by E. Latimer
Behind me, Charlotte was wheezing, her face bright red, and she stumbled every few steps.
There’s no way we’re going to make it. I ground my teeth together and forced myself to keep going. Loki would have to leave us behind. It was important that he got to his people.
A shout echoed through the forest. The wind brought the sounds of men calling to one another and dogs barking.
"Up ahead!" someone yelled.
My skin went hot and cold, and I tried to put on a burst of speed, stumbling and nearly going down for my effort. Loki gestured for us to keep running, and his grim expression scared me more than our pursuers did.
We kept going as far as we could. To my horror, the snow only got deeper the farther we moved into the cover of the woods. They were on horseback, and the crashing behind us signaled how fast they were catching up. They could travel much faster through the drifts.
My heart had turned to ice. Melted snow ran through my veins. We were going to die.
Up ahead Loki kept searching the forest, head swivelling constantly, like he was looking for something. I could have told him there was no way out.
The snow crunched on either side, and shadows flew through the trees, stretching ahead of them. A familiar voice rang out in the distance. I couldn't make out the words, but the tone was mocking. Gunnar.
Panic crystallized my lungs, and white spots danced in front of my eyes. The queen must have released him and sent him after me. That could only mean one thing.
She didn't want me alive.
He must have jumped at the opportunity to pursue us. By now, some of the guards had outpaced us and circled back, cutting us off. It was over. I couldn't move.
Gunnar emerged from the trees less than ten feet away on a black horse, and like death embodied, his pale, angular face stretched in a skeleton's grin. He was enjoying this already.
"Did you think you would get away? Even if you did initially, the queen would never stop hunting you. You never stood a chance."
Loki tensed beside me, crouched in the snow, his sword gripped in both hands. I kept the tip of my katana hovering in the space between Gunnar and me—it was the only thing separating me from death.
It wouldn't be enough to stop the assassin.
"You may have been her favorite little experiment. But you're a failed one. She's decided it's time to start over."" Gunnar leapt off his horse and landed gracefully in the snow. He rolled his neck and shrugged his shoulders, like he was limbering up. "I’m going to enjoy this.”
Loki stepped in front of us, his sword raised.
The other guards—I counted six of them—moved closer, their weapons leveled at us, hemming us in. Gunnar completely ignored Loki, keeping that cold, flat expression directed at me. He flicked a hand and one of the guards jumped forward, swinging his weapon.
Loki met him with his sword raised. His feet slid in the snow as their swords crashed together. He had time for one wide-eyed look back over his shoulder, and then a second guard jumped in.
Gunnar stepped closer. "Goodbye, Amora."
He raised his sword, and I found myself frozen.
Gunnar swung. Smile wide, sword glittering. In the back of my mind, Amora stirred, but she was too slow. Far too slow.
A hiss and a thunk sounded, and the assassin jerked his sword back, staggering sideways. All I could think was that Loki had done something to him, but Loki was staring at him too, his eyes wide.
Two guards lay at Loki’s feet, and one had an arrow in his chest. The same type of arrow jutted up from Gunnar's leather jerkin, its bright-red tail standing out against the black fabric.
The guards whirled around, their swords raised, as a cool voice from the trees spoke.
"I never liked him anyways."
On the other side of us, emerging from the trees, was an opposing army. Tall, blond men on horseback, all carrying bows with arrows notched and pointed at our attackers. Some were dressed in chain mail and leather jerkins, the uniform of the palace. Others were in brown servant’s garb. A few women rode among them, and one even carried a child in a sling on her back.
At the front of the army, and obviously in charge, was a tall, broad-shouldered man on a silver palomino. He wore a helmet with a jutting face guard that covered his nose and cheeks, and his voice was firm and deep.
"Hello, Amora." The man pulled his helmet off and ran his fingers through his short, blond hair, making it stick up wildly.
My rescuer was Erik.
Chapter Fifty
One of the elite guards finally spoke up, a shorter jotun with a shield strapped to his back. "You would betray your queen, captain?"
"You're surprised by this?" Erik's voice was bitter. "I turned on her the moment she had her own daughter executed. There was unrest before that—but when she had Amora killed, I started the uprising. She’s so blind to what goes on around her that it wasn't hard. You know as well as I do she's heading for insanity. You should come with us."
"So, that's it? You doom yourself over a fling with a dirty human?" The guard glanced sideways at me, his mouth twisted with disgust.
"This isn't just about her and you know that." Erik's face was stern. "And you keep a civil tongue in your mouth if you wish to keep it."
"Fine. All of you are deemed traitors to the crown. Every last one!” He spat on the ground near Erik’s feet. “We will report this directly to the queen—you can be sure of it."
