I looked over my shoulder. I could no longer spot the brown buildings of Bru in the spaces between the trees. “Do you think we are far enough away?”
“Not yet.” Otho swiveled his head from left to right, seeming to be able to see something I couldn’t, before adjusting his path forward slightly to the left.
We walked in silence, neither of us willing to discuss what we likely had to.
My side still ached, though I gritted my teeth through the pain and said nothing. We wouldn’t be able to stop here anyway, and I wasn’t the one with an arrow in his flesh. My throat grew parched, and though there was foliage on all sides of our path, we had yet to follow a source of water.
“All the water in this area is beneath the ground. We will need to dig for something to drink.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Did you just read my mind?”
“No, I’ve just seen that look before. I knew what you were searching for.”
“Ah.” I pursed my lips. “So youhavesent scouts to their death and had to rescue them before.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, the only sound our boots as they shifted through the foliage at our feet. Then, “Unfortunately, yes. I had hoped that because you were a woman you would be able to catch them with their guard down and infiltrate in a way my male scouts were unable to, but . . .”
“But they figured me out anyway.”
“Unfortunately.”
“So much for that plan.” I sucked my lower lip into my mouth. Though I knew I should be mad at Otho for sending me to what was probably about to be my own demise, I couldn’t deny that I might have tried the same tactic, had I been the general.
“Yes.” He narrowed his gaze, his pace slowing once more. “We are almost there.”
I glanced around the forest around us once more, wondering if there was something I had missed. “Almost where?”
I swore the edge of his lips turned up into something I thought might almost be a grin. “Salheim.”
I tilted my head to the side. I had never heard of such a place. “You mean . . . like Ralheim and Malheim, there’s also a Salheim?”
This time he did grin. “There’s many more towns in the Heim region than those depicted on maps.” He lifted the arm that didn’t have an arrow embedded in it, running his hand through his dark hair. “But Viscount Adis’s father demanded all the maps be remade and the smaller towns eliminated from them.”
I had never heard of that. “Why?” I asked.
He swallowed. “Because he planned to kill their viscounts and didn’t want an uprising from his people.”
My mouth dried up. “How would taking them off the map help him to kill other viscounts?”
“Because . . .” His grin was long gone now. “Because he couldlabel them as intruders—outsiders who were residing in the woods without paying tithe. Unruled peoples. Or peoples ruled by a rebel viscount. And then his men would have reason to slaughter and unseat a viscount on his order.”
“But wouldn’t people remember the previous maps that featured the towns?” I could see Salheim now, see the straw-thatched roofs coming into view.
“It was his first order of business when he took over for his father, Adis’s grandfather—many years before you and I were born. His second order of business was the one-child rule, so he could fill his home with servants. Then the mandatory conscription rule so he could fill his army.” He paused, and I could tell the words were a struggle for him to form. “His fourth order of business was the purging of any who understood the Seid language.” My breath caught at the mention of the Purge, and I fought the urge to pass out. Otho continued. “The thing about greed is, it never ends, and I don’t know what Adis plans to do next, but he is no better than his father.”
I chewed on my lower lip. I had learned far more than I had bargained for in the past few moments. And as the huts grew closer, I knew my time to ask questions was coming to an end. There was so much I wanted to ask, so much I needed to know. But I settled on asking for the one answer I knew I couldn’t continue forward without. “If he is so evil, why did you become his general?”
“Because it is much easier to demolish a tyrant from within.”
CHAPTER 21
Stepping into Salheim was like stepping into another world. Whereas Ralheim was mostly built of stone and plaster, everything in Salheim was wood. And though we had just left the small village on the plains, this settlement was something larger, even though less buildings were visible to the naked eye. It didn’t take me long to search out the homes built into large tree trunks and the hanging ladders that likely led to lodgings even more obscure above.
Despite the primitive look, there was something . . . peaceful about the town built in harmony with nature. Where I imagined forests like these had been razed to build Ralheim, it was clear that here, the inhabitants had done everything they could to build around the trees. To live in harmony with nature.
A man dressed in deep green trousers and a long-sleeved shirt stalked toward us. I couldn’t decipher the expression on his face, but it was similar to a scowl.
“Should we be scared?” I whispered, leaning in closer to Otho, unsure what the plan was.
