Defy

by Sara B. Larson

  “Now,” Eljin said.

  With a sneer, she lowered the bow and walked away.

  It seemed that now I had to watch my back to make sure Tanoori didn’t put an arrow through my heart when I wasn’t looking.

  “I suggest you return to your tents,” Eljin said. “I’d hate to regret my decision not to keep you tied up at all times.”

  “I am rather tired,” Prince Damian said. “By the by, Eljin, you may want to keep better control of your little band of rebels here.” And with that, he sauntered away, without looking back at Eljin. Or me.

  I gaped at Damian for a moment, then snapped my mouth shut. Eljin stood stiffly next to me, and rather than waiting for him to remember I was there and decide to punish me, I hurried back to my own tent. The arrogant, insufferable, maddening … I didn’t care how handsome he was or how he made my heart race, the next time he came to drag me out of my tent in the middle of the night, I was rolling over and ignoring him.

  Though I was exhausted, it was a long, sleepless night. When I finally did manage to doze off, I had horrible nightmares. A jaguar lashed out at me, its eyes glowing in the dark as it swiped at my head, my throat, my heart, tearing through my flesh and bones. And then it wasn’t a jaguar anymore. It was Eljin driving a sword through my gut, but he had Damian’s crystal clear blue eyes as he stood over me in triumph. Clutching my belly, I turned and saw Marcel lying next to me, staring unseeingly. Past him lay Rylan and Jude, also dead. I tried to scream but the blood filled my throat, my mouth, my nose —

  I sat up straight on my bedroll in the gray light of dawn, gasping for air. I couldn’t remember where I was or why. I twisted around, expecting to see my brother sleeping across from me, but when I saw Rylan instead, reality came crashing down on me.

  Rather than trying to go back to sleep, I stood up and crept toward the opening to our tent, willing my heart to calm down, for the vestiges of the nightmare to go away. When I parted the flaps, I was surprised to see Damian standing by the long since dead fire. His arms were folded across his chest and he stared out at the jungle. Mist wound through the camp, silent and eerie, shrouding the ground. It wrapped around his boots, making him look almost like a specter. Without his usual pomade, his hair was thick and wavy in the humidity. Despite myself, my heart picked up speed again.

  I thought about how he’d left me the night before at the mercy of Eljin and nearly let the flap fall shut. But the last few years of training were too well ingrained. That’s all that drove me to leave my tent and wind my way silently across the camp toward him. Or at least, that’s what I tried to convince myself to believe.

  I stopped a few feet away.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he spoke softly, without turning to face me.

  “The jungle?”

  “My country — this nation of Antion. It’s beautiful and deadly. But the people here are strong. My people are strong. They survive — you could even say many of them thrive, despite the dangers.”

  I studied his profile as he spoke, the strong outline of his jaw and the curve of his lips. “Yes, the people of Antion are strong. We refuse to give up — even when our own king is causing us as much suffering as our enemy.” I snapped my mouth shut, horrified I’d spoken treason to the king’s son.

  But rather than reprimanding me, he nodded slightly. “How long can it last, though? As you say, the king is driving my people to their deaths with this never-ending war.” He finally looked at me, and with the gentle light of dawn caressing his face, I couldn’t help thinking that the most beautiful thing in Antion right now was him. “If there was a way for me to stop the war, to put an end to the suffering, would you condone me doing it?”

  “Of course,” I replied without hesitation. I’d never heard him speak like this before; it was thrilling and a bit unnerving to realize how much he really did love his kingdom.

  “No matter what it was?”

  His eyes searched mine, making me acutely conscious of the fact that he knew I was a girl, and that only a couple of feet separated us.

  “Without knowing what the cost was, I couldn’t say,” I finally replied, falling back into my habit of making my voice gruff to cover how flustered I was. My heart beat fast and unsteadily. Why did he make me feel this way? This was the prince.

