“Lady,” the other guard called out suddenly. “Whatever you are doing there, be quick about it. We’ve got company.” His words sent a chill through my heart. That barren place in my chest that had been undone by blizzards. That same hole inside of me that once held the hopes of a young girl and the vanished dreams of a child.
“Marcus, we have to get up. We have to get back on the horse. There’s danger coming for us. I cannot defend us here. Not without a great deal of men falling into the waiting arms of robbed death.
“Guard!” I cried out, switching focus. “You’ve saved our lives. I cannot go on not knowing your name, good sir. The magic demands it. Give me the name by which your mother called you.”
Gulping back the crack that surprise schismed across his mask of competence, the man answered, “Androws de Tannen. My mother called me Andry.”
Nodding, I grabbed onto the saddle, took a deep breath, and stepped up into the saddle, bedraggled gown and all. Marcus was right behind me. I slipped to the back of the saddle as he settled in, grabbing the mane and a bit of rein. Much of his strength was back but his face was still pale.
Our horse pranced under the extra weight. Meanwhile, an object men fought and died over—the precious axe lay on the ground behind us, discarded. Worth more than an entire army, a weapon like that could destroy a country, take a throne, or kill a king. Dropped into the mud, it was still a lovely bit of fine silver—a treasurer hunter’s dream.
I considered what to do next.
Then, that decision was made for me.
Through the wall of storm and squall, twenty men walked, some on horseback, others on foot. All of them armed.
At their head, Prince Benjamin rode, his smile as cold as an icicle, his intentions clear as piss.
***
Marcus and I watched the men approach.
Rudely, he didn’t bow to the arriving prince. His smile abruptly vanished, replaced by a blank expression that was neither hatred or love or even dislike. Marcus’s whole body tensed.
Gulping back my fear, I summoned a blank face when confronted by an overpowering force.
Sitting behind him on the back of the horse, I knew we could never outrun a force that large.
I wasn’t interested in trying, really. Men like that would never stop—they hunted until they killed. Men like that could not be anything else. They would not hear a woman say ‘No.’ Men like that did not listen.
Marcus did not speak even as the men grew closer.
Stubbornly, I held onto his waist in case he gave the horse a quick command. I could lay my head against his back and hear his heart beating. This close, I rested my forehead on his shoulder blade. He smelled of blood, horse, silver, leather, and soap.
“What side are you on, Marcus?” I whispered, only loud enough for him to hear.
He took a deep breath in response. For a moment, one of his hands covered mine.
Within a minute, we were surrounded by armed men.
No escape. Death, surrender, or some combination of both… those were the options.
The Axe of Stormjen lay between our horse, Andry’s mount, and the encircling robbers.
Finally, the disdainful nobleman paused his horse in front of us. The sneer on Prince Benjamin’s face broke into laughter—the kind of harsh, grating sound that liars use to lull their prey. Exactly like the hee-haw of a donkey--it grated my ears to listen.
“That’s the braying of a jackass, not the roar of a lion,” I muttered.
Marcus laughed at my words.
“Accurate,” he replied, “Far more accurate than you know. Hold tight to me, Briar. We might just get out of this yet.” Marcus seemed so certain. I almost believed him.
Really, I don’t have much hope of anything but death filling this meadow. Death that I would call.
“This is over,” Marcus called out. “We’ve won, my friend, we’ve done it. There is no cause for us to fight. Drop your sword and let’s raise a toast to the Lady who stole the axe for us! Onward, for the glory of the Gilded Seat!”
His words rang across the sodden ground. My lies were brutally exposed, just like that.
The Stormguard Andry threw me a look of distrust, his confusion twisted into hatred. His calloused hand moved to his sword’s pommel as the stormrage guard reconsidered his loyalties.
Oblivious, Marcus continued on, “We’ve won,” Each word, far worse than the one before. “Just step back, your Highness. In this moment of victory, you are overcome with aggression. You are not thinking clearly. My friend,” Marcus spoke to the prince far more as an equal than I could have ever imagined addressing royalty.
“Your Highness, it is time for us to go back, to retake the Gilded Seat. The time for war is done.” Marcus spoke in soothing tones, as if he spoke to a child, not an enemy ready to attack.
Prince Benjamin’s scowl did not change.
Marcus tried again, “I swear: We are your allies.”
Andry’s eyebrows raised at the thought,. The stormguard sense of betrayal amplified the confusion we both felt.
The prince looked directly at Marcus.
Me? He only spared a glance. And he barely even noticed the piles of ash and death that lay in pyres all around us. Remnants of his own men. He didn’t see them at all. He didn’t care.
“You have no loyalty,” I spat out my disgust. “For your own men. You care so little for their lives that you would try to take what isn’t yours? Prince or no prince, you have failed. Marcus may forgive you this deceit. I will not. I went to the Stormrage See, as you asked. I retrieved the item you plotted to steal.”
The prince’s gaze weighed on me like rocks roped to the legs of a drowning man.
Using the bitter truth, I called him out, “Only, I didn’t steal it. Unlike you, I don’t take what isn’t mine.”
All around us, the robbers snickered.
Amused, the prince held up his hand, quieting the robbers. Immediately, the whole group fell silent. They always had been his to command.
“You are only a silly woman,” the prince drawled, barely giving my words any weight. “You know nothing of the ways of men. You have no idea what the Axe can really do. If you did, you wouldn’t leave it just laying there: dropped in the mud, like a piece of garbage.”
“You are no prince, if you ever were,” I retorted.
In front of me, I could feel Marcus tense, adjusting his posture, attempting to protect my body from the swords and arrows of the surrounding men. An impossible task, just like the one he sent me on to the Stormrage See.
Foolhardy, I continued to press the sallow man who claimed nobility, denying his right to the axe and to any throne. “Regrettably, you are no more a noble than I am a lady. You lost any birthright long, long ago. You are only a common thief. I will grant you no other title. I’ll speak the truth as long as I am allowed breath: I am a simple kitchen maid, and you sir, are a coward.”
Rage filled his face as I spoke.
Furious, murderous anger, the kind of primal emotion old warriors called a berserker attack. The rage that wipes out conscious thought. Survivors of battle didn’t even remember using the kind of slashing, killing, strikes that left whole villages empty.
That kind of hatred.
That’s all I saw when the prince looked at me, finally. Pointing at my presence on the back of the war horse, he said softly, “Fifty gold coins for the woman’s head. And two pints of ale tonight for the man who quiets the wench’s mouth with first blow.”
As one, the men surrounding us drew their weapons and charged.
I went still.
Clinging to Marcus’s waist, I did not protect my back. The dream had warned me: I came to battle with armor on my chest. And more importantly, I was prepared to die rather than let this man who called himself a Prince rule anyone.
Corinne would die.
I would die, a failure.
But that man would never hold a castle, never grind other women and children into the dirt under the heel of his boot.
I refused him that right.
“By birth or not, you will never be king~” I cried, unleashing a wave of energy that erupted from my core. Magic flew across the meadow like an explosion, rocketing out in every direction, knocking men out of their saddles, stunning their horses. The blast slashed them to the ground.