Heart of Defiance (The Royal Spares)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Jostein

I ko glances around our hasty refugee camp. In the first haze of early dawn light that seeps between the trees, the people of Feldan huddle together, some dozing, some staring ahead in a daze. Their faces are marked with grit and soot—and here and there smears of blood.

My friend rakes his fingers back through his dark blond hair, pushing the chin-length strands behind his ears. His lips slant into a wry grin, but his voice comes out rough. "Well, this is a mess and a half, isn't it?"

I swallow thickly. "We did the best we could."

I don't know how many of the townspeople died in the Darium attack. We managed to usher a few hundred deep into the forest beyond the western edge of the town, farther than the Darium soldiers bothered to venture. From the size of the settlement and the number of buildings now smoldering in embers, I doubt this is even half of them.

But then, we're lucky we made it to the town far enough ahead of the Darium forces to warn them at all. If we'd been with the empire's squadron, they'd have expected to see us burning and murdering alongside them.

Our first loyalty is to Dariu, as our overseers so often remind us.

Iko and I meander onward in our informal patrol, Iko fiddling with a branched stick and a scrap of leather he's assembling into what looks like a slingshot. As if the sword at his hip isn't enough of a weapon.

He never knows how to sit still. Always has to keep his hands moving. I'll admit that he's come up with some ingenious solutions by seeing what odds and ends he can meld together, but this morning his fidgeting is wearing on my nerves.

A woman we pass is clutching her arm, weeping in soft sobs. I kneel down in front of her. "Are you injured? We have a medic who should be able to help."

She shakes her head. "It's just a scratch. But I got it when—I couldn't grab Maud fast enough..."

Another sob overwhelms her voice.

I straighten up with a sensation like a jagged blade in my gut. I don't know who Maud is—wife, daughter, friend—but it's obvious she meant a lot to this woman.

The cleric and a few of his devouts who escaped the burning of their temple have been offering what comforts they can to their neighbors. I’ll have to direct one of them over here when we next cross paths.

As we walk on, Iko hums to himself. "We should show them a painting of Agnethe. They can feel good that they were spared that catastrophe."

His jaunty tone brings my gaze jerking to him. He catches my expression and swipes a hand across his mouth, looking abashed. "Too much? Too much. Ah, there's our spitfire prisoner. It was something watching you play hero to save her from her own heroics. "

If his voice has gone droll again, I'm too distracted by the sight of the figure up ahead of us to care. All my exasperation is aimed at her.

I've gathered from murmurs and mutterings that the bloodthirsty woman's name is Signy. She didn't tell me herself, of course, because she hasn't said a word to me that's not cursing or complaint since I hauled her out of the town square.

She sits now with her arms looped around her raised knees and her head drooped, her rumpled black hair spilling down her back, but I recognize the tension still coiled in her sinewy frame. Given an opening, she'd be dashing back to Feldan in a split-second, never mind that the soldiers she'd like to flay are long gone now.

That's why there's a rope wound around her wrists and ankles, tying her to the birch tree she's crouched in front of. She already tried to run off twice before we finally put her under official arrest for resisting military authority.

That was a few hours ago. Maybe she’s cooled off a little since then—enough to be reasoned with.

With trepidation winding through my chest, I walk the last several paces to stand in front of her. When she doesn’t acknowledge me, I clear my throat. “Well? Have you sorted yourself out yet?”

She lifts her head, and I immediately regret drawing her attention. Those striking emerald-green eyes blaze hotter than the summer sun, searing into me as if she’s peering straight through to my soul.

Her lips pull back in what’s almost a snarl. “The one who needs sorting out around here is you. You call yourself a Veldunian soldier, but you’re not even willing to fight for your country? You might as well take off that uniform and put on the Darium bones.”

The comment sets me even more on edge in an instant. “ We’re not the ones who torched your home. We did our best to warn you and get you all to safety.”

Her voice rises. “We would have stood up to those assholes with sticks and pans. You’re the ones with the swords, and all you were willing to do is run away.”

Several gazes turn our way at her words. Even tied to a tree, she can command attention in a way that gives me a pang of mixed admiration and envy.

