Page 32 of Her Cruel Redemption

Hescreamed.

And then Elias was yanking her backwards, breaking her contact with the prisoner, who continued to spasm, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, before he went limp, hanging heavily against the tree roots binding him. I rushed to him, touching his face gingerly.

‘Daethie,’ I called, and she was by my side in a moment, helping me hold him up so he wasn’t hanging by his arms.

‘He’s alive,’ she murmured. The tree loosened its hold on him, and we lowered him to the ground, leaning him up against the trunk. When I turned on Rhi, she’d shaken Elias off and stood rigid, glittering rage still focused on the prisoner.

‘That was too far.’ My heart pounded as I said the words, as I fronted up to her and held her wild stare. ‘You went too far.’

‘You didn’t say he needed to be unharmed.’ She was panting, her dark hair sticking to the damp of her forehead, and there was something haunted in her eyes as she stared back at me.

I shook my head. ‘Enough. I’ll see him bound and hidden, and then we’re going to get back on the road as quickly as we can manage it.’

She released a shaky breath. ‘Fine,’ she agreed, dropping her gaze to the ground. I was relieved when she walked away from the unconscious man and disappeared into the trees.

‘Are you alright?’ Elias asked, drawing close to me as Goras and Mae dealt with the prisoner, lowering him to the ground to re-bind him. I didn’t know where we’d hide him, whatever I’d said to Rhiandra. I didn’t know how to hide him to make sure he wasn’t found. We would just have to do our best.

‘I just… sometimes she scares me,’ I admitted.

He touched a hand to my back. ‘That makes sense. She can be scary.’

‘I’m not scared of anything she’d do to me,’ I amended quickly, catching the flicker of frustration that passed across his face. ‘But I am scared of what she’d do to protect me. Or to protect herself.’ I tried to force as much confidence into my voice as I could to repair the damage that little admission of my fear had done. I knew the moment I wavered in my conviction to keep Rhiandra with us, to trust her wholeheartedly, our group would fracture, because my faith in her kept the balance of their willingness to trust her. But in that moment, my unease at the violence in her was stronger than my sense.

I could see that he wanted to say something more. He worked his jaw, like he was trying out different words. I was grateful when all he said was, ‘I’ll finish packing up. Let Goras and Kel find a place to hide him. Then we can put as much distance between us and this place as we can before nightfall.’ He placed a kiss to my hair and returned to the tent to begin untying lines and pulling up pegs.

We hid our prisoner in a hollow that Daethie had sung into a tree, packing the opening with branches and foliage until the man within was invisible as well as immobilised by roots that had grown up from the ground to capture his wrists and ankles. By the time that was done, the others had packed up the camp and strapped everything to our horses. We mounted, but didn’t leave yet, sitting still and scanning the surrounding trees, waiting to see if our eighth horse would be going unridden. The lump in my throat threatened tears as I stared at the empty saddle and tried to think of something to stall for a little longer. If she thought leaving was the only way forwards, then so be it. But it still made my heart ache to think she would abandon us, abandon me, after everything we‘d been through together. Abandon me without even saying goodbye.

‘It’ll be getting on to evening soon,’ Gora grunted, head ducked between his broad shoulders as he scowled down at the dirt. ‘We’ll be riding through the night if we wait much longer.’

‘What do you want to do, Gwin?’ Elias asked.

I bit my lip. Swallowed, trying to dislodge that lump in my throat. Delayed a few moments longer by taking a deep breath. ‘Alright,’ I said quietly. ‘We should go.’

As I collected my horse’s reins, the crunching of leaves underfoot warned me someone was approaching. Fear froze me; had the people who’d attacked earlier come back? But that fear quickly turned to relief as I recognised Rhiandra’s figure emerging from the gloom of the underbrush, eyes downcast as she approached. She took her horse’s reins from Mae without a word and swung up into the saddle, though the creature pranced and tossed his head when she did.

‘Nice of you to join us,’ Tanathil said.

‘Glad to see you’re alive,’ she replied. ‘Shall we get going before someone else comes along to change that?’ She shot me a look, and I smiled tentatively. Her answering smile was faint, but still a smile.

‘Let’s go.’ I nudged my horse with my heels, and we were on the move again.

Chapter Fourteen

The fire in the hearth crackled weakly, barely cutting through the damp chill of the ruined keep. The walls were stone, old and scarred by war, the scent of mildew thick in the air. The long wooden table before me was littered with maps and reports, ink bleeding at the edges from the ever-present moisture.

I stood at the head of the table, one hand braced against the wood, the other curled into a fist so tight my nails bit into my palm. There were others in the room. The commander of a company of soldiers from Yaakandale, a handful of Morwarians, a couple of local soldiers who'd proven themselves. Mercenaries, loyalists and killers, banded together to weed out dissent in this part of the country. There'd been another spate of rebellious outbursts, a few lords pining for the old Brimordian crown stirring trouble. We had a network of new recruits and people willing to pass on information, so we'd caught them quickly enough. But nowthis.

'Garlein,' I said, voice low. 'That was the last sighting?'

One of my lieutenants, a man with graying hair and a scar bisecting his jaw, exhaled, peering closer to the paper he was examining. 'Two days ago. If they were moving east, that puts them—'

'Out of our reach if we don't move now,' another cut in.

The thought gnawed at me, sinking deep into the place where anger lived and betrayal festered. Months of waiting. Of tracking her. Of chasing shadows. And now she was slipping through my fingers again.

'How sure are they that it was Princess Gwinellyn and the queen?' the lieutenant asked. 'This report is full of gaps. They engaged the group and then fled but make no mention of the weaponry or the numbers they were dealing with. One of them taken captive, and then there's something about being left bound in a tree.' He raised his eyebrows, glancing up. 'It sounds like a load of horseshit to me.'

I barely heard him. My eyes traced the map, following the roads she could have taken, imagining her slipping through darkened alleys, keeping her head down, hiding.

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