  “Have you ever heard the theory that it is better for one man to die than an entire nation to suffer? Do you believe that to be true? Is it ever okay to take a life in hopes of saving others?” He took a step closer to me, so that I had to tip my head back farther to keep looking up into his eyes. I’d never felt so aware of just how tall he was before.

  “I think so.” I didn’t know what to do with him standing so close — close enough that I could feel the heat from his body. My heart beat erratically and my fingers tingled for some reason. I forced my face to remain impassive. I drew on all of my training, all of the practice I’d had over the years pretending to be a boy to maintain my composure. With a much steadier, lower voice, I said, “Whose life are you thinking of taking?”

  “Don’t do that with me,” he replied, staring down at me with a look of almost hunger on his face. “We’re too much alike to pretend with each other. At least when we’re alone, let’s be who we truly are.” The intensity of his gaze nearly made me tremble.

  No one knew me as I truly was, except for Marcel, and he was gone.

  But here was Damian, the strikingly handsome, sometimes capricious, sometimes gentle prince of Antion, asking me to allow him past the guise I’d been holding up to the world since my parents died. How could I do that when all I had done for so long was train to guard him — and make sure he never realized that deep down inside, buried where no one could see, his best fighter was actually just a frightened girl?

  He hesitantly lifted his hand, as though he were going to stroke my face. His fingers hovered near my skin. I held my breath, waiting for his touch, longing for it, frightened of what it would mean —

  A shout from across the camp startled us, and I jumped back, my heart in my throat. Damian still stared into my eyes, unmoving. This time, I was the one who turned and fled.

  THE SUN HADN’T even risen above the trees yet, but the heat was already starting to swell around us as Rylan and I shouldered our packs and fell into line. Lisbet and a young boy, who I guessed was her son, were in front of us, and one of the men carrying a scythe marched behind us. The boy darted in and out of line, up and back, with seemingly boundless energy. From what I could tell, he thought this was a grand adventure, not a miserable march across the jungle.

  It was a fairly big group, large enough that I couldn’t see the beginning or the end of the line of people under Eljin’s command. I didn’t see the prince again for the rest of the morning, except from a distance when we stopped for lunch. Nor did I see Tanoori, though I tried to keep an eye out, wary of the burning hatred I’d seen on her face the night before.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Prince Damian. The way he’d looked at me, the things he’d said — even before we were abducted. How he’d claimed we were alike. I was terrified that I was letting my guard down too far with him — it didn’t matter if he knew I was a girl. Or that, if I was being truly honest with myself, I was growing ever more attracted to him. It was forbidden. I was his guard.

  Rylan walked beside me, but we didn’t speak much, conscious of the ears all around us. We continued for hours, with no breaks, over the moist dirt and ground cover, skirting tree roots and branches, ducking when monkeys screeched overhead. At one point, a bush rustled beside me and I jumped back, my encounters with both snake and jaguar haunting my every step.

  “Are you okay?” Rylan asked, reaching out to touch my elbow.

  “I’m fine,” I responded, yanking my arm away. “Just because you admitted you know I’m a girl doesn’t mean you need to treat me like one.”

  The concern on his face immediately disappeared, replaced with a mask of indifference. He nodded and turned away without another word.
He didn’t speak to me again for the rest of the afternoon. I wasn’t even sure why I’d snapped at him. I was confused and frustrated with myself. After so many years of never letting myself slip up, was I now expected to act like the girl everyone suddenly knew I was? With each painful, silent step, I felt worse and worse. It didn’t help that I was hot and sweaty and tired.

  As the sun began to arc back down toward the earth, the boy’s earlier enthusiasm began to wane. He started whining and Lisbet had to keep calling after him, telling him to hurry up when he began to lag farther and farther behind.

  “Jax, come on,” she said for the tenth time in an hour.

  “But I’m tired,” he moaned, and plopped down on the ground. Lisbet reached down for his arm, trying to pull him up, but he slipped out of her grip. “No. I’m not getting up. I don’t want to walk anymore.”

  Rylan and I both stopped, causing the men who were marching at our backs to run into us.

