The next few days were a flurry of stolen kisses between long, awkward carriage rides.
Each time Theo’s knee brushed against my thigh sent small sparks of fire through me. Whenever his hand happened to be resting on the bench between us, mine would find a reason to fix my skirts on that particular side, allowing my fingers to graze against his.
Iiro peered at us with suspicion, but if he commented, it was in Socairan.
Every night, Theo dutifully slept on the floor, and every morning, we went on about our day like nothing was happening.
Though, something was most definitely happening.
I glanced at his profile, the aquiline nose and the strong jaw, noting the pensive set to his mouth. Is he thinking about the same things I am? That we were stupid for starting something we could never finish?
It hardly bore thinking about, though. If the Summit voted against me, none of this would matter. Even if they decided to negotiate my return to Lochlann, that would be the end of this.
Theo was the sole heir of Clan Elk. His life was here, and mine never would be. Which was for the better, since the kingdom was sexist and its citizens took turns fearing and disdaining me.
The deep voice from one of the guards interrupted my thoughts as the carriage came to a halt.
There was a frustrated exchange between him and Iiro before we began moving backwards.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as Theo stuck his head out of the carriage window.
When he sat back down, he spoke in the common tongue. “More storm damage. The road is completely blocked by debris.”
A frustrated look crossed over Iiro’s face, and he muttered something under his breath about Elk having superior roads. Inessa sighed, but didn’t comment.
A few minutes later the carriage was turning, and then we were going straight once again. Whatever side road we had taken was decidedly less smooth, and the wagon wheels lurched and groaned, causing my stomach to flip uncomfortably.
I was so focused on my nausea and keeping down the stale bread and cheese we ate for lunch that it took me completely off guard when a sound of alarm rang out.
“Besklanovyy!” the guards shouted, sending panicked looks darting through the carriage.
There weren’t many words in Socairan that I understood, but I remembered that one well.
The Unclanned.
A wave of shouts rolled down toward us from a hill towering above the road. We were surrounded by forty or fifty men, at least, all with the same branding on their foreheads as the man I had seen in that first village.
They ran with swords and axes and several other weapons that resembled farming tools, charging at the carriage and the guards surrounding us. There was no taking off to escape them, no running away.
They had us outnumbered and at a complete disadvantage.
I took a steadying breath, trying to run through every option we had, but there was nothing. All we could do was fight.
Theo and his brother spoke in rapid Socairan to each other and to the guards just outside the doors. My hand reflexively went to reach for the sword at my waist. But of course, it wasn’t there.
I cursed under my breath.
The sound of steel clanging against steel echoed around us as the wagon came grinding to a stop. The guards tightened their circle around us, but it was clear they were outnumbered.
Iiro and Theo exchanged a tense, speculative look, the latter moving toward the door.
“No,” Iiro said. “I’ll go.”
“But—” Theo interrupted.
“That’s an order, Brother.”
Theo clamped his mouth shut, but his eyes burned with fury.
Iiro squeezed Inessa’s hand, still speaking to his brother. “If it isn’t turning in our favor, join only as a last resort.”
Theo nodded as his brother leapt from the carriage.
The tension in the carriage was suffocating. Theo’s knuckles were white around the pommel of his sword as he waited, respecting his brother’s command. Several cries went out, and men on both sides fell, but Clan Elk was being pressed in on too many sides.
I could see it. Theo could see it.
Still, he waited, the burden of his duke’s command weighing heavy on his shoulders.
Inessa grasped Theo’s other hand, and he gripped hers back just as fiercely. It wasn’t until several of the Unclanned broke through the defensive line that Theo abandoned the order to stay put.
With a quick glance at Inessa, he burst from the carriage door to fight them off.
I moved to follow him, but Theo slammed the door shut without looking behind him.
“Stay here, Rowan,” he shouted, before diving straight into the melee.
I shook my head, my thoughts running wild. One person wouldn’t be enough to turn this back around, but two…
If I had my sword, nothing would have stopped me from jumping into the fray. I cursed louder this time, furious that I hadn’t fought harder to get it back.
But I wasn’t naive enough to think that there was anything I could do without one. I would just be a liability. I knew it, and I hated it.
With all the grace of a dying frog, I lifted my heavy skirts up as high as they would go, and grabbed the siren dagger at my thigh.
It wasn’t enough to take on a man with a sword, but at least I wasn’t completely unarmed in the carriage. If Inessa had an opinion about the weapon, she kept it to herself. Judging by her terrified expression and distant stare, though, I wasn’t sure she had even noticed.
Rushing back to the window, I scanned the fighting men for Theo. My heartbeat thundered in my ears as I tracked him farther out onto the battlefield.
He had claimed that every man here was a soldier, and from what I could see, he wasn’t wrong. Each of them, both those from Clan Elk and Unclanned alike, moved as if they were trained for war before they could walk.
Theo fell in beside his brother, and the two of them seamlessly protected one another with each proficient arc of their blades.
They took turns fighting on either side with practiced moves, raining down one powerful blow after another. Theo had said he could protect me, and I saw now that was true. But even he and Iiro could only fend off so many.
They were formidable, but the men attacking them were furious, their anger and passion fueling each blow.
Da’ always said nothing was more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose.
That’s what these men fought like. It made sense, considering what Theo had told me about them, but it was still overwhelming in its intensity.
Inessa whimpered and scrambled into the corner of the carriage as one guard crashed into a door. Blood sprayed when his blade met the throat of the man in front of him, but not before the Unclanned ran his sword through the guard’s stomach.
The men were surrounding the carriage, forming a wall to protect us. But that wall was weakening, little by little. If they failed, and we remained here, unarmed, then I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen to us.
We were sitting ducks, just waiting for the Unclanned to overpower our only protection.
Inessa covered her mouth, ducking down low on the carriage floor to hide, her lips trembling.
Without another thought, I was already moving. I had respected Theo’s order when I wasn’t armed, or barely so, when I was no more than a liability to everyone here.
But fate had just hand-delivered me a sword.
