This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
The Horrad who’d touched my face surged forward—and began hacking at the rope around my chest.
Shock made me dizzy as his companion set to cutting Aric free.
My eyes would stay within my head. For now.
Needles pricked my joints as they hauled us to our feet. My legs weren’t ready to work right, but that didn’t matter, because I was being dragged forward, stumbling as I fought to find my footing.
I lost it, tripping over myself, when I saw them.
Sawhim.
Parallel to us, Stefano and Joris were being pulled along, their limbs functioning, unlike the man being dragged behind them.
Harthon.
He was propped between two bigger Horrads, hands knotted behind his back, head dangling as his feet trailed on the ground. His hair hung around his face in tangled, matted strands, hiding what I was afraid to see.
They wouldn’t have tied his hands behind his back if he was dead.
That logic was all that kept me from shattering.
A sharp tug on my shoulder had me scrambling back to my feet. Our angle changed, and Aric and I were now approaching the other men, the Horrads circling us with their water buckets and lumber. None of us dared to speak, even as we fell into a line of prisoners, Harthon stuffed somewhere behind me. I craned my neck, seeking out his face and almost wishing I hadn’t.
His hair still blocked much of my view, but the other side of his head, where he’d been struck, was matted with blood. A lot of it.
It didn’t take long for us to arrive at their village, tucked within the woods. It was largely what I’d imagined—wide tents between trees, scattered fires with pots hanging over them. The only aspect that surprised me was the newness of the tents, so different from the tattered rags that hung over their bodies.
Perhaps that was where all their best fabric had gone.
Not a single face or glimpse of skin was to be found in the Horrads’ mundane rhythm of camp life. That rhythm abruptly stopped the moment we arrived, our presence like a nectar to waiting insects. They stared, then folded around us, their chores forgotten as we were paraded into the heart of their camp.
Their silence wasdeafening.
There were a million ways to die. I knew this. But I never thought fear alone could kill a person, until now. It was going to suffocate me.
Yet that heat still burst beside my lungs, oblivious to our plight.
I expected to be led to a makeshift palace of some sort, a grand tent with a throne. Instead, we came to a stop—us and every damned person in the camp—in front of a tent as average as the rest.
My knees were kicked from under me, and I collapsed to the earth. Aric and Joris hit the ground on either side of me.
I twisted to see Stefano, and Harthon beside him, propped on his knees like a lifeless puppet. One of the Horrads who’d been dragging him ruthlessly backhanded him across the face.
I jolted. Stern hands shoved me back down. Unable to move, I watched, helpless as the Horrad cranked their arm again.
They paused.
Harthon’s head twitched.
Then his tangled hair shifted as his face emerged with painstaking slowness. Inch by inch, his profile was revealed, dried blood plastered to his cheek from the wound near his temple. It looked terrible, hair matted into the gash, dark crimson extending along his scalp. But,bless the Domus,his eyes wereopen.
And they were glaring at the burlap sack in front of him with a promise of death.
The jagged edges shredding my nerves pulled back just a breath.
He glanced down the line and those dark, beautiful eyes found me. They were steady. Furious. Not swirling with the confusion or fear of a man who’d just woken up and found himself in an unfamiliar place facing death.
