Roar (Stormheart #1)(91)

“Don’t burn,” she mumbled under her breath. Flame had never harmed her skin, but she did not know what would happen if her magic got loose, if it raged out of control. Could she die by fire if it consumed her?

She stood on her charred cot and grabbed hold of the window’s bars. She could just barely feel the breeze from outside. She sucked down tendrils of cold air like it was water and she was dying of thirst. She had to get control. She grabbed one of the empty water buckets, turned it upside down on the bed, and used it to get closer to the window, where the air from outside could hit her whole face.

But when she looked out over her city, she gasped.

The Pavanian flags that normally flew around the palace and city walls were gone. And in there place, the blue flags of the Locke family snapped in the wind.

Tears gathered in her eyes and a cry stuck in her throat. That was it then. She knew Cassius said that the queen was despondent, but Nova had harbored a secret hope that when the queen was well again, when she realized what had been happening to Nova, she would intervene and set her free.

But if the Lockes had taken over, the queen needed an intervention of her own. If she still lived.

*

Roar came home from her second day of training with Jinx just as exhilarated as the first. Today she’d had to complete another obstacle course, but this time in a sandstorm. She had barely been able to see or breathe, and she resolved that as long as they were in the desert, she was going to keep a scarf around her neck for use in such emergencies.

In her room, she removed the leather harness, laying it on the floor by her bed. She moved to the water basin in the corner to wash the sand from her face and arms. She pulled off the various necklaces she wore—crystal, firestorm powder, and the twister ring—and shoved them in her pocket. After she splashed her face with water, she heard a commotion in the hallway—a crash and yelling. She groped for a towel and quickly wiped the water from her eyes. There was a startled cry toward the front of the inn, and a harsh male voice yelled, “Quiet!”

Several dozen feet stomped down the hall, breaking off into smaller groups. There was a succession of loud crashes, one after the other. She darted for the harness that held her weapons at the same time her door burst open, wood splintering and flying through the air.

Several men rushed inside, and one kicked the hand she had on her harness. The impact reverberated painfully up her wrist, and several knives clanked as they scattered over the floor. The man snatched her still-aching wrist, twisting it behind her back, and pushed her toward the center of the room. The other two began ransacking the place, tearing the mattress off her bed, emptying her bags, tipping over furniture.

“Who do we have here?”

The man who held her had black, short-cropped hair and an uneven smile that sent shivers down her spine. He reached out his other hand to finger a strand of her hair, and she jerked away. He laughed. Her hours spent sparring with Taven rushed back in a jumble of information. She jerked the hand he held up above her head, making him follow and opening him up. Then she swung fast and hard with her free hand. It was her weaker arm, so the hit wasn’t as hard or as clean as she would have liked, but his head snapped to the side and he stumbled back.

That was when she looked at what he was wearing. What they were all wearing. Familiar blue military uniforms. These were Locke soldiers. She backed away toward the door, but another soldier caught her from behind, pinning her arms at her side. He was heavyset and smelled of sweat and dust.

“Look at that,” he said, his mouth too close to her ear. “I think we found us our prize.”

Her heartbeat screamed in her ears and her chest grew tight with fear. They knew. They’d come for her. Oh gods, had they found the other hunters? What had they done to them?

The one with the unsettling smile approached, rubbing at the reddened spot on his cheek from her fist. His hand shot forward, gripping her jaw hard and tilting her head back so that he could see her face.

“Not her,” said a third man still searching the room. But the soldier who held her face did not loosen his grip.

“I know that, Hamish. But we’ve been searching for weeks. The prince’s bride is long gone, but he won’t call us back. Surely we deserve a reward for our dedicated service.”

They did not know who she was. Thank the skies.

But they were searching for her. She had expected Pavanian soldiers, but apparently Cassius had the Locke military searching for her as well. If they had come from the south and the Pavanian soldiers from the north, the land was likely to be teeming with soldiers.

“What’s your name, sweet?”

She couldn’t tell them Roar. The hunters might not have caught on to the similarity with her real name, but these men were more likely to be suspicious. Her mouth was puckered from his grip, but she spat out “Nova” with as much force as she could.

He laughed and gestured to the weapons she had lunged for before.

“Think you’re some kind of warrior, Nova?”

“Galren,” the third man, Hamish, snapped. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Oh, I don’t think it will take long.” His hand slid from her jaw, down her neck, trailing toward the curve of her breast. “She might dress like a man. But I don’t think the little woman will put up much of a fight. Will you?”

Galren was very wrong. She jerked her head back, slamming it against the forehead of the man who held her from behind. His arms dropped, and she spun, sweeping her foot beneath Galren’s legs in front of her. He went down hard, but when she tried to go for her knives again, he snatched at her ankles, and then she was the one sprawling on the floor. She kicked out, her boot connecting with something hard.