Page 31 of Her Cruel Redemption

Her hand darted out and caught his shirt front, pulling him closer. 'You talk big for a man without the use of his hands and legs. Why did you attack us?'

He gave an exaggerated shrug. Without warning, Rhi drew her hand back and smacked him hard across the face. I jolted forwards, as though to stop her, as he grunted with the impact, his mouth twisting with hatred.

'Bitch,' he spat.

'Here's how this is going to work,' Rhi said, and the way she spoke set me on edge. There was so much violence in it. 'We’re going to ask you questions. You are going to answer them. If you have trouble answering those questions, then I'll find painful ways to loosen your tongue. Are we clear?'

He continued to glare at he before finally he spat, ‘Clear as glass.'

‘Excellent. Then let’s try this again. Why did you attack us?'

He shrugged. ‘Got lucky I guess. Just happened to stumble across a princess who is supposed to be dead and a queen who soon will be.'

We were silent, the implications falling on us all at once. They had known who they were attacking. They’d been looking for us.

Rhiandra's mouth twitched, and her hand was clenched tightly at her side. ‘Who sent you to find us?'

He sniggered. 'Who do you think sent us?'

With a crack, Rhiandra hit him across the face again, snapping his head back. I launched forwards and caught her wrist before she could do it again. 'Rhi...'

She turned on me. 'What? Do you want to hit him instead?'

'I don't think--'

'No, you don't,' she snapped, yanking her hand away. 'How do you think they found us? How did they know where to look? No one should have known we were on this road. If you had kept quiet, no one would. Now we get to spend the rest of our journey running for our lives.’

‘Then we need to pack up and go,’ I said firmly. ‘Not take out our anger on him.’

‘And you think we can just leave him alive for someone else to find? What a grand idea. He can report on everything he‘s seen and heard and Draven will have even more information to help him hunt us.’

‘Then what do you want to do?’ It took me a moment of holding her gaze to realise what she was implying. ‘We can’tkillhim,’ I said, aghast to even say it, hoping she would immediately correct me. That couldn’t be what she was suggesting. She wouldn’t want to kill an unarmed man.

‘What do you think they’ll do to us if they catch us?’ Rhiandra said, her voice low. ‘Do you think they’ll repay your mercy? Do you think mercy is going to win you back a throne and end a war?’

I shrank beneath the burn of her fury, but behind all that rage glittering in her eyes I could sense something more.

Fear.

She was afraid of being caught. Of course she was. I didn’t know what had happened to her in the palace, but of course whatever it had been would make her mad with fear at the thought of winding up back there. Of course it would make her suggest things that were this extreme. ‘I’m not going to be a queen that kills unarmed prisoners just to protect myself,’ I said, my voice wavering. ‘If I was, then I don’t have any right to take back the crown. I’d be just as bad as the man who currently wears it.’

She was shaking her head before I’d finished speaking. ‘But it’s not just your neck you’re risking with your idealism. I’m not—’

‘Rhiandra,’ I said, raising my voice enough to cut her off. She stopped, watched me expectantly. My mouth was dry, but I swallowed down my discomfort. ‘If you’re here, then you’re… under my leadership. You chose to follow me. So that means… I make the decisions.’ I took a steadying breath, trying to hold firm in my resolve. I was givingorders. I had to believe in my right to give them, didn’t I? ‘We are not going to kill this man. We’ll bind him and hide him, and Daethie can give him something to knock him unconscious, so by the time anyone finds him we’ll be long gone.’

She folded her arms, looked me up and down. ‘I see.’ Briefly, a smile flashed across her face. Then it was gone. ‘But someone’s going to have to get their hands a little dirty if we’re going to get you to Oceatold.’ She spun around and smacked the prisoner across the mouth again with a speed and violence that made me flinch. He barely had time to spit a line of blood onto the ground before she grabbed him by that grey-streaked hair and yanked his head back.

‘Does he know we’re here,’ she snarled, ‘or were you just chasing rumours?’

He leered up at her, exposing crooked teeth. ‘I’m looking forward to the Blood King getting his hands on you.’ He sprayed her face with spittle as he spoke. ‘Watching him kill you will be sosatisfying.’

Rhiandra flinched, releasing his hair and thrusting him away to hang heavily from his bonds once more. But his eyes didn’t leave her face, narrowing as they searched her, some sort of realisation settling in that widened his mouth.

He started to laugh. I bit my lip as I watched his shoulders shake, bewildered and uncertain of what to do next. Rhiandra seemed just as disoriented by his mirth, standing frozen in place, staring with unblinking eyes.

‘You don’t think he’ll do it,’ he wheezed. ‘You don’t think he could bring himself to do it.’ When he caught his breath again, he had sobered enough to bare his teeth at her. ‘The king would flay you alive after what you’ve done. He’drelishin peeling the skin from your flesh. There’s no mercy in him. Not for anyone, and definitely not for you.’

Rhi seemed to waken from her trance. In a flash of movement, she slammed her hand against his chest. Sparks leapt around her fingers and surged into him.

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