  “Keep moving!” one shouted, but I didn’t obey, concerned about Lisbet and her son.

  I was about to say something to the boy, see if I could coax him to get up, when Prince Damian’s familiar voice came from behind, startling me.

  “Jax, hop up off the ground. If you’re that tired, I’ll carry you on my shoulders, all right?”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Lisbet said, but her eyes were full of gratitude as Jax jumped to his feet, his face eager.

  “Really? You will?” He bounded over to Damian, who stood a few feet behind us.

  I turned to stare at the prince in shock, unable to believe he was serious.

  “Of course I mean it,” Damian said. “I don’t offer to do things I don’t intend to follow through on.” He smiled at the boy, a smile I’d never seen before — gentle and affectionate. Then he knelt down on the ground and helped Jax clamber up his back, until he sat atop Prince Damian’s shoulders.

  “You’re so tall,” Jax said in wonder when Damian stood back up. “I can see forever!”

  “What’s the holdup?” I heard a shout from ahead just before Eljin stormed into view.

  “Nothing. Everything’s fine now,” Damian said as he began to stride forward, with Jax on his shoulders.

  Eljin stared at them in open amazement — amazement that I was sure was mirrored on my own face. Lisbet hurried to walk next to Damian, visibly relieved now that Jax was taken care of.

  Rylan and I followed as well, a few steps behind them. I could hear snippets of conversation between Jax and Damian every once in a while, and even laughter. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever heard Damian laugh before. Watching him with Jax, hearing him laugh with the boy made my chest ache beneath my breastbone. It made me miss Marcel. And for some reason, it made me think of this morning, of the moment Damian reached up to touch my face.

  Finally, when the sun had fallen below the tree line, the line halted and Damian helped Jax climb back down.

  “Can you carry me again tomorrow?” he asked eagerly.

  I didn’t hear Damian’s answer over the shouts of the guards next to us, telling us where to set up our tent. This time, there was no clearing in which to make camp. Instead, we had to pitch our tents in whatever space we could find. The jungle felt impossibly close, almost suffocating, as darkness descended. I sat in our tent alone, after Rylan had been summoned to help find dry wood for a fire.

  When the flap opened, I didn’t even look up, expecting Rylan to return.

  “I’d never guess you would be the type to sit around and mope.” Tanoori’s voice took me by surprise.

  I jumped to my feet, ready to fight if she had come to take her revenge on me. But she stood by the entrance to the tent with her hands held up, empty. When I was sure she wasn’t armed, I relaxed slightly. “I don’t mope,” I said.

  “Oh please.” Without asking, she sat down on the end of my bedroll. “We might not have been friends before, but I did know you for years, Alexa. And even though you’ve cut off your hair and you dress like a boy, I can still tell when you’re moping. You might as well sit down and tell me about it.”

  I glared at her, but finally my exhaustion won out over my pride, and I plopped on the ground as far away from her as I could get. “Why would I tell you about it? You threatened to kill me last night.”

  “Oh, that.” She waved her hand with a nervous laugh. “I wouldn’t really have shot you. I was still mad at you for that rather unpleasant interrogation. And allowing me to be sentenced to death.”

  “And now you’re not?”

  “Well, I suppose I am still, but I didn’t die, so … And I realize you were only doing your duty.” She glanced down at her hands in her lap. “None of this has worked out the way I thought it would. Besides, there aren’t too many people our age in the Insurgi.”

  “Is that the name of the group you’re working for — the one that hides near the Heart of the Rivers?”

  Tanoori looked up at me, her brown eyes bleak. “I never thought they’d ask me to try and kill anyone. But if I thought it would end the war, I’d try to do it again.”

  “I’ll never let you kill him,” I said. “Whether you think it’ll stop the war or not.”

  “You like him, don’t you?” Tanoori’s expression was innocent, curious. But I could feel an underlying urgency to her question. Was it her own desire to know or had she been sent by someone else?

  “Until recently, I couldn’t stand him.”

  “But now things have changed?”

