So I Married a Sorcerer (The Embraced #2)(126)

When her gaze swept down to his empty hands, a flicker of panic crossed her face.

“So, Seven.” Gunther eyed Rupert with his usual smirk. “Didn’t find the seal, did you?”

Before Rupert could answer, Gunther raised his voice. “Mador, get in here.”

Captain Mador strode inside the tent, carrying a woolen bag, and Brigitta gasped. She stepped back, clutching her hands together as her face grew pale.

Was she in trouble? Immediately, Rupert formulated a plan of escape. He would grab her and run for some horses while he obliterated the camp with a tornado.

“Did you find it?” Gunther asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Mador pulled a golden orb from the bag and set it on the king’s desk. “It took a while to cut all the leather away, but the seal is inside, intact.”

“Great! I want to see it.” Gunther stepped behind his desk and twisted the orb apart. He unwrapped the wool to uncover the seal.

Dammit to hell. Rupert’s hands fisted as he watched Gunther handling the seal that had belonged to the Trepurins for four hundred years. Now it would be even harder to wrench the throne from the bastard. And if Mador had won the final quest, then Brigitta was in grave danger.

One look at the horror on her face and Rupert’s anger flared, causing a wind to whistle through the tent.

“Excellent.” Gunther smiled as he stroked the golden dolphin atop the seal. “You have won the final quest, Mador. And the competition. Congratulations.”

The captain bowed his head. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I wish I could take all the credit, but I have to admit it wasn’t me who found the seal.” He aimed a smirk at Brigitta. “Thank you, Princess, for handing it to me personally.”

Rupert flinched. She’d given the seal to Mador? His heart raced so fast, the room swirled around him. No, no! Brigitta was true to him. She loved him.

He trusted her.

She stumbled back, her face pale and stricken.

With a chuckle, Gunther caught her arm to steady her. “That’s my girl. You pulled through for me. You’re a Grian, after all.”

A Grian. The words echoed in Rupert’s head. Gunther’s sister. Garold’s daughter. Dammit, no! She couldn’t have betrayed him. He’d trusted her.

“We’ll head back to Lourdon Palace in the morning,” Gunther announced. “And there, the wedding will take place. Oh, and the executions, too.” He smiled at Brigitta. “Just like you wanted, my dear. I’ll even throw in a little bonus. I know the top two contestants were supposed to survive, but I feel like changing the rules a bit.”

“Guards!” Gunther yelled for the guards outside to enter, then he aimed a hateful look at Rupert. “You’re going to die with the rest of the losers. Arrest him!”





Chapter Thirty-Four

Rupert blew the guards back with enough force that they hit the poles supporting the tent. As the canvas overhead wavered, threatening to fall, he lunged for the tent entrance, then paused, glancing back at Brigitta.

While Gunther screamed about his tent, Brigitta gave him a frantic look and mouthed the word, Go!

Was she refusing to come with him?

In the second that he hesitated, Mador rushed toward him with a knife. Rupert leaped to the side, wrenched the knife from Mador’s hand, then slammed a fist in his face. As Mador stumbled back, Rupert ran from the tent.

Had all been lost? Brigitta? The throne? Confusion and rage built up inside him as he raced for the pen of horses. Guards dashed toward him, intent on capturing him, but he blew them away. As more and more soldiers charged after him, his rage increased, along with his determination to survive.

They would not take him, dammit. His life would not end with an execution at the hands of his most hated enemy. He blasted the soldiers away, sending them flying through the air along with uprooted tents.

He wedged the knife under his belt, then jumped on a saddled horse. As he rode away, he ravaged the camp with hurricane-force winds. The campfires leaped from their pits, catching tents on fire. The sound of screams filled the valley. Soldiers struggled to escape the devastation, running for the shelter of the nearby forest.

Rupert reached the edge of the village, where people were gathering to gawk at the destruction of the king’s encampment. He slowed to a stop, glancing back.

Brigitta. How could he leave her?

But he couldn’t go back. Even she had told him to go. Was she trying to save him, or was she rejecting him?

She made her choice. She gave the seal to Mador.

No, dammit. She couldn’t have rejected him. He’d given his heart to her. How could she have betrayed him?

With an angry shout, he spurred the horse onward, skirting the village to reach the road headed south. Stefan and the Eberoni soldiers loaned to him by King Leofric were camped about a mile away. A screech sounded overhead, and he spotted Brody in eagle form, zooming past him. Good. Brody could reach Stefan first and tell him to break camp.

It was a race now. Rupert had to reach Lourdon before any of Gunther’s men. The other contestants, Four, Five, and Six, were imprisoned there, and with the competition over, Gunther intended to have them all killed. At Brigitta’s wedding.

Dammit to hell. He couldn’t let her marry Mador. But she gave Mador the seal. And she’d asked her brother to hold the executions at her wedding.