Sara Larson - Defy

Every night, I had to lie between the two of them, feeling like I was being torn apart inside. I wondered how dark the circles under my own eyes were.

When we stopped for the night, Eljin came over to where we were setting up our tent.

“Tomorrow, we arrive. You will all be bound to keep you from making a spectacle of yourselves. I have been merciful in allowing you to travel so freely, but that time is over.”

“What about Tanoori? How will we carry her if our hands are tied?” Rylan asked.

Above his mask, Eljin’s eyes were unreadable in the dusky light. “I will have to use some of my men to carry her.” By the tone of his voice, it was apparent that he was extremely displeased.

“Thank you,” I said anyway, grateful for his offer to help, no matter how unwilling.

“You should take care to lower your voice. You sound like a girl these days,” he said and then he walked away.

I stared at him with my jaw hanging open. Had I begun to act like a girl — to talk like one? I didn’t think so — I’d carried Tanoori with three other men without complaining once for days. I helped set up the tent, I took it down, I did everything every other man here did.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s just antsy to be done with us, I think.” Rylan nudged my shoulder with his as he passed me to go start the campfire.

I shrugged but didn’t respond. I hadn’t realized Eljin knew I was a girl. Maybe I was revealing myself. Lisbet had told me to keep up the pretense, but why? So that these men wouldn’t know? I didn’t see why it mattered if they did or not. Death probably awaited me wherever we were going anyway. Maybe it would be nice to die as my true self.

I walked over to Lisbet’s tent and quietly parted the flaps. Damian knelt next to Lisbet, holding her hand in both of his. Tanoori lay motionless and unconscious on the ground next to them. I watched for only a moment, but the tenderness with which he looked at Lisbet and held her hand made me ache. I silently let the flap fall back into place and backed away.

He looked at her with love on his face, the way a son would look at his mother.

I wanted to know him. I wanted him to trust me, the way he asked me to trust him. I wanted him to tell me all of his secrets. Not just the ones he was forced to reveal, piece by piece. But his feelings for me were obviously not enough to make him willing to trust me with the whole truth.

“Alex, can I talk to you?”

I was startled to realize I had wandered a little way away from camp, and that Rylan had followed me.

“Of course. Sorry, I was lost in thought.” I stopped and waited for him to catch up to me.

Our camp was nestled in between two groves of trees — different trees from what I’d ever seen before. Lisbet had told us some were called pine trees and some were called quaking aspens because they appeared to shake when the wind blew. The grass here was thinner, almost yellowish, compared to the deep, verdant green of Antion. But the air was also a bit cooler, thinner. I wasn’t coated in sweat just from walking this short distance like I would have been in the jungle.

Rylan gestured for me to follow him as he strode farther into the cover of the trees, away from camp.

“What if Eljin notices we’re gone?” I asked as I followed him out of sight.

“I don’t care. I don’t know what’s waiting for us tomorrow and I’m not going to waste what might be my last chance to really talk to you.” He stopped and turned to me.

“What do you mean?” He wasn’t as tall as Damian, but I still had to tilt my head up to meet his eyes when he moved closer. “Rylan?”

“I’m not going to let you go, to possibly face our deaths, without a fight,” he said, reaching up to brush my cheek with the back of his hand. He looked down at me with a look of such raw longing that my heart constricted. But not in the way it did when Damian touched me. When Damian was close to me, my heart raced. And I could hardly breathe for the desire coursing through me when Damian touched me.

As Rylan stared into my eyes, waiting for me, I felt different from what I did with Damian. Rylan’s touch filled me with warmth and comfort. But I didn’t want him the way I wanted Damian.

I didn’t move toward him but I didn’t pull away, either. The moment stretched out, with his hand cupping the back of my head, his fingers threaded through my hair, his face inches from mine, while I battled with myself, wanting to pull away but afraid of hurting him. Before I could decide what to do, he bent down and softly pressed his lips to mine. His kiss felt like a sigh, a release. His mouth was so gentle on mine, moving slowly, tenderly. A spark of desire flared in my belly.

My hands rested against his chest, my fingers tangled in his tunic. If I’d never come to know Damian the way I did now, I could have fallen for Rylan. I knew it as surely as I knew that it was too late. Rylan held me in his arms, and my body responded to his touch, but all I could see in my mind was the hurt on Damian’s face if he knew, if he came looking for me and saw Rylan kissing me. It didn’t matter if he was a prince, if we could never truly be together. It was too late to go back to what might have been.

“No, wait,” I said, breaking away.

Rylan immediately dropped his arms and backed up a step, breathing heavily.

“I … I’m sorry, Rylan. I just —”

“Don’t say it,” he said, his voice rough. “I thought I’d take a chance. I couldn’t face whatever might lie ahead of us tomorrow without at least trying.”

I wrapped my arms around myself against a sudden chill. The nights here were shockingly crisp. The breeze made me shiver as it brushed over me and moved on to rustle the leaves in the quaking aspens.

He looked at me for a moment longer, with unbearable longing. “I love you, Alexa. No matter what happens tomorrow, or any day after that, I will always love you.”

My eyes burned. “I love you, too, Rylan.”

“But it’s not enough,” he said. “I was too late.”

I shook my head, unable to answer, not knowing what my answer even was . I did love him; I hadn’t lied. But I knew it wasn’t the love he wanted me to feel. Tears filled my eyes, blurring him. He reached out and touched my cheek, wiping away a single tear with his thumb, and bent to press his lips to my forehead. Then he took a step back.

“I want you to know that I’ll always be here for you.” He paused and then rushed on. “When the day comes that Prince Damian breaks your heart and you need a friend to turn to, I’ll be right here for you, just like I always have been.”

His words hit me like ice and I stared at him in shock as he strode past me out of the clearing, leaving me alone with the trees, the stars, and the cold breeze that sent a chill deep into my heart.

WE’D BEEN CARRYING Tanoori for about four hours when I saw the buildings of a town in the distance. Above the dwellings, nestled into the rising breast of a hill, was a huge castle encased by an immense stone wall. I knew we weren’t near King Osgand’s castle — it was deeper inside Blevon, from what I’d heard.

I remembered Papa’s stories about the land where his parents had grown up and I wondered if it was this town or one like it somewhere else. The irony of being here, in the country where half of my family had hailed from, as a prisoner of war, struck me to the core. If Hector hadn’t taken over Antion, and if his wife hadn’t been murdered, would I have come here freely to visit family rather than being dragged here, likely to my death?

“Is that it, Mama?” Jax asked Lisbet, who trudged along next to us, looking paler than ever.