At Harthon’s sharp nod of acknowledgment, Edmund turned to me. His stoic expression morphed into slight interest when he saw my eyes. “And a sincere welcome to you,magvis.” Again, he dipped his chin.
“Thanks.”
I would never get used to anyone bowing at me.
Edmund’s attention lingered just long enough to make me uncomfortable, and then, as if remembering he was there to greet Harthon, addressed him once more. “There is a small village less than an hour from here. Princeps Ellan has made sleeping arrangements for you there.”
“We’re going to camp instead,” Harthon said, declining the invitation.
Edmund lips pulled down. “There are comfortable beds and warm food. The people are happy to host you.”
When Harthon responded, it was with a tinge of annoyance. “No one is ever happy to sleep outside their home so strangers can take their beds. We’ll make camp. Is here a good place, or do you prefer other grounds?”
I was begrudgingly grateful for Harthon’s choice. Unless Fifth was an anomaly, small villages didn’t have inns, so anything we enjoyed would be stolen from people who had nothing to give in the first place.
“Of course. Here is fine,” Edmund gracefully acquiesced, and everyone dismounted at once.
Doubting that Harthon was willing to give me any aid—and not wanting an ounce of it, anyway—I waited for him to drop, and then I swung my leg over, laying my belly over the saddle to control my slide to the ground. Midway down, a sturdy hand landed on my back, guiding my fall and steadying me when I landed.
It quickly disappeared, and I spun to see Harthon grab the reins and lead the horse away.
I stood in the clearing with nothing to do but watch as horses were tended to in the growing darkness. Minutes passed, and my fingers began to itch with the memory of sliding that damned dagger into the looter’s neck. Biting my lip, I desperately scanned the scene to find a distraction.
I stopped on a group of Fifth Territory soldiers who dragged a thick, fallen tree trunk toward the center of the group, its branches catching and snapping against the ground. They dropped it, and one of them unsheathed an ax.
I walked over to them as the first chop was made. The woodsplintered easily, having been long dead. I stopped only when I was in front of the man with the ax. He paused, holding it overhead, eyes wide as they stared at mine.
“I’ll do it,” I said, extending my hand.
He stepped back, lowering the tool as confusion parted his lips. My hand waited.
“M-my…” he struggled to land on a fitting term. Surely, they’d been told who I was—or at least, who I posed as—but we hadn’t assigned me a title. He settled on, “My Lady, why don’t you rest?”
I smiled, wiggling my fingers. “I don’t want to rest. I’m going to chop your firewood.”
“But surely, I mean, you should face no burdens while you’re here.”
I didn’t have time for his obsession with propriety, not when I needed my hands to dosomethingother than remember how it felt to slice through the man’s flesh. “Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. Give me the ax and leave,” I said sternly, dropping the smile. When he didn’t move, I added, “You would defy themagvis?”
The question jolted him into action, and he flipped the ax, settling the handle in my palm. I tested its weight and grip, finding it similar to what I used at home.
“Thanks. Why don’t you go rest,” I told him sweetly, and he backed away with hesitation, as if he still wondered if giving me the tool was the right thing to do.
It was.
I widened my stance, heaved it over my head, and slammed it into the cleft he’d made, reveling in the reverberations that traveled through my arms when it struck the ground. I stood the small stump upright and cleaved it in half in two precise hacks.
I kicked the wood with my boots, nodding at two soldiers who watched me with wide eyes. “Make yourselves useful and start building the fire,” I instructed, and then I returned to the trunk, wedging the ax into the bark two feet from the end.
Chapter 15
Aim secure, I lifted and swung. I did it again. Then I stood the stump up, chopped it in two, and kicked it toward the men. Again and again I swung, never missing my target, the familiar motions emptying my mind until there was only the ax and the wood and the burning calluses of my hands. My breathing turned heavy, but I only paused to strip off my cloak, not stopping again until the entire trunk was dissected, branches separated for kindling and thick chunks made into symmetrical logs.
The ax slammed into the ground, lodging there as I made my final cleft. I looked up to see more men watching me than not, a mixture of intrigue, surprise, and wariness marring their shadowed faces in the dim moonlight. If Harthon was among them, I didn’t notice, though nothing ever occurred around him that he was unaware of.
Feeling far more at peace than I had before I’d started, I ignored the attention, retrieved my cloak, and went to Harthon’s horse, searching the saddlebags until I found my mat and blanket.
“Do you want dinner?”
