"You need to help Kaya," I told her. " You’re a good baker, and I know you can do it, but you can't go thaw-soft, disappear into books, and leave her to manage everything alone. Okay?”
“Okay. I mean, I won't go thaw-soft,” Brielle whispered, glancing around as bodies pushed us closer. “They can’t do this, can they?"
As much as I wanted to say they couldn’t, or that they shouldn’t, I knew the Vandar could pretty much do what they wanted.
I caught movement in my peripheral vision, clocking the Vandar raiders closing in. But it was the other figures fighting through the crowds I cared about.
Skye reached me first, her expression absolutely terrifying. She grabbed my shoulders, positioning herself between me and theapproaching Vandar like she could act as a human forcefield. "I was a frostbitten fool not to see this coming, but we can hold them off while you run, Jas. There's still time. We can get you out of here.”
Zara appeared at her side, then Meg. My rebels. My friends. All of them grim-faced and ready to resist.
"We won't let them take you," Meg said with a furtive glance over her shoulder. “If we all put our hoods up we can confuse them enough that you can slip away.”
“Hoods up,” Skye ordered, and everyone complied, even my sisters.
The loyalty and the willingness of my friends to risk themselves for me made my throat constrict. They were brave and brilliant, and I loved them fiercely. Which was exactly why I couldn't let them do this.
"No." I reached up and flipped Skye’s hood back to reveal her unmistakable red hair. "I don't want anyone getting hurt because of me. I'll be fine."
"Jas—" Skye’s voice cracked. She was always so calm and had always been the voice of measured reason that her flash of weakness unmoored me for a beat.
I caught her hands and squeezed, grounding myself with her strength. “I’ll be fine.” The more I repeated it, the greater the chance I’d actually believe it.
Tears now scarred Skye's cheeks. "This is night-season madness. The council can’t make this decision on their own. They can’t let the Vandar take you.”
But I knew better. I'd learned long ago that the powerful could do what they wanted. They made decisions about other people's lives, extracted payment from those with no power to refuse, and called it justice or tribute or alliance.
I didn’t have the power to fight back either. Not in the way they expected.
But as I looked at my frightened and weeping friends and sisters, I swore to myself that I'd make the Vandar Raas regret that my name was ever called. I'd make him regret every moment I was on his ship. I'd be the most difficult, defiant, uncooperative human he’d ever met, and I’d make sure to put the “war” in war bride.
Four Vandar raiders had reached us, each one massive and scowling and brandishing a battle axe. The crowd shrank from them as if they were toxic, and even I took a step back.
Then I turned to my sisters and my friends, tugging them into quick, fierce hugs, whispering that they needed to look after each other and keep the network going.
“Because I’ll be back,” I said to Skye before pulling away. “I swear it.”
Before my resolve could crack, I turned to face the Vandar raiders, clenching my fists to keep my hands from shaking. “We shouldn’t keep the warlord waiting.”
The raiders arranged themselves around me as if creating a living cage before they began moving through the crowd. I kept my head high as colonists reached for me, called my name, and even muttered curses at the Vandar. But the raiders didn't stop, they didn't slow, and they didn't acknowledge any of it.
Their boots pounded on the frozen ground, and as we emerged from the crowd and left the village square, the drumbeat of their heavy footsteps finally drowned out everything else.
Then I saw I was being led toward the transport ship waiting at the edge of the settlement and toward the dark silhouette standing at the top of the ramp. Even from a distance, even with the wind whipping around us and snow beginning to swirl, I knew who was waiting for me.
My stomach clenched, and my heart seized, but I kept walking. I kept my chin up, kept my expression as defiant as I could manage, and kept my thoughts focused on the one thing that mattered most. Hate.
I hated him for taking me from my home, my sisters, and my work. I hated him for being part of a barbaric society that treated women like property to be traded. But most of all, I hated him for standing there watching me approach like he'd won something instead of stolen it.
The ramp stretched before me, leading up into the ship and into a future I hadn't chosen. Leading to him.
I swallowed hard as I took in his massive shoulders and bare chest exposed by his fur cloak blown open, my steps faltering as I tried not to be distracted by the tail slashing behind him.
You hate him, I reminded myself. You feel nothing but hate.
Then something flashed on the icy horizon, something I barely caught in my peripheral vision, something approaching so fast I didn’t have time to register if it was friend or foe.
Chapter 8
