Heart of Defiance (The Royal Spares)

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Signy

I watch the next group of rebels depart through the night with a brief wave of farewell. As they slink along the mountainside through the darkness, heading well past the view of the Darium guards before they descend and hurry north toward Feldan, my stomach knots.

I can’t shake the feeling that I should be going with them. That I should have joined the first bunch of resistors who took most of our remaining horses to race off toward the town so they’d have as much time as possible to work their gifts.

But I don’t have any gift at all. My contribution was coming up with the plan. The best I can do now is keep everyone’s spirits up to see it through.

Jostein approaches with a rasp of his boots over the uneven rock. He stops beside me, tucking his arm around my waist in a gesture that feels so natural now it sends a quiver of giddiness through me.

We’ve known each other for a little over a week, but we’ve spent nearly every moment of that together. And with each of those moments, no matter how fraught, he’s proven that he sees me as so much more of a true partner than any of my previous, fleeting flings did.

His thumb strokes over my back in a gentle caress. “How are you holding up?”

I let out a short guffaw. “I’m not on the front lines. I hope the stone workers and the rest we sent ahead aren’t finding the task too much.”

Jostein hums. “I didn’t ask about them. I asked about you. You’ve taken on a lot of responsibility from the beginning, and now isn’t any different.”

A lump forms in my throat at his recognition of the pressure I’m feeling. I’m not sure I’d have dared to speak this plan, let alone attempt it, if it wasn’t for the squad leader’s encouragement earlier.

I lean into his touch, accepting the comfort he’s offering. “I’m nervous, but I’m not letting it get to me. Even if this goes wrong, we’ll end things taking as many of them with us as we can.”

“Have you gotten any rest?”

I nod. “I managed to doze for a couple of hours after the first group left. No more time now—Captain Amalia said the rest of us should leave after the next bell.”

Jostein turns me toward him. “No matter what happens, this is better than waiting on a mountainside to be executed. You gave us this chance, rebel maiden.”

He dips his head to kiss me. The heat of his lips lights up my body with a tender heat that’s a balm on my frayed nerves.

At the sound of more footsteps, we ease apart. Landric is walking over to join us, with a slightly apologetic dip of his head. There’s an almost feverish brightness to his eyes that I can tell at once has nothing to do with jealousy .

“I think I can strengthen our strategy,” he says.

The intensity in his voice combined with his expression makes my heart skip a beat. “How?”

He tilts his head toward the few remaining lights of the Darium camp below the hill. “Rupert’s with the soldiers. I don’t know whether he asked to lead the guards the duke contributed or if the Darium officers insisted that Duke Berengar send his son as a sign of full commitment, but it doesn’t really matter. He knows me; he can vouch that I’ve generally been on his side.”

A chill trickles through my gut. “But you spoke to him before about joining the rebellion.”

Landric shrugs. “Only vaguely and briefly. He thinks highly of himself and his sway—he’d be happy to assume that his comments persuaded me away from any rebellious ideas. He’ll at least be able to speak up for me with the Darium force in a way he wouldn’t anyone else among us.”

“Why would he need to speak up for you?” Jostein asks in an even tone.

Landric’s stance tenses as he straightens his posture. “I’ll approach their camp after the rest of you have had a chance to make it to Feldan. Around the first light of the morning? We were worried they’d notice our disappearance and send just a smaller force to track us down, and our efforts wouldn’t injure very many of them. I can tell them that I saw my old neighbors and their new comrades heading toward Feldan, and they boasted about how they have many more allies who’ll be coming to meet them there shortly.”

Understanding unfurls inside me. “So they’ll see us as a greater threat.”

“Exactly. Hopefully I can convince them without outright saying it that they should wait to march on you until the rest of the army has joined them so they’ll have the benefit of full numbers, and then we can take them all down together. And that should give you more time to carry out the plan.”

It could help. It could help quite a bit, if he plays the part well.

