Page 34 of Her Cruel Redemption

I didn't care how paranoid it would make me sound; I wanted to turn around. 'I think we should–'

A crack split the silence.

I yanked on my reins just as a flash of light erupted from the trees beyond the bridge. Too late. Whatever it was hit the ground in front of us, sending up a blast of splintered wood and smoke. My horse reared, screaming in panic, and I barely kept my seat, holding onto his mane for dear life as the smell of smoke and gunpowder choked the closed air of the bridge, burning my nose, my lungs. Ahead, something struck Goras, knocking him askew in his saddle, and suddenly there were soldiers everywhere. I glanced behind us, ready to pull my horse around, but there were horses charging towards us. Someone commanded that we halt in the name of the king. That wasn't going to fucking happen. The solders on the other side of the bridge were on foot. They were the weakest target.

'Push through!' I bellowed, kicking at my horse’s sides and charging ahead with a scream.

Gwin and Tan's horses were forced to surge forwards, and we charged the quickly gathering soldiers, our momentum vicious. They seemed caught off guard by the sudden charge and as I barrelled towards them, only two of them raised their swords as though to attack me. But they didn’t swing. Just held them aloft like they didn’t know what to do next. Wide eyes fixed on my face for a second as I pushed forwards, but then I was through, thundering away as adrenaline surged in my blood. I looked back, saw the others hadn’t been so lucky. They were being herded back into the bridge by the blades brandished at them. One of the soldiers had reached Kelvhan’s horse, slashing at its legs. It reared back, throwing him off balance. Goras was on foot, his hulking frame no match for mounted riders. I circled my horse around, yanked one of the throwing knives from my belt and threw it haphazardly, hardly stopping to aim in my terror. It whizzed past a soldier and embedded in the bridge just as a mounted rider pushed through the throng, blade swinging, catching Kel in his struggle to regain his seating. The blade seemed to meet him in slow motion, a glittering arc of steel. I could almost see the shock in Kel’s eyes as the blade bit into his shoulder, the force knocking him forwards. He teetered, grasping at his reins, but he couldn’t seem to grip them. He slid sideways, and in a heartbeat, he was falling.

My pulse hammered as I spurred my horse forward, my mind a blur of instinct and desperation. Another soldier lunged at me, sword raised, and I barely managed to pull my second knife in time, deflecting his strike with a glancing blow. Rage flooded me, sharp and cold, cutting through my fear. I twisted in my saddle, sending a fierce kick into his midsection, forcing him back as I wheeled around, trying to get back to the others.

Without warning, the bridge shuddered. Vines slithered across the ground, creeping up the wooden beams, twisting and curling like living snakes. I faltered in terror at the sight of it, mind reeling.Magic.Yoxvese magic? Were there renegades among these soldiers? The vines snapped and writhed across the opening, turning the bridge into a cage, obscuring my view of my friends. My horse balked at the sight, rearing up, jolting my vision, his eyes rolling in terror. His front legs returned to the ground as his back legs left it, flinging me from my seat, my grip on him slipping, and then I was falling. My breath was knocked out of me as I crashed into the riverbank, spots bursting before my eyes before my momentum carried me over.

I hit the water in a slap of freezing cold. It was in my nose, my ears, my mouth, clawing its way down my throat, pulling at me with the might of a raging frost giant, dragging me down and onwards. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. My lungs burned, desperate to fill. My arms flailed about in a desperate attempt to reach the surface, fighting against the pull of the river. For a moment, my head broke the surface. I lurched out of the rushing water, gasping a lungful of air. It tasted likelife. I gulped it down, fighting to keep from being dragged down again. But the current surged up, thrashed against a cluster of rapids and I was under again, fingers scrabbling at rock, legs kicking out to find purchase as the river dragged me down, down, down.

My course jolted, momentum snagging. Something pulled at me, fighting against the water. Force on my clothing, pulling my bodice tight, struggling against the current. Unrelenting. Whatever the force, it wasn’t cowed by the river. It wouldwin.I could feel it with a certainty that resonated in my bones. I was clawing at whatever had me, trying to find purchase, to drag myself up, my nails digging in, becoming a creature composed of nothing but the instinct to find air.

My head broke the surface again. I gulped down another lungful of air. Sosweet.I was being dragged, pulled. My knees scraped the riverbed, rocks cutting at my skin as I was hauled away from the grasping current. My clothes slicked against me, determined to drag me back under, and I gasped down the sweet air like it would be gone again at any moment as I was dragged from the water. The river finally relinquished its grip on me and I found my feet, slipping as I staggered a few steps up the bank before collapsing to my knees, my palms hitting rocky ground. I was coughing, heaving up the water, my vision struggling to find focus, to make sense even of the rough ground beneath my hands, my body trembling with cold or fear or elation at being alive. But there was fighting nearby. And as my body steadied and my vision cleared, I remembered that I wasn’t safe, even if I was free of the river.

And then someone spoke, and the breath I’d fought so hard for fled.

‘Get up.’

That voice. It immobilised me.

‘Get up, Rhiandra.’

