Every muscle in my body tenses. The only members of the Queen’s Army in Summer are those who left the monastery to follow Kairyn. Like the soldiers he left in Queen’s Reach who nearly killed Rosalina. Like the troops sent around the Summer Realm to harass and intimidate the people.
These traitors are one of the reasons Kairyn’s been able to cause the harm he has.
My chest heaves. All the rage and grief and frustration of failing our mission floods through me. I can’t help Rosalina and Dayton in Hadria. I can’t sway the Huntresses to fight for us. But I can still protect the girls. I won’t let this renegade hurt them.
The frenzy surges up my blood. I no longer feel the sting of the sand or the bite of the wind. All I feel is hatred for this man and what his order has done. Murderers, invaders, traitors—
I cut through the storm and throw the man to the ground.
He gives a yelp that’s cut off by the sound of my fist against his cheek.
“Stop, please!” he cries. I slug him and his nose sprays with blood. “Help!” The man starts to cry.
He needs to pay for what he’s done, like Kairyn needs to pay.If the only thing I’m capable of is enacting justice, then so be it. I raise my fist again—
Something holds back my arm. Delphia wraps her arms around my bicep and stares at me unblinking. The wind whips her hair above her head like a crown. I grit my teeth and yank my arm free. When I turn back to the man, Eleanor covers his face with her body. There’s a fire in her gaze.
“Ezryn,” Delphia says lowly, “how will this help us?”
I take in a heavy breath, the dust coating my throat.
I want to kill him. I want to kill him because I’m so fucking angry, and I’m terrified he’ll hurt you. The only thing I can do to help anyone is kill those who could wrong them.
None of that answers her question.
I stagger backward, collapsing in the sand. What … what was I about to do?
I hold my bloody hands up in front of my face. Was I right? Is this all that I am, all that I will ever be? What would Rosalina think of me? She looked into the eyes of a beast and found goodness. I looked at a set of armor and saw evil.
Delphia kneels beside me and takes my hand in hers, wiping the blood off with her sleeve. “You don’t have to be afraid,” she says. “Nori and I will look out for you.”
She offers me forgiveness without a second thought. A childish, foolish decision—
Or am I the child? Too wrapped up in my own twisted sense of justice. Who am I to pass judgment on others when I have strayed so far from my own path?
The wind is too strong; I can’t lie here anymore but I can’t move either. The storm within me is painting my blood black.
“I don’t mean you harm, sir, or you, madams,” the man says, sitting up and adjusting his jaw. “I need shelter. This storm’s going to eat us alive!”
“Look over there,” Nori says. “The winds bending around those dunes. There could be a depression beyond it. We can shelter there.”
“Come on, Ezryn.” Delphia puts her arm under my back and hauls me to a seated position. “Follow us.”
I let the child pull me to my feet, then follow her, fighting through the wind to get behind the dune. Nori was right; the storm has caused a trench to form. We duck down within it.
The lack of wind rushing through my ears is nearly eerie. I shake my head, sand running off my hair.
The soldier collapses to the floor a little distance from us and wipes the blood from his nose. “Didn’t think I’d see another soul out here.”
“We didn’t either,” Delphia says.
“I’m Mozi.” He’s young for a member of the Queen’s Army; many of the soldiers lived during Aurelia’s reign, but this fellow looks younger than me. Signing up for a life of servitude to a monarch who hasn’t been seen in centuries—no one wonder he was so quick to defect to Kairyn’s side.
“I’m Del. That’s Nori, and that’s, uh, well, we just call him Old Man.”
Mozi nods. “Wish we met under different circumstances. Maybe we can help each other get out of this.”
“You’re a defector of the Queen’s Army,” I rasp. “You betrayed your vows to serve a tyrant.” I drag my head to the side to stare at him. “Why should we help you?”