One of the rebels spoke up as the three guards began to back away, their swords still raised. "We should kill them so they don't report back."
"No," Erik said calmly. "The queen will know in a few minutes anyways."
I stared in open-mouthed shock as the guards remounted their horses and turned around. They were actually leaving. They didn't look back at Gunnar once as they rode away. The assassin lay sprawled on the ground, a bright pool of blood soaking the snow around him.
Everyone remained still until the guards were out of sight, and the silence of the snowy forest was complete, until it was shattered by a great cheer. The rebels came all at once, leaping off their horses and charging over to the three of us. Instinctively, I braced myself, but the first one to approach vigorously shook my hand, his eyes shining with excitement.
"What a blow to the queen!" he cried. "What a loss!"
More rebels crowded behind him, apparently all eager to shake my hand and slap my back. They slugged Loki on the shoulder good-naturedly and hugged Charlotte, who looked just as shocked as I was.
It was confusing and overwhelming, and I nodded and smiled at everyone, not sure what to say.
Erik laughed, calling down from his horse, "Come on. They've had an exhausting day. Let's show them how we live!"
More cheers erupted, and I gasped as Erik reached down and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me in front of him on the saddle. I stiffened.
This version of Erik seemed different. He was no longer the formal, rigid leader of the elite guard. Now, he was some kind of Robin Hood, laughing and joking with his rebels, swooping people up onto horses. Did I even know the real Erik?
He hadn’t trusted me enough to talk to me about this. I'd agonized over my choices for days, not knowing who I could trust, and he'd let me worry without saying anything when he could have warned me against the queen from day one.
His voice was low in my ear as we rode. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you everything sooner. It was vital I bide my time, to stay hidden until I couldn't any longer."
Too shocked to say anything, I just nodded, glancing over my shoulder as the horses moved through the trees. Loki was still on the ground, his arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the fact that rebels were passing him on either side. He was staring at Erik's back, eyes narrow.
I had to hold a snort of amusement back when one of the women—a huge, strong-looking blonde with her hair done in braids—leaned over and hoisted Loki up onto her saddle with her. She shot him a coy look.
Loki, for his part, looked terrified.
Trust Charlotte to treat it like a ride in the country. Personally, I had never ridden a horse, and I hated it right away. If Erik hadn't been right behind me, with his arms on either side of my waist, I probably would have toppled off.
Erik spoke into my ear again, making me jump. "I tracked your progress from the palace to the woods, but then I had to go back and give my men the signal."
I turned my head so he could hear me. “That was you back in the palace too, wasn’t it? The distraction.”
“It was. I’d guessed what you were planning, and managed to coordinate with Loki while he was in the dungeon, as much as it might be against my better judgment.” He sighed. “I figured out pretty fast afterword, that he hadn’t actually been attacking you.”
I felt my face burn, and straightened my shoulders. I had nothing to apologize for. "I appreciate the rescue. I really do. But why didn't you tell me?"
Erik shifted in the saddle. "I'm sorry. I felt I didn’t have time to explain all of…this.” He gestured around us at the rebels.”
Fair point. “Okay, but not just your plans then. Why didn’t you tell me how evil the queen was, and about what really happened to Amora?”
I had to be sure you were solidly against the queen. That you were trustworthy."
"And I wasn't?" I turned to glare at him.
Erik shook his head. "No! I mean...yes, you were. You are. I was going to tell you that night..." He trailed off, but I knew what he meant.
The night we were supposed to go on the walk together, the night he’d found Loki in my room and thought he was attacking me. I turned back, my face was probably bright red by now. For a moment, there was silence, and I found myself annoyed at how much I was being jostled around. It was hard to think of something to say with the stupid horse distracting me.
"Loki's okay," I said, trying to make my voice sound firm. "He isn't trying to hurt me."
"We don't know that yet. We have to be sure."
My fingers tightened on the pommel of the saddle. "What do you mean you have to be sure? What are you going to do?"
"Nothing," he said, and he sounded hurt. "We'll just ask him questions. We're not like the queen, Megan. We'd never torture or kill anyone just because we wanted information. That's exactly why I created the rebellion in the first place—to stop those things from happening." His voice grew louder as he spoke, filled with passion. "Our goal is to stop her. To put an end to her reign. We have to stop this war she's so determined to have. She's going to destroy herself and everyone else with her. There are more joining us from the palace every day."
