“Don’t be stupid,” he warned. “This doesn’t involve you. You’re a child of the North—you should understand what’s happening here.”
“I understand fine what’s happening here. What I don’t understand is why you want Percy,” she countered.
“It doesn’t concern you,” he spat. “Hand the girl over, or I’ll have no choice but to take her,” he warned.
“Try to take her,” Katrina challenged.
Daniel growled angrily, looking away and then back to us.
“Katrina,” I whispered anxiously, watching his fist tighten around the cleaver, his knuckles going white.
“What are you waiting for?” she mocked. “Turn around and leave with your wife. You don’t have the stomach for what you’re attempting to do.”
“Don’t try me, girl,” he yelled.
Katrina laughed—the type of mocking laugh that made men angry. Daniel responded baring his teeth and fangs and lunged forward, slashing with the sharp cleaver. Katrina jumped back, pushing me with her, narrowly missing having her abdomen spilt.
In a fluid motion, all while keeping me secure in the grip of one hand, she twisted her body up, spinning her back leg around, and her foot expertly made contact with Daniel’s face.
He fell sideways, catching himself on his palms and almost losing grip of the cleaver. Without giving him a moment to recover, Katrina kicked him again, the sole of her boot connecting with his face, whipping his head backward and cracking his whole face.
His head swung forward again with the force, and when it came back, I saw tears across the bridge of his nose and his brow, where the skin had split open from the force of Katrina’s kick.
His head wobbled back and forth, blood pouring down into his eyes and mouth, dripping from his chin to the stone tiles.
I expected him to keel over, pass out—maybe die. But instead, his fingers gripped the cleaver again.
Daniel was a large man. Tall, broad—not in the shifter kind of sense, but the kind of sense that being a chef didn’t really suit him. He would have looked more the part working in the fields or mines—somewhere a man like him could put his size to good use. Even with his face split open, he wasn’t put down.
He gritted his teeth, red staining white, and spat out blood.
“Where did a house servant learn to fight?” he questioned as he began to stand.
I think Katrina was as surprised as me that such vicious kicks hadn’t knocked him out, because she pushed us back further.
“Isn’t it obvious that neither of us are who we claim to be?” Katrina asked, but I noticed the way her voice had lost some confidence.
“You’re with The New Foundation?” he asked, incredulously.
“And you’re True North scum,” Katrina replied.
I had never heard of either group. How had I never heard of either group? I knew there were rebellions in the North from the council meeting, but it seemed small-scale—thievery, skirmishes, not outright war.
What was The New Foundation? It was obvious who and what the True North rebels represented—they were who was currently bombing the estate—but The New Foundation? They were a mystery. And Katrina was a member of the group?
How was it possible that I was so out of the know? Did Selene know about these groups? Had she keep it from me?
It didn’t matter. What was important right now was surviving to find Selene. Rebels, groups, war—none of it mattered to me. Selene was all I cared about.
“Scum?” he questioned angrily. “You’ve betrayed your roots, your land, your home!”
“You want to keep the people of the North under the boot of the House system. You don’t want to free anyone of any suffering—you just want a different master,” Katrina challenged. “I wonder what’s in it for you? Why do you want this girl so badly?”
“She’s owned by Selene Borealis—the heir to the throne’s most prized possession, the one she clearly loves. If we take her, we show the Royalist bastards that there’s nothing we can’t and won’t take from them—and we empower the people of the North to unite behind us,” he explained. “And Vouna is gone because of her. There are plenty that want her head.”
I watched Katrina’s eyes dart quickly around the room as if looking for an escape.
“If you kill the girl, you’ll bring down the full force of Borealis and her allies on the North. You don’t want to unite anyone—you want to force a war,” Katrina replied. “How many from the northern Houses will have to die?” she continued, and I got the distinct impression she was trying to keep him talking.
