The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(77)

“This is a fine stallion,” he said when he’d finished, deigning now to size up Lu and Nok. “Far too fine to belong to two village kids. Who’d you steal it from?”

“It belongs to our master, sir.” Nok bowed his head, playing the part of the cowed peasant that he was. He glanced at Lu, willing her to do the same, but she was looking boldly at the officer with a disagreeable set to her jaw.

The officer noticed, too. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” He caught her face in his fingers and held it up for evaluation, just as he had done with the horse. “Who do you work for?”

“Wen, the cobbler,” Nok said quickly, praying the town was large enough to have more than one cobbler, or at least one coincidentally named Wen.

“Wasn’t talking to you, boy,” the officer said. He snorted, smirking at Lu. “A cobbler’s servant, eh? Waste of a nice girl. Why don’t you come work at our barracks instead? Do you know how to cook and wash?”

“No,” Lu said coldly.

“Well, I’m sure we could find some other use for you,” the man leered, patting her hard on the cheek before running a dingy gloved finger over her lips.

Lu’s eyes ignited in outrage. Nok held his breath, waiting for her to draw back and punch the man in the throat, or maybe snap his errant finger in half. Instead, he saw the fire in her eyes temper, then dim. She lowered her gaze, swallowing hard.

Nok should’ve been relieved; he felt sick.

“Come on, now,” the officer cajoled, stepping in closer. “Don’t be shy.” He grabbed her chin again, wrenching her face up toward his own. “How about a kiss and I’ll let you go?”

“Don’t touch me, you dog,” Lu snarled, her patience worn through. She twisted to the side and pulled from his grasp.

The man’s face went from slimy to metallic in an instant. “What did you say to me? You thieving little bitch; I should arrest you right now.”

His fist came down toward her.

Nok’s hand shot out and grabbed the man by the wrist. He knew he’d made a mistake before he even felt the man’s coarse leather glove beneath his fingertips, but it was already too late.

The officer was bigger, stronger, but Nok caught him off guard and he faltered. For half a heartbeat, none of them moved.

Nok dropped his hand like he’d been scalded.

The first blow took him on the cheek. It was more a swat than anything; the man hadn’t drawn back far enough for it to hurt much, but the second caught him on the ear hard enough that his whole head rung with it.

Run! he tried to shout at the princess. Maybe he said it aloud; it was hard to tell. If she had any sense, she’d know to—

“Leave him alone!” Lu jumped between them, pushing Nok behind her. The officer’s closed fist caught her full in the face. She cried out, but rolled with the blow and somehow did not fall.

Nok closed his eyes against his own pain, and when he opened them again he saw that the other orange tunics were rushing toward them, plowing through the crowd. The officer leading the way looked older, seasoned. Someone in charge.

The men yanked them apart. One pushed Nok to the ground, his face sliding in thick mud, flesh catching on stones, tearing. Then he felt the stark, unforgiving cold of manacles going around his wrists.

“Go!” he shouted with the last of his breath.

A boot stomped into his back. He struggled to look up, caught a glimpse of Lu putting up her hands as two other men approached with manacles. Crazy girl, he thought in despair. She should have run while she had the chance.

“You’re both under arrest,” the initial officer snarled. “For stealing the horse and for striking an officer.”

I didn’t hit you; you hit me, Nok wanted to say, but instead he heard himself choke out, “Which prison are you taking us to?” The urgency in his voice betrayed his fear—quivering, pathetic.

He knew the answer. He could see it again, see it all. The work pits, the endless rows of soldiers flashing steel and whips and manacles. The dirty gray canvas lean-tos the soldiers had erected to house their prisoners, dotting the barren land like a cruel simulacrum of the tent villages he had grown up in. He remembered now, too, the smell . . . crudely dug latrine pits full of human waste and rotting garbage. The vaguely fungal stink of the gruel they were forced to eat. And beneath it all, the faint gray malevolent tinge of death, tightening his throat, making him gag, choking him.

He was dying, he thought in panic. He was going to die before they even got there, before they got the chance to kill him.

He knew the answer before it came, but he had to ask.

Which prison?

“Prison?” the officer laughed roughly. “Boy, you’re not going to any prison. We’re on our way to the labor camps, and we’re gonna offer you a ride, free of charge.”





CHAPTER 24


Ghosts

Lu probed the skin around her eye with her fingertips, gingerly. Her face was beginning to swell. The officer had punched her good and hard.

The caravan hit a pit in the road and her hand jerked, forcing the heel of the palm right into the epicenter of the bruise. She winced, dropping her hand back into her lap.

The heavy manacle looped about her wrist jangled against its twin, shifting the short, heavy length of chain connecting them. The bedroll hiding her sword lay across her thighs, and she clenched it with both hands now, feeling for the hard line of metal through the fabric. She’d pulled it from the horse as they were corralled into the caravan, and the harried officers hadn’t bothered to take it from her. Not that she could use it with her hands bound, anyway. Still, it was a comfort to have.