Page 54 of Heart of Defiance

He has no idea I was listening. He told them off because he really believes all that. And he didn't care how it might change their opinion of him.

The jagged place inside me that's always stung when I talked to him, broken by the years of dismissals and snubs, melds together into something softer.

It isn't so hard to accept when I've seen it with my own eyes, is it? How much have I changed since the moment I decided I'd rather stab a Darium soldier than watch my mother's statue be destroyed?

This rebellion has changed Landric too. Brought out a courage and selflessness maybe even he didn't know he had in him before.

He grasps the pommel, and the realization hits me like a jolt of lightning that he's about to ride off into the midst of the enemy, possibly to his death, and I might not get another chance to speak to him.

I shove to my feet and pelt down the slope as fast as I dare, lifting my voice in a hushed but urgent call. "Landric, wait!"

He halts, surprise stuttering across his face as it whips toward me.

“I’m going,” he says, presumably thinking I’ve had renewed misgivings. “I need to do this.”

I skid to a stop just a couple of paces away, my heart thumping wildly. “I know. I just?—”

I’ve already kissed two men in the past hour, but whyshouldI stop there? If I’m going to be mad, I might as well go all in.

Closing the last short distance between us, I touch his cheek and bob up on my toes to press my mouth to his.

Landric’s breath hitches, and then he’s kissing me back with an urgency that shivers through my veins. He slings his free arm around my shoulders to tug me closer.

I drop my head against his shoulder, grappling with the urge to beg him to stay after all. “You’d better make it back to Feldan.”

A soft chuckle tumbles out of him. He hugs me tight, as if he can’t quite believe I’m in his arms. “I was always planning on it, but I’ll be twice as determined if this is the welcome I’ll get.”

Both of us know there’s no time left. He caresses the side of my face and steals one more kiss, his eyes shining with joy. Then he hefts himself into the saddle and sets off along the side of the mountain so he can circle the camp at a distance.

I watch him go with an uneasy weight expanding in my belly. Should I have accepted his proposal to go down there? Is it really worth the risk?

After all the battles I’ve fought in the past several days, I still can’t say which the right ones are. Bloodshed and corpses were never what I wanted my legacy in this world to be.

As my throat tightens, a flutter of movement at the edge of my vision catches my attention. I turn and go still.

A butterfly is gliding along the slope. Its pale blue wings reflect the moonlight as if they’re made of the stuff.

I’ve never seen a butterfly flying around in the night before. There are no flowers up here to tempt it.

Maybe it’s some rare species that prefers the darkness, but a glow of hope lights inside me. Butterflies are one of the symbolic animals of Inganne.

It could be my godlen is offering me a sign.

Tapping my fingers down my front in the gesture of the divinities, I pad cautiously after the creature. It swoops here and darts there… and lands on the flat of a sword one of my comrades set down next to their pack.

I gaze down at the beautiful insect for a few seconds, taking in the way its wings shimmer against the sharpened metal blade, the interplay of delicacy and might.

If this is a message, then I think I understand it. There can be a sort of art to warfare, if you play it right. In the end, it’s all a sort of game, after all, just one with the highest possible stakes.

Tomorrow I need to create a picture striking enough to carry my whole country through to freedom.

A town bell rings in the distance. The butterfly twitches and soars away.

I square my shoulders and march over to join the last of my colleagues, ready for the journey ahead and everywhere it might lead us.

Chapter Twenty

Signy

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