Dietan
My entire body throbs with rage, along with a wash of relief that I was here to stop it. The world is an evil place filled with evil men. I must get this woman to safety.
She’s easy enough to carry, and I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, holding her tight to ensure she doesn’t slide off my back. I’ve thrown her over my shoulder like a sack of flour, the way we practice in battlefield training. I know how awful this looks, but I can’t leave her passed out in an alleyway.
I saw everything. I was watching the barmaid during the festival, and she kept glancing my way as well, both of us making quick eye contact before averting our gazes, pretending as if we hadn’t. She wasn’t one of the women presented to me, though she doesn’t appear to be married. Perhaps she carries a torch for an absent love? The thought sends a flare of power down my spine, so I force my mind to abandon it.
If this woman is a spy, she’s a clumsy one, but maybe the best spy is the one you’d least expect. Maybe that’s what she wants me to think. Spy or not, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I was attuned to where she was at all times.
And when her sister came up to my table to remind Jared that he’d asked her to save him a dance, I was looking her way just in time to see that sleazy marquis place his grubby hand over her mug. I noticed just how strangely uncoordinated she became when she left the party. With mounting dread, I watched as the marquis and one of his men followed her.
I didn’t know what that sick bastard was up to, but it was nothing good. I was so blinded by anger, I could have reduced the entire town to bits. I had to channel my rage into my fists so the Rings in my back didn’t rip Evandale apart and even then, it was close. My knuckles burn hot, still slick with the marquis’s blood from where I struck him in the mouth. His teeth took the full brunt of my punch, and I feel some satisfaction that the bastard will eat soup for the rest of his miserable days.
Some of these towns are in serious need of new governance. I’ll have Jared put that on the list of reforms I’ll enact when I eventually become king in Alarice.
The barmaid groans, and her tears soak through my shirt—or maybe it’s drool. At least she seems to be regaining consciousness. She’s breathing, but even as she struggles, she’s as limp as a wet washcloth. I hold on more tightly. Despite my celibacy, I’m not immune to the pleasant feeling of her chest against my back and the backs of her thighs beneath my hands. I adjust her higher on my shoulder, and she groans.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
The whole village is still at the party, but I can’t take her back there in this state. After what happened, I’m certain she’d rather go home. She grunts and weakly pounds my lower back with her fists.
“You can’t walk,” I say. “I’ll take you home. Where do you live?”
She moans and points a wavering finger down the street.
I shuffle onward down the main road. “Over here?”
She mumbles an incoherent response, and I think I hear something like “let me go.” She shifts again, stubbornly trying to wiggle out of my grasp.
“I’m not letting you down,” I say. “Not until you’re somewhere safe.”
“I fine,” she slurs as if she drank her weight in Alarician ale. “Lemme go.”
“You can’t stand, let alone walk,” I say.
“Ifine,” she repeats. At least she’s stopped struggling. I sigh in relief.
A minute later, she lets out a soft, “Stop. Here.”
The house is, like all the others in Evandale, a pretty little cottage with flowers in boxes on the windows. A single candle flickers dimly inside. I carry her to the doorway but hesitate to enter with an incapacitated woman in my arms. Instead, I knock with a swift tap of my boot.
There’s a shuffling from inside, and the door opens, revealing an older man with a prominent nose. He’s deeply hunched over a carved wooden cane, with wispy white hair tied in a low tail at the base of his neck. He’s already in a nightgown, but he comes alert at the sight of the young woman I’m holding tightly. I’m determined not to drop her now.
“Hello, good sir. May I come in?” I say. “I believe this is your daughter?”
The man nods and doesn’t ask questions as he steps aside. He gestures to a small back room.
Inside, there is a single bed. Scraps of fabric hang from a rack, leaning against a table with a sewing station and a sack of straw stuffed in the shape of a woman—more scarecrow than mannequin. So, this is where she made her sisters’ gowns.
I carefully lay her down on her bed, atop her patchwork quilt, as her father lights her bedside lamp.
I stand back, watching as her father presses a wrinkled hand to her forehead.
“Aren?” her father asks. “Can you hear me?”
Aren.So that’s her name.
She groans and opens her eyes, but they’re unfocused. She tries to sit up, but her father puts a hand on her shoulder and pushes her back down.