I’d know that voice anywhere.

‘I like you on your knees, but I don’t want anyone else seeing you that way.’

I stole another breath, steadying myself against the tide of panic rising in my blood, holding out for a few precious moments more before I lifted my head, raised my eyes. And there he was before me, no invention or dream-dipped hallucination. Solid and tense and dripping wet, dark hair slicked to his head with river water, mud streaked up his bare forearms, grey eyes boring into me. No mockery, no arrogance, no calculation. Just pulsating, tactile fury.

Draven.

I staggered to my feet. My hands were shaking. I could see the moment I’d run the blade through him wavering in the air between us like a haze.

The tracker’s words snapped through my mind.There’s no mercy in him. Not for anyone, and definitely not for you.

I cast about for words, tried to make my tongue work as I scrabbled for a plan, for a next move, forsomething, while everything scrambled and whirled around me in a sickening chaos of shock because he washere. I could flee. Back into the river? Up the bank and down the streets of the town on the other side of the bridge? I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet. He caught the movement, his gaze flicking for a moment to my feet before returning to my face.

His mouth twisted in a bitter, vicious smile. ‘Run.’

Chapter Sixteen

My feet pounded the dirt. Air sawed in and out of lungs already raw from the river. Fear zinged along my spine, as sharp as a blade at my back pressing me forwards as I struggled to lift my wet skirts from my legs, to keep from tangling in them. I could think of nothing,nothing,beyond finding somewhere to hide, reaching the streets of the town and putting something,anything, between me and the man behind me. I hit the dirt of a road, followed it blindly, legs burning, heart pounding so hard it hurt. A building, then another. The town was broken, empty. I caught sight of a narrow twist of alley curving between two shops standing abandoned, shattered windows and burned out roofs warning against entering. I skidded towards it. I didn't know if he was chasing me, couldn't hear him behind me. But that vicious snarl,run, had tapped into every instinct for self-preservation I had. I reached the wall, slid in behind it, spotted a side door on the opposite building.

It was unlatched. I could see a slither of the room beyond in the space between the door and the frame, like someone hadn’t quite swung it closed. I surged towards it, wrenching it open and slamming it behind me as I scampered across what looked like a dimly-lit bakery, with heavy wooden tables lining the floor, flour ground into the crevices, and a large stone hearth dominating one of the walls. By the time I’d reached the opposite wall and an opening leading to a narrow staircase, I’d realised the door I’d come through had bounced open. I swore, darting back, slamming it closed again, only to reveal the reason it had been open in the first palace: the latch was broken. I’d have to leave it open, a tell-tale sign of where I’d gone that I hoped he wouldn’t see.

Darting back across the room and up that staircase, I found a hallway with three doors. I paused, heart hammering so hard I felt dizzy. Dashing past the first on the right, I beelined for the second and found myself in a storeroom, all shelving and burlap sacks and barrels. Before I could weigh up my choices, I caught a sound that intensified my fear. The creak of hinges. I went scampering into the room on footsteps as quiet as I could manage them, barely thinking through where I was going in my panic, ducking behind a pair of barrels set far enough off the wall that I could squeeze myself in. I crouched there, still wet with river water, trembling, blood pounding so hard I could barely hear the sound of footsteps in the room below, breath shallow and fast. I strained my ears as my gaze darted around the room, taking stock of my resources, my potential weapons. That was when I realised I’d made a mistake. The room was small, windowless. I had nowhere else to run. But it was too late to make another choice. Because I could hear him now.

‘Rhiandra,’ he called, the sound skating over my skin in a flurry of goose bumps. ‘You’re making this too easy.’ The sound of footsteps on the stairs. ‘All these months I’ve waited to chase you only to have you cornered when we’ve barely begun.’ I clapped a hand over my mouth, trying to muffle my panicked breathing. Ihadtrapped myself. Even with a window, how would I jump from the second floor of the building? Idiot, idiot, idiot! How long would it take him to find me crouching behind a barrel?! He wasnotgoing to find me hiding like this. I sucked in a breath and rose to my feet. I would face him standing. I brushed a hand along my belt, checking for my throwing knives. A few missing, but one, two, three still there.

‘You know, I’m surprised you left that scout alive,’ he continued. His voice was closer now, on the landing, I would have guessed. I could almost sense him, could feel the way the air shifted as he entered the space. My chest was so tight I could hardly breathe, adrenaline lighting my every nerve on fire as I stole three quick steps to stand by the doorway, back pressed against the wall, clutching one of my knives.

'Cut me a little, really,’ he continued, the sound of his voice changing, growing more muffled, ‘since you weren’t willing to kill him, but you were so enthusiastic about killingmelast time I saw you.’ He was in the next room, I realised. He was searching that bedroom first. In a split second, I saw my opportunity. Held my breath as I peered around the doorframe. A straight shot to the stairs. I crept forwards, fast, silent. I could make it before he turned around.

I flicked my gaze through that bedroom doorway as I crept towards it. Where was he? Inside the room? Beyond the door? Why couldn’t I see him?!

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