Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows, #1)(23)

“Sivo’s outside,” she announced softly, a tremor in her voice as she started to lift up.

I pushed her back down with a hand on her shoulder.

“I have to go. Let me go,” she choked out hoarsely.

“To do what? Let Sivo handle this.”

She nodded slowly, clearly uncertain, but I wasn’t letting her charge down that hill. Dark flyaway strands of hair surrounded her face. She looked even paler than usual with worry and concern. Something pricked at my chest, loosening memories buried there of when I had cared that much for someone else.

I watched as Sivo and the commander spoke.

“What’s he doing?” The fear in her voice pulled at me.

“He’s talking to them. It looks . . .” I was about to say “friendly,” but she would know that for a lie.

Sivo talked, his lips moving quickly, his movements anxious. Henley seemed impatient. He glanced to the sky and the waning midlight. I followed his gaze, assessing that sliver of sun. The ground beneath us would wake soon.

That shard of sun peeping out around the moon robbed Henley of the last of his patience. He flicked his fingers to several of the soldiers and they moved swiftly at the unspoken command, shoving past Sivo and disappearing inside the tower.

Luna’s shoulders surged up slightly, lifting her head higher. Her voice took on a panicked edge. “What’s happening now? Is Sivo—”

“They haven’t harmed him.” Yet.

I tugged her back down again. She strained against my touch. “Why are they here? No one has ever bothered us before.”

“A company that large, coming into these woods—” Woods that even a hired soldier wouldn’t want to brave. “They’re looking for something.”

I arrived at the realization the moment the words passed my lips. They were seeking someone. Hunting. The king wouldn’t risk losing a force of cavalrymen this size without cause.

“They can’t be here,” she insisted in a small voice.

Again, the thought entered my mind: they are here for me. Then I dismissed it. Perhaps once the king would have sent men after me, but he had greater concerns now. A kingdom to oversee and an alliance with Lagonia to secure.

She tensed the instant Perla stepped from the tower. Maybe it was the soft curse that left my lips or something more innate. Maybe she felt a connection between herself and her surrogate mother and sensed she had emerged from the tower. I tightened my grip on her, predicting her surge of movement.

“It’s Perla! Let me go—”

I covered her mouth and flattened her to the ground again, heedless of my roughness. If they found us, any treatment Luna suffered at their hands would be far worse. The king’s men weren’t known for their gentleness with commoners. Especially with the fairer sex.

“I can’t let you go.” I told myself it wasn’t just to protect her, but to protect me. If they discovered her, they discovered me. “Understand?”

A quick peek over the hill again had me ducking down. A soldier was headed up the hill, his expression drawn tight. He’d heard us. I dragged her down, rushing us into a thick shrub of prickly bramble that surrounded an old gnarled oak tree.

“What are you—”

“Quiet,” I growled into her ear. “A soldier.”

I forced us into the stabbing vines, ignoring the gouging thorns tearing at every exposed inch of skin. She sucked in a pained breath. I pushed her deeper into the hedge, girding myself against a thick thorn carving a hole in my neck. Blood trickled down my throat beneath my collar, but I uttered no sound.

I folded my body around her, shielding her as much as I could. We felt as one, no part of us not connected. She trembled, but thankfully held silent. Her breath fanned hotly against my neck in violent little puffs, and then her fingers were there, finding my cut, lightly pressing at the wound as though she could slow the flow of blood.

I stared, unblinking, through a gap in the viny gorse, watching as the soldier crested the hill and took guarded steps down it, his sword drawn and ready. He studied our tracks on the ground.

I felt her heart pounding against her ribs and directly into me. Or maybe it was my heart. Curled against each other like two locked pieces of a puzzle, I could not tell where I ended and she began. There was just this. Us. One shared heart. And, if things continued to deteriorate, our joint death.

The soldier turned in our direction. I loosened a dagger from my boot. He neared our hiding spot, his steps easing cautiously closer. I could no longer see his face, just the scuffed cavalry boots encasing his calves so close now I could see the film of dirt coating them. I adjusted my grip on my dagger, preparing to jump out and thrust it in his heart. From there my only plan was to run—to take Luna and run.

Something exploded from the tree behind us, arcing through the air and landing on the soldier in a spitting, hissing ball of fury. He fought off the tree monkey that lunged at him, crying out as its sharp nails scored his face. Flinging the creature to the ground, he stabbed the reddish brown ball of fur repeatedly with his sword. He didn’t stop there either. His bloodied face twisted wrathfully as he stomped on it, his curses flying.

“Sangar!” a soldier called from the top of the hill.

“Coming.” With a final kick for the pulverized carcass, he turned away.

I watched him stomp away before looking down at Luna. I winced at the sight of her. She was a mess of oozing scratches, the wet crimson an obscenity on her skin.