“Stop this insolence!”

  Vel’s breath caught. The blade against her skin eased, and she looked towards the voice. All she could see were white priestess slippers above her head. Slippers. A woman, no, she knew that voice.

  Amalia, Vel thought, blinking.

  “You insult the church by your disgraceful sacrifice! There is a ceremony to be followed, else the very gods may curse us for impropriety from one of our most sacred of ordinances. Remove the knife, soldier.”

  “I, um, Priestess, but━”

  “Remove it!”

  “Yes, Priestess,” the guttural knight said. He withdrew the dagger and Vel breathed. Her hands were pulled back, a thick rough rope wrapping around them.

  [Skill gained: Roping]

  [0.5 Dexterity added]

  [Tough Hide level 38]

  The knight pulled Vel up to her feet, and she couldn’t help her scowl as she looked back at him. Then she shifted to look at the second knight, and finally to Amalia, whose face was as straight as stone━unreadable. Mostly. Her eyes shifted to look between the two knights, a glimmer shining in them and her jaw dropping slightly.

  As the second knight’s head turned, the priestess said, “To the temple then. We’ll perform the ceremony there.” That snapped his head back towards her, both of them giving her a nod.

  Vel, on the other hand, had an inkling. As the priestess turned to walk, a knight shoving Vel forward, she glanced behind them. Just as Sigurd whacked the hilt of a dagger over a knight’s head, a wide smile spread across her face. The knight holding Vel dropped like a ragdoll, and Sigurd grabbed Vel’s arm, cutting her bindings. The second knight jumped for her, and Sigurd yanked her right out of the way.

  “Run!” he said urgently, pulling Vel along.

  “You’re healed!” Vel said.

  “That’s what you’re excited about right now?” the hunter huffed. “Also, you couldn’t get a pair of pants?”

  “Pants?”

  Sigurd shook his head, halting them as they reached an intersection. He looked down both ways, then glanced behind them at the pursuing knight, who was rather colorful with his language. The hunter pulled a throwing dagger from his belt, and pelted it at the man. His aim was good, but the dagger bounced off the soldier’s breastplate. It was at least enough to give him pause, allowing Sigurd to take Vel left down the street.

  “You really need to stop that,” Sigurd said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Repeating the things I say,” he added, shoving a woman out of the way in front of what looked to be a dining establishment. Any other time, Vel would have commented on how rude that was, but . . . well, the knights behind them were multiplying.

  A shiver ran up her spine as she realized a few knights at the other end of the street were picking up on the chase too. They were trapped. “Sigurd,” she said.

  “What,” Sigurd asked, undoing the lead from a horse.

  A horse.

  “You’re stealing a horse?” Vel asked, her spine practically jumping from her body when she heard someone shouting just outside of the run-down dining establishment.

  “Thieves! Stop them!”

  “Sure, just announce it to everyone,” Sigurd finished undoing the horse, then placed his foot in the stirrup and swung up onto it. Taking Vel’s hand, he pulled her up behind him. “Hold tight.”

  Vel placed her arms around Sigurd, and when the horse jerked forward, she yelped, closing her eyes. It. Was. So fast! For a long moment, she was sure Sigurd and her were going to slip right off the chestnut colored beast, but the longer she held on, the more she realized just how sturdy the hunter was.

  When she heard the sound of metal scraping across metal, accompanied with a shout, Vel opened her eyes. She looked to the right where the sound had come from, finding only houses and concerned people there. Then she looked back.

  There was something comical about seeing a pair of church knights chasing after them with swords held high in the hair, enough that Vel grinned. Her smile fell from her face when she saw someone with a bow, arrow nocked.

  “Uh, Sigurd?” she asked. “Bow, bow!”

  “Not helpful,” Sigurd said, the horse veering to one side of the street and rounding the corner in a wide arc. Vel gasped as he narrowly dodged a woman and her basket.

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  “You are such a jerk sometimes,” she said.

  “You think I’m bothered by that?”

  “No,” Vel huffed, and glanced behind them. While they moved along a dirt road that led right out of town, the knights chasing them only just now rounded the corner. Surely some of them have horses somewhere, right? “Could they catch up?”

  “Eventually,” Sigurd said. “Hold tight.”

  “What are you━”

  Sigurd pulled the horse off the dirt road, and they started down a hill. It didn’t look terribly steep, but something about being on a galloping horse made it feel steep. Were it not for Sigurd leaning back into her to maintain balance, Vel might have fallen right off. She tightened her grip around the hunter’s waist, but this time, she didn’t close her eyes. No, she was going to enjoy this.

  A smile came to her face as they passed through bright green forest glades, flowers decorating the grass. There were several small paths through trodden grass, as if small creatures frequented the spot. Then the sun dipped out from behind the clouds. Vel looked up towards the sky, a giggle nearly escaping her as she watched the rays of sun sprinkle through the branches.

  If only Edard could see this, she thought. The sunlight faded, and with it went a part of her joy. Or perhaps it was because she mourned Edard’s absence. How she wished to see the world with him, like they’d always talked about.

  The horse slowed, and Sigurd looked back at Vel. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Where’s Loverboy?”

  “Oh, that. The creepy old man said that the Wayward Company went to the sea,” Vel answered. She shifted, feeling a slight soreness in her behind. Were saddles supposed to be so hard?

