Sara Larson - Defy

“Yes, son. We’re almost there.” The relief in her voice was audible.

I stared at the massive fortress with growing foreboding. What — or who — awaited us there?

“Halt!” The shout was repeated until we all came to a stop.

Careful not to jostle her, Rylan, Damian, the man Eljin had assigned to help us, and I laboriously set Tanoori down on the ground. Her lips were bloodless, and nasty-looking red streaks spread across her chest from the partially healed wound. I was afraid infection had set in and that we’d suffered all this time only for her to die once we reached our destination.

“She’ll make it,” Lisbet said from beside me. “There will be help where we’re going.”

Eljin marched over to where we stood, and began handing out rope to his men. “Tie up the prisoners; I want their hands behind their backs. Make sure there’s no slack.”

The man who tied me up yanked my arms back with unnecessary force, making my already sore muscles scream in protest. I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out. Rylan and Damian stood on either side of me, both being tied up just as roughly. When Eljin’s men were done, one of them shouted something at us in the strange, flowing language of Blevon.

“You’re going to have to use our language; they can’t understand you,” Damian responded, looking completely composed, despite the fact that his hands were bound behind him.

The man hit Damian across the mouth with the back of his hand with a resounding crack. “I will decide what language I speak, and if they can’t understand me, then they will suffer the punishment. You aren’t in charge here anymore, little prince .”

Damian spat blood onto the dirt, his expression murderous.

“No, I am the one in charge, and you will never strike one of the prisoners without my permission again.” Eljin thrust his hand toward the man who’d hit Damian. He dropped to his knees, clutching his throat. The skin of his face turned red, then began to deepen to purple before Eljin dropped his hand, and the man fell forward onto his palms, gasping and sputtering for air.

“Have I made myself clear?” Eljin turned to face the rest of his men, who were crowded around us.

They nodded and murmured their assent, glancing warily at the one who still knelt on the ground.

“Let’s go,” Eljin shouted. “No more stops.”

Everyone quickly filed into line, we prisoners sequestered in the middle. Before marching away, Eljin looked directly at Damian with a strange look in his eyes. Some sort of silent communication seemed to pass between the two, and then Eljin turned and moved to the front of the line.

I sped up a bit to walk next to Damian. “Are you okay?” I asked quietly.

“I’m fine” was his gruff response. He didn’t look down at me, and I couldn’t help feeling like I’d been rebuffed for some reason. He picked up the pace a bit, leaving me to either hurry to keep up or to fall behind. I was afraid that he was trying to keep his distance from me.

He and Rylan had both been very quiet all morning, tension rolling off them in waves. But I was probably the same. I felt utterly miserable.

I’d gone into the tent as soon as I came back from the grove of trees the night before, avoiding the log where Rylan sat and the pit in front of Lisbet’s tent, where I could see Damian’s dark silhouette in the firelight. I couldn’t bear to talk to either of them, so I’d taken the spineless route and crawled onto my bedroll, pretending to go to sleep.

Was he mad at me for that? Or did he somehow know what had happened with Rylan?

Rylan didn’t come to walk beside me, either, leaving me to go in silence, alone with my thoughts as we drew closer and closer to the fortress on the hill. We skirted the town, keeping our distance from the homes and people I caught glimpses of in the streets. Many of them had dark hair and olive skin. Like me. Like Damian.

Walking with our hands tied behind our backs, after hefting Tanoori around for so long, was simultaneously a relief and pain. I just wanted it to be over with.

Finally, we began to make our way up the hill, to the front gate of the wall surrounding the citadel. It was heavily guarded, but when they saw Eljin, the sentinels parted, raising their spears and signaling for the gate to open. With a loud grinding sound, the metal bars slowly lifted into the air and we walked through the archway and entered a dusty courtyard, surrounded by at least twenty men with swords and spears.

Eljin shouted something in the foreign sounds of Blevonese, and a murmur went through the gathered men, until every one of them turned to stare at Prince Damian. The sun was hot on our backs as we stood there, but it was a different kind of heat than I was used to. It was dry and relentless.

Across from the courtyard was a massive wooden door, what I assumed was the main entrance to the castle, which soared into the air above us. It opened after a moment and a tall man, dressed in military uniform, walked out, flanked by a contingent of armed guards.

The men in the courtyard saluted him until he raised an arm in acknowledgment. Silence fell upon the courtyard the moment he began to speak in their language. Then he switched so we could understand as well.

“I am General Tinso, the supreme general of the Blevonese army. I declare you, Prince Damian of Antion, our prisoner. You are now at our mercy, and as such, must acquiesce to our demands or suffer the consequences. Three cheers for my son and his victory over our enemy!”

His son ? Eljin was the general’s son?

The men around us raised their voices in three loud shouts of celebration. Then Lisbet stepped forward. General Tinso’s eyes widened and he rushed to meet her, enveloping her in his arms. With one arm still around her shoulders, he turned to face us again.

“Now that we have captured the king’s son and only heir, let us pray that victory is soon at hand!”

The men went wild, cheering and stomping. Some even spit in Damian’s direction, making me wish my hands were free to access a bow and arrows.

Through it all, Damian stood ramrod straight in front of me, his shoulders thrown back and his chin lifted in defiance. Pride filled my heart in that moment, even though I realized that it was a futile gesture. We were doomed.

We were ushered into the castle at spear point, Damian first, then Rylan and me right behind him. Lisbet had already disappeared into the depths of the fortress with Jax and the men who still carried Tanoori on her heels. I wondered what her relationship to General Tinso was.

The great hall was sparsely decorated, but still luxurious. Thick tapestries hung from the walls, depicting barren cliffs with a wild, stark kind of beauty, and fields of green and gold, rolling on as if they never ended. A blade bit into the skin on my back, forcing me to keep moving forward before I could take in anything else.

If only I could loosen these ropes, get a hand free. I could swipe a sword and try to fight our way out. But the Blevonese soldiers had done their job well; I could do no more than rub my wrists together, chafing the rope against my skin. And even if I succeeded, Eljin would just use his sorcery to stop me. There was nothing I could do to save us.

I glanced sideways at Rylan as the guards pushed us down a corridor and then up a winding staircase. He met my gaze with a bleak look of his own. We were most likely going to die — if not today, then soon — when the general was done with us.

I was going to lose them both.

Despite his hands being tied and the spear digging into his back, Damian climbed the stairs ahead of me as if he were on his way to a royal coronation, rather than to his inevitable demise. I wanted to reach out to him, to touch his face one more time, to feel his mouth on mine again. To tell him that I feared I was falling in love with him. But there was nothing I could do except stare at him with my eyes burning as we crested the last stair. Sunlight filtered in through sporadic windows, shining in bright patches in the otherwise dim hallway. Ahead of us, I could see the dark head of General Tinso. He had silver sprinkled liberally through his hair, and his olive-toned skin was darkened from hours spent in the sun. Was he a sorcerer, too?