Maud hated how quickly she was snapping at everyone. No matter how hard she tried not to, especially with Alden, who had been nothing short of perfect these last few days, she always lashed out. She was tired. Tense.

  Every night, she would beg for sleep, staring at the beams and thatching ties above her bed. And every night, her eyes would become heavy enough to finally close and burst open in an instant because a mouse skittered across the floor or the wind brushed her window. Even her father’s snoring kept her eyes wide. How can he sleep? He was the one beaten almost to death. And ma? She always seemed so rested. But there was no rest for Maud. Alden had been more right than she ever expected. She, too, was waiting for them to come in the night.

  It was Alden’s steady breathing below her that must have caused sleep to finally take her. She didn’t fight it this time. She felt numb with exhaustion. There was nothing left in her to keep her eyelids from falling, not even her imagining Draka coming home to the stew she made him or the socks and salve on his pillow. What would his reaction be? Angry? Or would he smile? A man lived on his stomach and she would keep him as alive as she possibly could, with or without permission.

  She dreamt of the forest. She found herself on the path snaking through it, gnarled with branches and jutting rocks. She was running. Behind her, the glow of torches clawed between the trees. She could hear their shouts, their taunts, their hateful roars, as they ran after her. Soldiers and the Talkro men. They wanted her. They wanted to beat her. To kill her. To…do other things.

  She caught glimpses of Dalfur guiding them, those eyes filled with hate as much as they were filled with his lust. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Draka!” She cried out. She didn’t see herself fall, but she ended up on the ground all the same. “Draka!”

  Summoned from the trees, he appeared, barefoot and barebacked on Vigora. He had his sword out, beaming with light, and wrapped her with his other arm. She weighed nothing to him as he lifted her onto his lap with a warm grin over a jaw clenched at the urgency of her rescue. Then, clicking his teeth and slapping his reins, they galloped away. Her cheek pressed against his soft shirt, she looked up to him with admiration as he stoically carried her to safety curled against him. He looked down with that handsome smile of his and winked.

  Maud sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes as she shifted her legs over the edge of the loft. It was still dark, likely only a few minutes had passed. The moon was brighter, almost full, its light shimmering through her window.

  She gripped the ladder with both hands and began stepping down, careful not to let her chemise tuck under her bare feet or snag on the wood.

  She had to use the outhouse. The floor below was ice to her toes and feet. It was colder down here than on the loft. She tucked her arms across her chemise to hide her chest as she went to Alden.

  The moment her feet had touched the floor, her body screamed with urgency. She crossed her knees as she bent over him and tapped his shoulder.

  “Alden, are you awake?” She whispered. He didn’t move. She shook his shoulder. “Alden, I have to pee. Get up.”

  She didn’t want to be too loud and wake Ma and Pa. She shook him again. She was beginning to bounce and squeeze her thighs together against the building pressure.

  “Come on!” She whispered a little louder, more urgently. “I need you to take me. Wake up!”

  It was too late. She could wait no longer. With a huff, she rushed out the door and sprinted around the side of the house to the shed and the outhouse beside it.

  There wasn’t time to put on sandals, no time to waste on the way the wet grass made her feet feel like she was stepping through ice. She made it there just in time.

  She sighed with relief when she finished and slowly opened the outhouse door barely a crack to peer out. There was nothing but the dim light of the moon, the house, and the garden in front of her. Cool air brushed her nose and spilled down her loose and thin chemise. She searched the shadows. Nothing.

  An owl hooted.

  She let the outhouse door slam as she leaned back from it.

  She couldn’t catch her breath. Her hand braced on the wall as she struggled to calm herself, to steady her heart, to breathe. In the dark inside the outhouse, she stared blankly, concentrating on easing her nerves.

  An owl. It is just an owl. She raised her head and took a deep breath that made her chest expand to its fullest. Slowly, she let it out.

  Just an owl.

  She cautiously pushed the door open again and stepped out. There’s no one around, she could walk instead of running to get back inside. Keep herself from running out of breath again.

  Her feet landed in cold wet grass.

  Shit on that. She sprinted back around to the porch.

  Thunder boomed in the distance.

  She froze before she reached the porch, her eyes drawn toward the sound. The sky was clear, the moon shining above her. There was no storm. No lightni…

  Bright light flashed from within the trees across the stream, to the side of the village. Maud stumbled back. Another bright flash and boom that made the trees quake with shuddering leaves and falling branches.

  No.

  Another flash. Another boom. More quaking trees. An owl screeched. Then it squealed and she heard the snaps of branches as it fell from wherever it was. Boom. Flash. Flash then boom.

  Maud’s feet carried her. They scraped, they jerked with each step on sharp points and roughness, but they carried her.

  She wanted to scream but put hands to her mouth to keep from making a sound. Draka’s house was just up ahead. Her head spun and dark clouds began to narrow her vision. She was almost there.

  Her ankle bent wrong but her feet carried her. She couldn’t stop. Whatever it was behind her, whatever they were doing in the woods, they wouldn’t catch her if she was with him. All she had to do was reach him.