  “I … I don’t know. He isn’t the man I thought he was. I’m not sure what I think anymore. But whether I respect him or despise him doesn’t matter; I’m a member of his guard. I won’t let you hurt him.” I wasn’t about to tell her about my conflicted feelings toward the prince. I trusted her as much as I trusted the jungle at night.

  “You’re not the only one. The sorcerer seems pretty intent on keeping the prince alive now, too.”

  “So Eljin doesn’t work with you — with the Insurgi?”

  She shook her head. “The first time I ever saw him in my life was when he saved it.”

  I’d been sure that she and Eljin were working together. If not, then why had he rescued her?

  We were silent a moment and I took the opportunity to study her. Her hair was thinner than it used to be. She was obviously undernourished: I could see the outline of her ribs beneath her shirt, and her elbows jutted out when she crossed her arms. I wondered what had happened to her, what had driven her to join a rebel group and become this strange, unpredictable girl.

  “So, you joined the Insurgi, and now you’re here with this group — whoever they are. But you were trying to kill Prince Damian, and these people are trying to keep him alive. Why are you here? And what do they want from him?” I watched her intently.

  “I don’t know what they want. When Eljin saved me, he took me to Lisbet and she brought me to this group. I wasn’t given a choice to return to the Insurgi. And no one will tell me what they’re up to.”

  She didn’t seem to be lying, but she kept looking down at her hands, instead of meeting my gaze.

  The tent flap opened again and this time, Rylan walked in. I noticed the way Tanoori nervously watched him, her eyes following his every move.

  “I got a fire going and Lisbet said the food would be ready in a little bit,” he said as he tossed his bedroll onto the hard ground. Then he turned to Tanoori. “What are you doing in here? Aren’t you supposed to be helping make dinner or something?”

  She jumped up with a nod. “Sorry, I’d better go.”

  I wasn’t sure who she was apologizing to or for what, but then she was gone, leaving me alone with Rylan.

  “Is that the girl who tried to kill Prince Damian?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He stared after her for a minute, then shook his head. “If they want to keep him alive, why would they rescue the girl who tried to kill him and bring her along?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Our eyes met and locked. All the tensio
n from the long day of not speaking rose up again.

  “I’m getting sick of saying I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Then quit doing things you have to say sorry for,” he responded. But he looked like he was trying to contain a smile.

  I stood up and began to pace the small perimeter of our tent. “I honestly don’t know how to act. I don’t know what to do.” Rylan stood still, watching me. “So many people suddenly know I’m a girl that it seems ridiculous to keep pretending to be a boy. But it’s all I’ve done for three years.”

  “Just be yourself,” he said.

  “I don’t even know what that means anymore. Who I am is who I’ve had to be to survive. And if Iker and the king ever find out … or Deron …” I stopped and stared down at the ground, fear churning the bile in my stomach. Death or worse would await me if King Hector and Iker found out, we both knew that. And I had no idea what Deron would do.

  Finally, Rylan moved, coming over to where I stood, and took my arms in his hands. He looked down at me with such tenderness that my heart constricted. “Everything is going to be okay, Alexa. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise. Not even the king.”

  I stared up at him, my heart in my throat. What was wrong with me? A week ago, I wouldn’t even let myself admit that I found any man attractive. And now my heart couldn’t seem to remember how to beat normally whenever Rylan or Damian came near me — or when either of them touched me as Rylan was right now.

  “Are you two planning on eating?”

  Rylan jumped back as though he’d been burned and I whirled around to see Tanoori holding back a flap of our tent, her expression shadowed in the darkness.

  “Yes, sorry. We’re coming.” Rylan recovered first, striding out of the tent and over to the fire, where Lisbet and Prince Damian already sat on a log someone had pulled up.

  When I started to walk past Tanoori, she leaned toward my ear. “For just barely admitting you’re a girl, you sure do get around fast,” she said, her voice so low, no one else could have heard her.

  I stopped and stared at her, but she looked at me in perfect innocence, smiling cordially.