But Jostein puts the concern that’s constricted my chest into words. “They might cut you down simply for carrying the message. They’re not going to let you walk off after you give your report.”

Landric lifts his shoulders in another shrug, though this one looks stiffer than the first. “It is what it is. I won’t be able to contribute much to the plan otherwise. You’re all risking your lives—why shouldn’t I?”

I swallow hard. “It’s not the same. We’ll be together. You shouldn’t have to go off alone.”

His gaze catches mine. The sudden sadness there steals my breath. “How much time did you have to spend on your own with no one to depend on? At least I know I have friends to come back to if I can escape.”

Jostein makes a rough sound. “We can increase your chances quite a bit. We still have a few horses here. If you’re riding, it’ll be easier for you to evade capture. Tell them you don’t want to get any more involved and ride off in a different direction from the town at first so they won’t see you circle back toward us. That’ll make it easier for you to approach them as if you weren’t with us too.”

Landric blinks at him. “You’d give me one of the horses…”

A tense smile that still holds some warmth curves Jostein’s mouth. “I’ll give you my horse. Come on, let’s get you ready. You’ll want to be well away from the mountain when you prepare to make your approach.”

He brushes his hand across my arm in a fleeting farewell, his quick smile to me a promise that he’ll take care of the man I still haven’t decided how to feel about. They walk off into the darkness.

I take a few steadying breaths, not wanting to admit to myself how conflicted Landric’s offer makes me. Why shouldn’t he put himself in danger? Like he said, we all are.

Part of me aches at the thought of him falling into the Darium soldiers’ hands, though.

I rouse myself from my uneasy reverie and move across the mountainside. After offering a few words of encouragement to comrades waiting to make the trek to Feldan, I reach Iko.

He’s hunkered down on one of the flatter rocks, fiddling with a few bits and pieces I can’t make out that he’s balanced on his lap. I know he’s spent the better part of the night working his gift, trying to use its inspiration to construct some kind of device that’ll support our plan.

As I come over, he looks up. A smile that's only a thin shade of his usual grin flickers across his face. A strain I don't think is only from fatigue tightens his roguishly handsome features.

I'm not sure I've ever seen Iko really under stress before. I crouch next to him. "How's the inventing coming along?"

He sputters a hoarse laugh and adjusts the materials he's assembled: a canteen, some twigs he's whittled smooth and curved into circles, a few arrowheads, a chunk of lumpy vegetation. "Estera is making me really work for this one. I can picture how it could be once it's finished, but getting it there and actually moving..."

"You'll figure it out," I tell him with full confidence. "You always have."

"Hmm. Maybe a little extra inspiration from my spitfire will help."

He reaches out to me, and I tip forward to meet him. The kiss he claims is more lingering than his usual playfully passionate embraces but equally sweet.

When he draws back, his smile has gone crooked. He hesitates. "You do want it to be like this, don't you? Being with both of us? If you'd rather stick with Jostein—Great God knows that'd be simpler for you?—"

I cut him off with another kiss before he can go any farther. Who would have thought wryly confident Iko would be shaken by insecurities?

He twines his fingers in my hair, leaving them there when I pull back just far enough to speak, our foreheads still grazing.

"You and he are very different," I admit, "but I think that's why it's so hard for me to imagine my life going forward without both of you in it. Who else could make me laugh in the middle of the most terrifying mission I've ever taken on?"

A glimmer of Iko’s typical slyness returns. "So I'm the jester in our trio, am I?"

I do laugh then, stroking my hand over his cheek. It's somehow reassuring that I'm not the only one who sometimes wonders if I could really be worthy of this much affection.

"The most handsome, clever, and charming jester a woman could ever ask for," I reply, and earn myself another kiss.

"Good," he says after. "I know I can be a little... forward. It's never intended to be pushiness."

"I'm not pushed around that easily." I sit back on my heels to contemplate his work. "Is there anything I can do to help before we have to move out?"