  Boom.

  She leapt over tilled mounds of the field. She didn’t know how she got in the field, but it didn’t matter.

  Boom.

  She slid to her knees, somehow back within the edge of the forest that connected their two homes. A group of soldiers were at his house, carrying things through his door. If they saw her, if they caught her before she reached Draka…She rushed to the back of his house while doubled over. They won’t catch her.

  Boom.

  They won’t stop her from getting to him. Her breaths were shallow, her eyes were wide, her fingers like claws brushing branches out of her way until she finally got to the entrance to the crawl space.

  Boom.

  How did she end up all the way in? Her head was scattered, but she was under his floor, looking up at the shadows moving across the cracks between the boards.

  “There is fine,” one of the soldiers said as something hard and heavy was set down. “We need to get back before…”

  Boom.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Go! Back to the garrison! Move!” The same soldier shouted.

  She leaned her back against the metal plate, the belts hanging from it hugged her sides as she hugged her knees and watched. If they found her, if they heard even her breath.

  She bit a mouthful of her chemise and pressed her fists against her lips. She wasn’t crying, but tears were dripping down her face. The shadows above her disappeared and the door slammed.

  Maud listened, staring at the cracks above her, hoping, begging, for Draka to be there.

  Nothing.

  Her throat was dry. The bundle of sheer in her mouth dripped down her chin to mix with her tears. Her legs were wrapped in cold air, only slightly warmed by the dirt caked on her bared knees. She had uncovered them by shoving the thin gray fabric into her mouth. She didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to make a sound.

  Not until he was there.

  Boom.

  Maud’s scream was muffled into a shrill screech. She pressed her fists harder against her mouth to quiet it. Her feet kicked but the cold metal plate stopped her from moving backward. She leaned into it. Defenseless. Weak. Alone. Where is he? Why isn’t he there?

  Her nose let hardly any air in, but her lungs filled enough that she screamed through her self-made gag with all her might. Her eyes clenched. Her limbs, her body, curled into itself as tightly as it could. She needed him there. She needed him to be where she could see him.

  But he wasn’t there.

  Draka unsaddled Vigora and ran his hand along her side as soon as he got back to his house. If the soldiers had finished the stable, he would have led her into it before taking the bitless bridle off her.

  He brushed his hand across her side and leaned into her so she could lay her cheek across his back. He was glad she didn’t come with him. Those altars were more of a handful than he had expected and the stinging of the clawed slashes through his shirt and across his face were signs of it. When he approached, he knew they were more visible than he had hoped by how Vigora stared at him with her ears tucked back, her nose sniffing him over.

  He rubbed her high forehead and pulled the slashed shirt off as he stepped into the house. He shut the door behind him with a thankful grin. It certainly was better than the blanket he had pinned when he first arrived.

  Warmth of the lit hearth touched his bare skin as he went to the table and chairs they had placed in the middle of the room.

  He would move it in the morning, he thought as looked over his slashed shirt. The slashes through it were more numerous than he thought. His skin felt like he had only scraped it a little on his chest and back rather than the cuts he found when he finally thought to look.

  He didn’t like that shirt much anyway. Gerard’s quartermaster will have another one. Another thing to do in the morning. Until then, this was what he had.

  The light of the hearth was more than enough for him to see around the room. Although, he blinked as he tried to think of when he had lit it. Morning, perhaps? To warm his stew. He had been dreading this moment since he had put everything in the pot and tried it.

  He was hungry, starving even, and what he made was enough to keep him nourished regardless of how it tasted. And that was its only purpose.

  He went closer to the hearth and looked over his chest after setting his sword and belt on his bed. They had been more numerous than he expected. The possessors, they were called, were the legions spoken of in the Gospels. Small, insignificant little pests that lie in wait for someone or something to possess in as great of numbers as they could muster. He knew they would be in those altars, feeding off the shed blood and rotting lifeforces, but didn’t expect them to be nearly as strong. And they had gathered quite the group of legions. He lost count at fifty.

  Nothing that needed stitches. He ran a hand across the many slashes, pulling it away now and then to see if they had clotted or were still bleeding, and was thankful that none were still wet. He pulled the shirt back on and froze. It can’t be…He rushed to the hearth, his mouth watering.

  The pot hanging from the hook was bubbling with steam roiling from it. He drew in a breath even before looking into it to see the thick bubbling orange stew within. The aroma made his knees weaken. He grabbed the bowl and filled it with a scoop through it that made the air fill with that sweet, bone warming smell.

  He lifted the edge to his mouth quickly to stop even a drop from falling without him getting a taste. It didn’t matter that it burnt his tongue a little or dribbled down his cheek.

  He had never tasted anything so good. It was milky. It was sweet. It was spicy enough to couple with the burn on his tongue with a slight tang. He tasted with every piece of his tongue all the different seasons. They laced themselves in his mouth to form perfection.

  This is as close to Mana as I’ll ever taste, he thought as he gulped it down. Meat chunks, potatoes, tangy slices of fruit, onions, he chewed them with an almost gluttonous hunger.

