Rebel Spring (Falling Kingdoms #2)(54)

“Shh,” Jonas cautioned.

Cleo concentrated on trying not to tremble from the cold and her swelling fear.

She could see the guards from where they stood and she held her breath—even the sound of breathing might give away their location. The opening to the grotto was clearly visible through the hollow of the large tree by the torches the guards held. Red uniforms moved past the entrance and guards poked at bushes and shrubs with their swords. Their horses snorted and pawed at the ground.

They were going to be discovered any moment. Jonas’s grip tightened on her, betraying his own trepidation.

The sharp tip of a sword pushed back the vines only inches from Cleo’s face, and she stifled a scream with the back of her hand.

“This way,” one guard shouted at the others, and the sword withdrew. “Make haste, they’re getting away!”

She let out a shuddery sigh of relief as the sound of their pursuers faded into the distance.

Moments later, she jumped as a flame caught her attention. Jonas had struck a piece of flint from his pocket and lit a candle he drew out of a cloth bag hidden in the cave.

“Let me see your neck.” He brought the candle close to her, rubbing his thumb over her skin where the guard had pressed his blade. “Good. It’s only a scratch.”

“Put that out,” she warned. “They’ll see.”

“They won’t see. They’re gone.”

“Fine. Then give it to me.” She held out her hand. “I should look at your shoulder.”

Jonas winced as if he’d forgotten he’d caught an arrow.

“I’ll have to stop the bleeding.” He handed her the candle, then shrugged the shoulder of his shirt down to bare half his chest and his upper arm. Cleo brought the flame closer to see the wound and grimaced at the sight of all the blood.

“That bad?” he asked, glancing at her reaction.

“Not bad enough to kill you, obviously.”

Jonas quickly worked his shirt off all the way. His one shoulder was coated in blood around the wound. Otherwise, the flickering light showed his skin to be tanned and flawless and every bit as muscled as, if she admitted it to herself, she’d expected.

Cleo immediately snapped her gaze back to his face.

“Hold the flame still, your highness,” Jonas said. “I have a hole in my shoulder I need to fix or I’m going to keep bleeding.”

Her eyes widened as he pulled the dagger at his belt—polished silver inlaid with gold, a wavy, tapered blade, and a jeweled hilt. She recognized it immediately as the same dagger once owned by Aron, the one he’d used to kill Jonas’s brother. “What are you going to do with that?”

“Only what I have to.”

“Why have you kept that horrible thing all this time?”

“I have plans for it.” He held it over the flame, heating the blade.

“You still want to kill Aron.”

Jonas didn’t answer her, but a little of the hardness in his gaze faded. “My brother taught me to do this, you know. Tomas taught me so much—how to hunt, how to fight, how to fix a broken bone or patch up a wound. You don’t know how much I miss him.”

The pain in his dark eyes pulled at her own. It didn’t really matter who someone was, princess, peasant, rebel, or just a boy or a girl. Everyone mourned when their loved ones died.

The past was far too painful and summoned memories of those she too had lost. Cleo wanted to change the subject. “What does that do, to heat the blade?”

“I need to burn the wound to seal it. Crude, but effective. I’ve taught my rebels to do the same when necessary.”

Jonas pulled the jeweled knife away from the flame. After hesitating only a moment, he pressed the red-hot metal against his shoulder.

The horrible sizzling sound and the acrid scent of burning flesh turned her stomach and nearly made her drop the candle. She scrambled to keep a tight hold of it.

Sweat now coated Jonas’s brow, but he hadn’t made a single sound. He pulled the dagger away. “It’s done.”

“That’s barbaric!”

He gave her a considering look. “You haven’t experienced much adversity in your life, have you?”

She immediately opened her mouth to protest but found that if she were honest, she couldn’t. “Truthfully, no. Until recently my life was a dream. The worries I once thought I had now seem incredibly petty. I never gave a single thought to those who had it worse than I did. I knew they existed, but it didn’t affect me.”

“And now?”

Now she saw with more clarity than she ever had in her life. She couldn’t stand by and watch those in pain without wanting to do something to help. “At the end, my father told me when I become queen that I’m to do a better job than he did.” The image of her father dying in her arms came back to her with agonizing clarity. “All these years, and Paelsia so close to us . . . we could have eased your suffering. But we didn’t.”

Jonas watched her quietly, silently, his face catching the small light of the flickering candle. “Chief Basilius wouldn’t have accepted help from King Corvin. I saw with my own eyes that the chief lived as high as any king did while letting his people suffer.”

Cleo looked away. “It’s not right.”

“No, you’re damn right it’s not.” He raised an eyebrow. “But you think you’re going to change things, do you?”