She didn’t want to be a villain.
Bermin’s party left clear tracks in the damp earth, but they had over an hour’s head start. More than enough for him to enact slaughter upon whatever farm he selected, though he’d be smart enough to attempt to avoid Maridrinian patrols. For all his talk of honor, he wouldn’t be looking to lose his life in exchange for avenging a farmer’s death.
The faint smell of smoke tickled her nostrils, and Zarrah slowed her horse, searching the horizon.
There.
A black column reached up to the sky, growing taller by the second. Far too large to be burning debris and the wrong color for a grassfire. This was undoubtedly her cousin’s work.
Twisting in her saddle, she said, “We’re going to force Bermin to retreat, on the orders of the Empress. You will not engage or harm the Maridrinians unless your own life stands in the balance, understood? I want scouts in the surrounding terrain—Maridrinian patrols will come to investigate the smoke, and I want to be gone before they arrive. Now move!”
Cracking her reins against her horse’s haunches, she raced in the direction of the smoke, Yrina and the rest on her heels.
She burst from a copse of trees, her horse galloping through wheat nearly up to her knees as she headed in the direction of a burning barn, flames flickering up the side of the neighboring farmhouse. Her eyes danced over the familiar faces of her cousin’s soldiers, not seeing Bermin among them. Then the low bellow of a Maridrinian horn filled the air.
“Shit!” Yrina shouted from behind. “It’s one of their patrols! Has to be!”
Which meant this might not be a matter of forcing her cousin to retreat but rescuing his ass from this poorly laid plan.
Bermin’s soldiers abruptly sprinted toward the far side of the farmhouse, the air filling with their shouts of alarm.
Pulling free her staff, Zarrah circled her horse around the burning home, her gaze recoiling from the dozen corpses of men and women littering the yard—farmers that Bermin and his soldiers had massacred, their eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. How many of them had children hiding in the woods or in cellars, stifling their sobs while they watched on?
How many children were among the dead?
This wasn’t war; it was coldblooded murder. Fury raged through her, and part of Zarrah wanted to turn her horse around and leave Bermin and his men to be slaughtered by the incoming patrol.
But the thought fell away as she rounded the building and found Bermin’s men fighting not a Maridrinian patrol, but a single man, his sword blade flashing in the sunlight. He felled one of Bermin’s soldiers, then another, but he was deeply outnumbered. Which meant it was only a matter of time until they cut him down.
“Zar!” Yrina shouted, and she followed her lieutenant’s pointing finger to where Bermin writhed on the ground, clutching at his throat.
“Get him out of here,” she ordered, then flung herself off her horse and into the fray.
“Fall back,” she shouted at the soldiers, their eyes widening as they recognized her. “That’s a fucking order, you fools! Fall back!”
Four of them listened. Three did not.
Cursing, she tripped one of them with her staff, sending him toppling out of the way, then jabbed another in the ribs before she was forced to block a blow from the Maridrinian. And then another. He was big for one of them, tall and broad of shoulders, with dark hair and eyes, his skin tanned brown from the sun.
“We’re done here,” Zarrah hissed. “Back down and we’ll leave you alive.”
His eyes flashed, and he wiped away the blood threatening to drip into one of them. “You’re still alive,” he snarled. “Which means I am not done.”
He moved to attack but hesitated, his gaze skipping to the burning farmhouse.
Zarrah took advantage of his distraction, cracking him across the ribs and sending him staggering. “Stay down!”
Rounding on her cousin’s soldiers, she growled, “You forget who is in command. Retreat, or I’ll kill you myself for this insubordination.”
But they didn’t answer, their attention behind her.
Zarrah ducked, sensing the attack. The Maridrinian’s blade sliced just above her head. Twisting on her heels, she straightened and swung her fist, catching the man in the face hard enough that he fell on his ass.
Then Yrina was there, flanked by four of their soldiers, her eyes flashing with enough fury that Zarrah knew she’d seen what Bermin’s soldiers had done. Or not done. Yrina lifted her blade. “I’m going to cut—”
“Later,” Zarrah snapped. “Listen!”
More horns in the distance, a patrol only minutes away.
“Our comrade is inside,” one of Bermin’s men said. “Went into the house after the other Maridrinian.”
The house that was an inferno. “Then he’s dead. Either way, we can’t remain.” Because from the sounds of those horns, it wasn’t just one patrol galloping in their direction.
Her soldiers pulled Bermin’s men onto their horses’ backs, Zarrah catching her mount and following. They broke into a gallop across the fields, but she risked a backward glance, catching sight of motion in the upper-floor window. Children being dropped to the safety of the ground, a woman following suit. Then a man balanced on the frame, barely visible through the smoke, where he hesitated.
Which was a mistake.
The building collapsed in a roar of flames, the man disappearing into the smoke.
An unexpected flicker of grief flashed through Zarrah’s chest, and she pressed her hand to her heart in a show of respect for the man’s sacrifice before turning her attention to the road ahead.
And the changes she intended to enact once she reached the end of it.
19
KERIS
Keris leapt, the heat washing over him so intense it hurt, his lungs burning from smoke and embers as he hit the ground and rolled. And kept rolling until fresh air filled his lungs, his shoulder screaming in pain.
“Keris!” Hands gripped his arms, shaking him, and he looked up to see his brother’s face. “Keris, are you all right?”
“Wonderful,” he croaked. “Never been better.”
Pushing up onto his hands and knees, he saw the mother with her arms wrapped around her two children, faces stained with soot. All around them were the bodies of their family and fellow workers, the yard and field splattered with blood and parts. Then his eyes skipped to the burning pile of lumber that was all that remained of the farmhouse, a body sitting near the top of it. A body that still had his sword shoved through its chest.
You killed him.
Twisting away, Keris vomited into the dirt.