Iko considers his assembled items alongside me and pokes at the lump of vegetation. "I think this lichen is going to be the key. It's growing in patches around the mountain— I'm not sure how much we'll come across after we leave. If you could gather as much as you can find in the next little while..."

"I can do that."

"Here, take a little piece so you know what to look for."

The lichen is bristly against my fingers, with a lacy pattern to its growth and a blueish gray color when I squint at it in the faint lantern light. Iko hands me a small cloth bag to collect my bounty in.

I set off across the rocky slope, heading higher up where the clusters of my comrades won't have disturbed the terrain as much.

It's difficult to spot the patches with no illumination except moonlight. We've left a few lanterns burning to reassure the Darium army that we're still barricaded up here, but I don't dare carry one and risk them wondering what my purposeful movement is about.

Instead, I bend close to the uneven rocks and press my hand to the darker splotches that stand out against the pale gray stone. Sometimes I encounter just gritty dirt, here and there a patch of moss. But on a few occasions I feel the same bristly texture as the lichen Iko gave me. I pry those patches free from their rocky home and drop them into the bag.

After the fourth, my heart starts to beat faster with the sense that the next peal of the hour should be coming soon. I pick my way down the mountainside toward the final stragglers of our camp.

The jangle of a bridle and a dry voice saying, "Hey there, Landric," bring me to a halt. Peering down the slope, I make out a glint of Landric's ruddy hair just beyond the reach of the nearest lantern, maybe fifty paces below me.

He's standing next to Jostein's stallion, who's fully tacked up. The squad leader must have moved on to other business after arranging the steed. But a couple of men from Feldan, guys around our age who I've seen Landric passing time with when Rupert and his noble associates weren't around, are ambling over to join him.

Mattias and Pascal. They were part of our childhood games too, back when we had little more to worry about than how to entertain ourselves.

"I heard you're riding off on us," Mattias says, his low voice traveling faintly to my ears.

I waver on my feet and decide it's better if I don't interrupt. Landric will be on his way soon enough. I sink down behind one of the jutting spires of stone where I can watch the conversation but they're unlikely to spot me in the darkness.

What will he say to them about his mission when the rest of us aren't around?

Landric speaks with impressive calm considering that he might be riding off to his doom. "I'm making sure our latest plan bears as much fruit as possible. If everything works out, I'll see you in Feldan before mid-morning."

Pascal snorts. "So you really are going to chat with the Darium army? What kind of madness is that?"

"Signy's madness," Mattias remarks before Landric can answer. "That crazy bint has gotten us pretty far, but gods above, that's got to be more thanks to the captains and their soldiers than her."

My hands clench at my sides, but Landric's voice simply flattens in its steadiness. "If we'd left it up to Major Arlo and the captains, we'd be handing ourselves over to whatever mercy we think the Darium empire might supply in the morning."

Pascal snorts. "That doesn't mean you have to stick your neck out farther than anyone else. How'd she convince you to take on this mad quest?"

Landric adjusts his hold on the horse's reins, swiveling away from his friends. "It was my idea. She tried to talk me out of it. You should focus on your own part—I'd better get going."

Mattias steps back, but he elbows his companion. "You know, the crazy ones can really be something in the sack. I could see angling for a piece of that. But who would have thought Landric would get so desperate he'd go riding to meet an army just to land one lay with a?—"

Even as I flinch, Landric whirls around. I don't see his fist flying until it slams into Mattias's face.

Mattias staggers backward, clutching his nose. Even in the dim moonlight, I see dark streaks of blood dribbling down his chin. "What the fuck was that?" he snarls.

Landric's voice comes out fierce. "That's for you to shut your babbling mouth. I don't know who you insulted more—her for not being worth more than a lay or me for being the type that'd treat a woman like a piece of meat—but if I hear any of it again, I'm not going to stop with one blow."

