Page 130 of The Incendiary

—FROM THE BUTCHER OF NYRIDA’S LAST KNOWN LETTERS TO QUEEN ARYELLA I

I couldn’t sleep. Knowing I was about to spend a few days alone with Elias Winterton kept my thoughts constantly stirring. It was odd of him to take me instead of Valda. I’d worked tirelessly over the past months to prove myself, but Valda was a proven warrior, and they knew each other well. Either he felt adamant that she needed to stay at the fortress in his place or he had alternate intentions with me.

I hoped it was solely the former.

The twins were sleepy but worried when I bid them farewell before sunrise. I promised to return in one piece. When I closed our cabin door, a small hand with nails a little too long wrapped around my wrist and pulled.

I gasped and had my dagger unsheathed and up to guard me within a second. She was taller than me, but not stronger. I dug my feet into the gravel so she couldn’t shove me against the cabin wall.

Golden-blond hair. Blue eyes. Red lips. Sophia Bruta. The woman who was always crawling all over Elias.

“You are a rat!” she hissed in my face, her breath and spit smelling like wine and something sour. “Vermin that they should have never let inside these gates.”

Her words struck a chord, but not a deep one. My skin had grown thick enough to ignore someone like her. I tore my arm from her grasp. I wasn’t shocked by the appraisal given the way she glared at me last night. But for the gods’ sakes, I’d never even spoken to this woman.

“You know the commander just wants to fuck you, right?” Her voice was grating. It reminded me of one morning last summer, shortly after I woke up, when a rogue cockroach crawled over my leg while I was sitting on the floor of the Warrich cabin with Oliver. “And trust me when I say that does not make you special.” She crossed her arms over her voluptuous chest and cocked her hip. “You’re just a new, exciting toy that he’ll fuck a few times and shove to the side. You mean nothing to him or anyone here, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.”

And then she spat on my boots.

Mouth agape, I stared up at her. She towered over me in height and womanly form, but not in character. In that regard, she was floundering. I would never say to another woman—or anyone who’d never shown me a single ounce of ill will—the things that she was saying to me.

Her scowl made her even uglier than her words. She probably didn’t expect me to shrug and smile, but I did. “We’ll see,” I told her.

The moment I turned away, Elias tore past me in a fit of irritation.

“Sophia!” he snapped meanly.

I quickened my pace toward the center of the courtyard, where Valda had been waiting with Elias. Behind me, his voice dropped low. I couldn’t decipher his words, but it sounded like scolding.

“Don’t they get along?” I muttered to Valda, who held the reins of a large white stallion. She snorted, not bothering with an answer.

Elias’s body was bound tight when he returned. He fastened a bag to the horse’s saddle, then turned to me, eyes darkened by rage. “I assure you, she won’t be doing that again.”

I glanced back to find Sophia humiliated and even redder with anger than before. Maybe she wouldn’t corner me again, but I had a feeling she was plotting her revenge in some other way.

“You think he went to the ridge?” Valda asked Elias in a hushed voice.

He gave a firm nod. “She must be the reason. I’m convinced Cross discovered him, and that’s why he’s dead. Otherwise, Finch would have killed more by now.”

My eyes bounced between them. I was not going into this clueless. “Are you going to elaborate?” I asked, earning glares from them both.

“On the way,” Elias answered. “Is that all you need?” He gestured to the bag hanging on my shoulder carrying a change of clothes, a blanket, a sleeping mat, my canteen of water, and a few dry snacks I borrowed from the stash Mavic thought was secret.

He would forgive me later.

“Yes.” I glanced at the white stallion. “We’re taking one horse?”

“It’s safer,” he answered, but I wasn’t so sure about that. “Is that a problem, Fera?”

“Seems impractical,” I answered, though I knew better. The black mare that had carried Gavin and I most of the way from Tovick to Brinnea had been smaller than this stallion. It would manage just fine. I simply didn’t want my body pressed up against him. “But I’ll just sit behind you.”

We seemed past him trying to harm me—outside of training, at least—but I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable.

“Fine.” He gracefully mounted the horse then offered me his hand without making eye contact. I accepted it reluctantly, and we departed.

The stallion’s rhythmic gait through the forest combined with last night’s insomnia had my body begging for sleep, but that would require me to lean on him, and I refused. Instead, I kept my hands on my thighs and focused on the verdant spring foliage, glaringly monochrome in contrast to last night’s flowers, but still vibrant. We headed straight north. I cringed at the thought that we might be going to Warrich. I wasn’t ready to go back there.

“Tell me what you and Valda were saying about Finch,” I said, watching a flock of birds spiral just above the tree line. “If I’m going to help you, I need details.”