Page 64 of A Cruel Kindness

I breathed in slowly. “Her Mark has been on her since the day she was born. They had a hunch, so they shoved her through the Bridge to see what would happen. They got very lucky she was okay. She was twelve. She’s been able to bounce back and forth as she pleases ever since.”

Bellamy sagged an inch further in her saddle. “How far up the chain of command did it go?”

“They would have known. It was the Astors at the time.” The House that ruled before my own did, two before Bellamy’s family. The island they hailed from was covered in ice, and their hearts were just as cold.

Bellamy shook her head, astonished. “The Royals are too far removed from this War.”

I hummed in assent. That was the root of all of this, wasn’t it? People too distant from the pain of battle commanding us to stay in it. “If they’d ever allowed me to come back to Florus, I might have shared that thought with them.”

“They’ll pull us back now. They’ll want to show us off,” Bellamy said. I’d figured that would be a possibility.

“How long do we think until those summons arrive?”

Bellamy laughed under her breath. “Not sure on timing, but I’d wager when there are a few weeks of bad press.”

As the Muli horizon brightened with the rising sun, making the rich colors of the landscape glow, Bellamy gave me the one thing I didn’t know I’d been missing over the past several years.

A reminder of home.

We fell into easy conversation, if not idle gossip, talking about the other Royal families and things I’d missed that were hidden from the news, not that I’d ever paid attention anyway.

The first week after I’d been drafted, my younger sister’s face was on the front page of the printed news, and I ripped up every single copy I could get my hands on.

I didn’t realize how starved I’d been for that form of companionship until she rested it in my waiting hands. When the realization hit, it started to tear down my walls.

The Bond’s true thoughts started to pour through, resisted by a poor attempt at distancing it under the guise of having more important things to accomplish.

My goal had been to find out what happened to Carson. I did know, now.

It was enough to make my excuse feel ridiculous, to have no good response to the Bond’s insistent questioning about why we were willingly putting space between me and Bellamy.

I like her. She’s mine, the Bond chanted on repeat, a low hum in the back of my mind during our conversation.

The hour passed by too fast. I could have spent hours more on horseback, walking through the most beautiful natural scenery I’d seen, save for the wonders of the Rystrom islands.

That joy was cut off too soon when we broke through a line of trees and descended upon an abandoned wasteland of a camp.

It didn’t look all that different than our own base. There were quickly constructed wooden structures dotted in between flat expanses meant for tents. It looked like everyone and their possessions simply vanished into thin air.

They’d left quickly, that much was clear.

As we strode into the camp, I dismounted first, running my hand over Lucky’s mane with a silent command that he stay close. I held up my hand, telling everyone else to halt.

I needed to make sure this wasn’t a trap. They would be able to take out several critical members of our operation if it was.

A second later, Bellamy’s boots squished into the ground. I was halfway to chastising her before she cut me off. “You really think it will let you?”

She was right. The Bond, either in my head or hers, wouldn’t let us separate for long.

We were sharper together.

Bellamy took her gun out of the holster, her hand rising steadily in front of her to stand guard.

I could hear the distinct sounds of Ford assembling his rifle, surely planning to use the scope to peer deeper into the camp.

Smart.

I heard rustling to my left and cocked my head at Bellamy to follow. Without having to say anything, she knew to follow me, covering my back.