Page 10 of Of Kings and Thieves

I should have refused to take her, anyway. I didn’t like riding, and obviously the animal wasn’t comfortable with me. But home was far away, and the thought of doing the entire journey on foot, alone, filled me with dread.

For the second time that night, anger burned through me. Col was going to get himself killed. He was headed into the worst danger of his life. Quite possibly to his death, and he was going up against The Harrow, the most dangerous man alive. I shook my head. Horrible, lying, self-righteous, noble man.

My heart insisted my path lay beside Col, though my mind rebelled.

The same arguments raged in my head. If Col failed, I might not have a home or family to go back to. The Harrow would sweep over the land like a plague, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I wasn’t a fighter—just a singer with minimal magic.

Even if I could help, Col was a prince. This wasn’t a fairy tale, and princes didn’t fall in love with the likes of me, no matter what Col had said.

Rain began to fall, and I hunched my shoulders. My skin flushed as I remembered our night in the barn. I’d had a couple of lovers before, when I was younger, barely men really, who passed through or stayed a while in the village. They used my body and gave little thought to my needs. My prior experience consisted of tentative experiments, rushed movements, and not much satisfaction. Col was different. My skin still prickled at the thought of his dagger trailing across my body, of how his mouth and tongue set me on fire.

I thought of him every waking minute, even when I was begging the mare to take me home, even when I was overwhelmed with guilt for abandoning Laney and my father.

My eyes burned with unshed tears, and I blinked them away.

The horse nudged my shoulder, giving me a push.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. Taking a deep breath and thinking I had to be crazy, I climbed into the saddle once more.

The mare turned west of her own accord, and flattened her ears when I turned her the other way.

“What’s wrong?” I asked softly. “Why don’t you want to go east?”

I peered into the darkness ahead of us, but my vision was blocked by trees and undergrowth. We continued in this uneasy silence for several moments before something stirred in the woods off to our left.

A shape loomed out the darkness, and the mare reared up on her hind legs. I fought to keep my seat, but I was catapulted from the saddle, my heart pounding in terror as I hurtled toward the ground. My body slammed onto the wet earth, sending waves of pain up my spine.

For a moment I lay stunned, unable to move or think. The rain obscured my vision, and I blinked rapidly to clear it, only to see a shape loom over me in the darkness. Forcing my body to move, I rolled onto my side and reached for the dagger at my belt. My fingers closed around the handle, and I drew the blade.

The figure stepped closer, and I caught the glint of a mask with a scar. Deviant. The same one who had killed the half-goblin.

I stood painfully, holding my dagger tightly, ready to defend myself. Behind the mask his face was like an emotionless doll, yet there was something familiar in his eyes—something that hinted at a cold determination underneath the façade of indifference.

It was the look all Deviants had. Bastards, every last one of them.

I tried to keep my voice steady as I spoke. “Why are you here?”

The Deviant tilted his head and stepped closer. “I’ve been tracking you since you left Prismvale,” he said. “It appears your friend Andris has gained an interesting ally.”

A chill ran through me, and I tightened my grip on my dagger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The Deviant laughed softly and shook his head. “Liar.”

I swallowed hard before responding. “I don’t owe you any explanations,” I said coldly, taking a step forward to show that I wasn’t afraid of him or anything he had to say.

The Deviant didn’t respond, but he raised a hand, and I felt a sudden pressure in my head. I stumbled and felt myself falling backward. As I hit the ground, pain like I had never known exploded through my skull, diminishing all the other injuries.

My instinct was to pass out, but I refused to let the pain take me. If I succumbed to it, I would die. Dagger forgotten and useless in my hand, I used the only weapon at my disposal, the only one that had a chance of saving me: my voice. I began to sing, a low, haunting melody that I had learned from my mother. The Deviant staggered back, his grip on me weakening. I kept singing, pouring all my fear and anger and pain into it.

The Deviant fell to his knees, mask hitting the ground and falling away. I didn’t stop singing until he was lying on the ground, unconscious.

Panting, my heart racing, I climbed back to my feet. It had worked. I had never tried to enchant a Deviant before, and it had worked.

The sense of triumph was quickly replaced by a sickening feeling. The Deviants would come after me with a vengeance now that I had used my song against them.

New pain lanced through my head, and I stumbled away from the Deviant and fell to my knees, gasping for air. My vision blurred.

Struggling to stay upright, I quickly grabbed my dagger and the fallen Deviant’s mask. But the pain took over everything else, and the world spun until I was lying on my back.

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