  A snivel and whimper made his ears perk before he could refill his bowl with another dunk. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and searched the room around him.

  When it happened again, he knew it was from below the floor, underneath the table. The loose board that he hid his valuables, where he had buried the coins he had been given and earned, was under one of the legs of the table. He shoved the table to the side with one hand and lifted the board with his other.

  Maud’s dark curly hair was disheveled across her shoulders and over what little of her face he could see. Her skin was paler than the last time he saw her. She was hugging her dirty knees that had been nearly scraped raw. Her legs were shaking like leaves in the strongest winds. She had wedged herself into the inside of his shield. She was terrified.

  Draka let the board fall to the side at the sight. Every bit of him wanted to scoop her out of there and comfort her, get her to stop crying, make her shaking stop. To make her feel safe.

  Maud lifted her head to look at him, pulling her shaky hands from her face. Bright emerald eyes looked up to him from between clinging tear-soaked curls of hair. Her thick lips pulled into a trembling smile and she leapt for him.

  “Draka!” She wrapped her arms around him, over his shoulders, before he could blink. He answered her embrace across the top of her back and tightened enough to lift her from in the hole. She climbed across him and settled in his lap without hesitation like a child, never letting go. Her head tucked into him. He felt her tears and hair on his neck, her lips at the top of his chest. Her grasp around him tightened with fistfuls of his shirt. “Draka, you’re here. You’re really here. I was so scared. But you found me! You found me.”

  He slid from the opening and held her against him. Her tears were soaking his shoulder and her embrace was tightening more and more as her shaky voice became more and more shrill, “I was so scared. I saw something in the trees and I…and I…I should have warned them, but I…I…I ran. I ran to find you. You found me. You found me, Draka. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so scared.”

  Draka leaned back and lifted her face with a soft finger under her chin. Tears were pouring out of puffy eyes that had dark bags under them, her high cheekbones were sallow, and she was shaking even as she looked at him. A scared child, shaking in her bones, to the depths of her young soul.

  He couldn’t bear the sight of her fright even as he grasped her cheeks and moved her hair from her face with his thumbs. He pulled her to him again, rocking as he comfortingly shushed her. He held her tight against him until she stopped crying. If only he could just say, ‘You’re alright now. Nothing will hurt you while I’m here.’

  Once she lifted her head with a wet snivel and a hand to wipe tears from her eyes, he helped her to her feet with a warm grin. Those jeweled emerald green eyes looked up to him wantonly as he took a step back from her. A quick glance was enough for him to turn and reach for one of the pelts he used as a pillow. Her chemise was almost completely translucent, especially where it had been dampened by her tears.

  “Don’t,” she put a hand on his back. As he lifted the pelt, his sword and belt fell to the side. “Please.”

  He straightened, letting the pelt unfold itself, and turned back to her. The trembling fear in her face, the puffiness in her youthful cheeks, those beaming eyes looking up at him were agonizingly begging him even before the words formed on her lips, “Please don’t send me away.”

  Draka crinkled his brow over a sympathetic grin at her as he pulled the pelt around her and over her shoulders. Her lips parted at him, her eyes pleading into his, her wet eyes searching his. He tugged the golden pelt to fully wrap around her. Her nose followed his face as he leaned past her to grab his sword belt and put it back on.

  “Let me stay. I’ll do anything,” she said, leaning to keep his eyes in hers. “Don’t make me go out there. I beg you. I’m so scared, I can’t. I can’t go back out there. Draka, I beg you. I’ll do anything you want, just let me stay with you. Stay with me.”

  He finished fastening the belt and sheathed his sword in it. She let the pelt fall to the floor and put her hands on his chest. He held his breath as her cold thin fingers touched skin through the slashes. She was on her tip toes to bring her face close to his, “I need you. I need you close. Please,” her lips trembled at him, tears spilling over them even as he pulled the pelt back over her shoulders and wrapped it around her, “I beg you. Don’t send me away. Anything, Draka, just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

  He put a hand to her cheek and brushed a tear from it with a nod. Her eyes glistened with more tears as she started to smile widely. Then he lifted her into his arms with one quick sweep of her knees and brace of her back so that she was cradled against him.

  “Wait! No, please,” Maud begged as he carried her through the door. But once he was outside, she didn’t say anything more. She calmly watched his face with each step. Even when he had to stop and bounce her a little to adjust his grip, she watched him without a word.

  When they reached her porch, he twisted and set her feet on the ground, unaware that she had followed his face with hers until he went to straighten and her lips planted on his cheek. He felt her try to slide them to his mouth but stepped back from her and down the porch steps with a bow.

  “Draka,” she called after him before he could begin his way back up the road. Her fingertips were over the edge of the pelt, pulling it tighter around her. He waited for her to say something. She looked like she was trying to put words together, but he was certain he already knew what they would be.

  He only waved and continued on. She’s just a confused girl. In time, she’ll understand and know better. Now, back to that delicious stew.