A cough behind me jolted my attention. “Morning, boys.”
Shit.
Stomach bottoming out, I spun. Rummy stood a few feet away, a hand on her hip and her hair still wet.
“Morning, Rum. We were just talking about you.”
She smiled sideways, as if she hadn’t just heard everything we were fucking saying. No shot.
She’d heard it all.
“Really?” she asked. “All good things, I hope.”
Now that she’d changed and rinsed all the mud and blood from her skin, she was damn near unrecognizable. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed she’d been on the verge of death just yesterday.
“Always good things.” Xavier strolled over to her and kissed her on the cheek, which naturally made my stomach drop even further. “You sleep okay?”
“Good as ever,” she chirped. “Right, Jessiah?”
The two of them looked at me. “Right,” I ground out.
Goddess fucking kill me.
“You three ready for this?” Matthias came trotting through the doors of the inn with his bag slung over his shoulder and determination in his eyes. “This day won’t be easy. But if we play our cards right, we might all make it out alive.”
“Can’t wait!” Rummy clapped, feigning excitement. “Let’s go meet this king!”
She approached one of the horses, and Matthias did the same.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I held my hand up to stop them. “You can’t really think it’s going to be that easy. If we tromp right up to the king, we could be killed on sight.”
Matthias took a long breath. “King Cornelius is an egotistical man. As guests from Scarlata, you’ll be treated like royalty. Not threats.”
“Then how do we do this?” Xavier asked. “What’s our next move?”
Matthias turned back, and the four of us devised a plan, if it could even be called that. The heart of Pericius wasn’t far from here, according to Matthias. We’d ride through the streets like regular citizens—doing our best to avoid areas that had been damaged during rebellion skirmishes—and we’d be at the castle gates before sundown.
So, yes, we were essentially riding directly into the kingdom, directly into the heart of the chaos, with no real strategy other than to stay alive and avoid the rebels.
But we were tired. And we were so damn close.
So when Matthias led us toward the kingdom, then through the streets, we followed.
As we made it into the city, the quietness slowly morphed into something dark. Sinister.
The sun was still shining, but a thick layer of clouds rolled through the sky. The lush, lively trees that had flanked the path from the inn thinned out, many decaying or already dead like an eerie foretelling of what was to come.
Shortly after, we encountered wanderers on the side of the road. The first several didn’t look particularly troubled, but they did not look to be in great spirits, either. The next, though, appeared to be begging for money.
As we made it into the city completely, the streets filled with citizens begging and scavenging.
The citizens of Pericius were starving. Impoverished. Struggling to survive. As our horses trotted forward, I had to fight the urge to stop and give these people everything I had.
How could the king let this happen?
These people did not look violent. This did not look like a war being waged against the kingdom.
They needed help.
