Page 26 of Heart of Defiance

A Darium archer from a high window risks shooting into the melee and carves a bloody line through Landric’s bicep. The man barely flinches—and then Otmar has launched his own arrow straight into the enemy’s throat.

I don’t know how many we’ve already felled. I keepslashing and stabbing while the fire crackles through the fort, until flames lick at the second-floor windows.

All at once, I realize the onslaught has stopped. There’s no one around me except my co-conspirators.

We wait for a minute, our chests heaving with the exertion, our breaths rasping from the smoke. Then a triumphant laugh bursts from one of the women’s throats.

She raises her fist in the air. “For Barba!”

Sepp imitates her gesture. “And for Krissem!”

Jostein’s jaw tightens. “For Dirk and Fritzi!”

A lump clogs my throat. I propel the words past it. “For Lutza!”

For the first time, I really do feel like I’ve taken back some of the power Dariu has stolen from us for so long. Dealt back some of the horror they’ve inflicted on us for centuries.

We withdraw from the wreckage of the fort on shaky legs. Otmar dismounts to hand his horse over to me. He presses his arm against his side, where blood is seeping through his shirt.

“Just a scratch,” he protests when his friends exclaim and hurry to bandage it. “More than worth it.”

He turns to Sepp and his father. “We shouldn’t let it stop here. Gods smite them all, we need them right out of our country. If we could manage this with just eleven of us…”

Sepp’s father nods. “We’ll go to Vadan and see who we can rally.”

The woman with the bow taps her husband. “We could go to Childeric and do the same. We have to spread the word that the assholes can be beaten.”

I grin at their enthusiasm, but Jostein looks abruptly concerned. “Spread the word,” he says, “but lay low for now. If all goes well, the Veldunian army will mobilize in ourfavor. When our soldiers come to help you, you’ll be able to do so much more damage.”

With the elation emanating from our newly turned rebels, I’m not sure they’ll listen to his caution. But then, I’m not even sure they should.

We don’t waste time clearing out from the area of the fort and heading our separate ways. There’s no evidence left behind to indicate who was responsible for razing the fort.

As far as the Darium empire is concerned, it might as well be all of Velduny. That seems fitting.

Our band of four rides south for most of the day, back toward Feldan where we can regroup with our squadron. We stop only to rest, graze the horses, and to wash off the worst of the battle grime at a pond. After the latter, I find a small clearing in the forest where I can let the sunlight bake some of the dampness from my hair and shirt.

Jostein follows me there. He swipes his dark hair back from his forehead and leans against the tree opposite me.

His gaze slides back in the direction of the stream, where we left Signy still washing to offer her some privacy. “She’s really something, isn’t she?”

There’s more than awe in his voice. As I sit up straighter, a prickling sensation runs through my gut. “She is. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman like that.”

My friend’s attention returns to me, his bright eyes evaluating. “You’ve certainly dallied with enough of them before tossing them aside. She deserves better treatment than that, Iko.”

I bristle at his implication. “There’s a difference between two people knowing it was never anything worth keepingand ‘tossing aside’ someone. I hadn’t met anyone I wanted more than that with.”

An edge creeps into his voice. “But you have now?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Haveyou? Since when do you let yourself get distracted by a pretty face?”

Jostein lets out a rough guffaw. “She’s leagues more than that, which you know as well as I do. Gods smite me, I’ve never gotten in your way. You can’t give me a chance the one time I want it?”

I push to my feet, the prickling heat that’s a mix of anger and jealousy spreading up through my chest. “It’s hardly up to either of us, is it? I’m pretty sure she’s the sole decider of who she’d end up kissing and whatever else. And she should know what her options are.”

Jostein’s shoulders tense. “Iko?—”

At the crunch of footsteps in the brush, we both jerk around.

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