Moans were a sign of life.
Summoning courage, I peeked around Harthon’s bulk. The boy clutched his calf, the hilt of the dagger protruding from his skin as blood dripped. He had to be maybe nine or ten years of age, his face smothered in mud and his hair too dirty to know the true color.
Harthon’s hand rested on his shoulder. “You’ll be okay. You’ll live,” he told the boy, and then he waved two of his men over. “Tend to his wound, bind his hands, and take him back home. Ride fast and you’ll make it within a day. See Northen or Callen when you arrive. They’ll know what to do.”
Given that the band of looters was dead, Harthon wasn’t takinghim for leverage. He could have only been taking him to care for him, and that was so unexpected—
Well, actually, it wasn’t. Harthon had all but pleaded with the boy to save his own life. Leaving him here now, exposed to the cold and wounded, would mean a certain death, and Harthon…I was beginning to think he wasn’t cruel enough to do that.
When Harthon stood and faced me, it was with unbridled anger painting the striking lines of his face. Gone was the look of regret he’d worn not a minute earlier. “Why the fuck did you get off the horse?” he demanded, storming forward until his toes touched mine and he towered above me like a fuming mountain. Blood speckled his face, and his lips were twisted with fury.
The sudden change gave me whiplash. He’d never been this furious toward me before, but while my body tingled with warning, I wasn’t afraid. Harthon had proven enough times that he wouldn’t hurt me.
“I was saving your life,” I answered cautiously. Just because he wouldn’t strike me didn’t mean I wanted to rile the beast, and at this moment, his wild eyes appeared more animal than man.
“No, you weren’t. I knew the crawler was coming,” he snarled.
I fought to maintain my calm composure. “For all I knew, you didn’t, and he would have killed you.”
He stilled as if I’d struck him, and then he leaned closer, sneering. “Did you even think, for one second, that you could make the situation worse by coming down from that horse? You have no clue what you’re doing.”
The mean tone struck a chord. I’d justkilleda man to save his damned life, and this is how he returned the gesture? Screw composure. “In case you forgot,I don’t want to be here. If I’m making situations worse, by all means, let me go.”
His nostrils flared. “Don’t be dense, Etarla.”
“Then don’t act like I’m an idiot for trying to save your life!” Iyelled, throwing my hands into his chest. He didn’t budge an inch. “Or maybe you should, because clearly, Iaman idiot for wanting you not to die. I should have stabbed you for him!” I pushed his obnoxious, ungrateful, too-hard chest again, and again, he didn’t move.
I went to do it a third time, and this time he snatched my wrists, holding them between us in an unbreakable grip. My fingers curled into fists as he brought his nose to meet mine. “If you didn’t come down from that horse, I wouldn’t have had to almost kill that boy,” he growled.
His words sank in and realization hit.
Harthon wasn’t this angry with me.
He was this angry about the boy.
I was just the scapegoat, because those who held the blame for the boy’s situation were all dead in the field.
I stepped back, yanking my arms. He let them go, no hint of apology on his face.
“That?” I said, pointing at where the boy was being tended to. “That isnotmy fault. You know that. Now I’m going to go sit on that horse, away from you and your big bad overbearing warrior attitude, and you can go take your anger out on someone else.”
I turned on my heel before he could react and stomped over to the black horse, pausing at the crawler’s body. More blood than I knew possible had drained from his neck, his face buried in a thick puddle of it. A bag of stones dropped into my stomach as my fingers twitched with the memory of stabbing him. It wasn’t like when I’d stabbed the tree man. That had been in battle, and he’d probably lived. This was different. There had been no resistance. No warning. Nothing he could have done except feel that terrible wash of fear and helplessness when he felt the bite of the blade.
That was a horrible way to die.
Had Harthon killed him, it would have at least been a fight. He would have expected the slash.
When I pulled myself onto the horse, it was with the knowledge that I never should have come down in the first place.
* * *
I didn’t glance at Harthon when he mounted the horse again, and neither of us spoke as we continued on. His two men had taken the boy in the other direction, leaving us with seven as we approached a troop of soldiers when the sky began to darken. The wind had picked up, and I fought a series of shivers, refusing to lean into the heat behind me.
Harthon’s relaxed body was enough to tell me that we’d made it to Fifth and these were Ellan’s men. One of them broke from the crowd and approached us. There was a golden seal pinned to his chest.
“Edmund, Ellan’s second-in-command,” Harthon said quietly to me.
Edmund’s hair was cropped short to his head, eyes pale and features plain. “Princeps Harthon, welcome,” he declared, stiffly bowing his head.
