Defy (26 page)

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 f lared 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 quak-

ing aspens.

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He looked at me for a moment longer, with unbearable long-

ing. “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.

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 twenty-nine 

W
e’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.

“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.

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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 unneces-

sary 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, f lowing language of Blevon.

“You’re going to have to use our language; they can’t under-

stand 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,

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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 dis-

tance 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’d never

been so miserable in my life.

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 silhou-

ette 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.

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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, f lanked 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

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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 car-

ried 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

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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 any-

thing 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 sol-

diers 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?

Eljin was behind us somewhere, making sure we didn’t attempt

to escape, I supposed.

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Finally, the general stopped before another door. He said

something in his language, and Damian was pushed forward with

a sharp shove to his back. I watched helplessly as he crossed the

hallway to stand next to General Tinso. Everything in me screamed

to do something, anything, but we were trapped. I could do noth-

ing, but watch.

With Damian beside him, the general said something else, and

the guards stepped back, bowed, and walked away. Next, he ges-

tured at Rylan and me, and we were brought forward the same

way. Our guards were also dismissed. Eljin moved to stand on his

father’s other side. Up close I could see the resemblance, the slant

of their eyes, the color of their skin and hair, but the general didn’t wear a mask.

General Tinso said something else, and all the remaining