Page 7 of Tarnished Crown

All around us was death. While all ten soldiers on our side were still standing and relatively uninjured, there had to be nearly thirty of the Unclanned on the ground.

The battle had ended quickly, in spite of that, and I wasn’t even sure that any of the assailants got away.

Part of me was grateful for the skill of the Bear soldiers because it was the only reason I was still alive. The larger part of me was terrified at knowing these men were my new captors.

More than that, if my family waged a war to bring me home, these were the men my people would be up against. Lochlann might win over time by sheer numbers, but how many casualties would we sustain in the meantime?

And with my father and uncles and cousins on the front line, what were the chances they would all make it through alive?

CHAPTER6

We rode hard to get to Wolf Estate. Sir Nils, sadly, had not yet returned from the Summit.

Fortunately, there was a man who appeared to be his son available to cast bitter, judgmental looks in my direction.

It never got old, the way the Socairans blamed me for their war with my people two decades ago—a wartheyhad been the aggressors in. I sighed.

Just a pointless, endless cycle of hatred and blame and death.

“Kirill, please escortLemmikkito the room adjacent to mine. She can’t bear to be very far from me.” The arseling’s voice cut through my haze of exhaustion.

I bristled. Did that mean he was planning to help himself to my rooms? Surely, he would have just put me in the same one, if that was the case. I comforted myself with that thought and the likelihood that there was something I could use as a weapon in that room.

Kirill led me to my room, letting me know a maid would be up soon before he excused himself with a kind nod.

A plush bed waited in the corner, beckoning me like a beacon in the night. All I wanted to do was fall into the covers and sleep for the next six months. But first, I had to find a weapon.

And change my disgusting clothes, which, of course, I couldn’t do without assistance.

Rifling through the room took very little time, though all I managed to come up with was a lantern I could smash over someone’s head and a comb with a pointy end that might be perfect for stabbing a certain arseling lord’s eyeball.

I placed both on the table closest to the bed, then paced the room until the maid came.

I wished Davin were here. The silence never stretched on too long when my favorite cousin was around. He would have made a joke about the accommodations, about the predicament we had landed ourselves in.

Or we would have found the nearest decanter and drank until we didn’t care about what the people thought of us.

Landing myself in the Socairan dungeon had been one thing when my best friend was in the next cell, but being here, alone, with no way out, leaving Davin to tell my father I wasn’t coming home, just as he had been so worried he would have to do…

Would Iiro uphold his end of the bargain to keep Davin safe now that I was no longer in the equation?

There was no use dwelling on that. Theo promised he would take care of my cousin, and I believed him. Especially now that we were...whatever we were.

I didn’t want to think about that either, about the way Mila’s father had announced that our engagement was severed, or about the anguish on Theo’s face when Evander took me from him.

By the time a knock on the door sounded, I didn’t even care about the horrified expression on the maid’s face. I was grateful for anything that distracted me from the mess I had landed myself in once again.

CHAPTER7

If I hadn’t hated Evander before, I certainly had no problem dredging up the emotion this morning.

He looked fresh as a stars-damned spring daisy, cleanly shaven and alert, showing no sign at all that we had ridden hard yesterday and slept a scarce few hours.

Meanwhile, I hobbled out to the stables with dark purple circles under my eyes and my wild curls even more unruly than usual. My back and thighs screamed in protest when Evander lifted me into the uncomfortable side saddle position, but short of cutting my skirts again, I had no other option.

Even I had more propriety than that. Besides, I needed the extra warmth of intact skirts. The light tingling in my spine told me it was going to be another blustery, frigid day.

As soon as we took off, he set a miserable, grueling pace. My stomach sank as we rode mile after mile away from the Summit.