“To your coven?”
His lips twisted. “Yes. The offer still stands for you to come with me if you want.”
Somehow, I had known he would say that. Maybe it was because of the empathy power I had read into myself, or maybe we really did share a connection. But either way, I had already made my decision a few days before, and it was time he knew. “I’m going to stay with the army.”
His shoulders slumped. “Why?” He turned to me for the first time all evening, his blue eyes boring into mine. “You don’t want to come with me?”
I shook my head. “We really don’t know each other all that well, Leif—something I tried to tell you in the woods. But . . . I know you can’t ever understand this, but I lived most of my life under the rules of someone else. I finally have a chance to be me, and I’m planning to take it.” I smoothed down the front of the dress I wore, still slightly tearing up at the fact that I even could wear a dress in public now.
Resolve settled on his features. “Then I suppose I am officially in the army now.”
He wasn’t understanding. “Leif, I’m not a soldier. So if youreally feel strongly about fighting Adis’s battles, then stay. But I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“Where?” His tone carried notes of panic.
“I don’t know yet.” Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him. For as much as Leif made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, I also knew I needed a chance to explore who I—Runa—was, without standing in Milo’s shadow. “But I think if you are really against the war here, you should go back to Adis and help Collum.” Even just saying it caused a pang in my gut, but I brushed it off and continued. “Or go to your coven and convince your readers to begin reading to civilians.”
“But—”
I cut him off. “I don’t know much about this war, Leif, but I did learn a little from Otho over the past few days, and it will get worse before it gets better. I think it’s only a matter of time before the conflict is no longer contained within these fields between towns. And Otho seems to think other towns will get involved.”
“All over Heimland?”
Leif was just as much in the dark as I had been a few days before, and I laid my hand over his hand as I explained. “That’s what Adis wants us to think, that this is some sort of petty land dispute. But it goes far beyond that.” I didn’t know how to put what I had inferred from Otho into words for Leif, and to be honest, I wasn’t even sure how much I could tell him. “This war, Leif, I don’t think it’s about land. I think Adis has gotten greedy for magic.”
It was Leif’s turn to tilt his head to the side as I had once done so many nights before it seemed like another life now. “But Adis already has magic.”
I swallowed as I breathed out the words, “But he wants more. He wants the dark books, the ones that grant eternal life. The ones that grant the power to kill with a single word.” I had a quick internal debate before deciding that I did trust Leif. “Otho didn’t tell me this, but when I spent all that time withAdis . . .” My arm throbbed where the brand still lay beneath the sleeve of my dress. “He mentioned how all the best magic books in Ralheim were burned, but he suspected that Malhiem?—”
“Still has some.” Leif swallowed, and I could see he was formulating his own plans. “I better go back to my coven.” His hand moved to cover mine, leaving our stack of hands on his thigh. “But I will find you again . . . I just realized I don’t know your name.” Pink crawled up his cheeks.
I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. “It’s Runa.”
“Well, Runa.” He smiled, reaching out to grasp my hand and bring it to his lips, warmth spreading in my hand. “It is my pleasure to meet you.”
Then, before I could say anything else, or recover from his moment of charm, he rose from the cot and disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER 19
“See over that hill?” Otho whispered into my ear, his hand lightly touching my back in a way that forced me to repress a shiver.
“Yes.”
“That’s the front line. There isn’t a battle raging today yet, but there will be soon . . .”
Otho’s voice was deep enough that it didn’t carry on the pre-dawn wind. The sky was just beginning to fill with the light of day, and it had been rough to leave the comfort of my cot in my tent to climb this hill with Otho. But it was a good vantage point. I rubbed the remaining sleep from my eyes, squinting in the direction the general pointed. At the end of where he pointed, there was nothing but dead grass. I’m not sure what I expected to see, but something more dramatic at least.
“As soon as the battle begins, you and I are going to head east, and then, when I think we are far enough from the battle, you’ll head north again and try to get behind their lines. Fake an injury, play the damsel in distress, anything for them to underestimate you. Then, we will meet back where I leave you every fifth day and you will let me know any information you find out.” His lips were pressed into a line, a crease present on hisforehead. He didn’t have to say anything, but I could sense he was concerned for my well-being. I could still feel where his hand rested on my back. “If you can’t get away one time, that is okay, but make sure you come the next time. After ten days of not checking in, I will assume you are dead.” He turned his dark gaze to me, and I swore his eyes flickered down my form, but as soon as I thought that he was looking at my face once more. “I will not come for you, understood?”
“Yes, sir.” It almost seemed like Otho was giving me a chance to sneak away. To start a new life in Malheim. But I didn’t say that out loud. If it wasn’t true, and I was likely to die on this mission, I didn’t want my fears to be confirmed.
“All right. Ensure anything personal you need is hidden in what you are wearing now, I will let Askel know I am heading out to walk you. Meet back here as the sun crests the horizon.”
I barely waited for him to finish speaking before I was jogging down the hill and back to my tent. It was harder to run in the more formal dress I had been given, but I had a feeling I would be better perceived as a woman in distress wearing this that the riding dress I had pulled on in the woods two nights prior.
This dress contained a bodice which made it more difficult to breathe. Collum had complained about them when we were growing up but had promptly stopped wearing them when she had taken the factory job, and now I understood why.
The dress fell almost to the ground, and the skirt contained quite a bit of material. It was not a gown, that was for sure, as it was still made from some sort of cotton that was heavy and restrictive.
