I regret that I had to do it. But I do not regret what I’ve done. I cannot.
Her gaze swept the battlefield. Her ears rang with the clang of swords, but they did not miss the softer sounds – the gasps and the grunts and the cries of pain.
I regret that all of this had to happen. But it did. They die and a town is saved. That is the warrior’s duty. To die so that others may live.
She took a deep breath and clutched her remaining dagger. Daigo sprinted off to retrieve her other blade.
Moria turned to the warlord’s man. “I apologize for distracting you in battle. I’m watching over Prince Tyrus, and I lost sight of him, so I was getting closer.” She peered into the melee. “I still do not see him.”
“He was beset, my lady.”
“What?”
“Three men went after him at once. On a signal, I think. I was going to his aid —”
She lunged toward the battlefield. The young warrior caught her arm.
“They did not cut him down, my lady. They surrounded him, and they were driving him off in that direction —” He pointed. “They mean to take him hostage. I’m certain of it.”
“Then we’ll make sure they do not succeed.”
The young warrior led Moria around the battlefield. Some of the men noticed her, but only a few and thankfully none of them was distracted.
As they hurried around the camp, Moria searched the fighters for Tyrus, in case the young warrior was mistaken. But there was no sign of him.
“They led him behind these tents,” the warlord’s man said. “But it seems quiet now.”
They’ve taken him.
If someone had suggested before the battle began that a prince could be kidnapped in front of his own men, she’d have laughed. Surely someone would see. Surely she would see. But each warrior was locked in his own fight for survival and could ill afford a moment’s distraction.
The warlord’s man led her to the largest tent. All was quiet and still behind it.
“Blast it,” the young warrior said. “We’re too late. Can your wildcat follow a trail?”
“He’s no hound, but he —”
She caught a blur on the battlefield. A plait of long, black hair whipping as a warrior spun.
“Tyrus,” she breathed.
If it had been difficult to pick out men on the field from afar, it was even harder now that she was right beside it. They truly were a seething mass of flashing swords and whirling bodies. But she knew that hair – and the dragon helmet atop it. He was in the thick of the fight, with Jorojumo at his side. Tyrus said something, grinning, and the warlord replied with a smile.
“He’s there,” Moria said. “The prince is there.”
The young warrior exhaled. “Thank the ancestors. Lord Jorojumo must have helped him drive off his attackers. Let us get you to safety, my lady. This is no place for you.”
While she followed him around the large tent, she kept glancing back at Tyrus, assuring herself he was fine. He had blood on one arm and cuts in his breastplate, but none seemed to have penetrated.
The battle had slowed enough that the remaining bandits seemed in no hurry to take on both the young prince and the warlord at once. The two had a moment to catch their breath on the sidelines. Then Lord Jorojumo pointed at someone in the fray. Tyrus started forward, attention fixed on his target. Behind him, the warlord raised his sword.
Why? There is no one close enough to strike except —
Daigo let out a snarl and ran. Moria stood frozen, certain she was mistaken, that the warlord was only hefting his blade.
Lord Jorojumo swung. At Tyrus. At his back.
“Tyrus!” Moria screamed, lunging forward as Daigo flew from the long grass beside him and —
Something hit Moria’s head. Pain flashed. Then darkness.
TWENTY-TWO
Moria awoke to darkness. Complete black, as if she hadn’t opened her eyes. It was bitterly cold, too, like stumbling from the house on a winter’s night, forgetting to pull on her cloak, that first step a shock that sent sleep scattering. She leaped up, only to fall face-first to the dirt as something around her leg stopped her short.
I’m bound. I’m in the dark, and I’m bound. Why —?
She remembered and lunged again with Tyrus’s name on her lips. Then she realized she was alone. Completely alone¸ that chill coming not only from the air, but from deep inside her.
“Daigo?”
She scrambled onto all fours and frantically patted the ground.
“Daigo!”
Even as she felt about wildly, she knew in her gut he wasn’t there.
“Is anyone…?” She choked on the word, on her panic, and had to restart. “Is anyone here?”
Her voice echoed in the silence. She squeezed her eyes shut and remembered the warlord swinging his sword at Tyrus, Daigo leaping in, and the last thing she saw…
That was the last thing she saw. Not a moment more. She lay there, straining and searching her memory, as if by concentrating harder she could catch a glimpse of what happened next. When her memory failed, her imagination filled in the hole, sending images of the sword cutting through Tyrus or deflecting at the last moment to cut down Daigo instead. Of the warlord’s men turning on them both, Daigo and Tyrus dead on a blood-soaked field and —
Bile filled her mouth, and she spat. The movement made her head pound as if it were about to crack open, and she fell to the dirt floor, heaving breath.
Tyrus. Daigo.
And Ashyn. Where was Ashyn? Safe. Moria had to trust in that. Whatever she thought of Ronan, he was clever and he was cautious. He would not have let Ashyn come to danger.