I think his friends are gaping at him with as much shock as I am. Pascal hisses a breath through his teeth. "You're turning on us over that?—"

"Don't say it," Landric warns. "You don't even know her. You never tried. She lost so much, and you all..."

He shakes his head. "She's incredible, and I love her, and maybe at least I'd have seen it sooner if everyone hadn't made a hobby out of spewing garbage about her. But I know now, and I'm not going to listen to another word against her. Go get ready for your hike."

Mattias sputters something incoherent, but they both stomp off.

I might be worried about what they'll do next, but it's hard to believe they'd expect the Darium force to be friendlier than Landric has been. And I'm too busy staring at him as he tests the girth on the stallion's saddle one last time .

He has no idea I was listening. He told them off because he really believes all that. And he didn't care how it might change their opinion of him.

The jagged place inside me that's always stung when I talked to him, broken by the years of dismissals and snubs, melds together into something softer.

It isn't so hard to accept when I've seen it with my own eyes, is it? How much have I changed since the moment I decided I'd rather stab a Darium soldier than watch my mother's statue be destroyed?

This rebellion has changed Landric too. Brought out a courage and selflessness maybe even he didn't know he had in him before.

He grasps the pommel, and the realization hits me like a jolt of lightning that he's about to ride off into the midst of the enemy, possibly to his death, and I might not get another chance to speak to him.

I shove to my feet and pelt down the slope as fast as I dare, lifting my voice in a hushed but urgent call. "Landric, wait!"

He halts, surprise stuttering across his face as it whips toward me.

“I’m going,” he says, presumably thinking I’ve had renewed misgivings. “I need to do this.”

I skid to a stop just a couple of paces away, my heart thumping wildly. “I know. I just?—”

I’ve already kissed two men in the past hour, but why should I stop there? If I’m going to be mad, I might as well go all in.

Closing the last short distance between us, I touch his cheek and bob up on my toes to press my mouth to his.

Landric’s breath hitches, and then he’s kissing me back with an urgency that shivers through my veins. He slings his free arm around my shoulders to tug me closer .

I drop my head against his shoulder, grappling with the urge to beg him to stay after all. “You’d better make it back to Feldan.”

A soft chuckle tumbles out of him. He hugs me tight, as if he can’t quite believe I’m in his arms. “I was always planning on it, but I’ll be twice as determined if this is the welcome I’ll get.”

Both of us know there’s no time left. He caresses the side of my face and steals one more kiss, his eyes shining with joy. Then he hefts himself into the saddle and sets off along the side of the mountain so he can circle the camp at a distance.

I watch him go with an uneasy weight expanding in my belly. Should I have accepted his proposal to go down there? Is it really worth the risk?

After all the battles I’ve fought in the past several days, I still can’t say which the right ones are. Bloodshed and corpses were never what I wanted my legacy in this world to be.

As my throat tightens, a flutter of movement at the edge of my vision catches my attention. I turn and go still.

A butterfly is gliding along the slope. Its pale blue wings reflect the moonlight as if they’re made of the stuff.

I’ve never seen a butterfly flying around in the night before. There are no flowers up here to tempt it.

Maybe it’s some rare species that prefers the darkness, but a glow of hope lights inside me. Butterflies are one of the symbolic animals of Inganne.

It could be my godlen is offering me a sign.

Tapping my fingers down my front in the gesture of the divinities, I pad cautiously after the creature. It swoops here and darts there… and lands on the flat of a sword one of my comrades set down next to their pack.

I gaze down at the beautiful insect for a few seconds, taking in the way its wings shimmer against the sharpened metal blade, the interplay of delicacy and might .

If this is a message, then I think I understand it. There can be a sort of art to warfare, if you play it right. In the end, it’s all a sort of game, after all, just one with the highest possible stakes.

Tomorrow I need to create a picture striking enough to carry my whole country through to freedom.

A town bell rings in the distance. The butterfly twitches and soars away.

I square my shoulders and march over to join the last of my colleagues, ready for the journey ahead and everywhere it might lead us.