And the quiver in my abdomen in memory of my dedication sacrifice tells me she means it. She really would have battled the Darium soldiers to the bitter end, even alone, and probably felled a few of them in the process.

The gift Creaden blessed me with lets me judge who’s up to a task, and it’s usually accurate.

It and my steadfast dedication to my career haven’t gotten me promoted past squad leader, though. You’re just not very… commanding , my last captain said.

I don’t think I need to be taking tips from this half-feral woman, though.

“Look,” I say firmly, the back of my neck prickling with awareness of our growing audience, “the Darium empire has kept the entire continent under its thumb for centuries. Even if we fought off that squadron, they’d send more people next time. Rebellion is a death sentence. At least when we work around them instead of coming at them head on, we can protect some of you instead of encouraging what’ll essentially be suicide.”

“Which is not just depressing but very messy to clean up,” Iko puts in, and I restrain the urge to glower at him.

Signy’s gaze flicks to him and back to me. A little of the fierceness fades from her expression, and I see the exhaustion behind it.

Her next words come out quieter, but they seem to ring all through the forest in the silence our argument has cast. “ What’s the point? What does it matter if you saved our lives when everything that mattered in those lives has been destroyed? Do our breaths even belong to us, if the only reason we get to keep living is because the Darium empire didn’t decide to slaughter me or him or her today?”

She waves her hand toward the huddled townspeople as well as she can with her wrists bound.

A lump clogs my throat. I push my voice past it. “Of course it matters. You can rebuild—you can recover—you still have one another?—”

Signy’s eyes narrow. “Tell that to everyone here who lost someone they cared about to enemy swords last night. At least if we’d stayed and fought, the pain would go both ways. We’d have shown them that we do matter.”

Last night’s frustration swells inside me, overwhelming everything else I’m feeling. “You already fought. From what I heard, you all attacked a small patrol and killed one of the soldiers. Burning the town was your punishment. Was all that loss really worth it for a few minutes of ‘showing them’?”

To my surprise, the woman flinches. Her head droops for a moment as she works her jaw. “It was my fault. I started the fight on my own. No, that’s not really true. They started it by deciding to smash our fountain just because it wasn’t some kind of homage to their empire. But I drew the first blood.”

For a second, I can only gape at her. “You launched an attack on the patrol… by yourself?” A single, untrained woman against several fully-equipped Darium soldiers?

She grimaces. “I couldn’t stand to let them ruin one more thing… I didn’t expect it to go that far. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so angry.”

My shock steals the rest of my voice. Gods above, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a human being so reckless… or so passionate. It took an incredible amount of courage for her to instigate that act of resistance alone .

Of course, after seeing how she hollered for her neighbors to push back the Darium force last night, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by that.

Iko lets out a low whistle, his eyebrows lifted with similar awe. “If you get that much done when you’re mad, remind me never to piss you off.”

I consider stomping on his foot to shut him up, but then Signy’s eyes flash toward us again. “We could have gotten a lot more done if you’d been completely on our side. All it took was me jabbing a pocketknife at the soldiers for so many other people to stand up to them too. Maybe we could have saved the whole town if your squad had rallied us instead of running us off. How do you know what’s possible when no one’s tried to rebel in ages?”

Footsteps crunch through the underbrush with an ominous thudding. Captain Amalia, who sent my squad and one other off on the evacuation mission, marches into view.

She frowns down at Signy. “We’ve heard enough out of you. Keep your foolhardy thoughts to yourself, or we’ll add a gag along with the ropes.”

I wince inwardly at her caustic tone, even though I was essentially trying to get Signy to do the same thing. A flurry of whispers, some supportive and some agitated, ripple through the mass of refugees around us.

Signy glares back at Amalia, but she appears to take the captain’s authority seriously. Her mouth clamps shut, wary of the threat.

Then a man who can’t be more than a year or two older than she is shoves to his feet from where he was sitting among his neighbors. The dawn light flares in his reddish-brown hair like the fires in town last night.

“She shouldn’t have to shut up,” he says, his voice pealing through the forest. “Signy’s right.”