  “Good, then we’re already going the right way,” Sigurd said. “What were you giggling about?”

  “The ride. It was kind of fun,” Vel said, smiling. “But is it bad we stole the horse and knocked people over? It is, isn’t it?”

  “Stealing’s a crime,” Sigurd said, nodding. “So is murder. Would you rather be murdered, or steal a horse?”

  “That is a terrible question,” Vel huffed. “Of course I’d rather have the horse. I just don’t want to make a habit of stealing them.”

  “It’s an occupational hazard. Maybe once you reform the entire world, you can go give the horse back.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

  “I was being facetious, Vel. You really think you can reform the whole world? Against the church?” Sigurd asked.

  “What does Godbreaker do?” Vel said, leaning to look past Sigurd’s big frame. The forest thickened up ahead, but not so much that they couldn’t keep riding. She glanced behind them, the dirt road too far up the hill to be seen.

  “Breaks gods, is my guess,” Sigurd said, sighing. “Maybe you are supposed to change the word.”

  “But Edard first,” Vel said.

  “Edard first,” Sigurd confirmed. “I’m more than certain now that he’s headed for Ymril. Where else would he go? Did he have any family?”

  “He spoke of a barony on occasion, and would say something about his brothers and sister sometimes,” Vel said.

  “He’s a noble?”

  “Not a very high one, and he worked as a [tracker] for the army.”

  “Hm, no wonder you two probably got along well,” Sigurd said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Noble families are required to offer one of their children to serve the church. The army could be included in that. He probably was forced into something he didn’t want, sort of like you,” Sigurd explained.

  “He said he chose to serve, though I suppose he did say something about preserving his siblings a few times . . .” Vel said, slowly connecting the dots.

  “My wife was forced to be a priestess.”

  “What? But priestesses are━”

  “Celibate?” Sigurd asked, “Unmarried? Pure? It’s complicated.”

  Vel nodded, unsure of what to say. Sure, she had a dozen questions she could ask, but by the way Sigurd’s shoulders slumped, she thought it best not to. Instead, she asked, “How long will it take to reach the sea?”

  “Two days, maybe three,” Sigurd said. “There’s one town between us and the port city. We’ll want to pick up supplies there. Maybe even find you some pants.” The hunter stopped the horse, then began to dismount.

  “What are you doing?” Vel asked.

  “Stay put, I’m going to teach you how to ride.”

  Vel blinked, and a smile crept onto her face. Once Sigurd was planted back on the ground, he prompted her to scoot forward on the saddle with a hand. She did so, then let him adjust the stirrups for her slippers to fit into.

  Sigurd stared at her feet for a long moment, furrowing his brow. “You desperately need new shoes too,” he said, sighing. He handed Vel the reins, though she hesitated to take her hands off the horn of the saddle. She managed, holding the leathery strap in her hands.

  “Be gentle,” Sigurd started with, then went on to explain how to steer the chestnut horse. After that, he talked posture and support with her━she wish he’d started with that. Planting her feet more firmly in the stirrups, she found it easier to keep upright rather than hoping she wouldn’t just slip off.

  “This could get tiring fast,” Vel said.

  “It does,” Sigurd responded, walking beside the horse as they meandered through the glades. “But you’ll get stronger.”

  “Are you planning to steal a second horse at some point? Is that why you’re teaching me this?”

  “Yup,” Sigurd nodded, pursing his lips. He looked up at her, looking as if he wanted to say something.

  “What is it?” Vel asked.

  The hunter shrugged. “You saved my life,” he said.

  “And you’ve saved mine so many times.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you trying to say ‘thank you’?” Vel asked, smiling a bit.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, thank you for taking care of me,” Vel said. “Even though I still would have liked to have kept a baby rock elemental.”

  Sigurd cracked a smile, shaking his head. “Trust me, you really don’t want to share a living space with one of those things. Rocks everywhere.”

  “Pebbles. It couldn’t throw anything but pebbles,” Vel argued.

  “Yeah, until it leveled its skills up and then switched out its body parts for bigger stones.”

  “They do that? Cool,” Vel grinned. “How do they exist; how do they have a soul?”

  “Very carefully.”

  “You’re lousy at answering questions sometimes, you know that.”

  Sigurd gave her a smug look. Bastard.

  “So how do I gallop on this thing? Just kick it harder?” Vel asked.

  “Or a few more times. Depends on the horse’s training,” Sigurd said.

  “Great.” A large grin spread on Vel’s face, and Sigurd immediately put his hand on the reins.

  “No.”

  “Ruin all my fun,” Vel huffed.

  “You’d get in trouble. People want to kill you, don’t be dumb. Besides, I don’t know this horse’s endurance yet, we better not risk over running it.”

  “I would like you to be wrong for once,” Vel said.

  “I’ve been wrong before.”

  “When?”

  “When I thought we should have retreated in the mines. You persevered and pressed forward. Then I thought I was going to die. See, wrong.”

  Vel huffed. “You’re so right about being wrong too, go figure.”

  Sigurd gave an amused snort, then looked up towards the sky. “We should be able to make it to the next town by nightfall. Should probably figure out how to cover your hair in the meantime.”

  Vel sighed. “Yeah, I have an idea . . .” More silk-making and more stiffness. Yay, she thought.