Page 37 of Her Cruel Redemption

The question brought a lump to my throat that I couldn’t swallow. I shook my head, tears springing to my eyes. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and I allowed myself a moment to turn my face into him, my fingers gripping at the fabric of his shirt as I took a few ragged breaths. I shouldn’t be the one crying. I hadn’t known Kel for long. But his death weighed heavily on me. I was the reason he‘d fallen from that horse, and I could see his fall in slow motion in my mind’s eye. The spray of blood, the slump of his body to the right, the thud as he hit the floor. The realisation that we wouldn’t be able to go back for him if we hoped to escape. It had been my call to leave him behind. He would never have one of those glass coffins in the tombs, preserved and loved by those he’d left behind for centuries to come. His body would rest far from home, among those who didn’t even know who he was.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I sobbed. ‘I should never—'

‘Stop,’ Elias murmured, his voice thick. ‘He chose to follow you. He knew the risk.’

‘But now he’s… he’s dead for it.’

‘Youweren’t the one who cut him down, Gwin.’ His hand gently stroked my back. ‘Let’s put the blame where it belongs.’

I took a deep, steadying breath and swallowed down my tears. There was no time to fall apart now. We were still in danger, and there were other injuries that needed seeing to. Goras had taken an arrow to the thigh, Mae had been sliced across her arm. And then there was Rhi. But in my heart, I swore an oath to the memory of Kelvhan, to his heartmate waiting for him back in the Living Valley; I would make his life mean something. His sacrifice wouldn’t be for nothing. It was my responsibility to see our purpose through, to unite the land and bring the Yoxvese out of the dungeons where they were being exploited for their magic.

And as I looked back down at Rhi and took her clammy hand in mine, I had another realisation of guilt. She had warned me about leaving that scout alive, about speaking to the people on the road. If I had heeded her warning, the soldiers may not have known we were on the road in the first place. Maybe they wouldn’t have been lying in wait for us at that bridge. And maybe Kelvhan would still be alive.

‘She wasn’t supposed to use magic,’ Goras muttered as he settled himself in a chair and braced for the moment Daethie would try to dig the head of the crossbow bolt out of his thigh. ‘She risked us all again.’

‘Buthewas there,’ I replied. ‘She had to use magic. She was defending herself.’

‘Maybe,’ Elias said slowly. He and Goras exchanged a look.

‘Maybe?’

‘Then why didn’t she kill him?’ Elias said. ‘We saw them. He was on his knees. She could have ended it right there. But she ran.’

‘That’s what you saw, but we don’t know the full story. She can tell us what happened when she wakes up.’

‘She can twist what happened to suit her, you mean,’ Goras muttered, wincing as Daethie began ripping at the fabric around his wound.

‘It isn’t easy to kill someone,’ I continued, squeezing Rhi’s hand. I couldn’t let them pick over her actions like this when she wasn’t even conscious to defend herself. ‘And it shouldn’t be. Maybe she just found it difficult to take the final blow.’

‘She was ready to kill the scout. Don’t think that’s the problem.’

’You don’t know that she would have gone through with it.’

‘It’s strange you want to talk about death when I’m about to pull an arrow out of your leg,’ Daethie said, her voice mild and singsong, as though she was talking about braiding his hair. ‘It’s very close to an artery. You might be close to death yourself in a minute.’

Goras folded his meaty arms, his brow furrowing deeply as Daethie began gently prodding at the flesh around the arrow, drawing little hisses of pain from him. Elias continued to run his fingers up and down my spine.

‘I know you love her,’ he said softly, ‘but we need to be careful. She’s proving to be unpredictable. She could put us all in danger.’

Hadn’tIput us all in danger? But I didn’t reply, just tucked a blanket around Rhi that Mae handed me and watched her twitching eyelids. She was muttering something in her sleep, something I couldn’t make out. If I leaned closer, perhaps I could have heard it. But I didn’t.

Perhaps I didn’t want to know.

We waited out the remainder of the daylight in the barn, too wary to light a fire to stave off the damp in our clothes, too scared to push on while it was still daylight. Outside, the rain came down harder, thundering against the roof, filling the uneasy silence that had settled over us, broken only by the occasional murmur. No one seemed to want to speak, to talk about what had happened to Kel. Elias had once told me that the Yoxvese didn’t know how to deal with death because they lived such long lives and didn’t encounter it often. I could sense that in them now, so brittle in their shock at having lost someone so quickly. A life stolen, just like that.

The hours stretched out while Rhiandra shivered through her fever. Daethie reminded me frequently that there was nothing I could do, that we would simply have to wait for her body to fight off the magic poisoning, that she had already done so once before so it was likely she would do so again. But I was so scared for her. What if this time she’d used more, used too much? What if she never woke? What if she would be another life lost in this quest to win back my crown? Perhaps I should have listened to the others when they said she would be better off staying in the Living Valley. If I had, she wouldn’t have had to face Draven again.

It was still raining when night fell, and Rhiandra still wasn’t conscious.

‘What do you want to do, Gwin?’ Mae asked from her position leaning against a wall, sometimes dozing and sometimes making little plants sprout from the scattered remnants of chicken feed wedged in cracks in the floor. ‘We could make the border before daybreak if we ride fast.’

‘We can’t until Rhi comes out of her fever,’ I said.

‘We could wrap her up and tie her in, use magic to keep the worst of the chill off her.’

I chewed my lip. They were all waiting for my decision.Mine.My burden to carry if I made the wrong choice and another person wound up dead for it. If we went out into the cold, rainy night while Rhi was still sick, perhaps she would get worse. Perhaps she would die. Perhaps the others would become exhausted trying to use magic to keep her warm and we’d have to find somewhere else to hide while we rested again. But if we stayed, we might be found. Surely there were soldiers combing the land all around us right now, looking for us. The longer we waited, the more likely they were to find us. Though, we might also meet them on the road. If that happened while Rhiandra was strapped to someone else, the person carrying her would be at greater risk than the rest of us. Their horse would be slower and less agile. They’d be easier to catch.

‘Let’s rest,’ I finally said. ‘We all need time to recover. We’ll leave when she wakes.’ Mae accepted my decision without question, and that terrified me. I sent up a silent prayer to Aether that it was the right choice.

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