He fell silent, and we both rode without talking for quite some time. My brain was busy trying to process all of this. Did I stay with the rebels? Did I ally myself with them and try to bring the queen down? It was a good cause; there was no arguing that. But I'd planned on running away to avoid a battle. This was the literal definition of “out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
I glanced at my katana. Erik had tied the sheath to the side of the horse, probably fearing I'd accidentally poke his eye out if he let me hold it. Could I kill people if I had to? I’d hardly been able to bring myself to knock out that guard when we had been escaping the palace. Swallowing hard, I looked straight ahead.
Don't think about it.
Chapter Fifty-One
After what felt like hours, we emerged into a wide clearing. The snow was shallower there. Someone had shoveled it into huge drifts around the edge of the woods, making it look like the grove was surrounded by a gate of snow. In the center of the clearing was a city of brown tents all skillfully constructed from animal hides and held up on structures of crisscrossed poles.
"Look up," Erik said.
I grasped the saddle to steady myself and tilted my head back. The sun was just below the horizon still, but the sky had an orange cast to it, and the moon still painted the forest in silver.
They had built a city in the trees. Wooden planking ran from tree to tree, a walkway with railings from one to the next. Here and there, where the tree branches naturally clustered together, they had constructed more tents on wooden platforms. There was even a slick-looking, silver rope that ran from one side of the grove to the next, and I gasped as one of the men in the trees stepped up and grabbed a handle on the rope, flinging himself into open space.
There was a metallic whizzing sound, and he flew across the opening, his feet pinwheeling in the air as he whooped excitedly. When the handle reached the end, he let go, tumbling onto a wide, wooden platform covered in furs. I watched in astonishment as he stood up, brushed himself off, and then walked over the planks from one tree into the next, stopping to chat along the way as if he hadn't just flung himself into space.
"This is incredible," I said. "You guys built all of this?"
There was pride in Erik's voice. "It's all portable. See the walkways up there? All lashed together with ropes. We can have them down and strapped to the horses in under an hour. A portable city in the trees."
"What?" My eyes were probably the size of dinner plates. "That's amazing."
Erik laughed. "Sometimes, it is. Sometimes, it isn't. We smuggle lots of food from the palace and hunt our own game out here. But food can get scarce. We work hard for what we have. It's not cushy like living in the palace. And we have to move every couple of months, when the elite hunting parties get close."
"This is better than the palace though," I said without hesitation.
It was true. In spite of the palace's luxury, this rebel camp, with its skin tents and city in the trees, was a happier place.
The camp wasn’t fully awake yet, but a few people walked by, talking and laughing quietly with one another. One group sat around a roaring campfire, roasting bits of meat. The atmosphere felt good. It made me want to stay forever. This brought back memories of camping as a child, when it had felt like there were no rules or deadlines, nothing but the forest surrounding us.
I had the same feeling here with the rebels. I’d thought of the frost jotun as a rigid, stern people. Apparently, when they weren't under the rule of a tyrant, they lightened up considerably.
We rode by a large tent, where the sound of metal ringing on metal filled the surrounding area. Inside the tent, a barrel-shaped man stood over a black anvil, banging away at a warped piece of silver. Behind him, orange coals glowed bright in the darkness.
When the man looked up and saw Erik, his face broke into a broad grin. "You're back, you old dog! I see you have the princess as promised. Hail!" He gave me a mocking half bow.
I wasn't sure how to take that. "Uh... nice to meet you."
We continued on, a long line of rebels behind us as we rode through camp.
Men and women emerged from the tents and waved, calling out greetings as we passed. Everyone seemed to know Erik, and most looked excited when they saw me.
"Did they know I was coming back with you?” I had to raise my voice over the clamor.
"I sort of hoped you would. I told them that was my goal."
At the other end of the camp, a number of jotun were waiting by a wooden tethering post. They took the reins and tied the horses to the post.
Erik shifted behind me and then dismounted, making the motion look easy and fluid.
My dismount involved a lot more flailing, and Erik had to steady me so I didn’t fall. It was a relief to be back on solid ground. My entire body was already starting to stiffen up. Horseback riding was not going to become a hobby any time soon.
Loki slowly climbed off the horse, brushing his hands down the front of his shirt, his gaze darting around the camp. Though his mannerisms became casual, even relaxed, his shoulders were still tense, his hands knotted into fists.
He probably felt exactly like I did. Frying pan and fire and all of that.
Charlotte, on the other hand, was
practically glowing with excitement. "Wow! This place is amazing!"
I reached out to touch Loki's arm. "Are you okay?"
He straightened up. "Fine. Just one enemy camp to another, if you know what I mean."
"I think they're different here."
Erik approached us. Several rebels walked behind him, laughing and punching one another, clearly in high spirits. "All right, you three. Let's go sit by the fire. We have a lot to discuss."