Maybe Osrik can tell how nervous I am by the look on my face or the way I grip the reins, but he brings his horse right next to mine. He gives me a hard look while the other Fourth soldiers position their horses to flare behind us.
“Well, you were right. You never did betray your golden king. That takes guts,” Osrik says, surprising me.
I wring the leather straps in my hands. “It’s not like you guys were torturing me,” I say with a small laugh. “As far as prisoners go, I think I might’ve been the best-treated one in all of Orea.”
He snorts. “Probably. Except I did give a good threat at the beginning. What was it I told you?”
I wrinkle my nose in thought. “I think you said if I talked bad about King Ravinger, you were going to whip me.”
Osrik grins. “That was it,” he says, proud of himself. “Did it work? Were you properly threatened?”
“Are you kidding? I almost peed myself. You’re a scary guy.”
A bark of laughter erupts from his mouth. He doesn’t look so scary when he does that. I don’t know what happened to make him not loathe me anymore, but I’m grateful. We’ve come a long way from his whip threat and calling me Midas’s symbol.
I tilt my head in curiosity. “Does it still piss you off to look at me?” I ask, remembering his previous words.
The amusement washes off his face, and Osrik studies me for a moment with a slight tilt of his head, gruff face solemn. “Yeah,” he finally replies. “But for a different reason now.”
He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t ask him to. I’m not even really sure why I asked him that question anyway. It doesn’t matter now. I won’t see him again after this. Even if we do end up at war, I’ll be on the other side.
That thought makes my stomach hurt. It’s hard enough being loyal to one side, but what happens when you have loyalty to both? I don’t want anyone to die. Not Fifth’s men, not Midas’s, and not Fourth’s army either.
“Time to go.”
Nodding, Osrik clicks his tongue, leading his black stallion down the slope. My horse follows, while the three guards keep space behind me, protecting the rear.
When we reach the flat snow plains and start making our way across, I notice that Osrik keeps us well away from the rotted path that the king cut into the land earlier. Even so, my eyes can’t seem to stop drifting to it, to follow the lines of deterioration, to take in the sickly, jaundiced snow.
I don’t know where the king is now, but I’m glad he’s not around, because I don’t think I could bear to be near that man’s sickening power ever again.
Once was enough.
As we get closer, I notice that the army is still in formation, though no longer at attention. They’re waiting now, waiting to see how kings will decide their fate.
When we ride through a line between the soldiers, I can feel the weight of hundreds of eyes watching me as we pass. We’re a silent procession, me readying to be handed off as an offering between monarchs.
The gold-touched saddle returning to her king.
Despite the fact that I can sense them watching me, I don’t feel the weight of hate or enmity anymore. I wonder what Orea would think if people knew the truth about Fourth’s army. If they knew that they weren’t monsters, not bloodthirsty villains set on killing.
Formidable? Definitely. Deadly? Without a doubt.
But they were honorable. Not once did I fear for my life, not once was I abused or used. Instead, I was treated with respect, and I suspect there’s one person in particular to thank for that.
An army is only as good as its commanding officer.
As if my thoughts conjured him, a spiked form on the back of a black stallion breaks away from a line of soldiers and heads toward us. My ribbons coil around my waist, breath hitching at the sight of him.
Right now, Rip looks every bit the imposing commander of Fourth’s army. In full armor, missing only his helmet, he’s a reckoning come to demand retribution. He wears a fierce expression bracketed with the brooding line of his spiked brows and the sharp angles of his jaw.
His black hair is swept back as his horse rides toward us, the pale skin of his face more prominent from the scruff of his jaw and the black of his eyes. With spikes glinting on his back, jutting from perfectly melded armor, he’s making it clear that the sword at his hip isn’t the real weapon. He is.
My horse slows to a stop as Rip approaches. He nods at Osrik in greeting before stopping his horse beside mine, instantly dwarfing me on my mare. His energy is tense, like the snapping teeth of a beast, aggravated and sharp, wanting to maim.
Beside him, my nerves flip and flounder, a fish tossed on the shore. He doesn’t speak to me, offers no greeting. He simply dismisses the three guards behind us and then starts to lead Osrik and I toward Ranhold—toward a royal envoy flying a golden flag with Highbell’s emblem proudly displayed on it.
With Osrik on my left and Rip on my right, I get herded toward the line of men I don’t know, not a single familiar face in sight.
