Page 6 of Tarnished Crown
The pitchfork was halfway to my face when a blur of black motion shot in front of me, splitting the handle in half. Evander and his destrier flew through the air, trampling the man who threw it.
I cringed at the aftermath, meeting Evander’s stormy gaze instead of focusing on the corpse beneath him.
He held my stare for mere seconds before looking past me, fury twisting his features. I spun around in time to see the other Unclanned man hurtling toward me, sword drawn and ready to strike.
Forcing my horse to pivot, I met the man’s blow with my saber in one swift movement, using his momentum against him. He stumbled backward as I spun my horse around and charged at him again. TheBesklanovvyhad barely gotten to his feet before I raised my blade high in the air and brought it cleanly down across his collarbone with a sickening crunch.
Warm blood splattered a macabre pattern onto my pale green gown, soaking through until I could feel the wetness against my skin.
He sputtered before falling to his knees and dropping his sword. I braced myself for the next assailant, but there was no one behind him, only a bare stretch of land leading far away from this place.
Away from Evander and his men.
Evander was fighting one of the few remaining men, and the other soldiers were distracted, either fighting or assessing one another for injuries.
The desire to run back to Theo consumed me.
But all too quickly, reality dawned on me.
Mila had said she would come to me, to stay safe until she could, and Theo had promised to fight for me… If I escaped now, they would never even know where to find me or what had happened to me.
Besides all of that, there was nowhere for me to go.
In the unlikely event I found a kindly soul who didn’t hate me for my hair or my kingdom, who was willing to hide me...I didn’t want to think about what Evander might do to that person.
I swallowed hard, my eyes still locked onto the distance as I convinced myself that leaving would just be another in my long list of bad decisions.
Maybe this wouldn’t be as terrible as I thought. Maybe I could even find an ally in the Clan Wife. Theo had said she was from Lochlann, at least.
Evander pulled me from my thoughts when he rode his horse up beside mine, facing me. He used his tunic to wipe the blood from his blade before sheathing it. Then, both hands shot out to gently trail up and down either side of my torso.
“Where are you injured?” His deep voice was strained with exertion.
I was too startled to do anything but stare at him.
“Lemmikki, where is it?” This time, he sounded impatient to the point of urgency.
His fingers were probing down to my hips, my thighs, and it was enough to shake me from my stupor.
“I’m not. It’s not mine,” I answered quickly.
It just belonged to the man I killed.Again.
Is that all this place is? Storms and death?
Evander pulled his arms back to his sides, and his shoulders seemed to relax incrementally. He nodded his head in one rapid motion before grabbing the leather strap on my saddle and connecting it to his once more.
He held out a hand, gesturing toward the sword, but his eyes didn’t leave mine.
Instead of loosening, my fingers gripped the hilt tighter. “What if they come back?”
He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Then I’ll give you the sword back, but I can’t very well have you eviscerating me in the meantime.”
Having seen the way Evander moved on the battlefield, having witnessed the calm lethality in his gaze, I knew I didn’t pose an actual threat to him. But I also knew that if he wanted this sword, there was nothing to prevent him from taking it.
So, I handed it back, still dripping with the blood of the man I had just slain.
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he cleaned the blade before sheathing it at his back, directing our horses to the rest of the men.