced to death.”
“Not this again,” Hugo groaned as he leaped into action. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Evangeline pull a dagger out
of her belt, holding it up defensively.
Civilians who had been walking through the square gasped as weapons were unsheathed, and Hugo desperately hoped that Eira
didn’t cast anything. They couldn’t deal with managing random people seeing her magic and focus on surviving this fight.
Hugo swung, pivoting his focus to the Soulless Knight so that they wouldn’t go for Evangeline or Eira. The knight, monster,
whatever it was, swung eerily fast, and Hugo was reminded of the challenge he had faced when he’d fought Saoirse weeks ago.
The lumbering knight looked vaguely familiar, but Hugo couldn’t place it. He suspected a knight from another regiment, no
recognition as he looked into the misty white eyes.
Hugo turned, parrying Sir Franklin as he swung his sword at him, making it a two-on-one fight.
The third knight headed toward Evangeline and Eira, and Hugo watched out of the corner of his eye as Evangeline darted forward
with exceptional speed. Eira’s eyes closed and her hands moved, as if she was about to cast.
Before he could warn her to stop, the Soulless Knight swung at him, forcing Hugo to dive out of the way. He rolled toward
the lake edge, both knights in front of him as they crept forward, looking for an opening.
He heard the distinctive clang of metal and a scream before hearing Evangeline speak.
“I’ll take that,” she said sweetly, pulling the third knight’s sword out of his vine-covered hand, Eira’s magic writhing around
a soldier’s body. “Let’s make this a fair fight.” Evangeline smiled, twirling the sword in her hand as she appeared on the
other side of the two knights who had been focused on Hugo.
As they looked toward the princess, Hugo took the opportunity to dive at the Soulless Knight, wedging his sword in its back and kicking the weapon out of its hand. He rolled out of the way toward Evangeline, waiting for the Soulless Knight to fall.
The three watched in horror as the inhuman thing before them twisted its arm to pull Hugo’s sword out, picking up its greatsword
from the ground and throwing Hugo’s back at him, the sword clattering to the ground at his feet.
“What the hell is that thing, Venton?” Evangeline hissed.
“Now’s not the time to explain.” He shook his head. Hugo leaped at the Soulless Knight as Evangeline circled Sir Franklin.
“You’re traveling with a witch?” Sir Franklin asked Hugo, ignoring Evangeline.
“He is,” Eira answered, hands up as she looked between the two sword-wielding members of her group. Hugo assumed she was trying
to figure out how to cast something that would help them, and he had a fleeting moment of thankfulness that the Iron Empire
soldiers who had found them thus far had all been smallfolk before the empire had arisen. None of them had encountered her
when she was Viscountess Westcotte, and had no hope of recognizing her for who she once had been . . . her, or Evangeline.
Eira had been practicing her magic over their travels, puzzling out small spells on long nights, but Hugo didn’t know if vines
would stop whatever this creature was.
“Your betrayal runs deeper than even the lord general knows,” Sir Franklin responded.
“The lord general,” Hugo said to the living knight, a man he’d once worked closely alongside, as his sword clashed with the
Soulless Knight’s, “is hiding things from you.”
He swung again, watching Evangeline deftly hold her own against Sir Franklin, moving as gracefully as a dancer with the Iron
Empire’s sword in her hand. Hugo wondered where she’d learned those skills, and how she’d kept up with them.
“The glory of the Iron Empire requires the sacrifice of knowing only what needs to be known!” Sir Franklin screamed in response to Hugo’s heretical words.
Hugo rolled his eyes as he swung fruitlessly at the monster in front of him; it wasn’t even breaking a sweat. Had Hugo been
that annoying, once? He knew he’d been brainwashed by the Iron Empire, but he hoped he hadn’t been this bad.
The Soulless Knight’s sword hit Hugo’s side, cutting through his leather armor and into his skin, deep enough to start bleeding,
but not dangerously. Hugo looked toward the knight, who was already moving his sword to take aim at him again. Hugo couldn’t
keep up with this pace; he was going to lose.
With a wet slosh, the Soulless Knight’s feet gave way under him. Hugo blinked. Seaweed wrapped around the creature’s ankles
and dragged him toward the frigid lake before he could so much as scream. Hugo looked to Eira, her eyes closed tightly before
they shot back open, her hands raised and fingers twisting as the seaweed twined around the ankles of the creature.
It turned emotionlessly, hacking at the plants that bound it, but that moment gave Hugo the break he needed. Leaping forward,
he drove the tip of his sword into the knight’s head. The frantic swinging finally stopped, the dead eyes it had always had
now unblinking and wide open, unchanged.
Evangeline screamed. Sir Franklin was overtaking her, knocking the sword out of her hand. Hugo started running, not sure if
he’d make it to her before Franklin dealt a lethal blow. Neither Evangeline nor Eira were wearing armor. No!
“NO!” Eira yelled, turning her gaze to Sir Franklin.
Hugo watched the magic rippling around her clawed hands change, and he saw her eyes narrow but not shut completely as water
rushed from thin air to form an impenetrable bubble around Sir Franklin’s head.
The orb of swirling water encircled his face, and his hands instantly dropped his sword as he scrambled to try to pull the churning liquid away from himself.
This was the chance he’d been waiting for. Hugo ran and swung at him, pushing his sword through Sir Franklin’s belly just
as Eira’s magic faltered. Sir Franklin dropped to the ground as Eira gasped, sinking to her knees as the water splashed to
the snow-covered ground.
“Are you okay?” Hugo cried, leaving his sword buried in the knight’s gut as he ran to Eira, knees skidding on the frozen ground
as he got on her level.
“I’m okay,” she said faintly, sounding so far away.
Hugo placed his hand on her cheek and a gentle kiss on her forehead before he stood and walked toward Sir Franklin. The dying
man gasped on the ground, Evangeline standing above him.
“Since you’re going to die, I feel good about telling you that I’m Princess Evangeline,” she said, kicking the hilt of the
sword still embedded in his gut.
Hugo watched the man’s eyes flare open in recognition, in rage and pain, before the spark in them faded into nothingness.
“You didn’t have to be cruel,” Hugo said as he pulled the sword out of Sir Franklin. “It was the man’s final moments.”
“He might have been the one that executed my family for all I know,” she said, a pang of guilt ripping through Hugo as she
said it. He knew exactly who killed Evangeline’s family, and it wasn’t Sir Franklin.
“Did you see what she did?” Hugo heard one of the townspeople say as he finally looked around. They were surrounded by people.
People who had all just seen Eira cast illegal magic.