They didn’t talk to one another. Just sat there in silence, like something heavy weighed on all their minds.
I stared at the rock below my feet, unable to accept the grief of my loneliness. My parents were buried in the cemetery, but my grave was leagues below theirs. Vulgaris had returned to the castle and slept peacefully in his bed, ready to take Warthorn and enslave all the kingdoms under his rule.
He’d probably never think of me again.
“Where are we going?” My eyes remained on my boots for a second before I lifted my chin to look at the guys.
The brown-haired man was directly across from me, green eyes, looking no different from someone I’d see at home. He stared at me as he held the top of the canteen between his fingertips. He didn’t answer the question.
Neither did the blond or the one with dark hair similar to Morco’s.
Morco didn’t look at me. It was as if I hadn’t said a word.
Then I asked the question that I was almost too scared to ask. “What—what are you going to do to me?” I might have lived a sheltered life in the castle, but I knew what happened to prisoners of war, how vulnerable women were in the presence of men who lacked accountability. They could make me a slave, a whore, or kill me for meat.
Morco didn’t react to that either.
Neither did the other guys.
I wanted assurance that I hadn’t chosen incorrectly. “Did I make the wrong decision?”
Morco stared straight ahead and focused on the rock. “I don’t know what I’ll do with you, but I can say we’re the lesser of two evils.”
That gave me reassurance, but not much.
Morco got to his feet and handed his canteen back to the guy whose job seemed to be as the packhorse of the group. He then grabbed the torch and took the lead again, deeper into the mountain.
A long while later, we left the cavern and slipped through another crevice back onto the plains. Without the torch, it would be pitch black, no sign of illumination anywhere. That rosebud offered enough brightness to bring the world into a dull light, and without it, it was absolute darkness.
I continued to follow in line, my vision reaching only as far as the circumference of light. Morco seemed to know where he was going by memory because the light simply wasn’t enough. I felt a flush of fatigue behind my eyes, and I wondered what time it was—but it was eternal night down here.
More time passed, and the terrain remained the same, patches and trees and bushes and rocks and then nothing until there was more vegetation. I wished I knew where we were going, why they were there in the first place, seemingly at the perfect place at the perfect time.
At least, I thought so.
None of them spoke to one another, either because they had nothing to say or because it was imperative to remain quiet.
We finally approached a shoreline like the one we’d left hours ago. There were small waves, just a gentle rise and fall up the bank, like a quiet lake. They immediately took out their canteens and plunged them into the water.
Morco shared his with me again, letting me drink as much as I wanted, and then I refilled it before I handed it back to him so he could do the same. He stood there on the shore in his boots and black clothing, looking out over the dark lake as he drankfrom his canteen, his mind elsewhere. He was by far the most intimidating out of all of them, but I felt the safest with him since he was the one who had warned me about…whatever they were.
We walked down the bank until we came across a boat that had been left on the shore. A small boat that could only hold a few men with a couple pairs of oars. With me in the boat, it would be really cramped, but they gave no protest.
We stepped inside, and Morco pushed the vessel into the water before he jumped into the boat, his clothes and boots wet. For someone in charge, he seemed to do work himself instead of expecting men of lesser rank to do it for him.
He grabbed on to a pair of oars and started to row.
I was seated near the next pair, so I grabbed them and mirrored his movements.
The other guys didn’t protest, like they were happy not to row across the lake.
I wanted to be useful, because the more useful I was, the less likely it was that they would kill me. And if I could do physical labor, they were more likely to ask me to continue that than…put me to other uses.
After what felt like an hour, my arms grew tired, but I didn’t complain, not when Morco continued without any sign of fatigue. His arms were the size of my head, so our strength was incomparable, but I did my best to match him, to prove that I was better alive than dead.
But my pace started to slow and no longer match his. My muscles screamed in fatigue because they were utterly spent.Soon, it was pretty much just Morco doing all the work because he was the only one rowing. “Caius.”
“Move.” The blond moved up a seat and took the oars from my hand.
