Page 107 of Forcing Fate

My head jerked up as I searched for who had called out.

“Hail! Avyanna!” A young man stood beside a building, waving at me.

“Hail,” I replied warily.

He was one of the men always clinging to Victyr’s coattails. Not a bully himself, but one easily influenced by them.

“Well,” he gestured between us, “I was wondering if we might talk.”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to face him head on. I stood in the middle of the road. He was near the edge of a building backed up against woods. Tilting my head, I frowned at his position. I wasn’t so naïve anymore.

“Then talk.”

“In private?”

He sounded so pitiful. He didn’t strike me as mature, but rather a child—not a leader, but a follower that took no initiative of his own.

“Begging your pardon, but my friends are waiting for me,” I replied, turning back to continue on my way. Something didn’t feel right.

“Wait! I—I understand being guarded. I just,” he stumbled over his words, “I just wanted to apologize.”

I stopped again, peering over with a brow raised. He hadn’t moved from his spot at the back of the building. Prints littered the snow near him. None led behind the structure—perhaps he was alone.

“Could you just come a little closer so I don’t have to shout?” he asked with a small, nervous laugh.

“Why won’t you come onto the path?” Suspicion colored my voice.

He glanced off to the side, as if afraid to be seen. “What do you think Victyr would do if he saw me talking with you?”

He had a point there. He would be yet-another victim of Victyr’s harassment. With a weary sigh, I peered over at the dining hall further down the way. I couldn’t hear the voices from this distance, but I could see the lantern light through the hide-covered windows. Biting my tongue, I started toward the corner of the building. I took a few steps to the side, out of direct view of the road, but I could always backpedal quickly to be in plain sight of anyone passing by. Not that there were many left in the barracks with the Solstice so near.

“This is as far as I’ll go. Don’t try anything,” I warned.

I could hold my own now. My fingers curled around the bandit breaker’s hilt. I would not be easy prey.

He offered me a small, timid smile and shrugged his shoulders. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” I wanted to hear him say it, admit to the part he played in Victyr’s constant torment.

There were plenty of other weaker soldiers that his group preyed upon, but–

Someone slammed into me, knocking me off balance. I threw my hands out to break my fall. A heavy weight crashed against my back and I crumpled face-first into the cold snow. Frantic—I scrambled to reach my bandit breaker or necklace blade, but the weight pinned me in place, crushing my ribs. My hips crushed into the unforgiving ground. A sound wrenched from my lungs, a tight guttural scream–

Something hard smacked the back of my head and everything went dark for a breath. I blinked, struggling to clear the haze. I needed to get off my stomach—to draw my blade. My attacker shoved my face into the snow, muffling my cries. The frozen powder scraped against my cheeks as I thrashed.

“Stop squirming, whore!” A voice spat in my ear.

They snared a fistful of my hair, jerking my head back. I stilled as cold steel pressed against my throat. A sharp prick jabbed into my shoulder.

“That’s better.” Pure dread filled me as I recognized Victyr’s voice. “Get her up.”

The weight lifted off me. Every instinct screamed to run, to fight. My body wouldn’t respond. Bile burned my throat. He pricked me with something. Poison? Master Elon mentioned such things, but how had Victyr gotten a hold of something like that?

Two burly men jerked me up by my arms and dragged my limp body to the backside of the building. My feet dangled in the air as they pinned me to the wall, level with Victyr’s seething gaze. He slammed my head against the wooden planks. Fury burned his face an angry red against the dim night. The man who lured me off the road stood behind him with two others. Six. Six men.

I wouldn’t have stood a chance even if I wasn’t paralyzed.

Willhelm would come looking for me.

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