Page 10 of Heart of Defiance

Several gazes turn our way at her words. Even tied to a tree, she can command attention in a way that gives me a pang of mixed admiration and envy.

And the quiver in my abdomen in memory of my dedication sacrifice tells me she means it. She really would have battled the Darium soldiers to the bitter end, even alone, and probably felled a few of them in the process.

The gift Creaden blessed me with lets me judge who’s up to a task, and it’s usually accurate.

It and my steadfast dedication to my career haven’t gotten me promoted past squad leader, though.You’re just not very… commanding, my last captain said.

I don’t think I need to be taking tips from this half-feral woman, though.

“Look,” I say firmly, the back of my neck prickling with awareness of our growing audience, “the Darium empire has kept the entire continent under its thumb for centuries. Even if we fought off that squadron, they’d send more people next time. Rebellion is a death sentence. At least when we work around them instead of coming at them head on, we can protect some of you instead of encouraging what’ll essentially be suicide.”

“Which is not just depressing but very messy to clean up,” Iko puts in, and I restrain the urge to glower at him.

Signy’s gaze flicks to him and back to me. A little of the fierceness fades from her expression, and I see the exhaustion behind it.

Her next words come out quieter, but they seem to ring all through the forest in the silence our argument has cast. “What’s the point? What does it matter if you saved our lives when everything that mattered in those lives has been destroyed? Do ourbreathseven belong to us, if the only reason we get to keep living is because the Darium empire didn’t decide to slaughter me or him or her today?”

She waves her hand toward the huddled townspeople as well as she can with her wrists bound.

A lump clogs my throat. I push my voice past it. “Of course it matters. You can rebuild—you can recover—you still have one another?—”

Signy’s eyes narrow. “Tell that to everyone here who lost someone they cared about to enemy swords last night. At least if we’d stayed and fought, the pain would go both ways. We’d have shown them that we do matter.”

Last night’s frustration swells inside me, overwhelming everything else I’m feeling. “You already fought. From what I heard, you all attacked a small patrol and killed one of the soldiers. Burning the town was your punishment. Was all that loss really worth it for a few minutes of ‘showing them’?”

To my surprise, the woman flinches. Her head droops for a moment as she works her jaw. “It was my fault. I started the fight on my own. No, that’s not really true.Theystarted it by deciding to smash our fountain just because it wasn’t some kind of homage to their empire. But I drew the first blood.”

For a second, I can only gape at her. “You launched an attack on the patrol… by yourself?” A single, untrained woman against several fully-equipped Darium soldiers?

She grimaces. “I couldn’t stand to let them ruin one more thing… I didn’t expect it to go that far. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so angry.”

My shock steals the rest of my voice. Gods above, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a human being so reckless… or so passionate. It took an incredible amount of courage for her to instigate that act of resistance alone.

Of course, after seeing how she hollered for her neighbors to push back the Darium force last night, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by that.

Iko lets out a low whistle, his eyebrows lifted with similar awe. “If you get that much done when you’re mad, remind me never to piss you off.”

I consider stomping on his foot to shut him up, but then Signy’s eyes flash toward us again. “We could have gotten a lot more done if you’d been completely on our side. All it took was me jabbing a pocketknife at the soldiers for so many other people to stand up to them too. Maybe we could have saved the whole town if your squad had rallied us instead of running us off. How do you know what’s possible when no one’s tried to rebel in ages?”

Footsteps crunch through the underbrush with an ominous thudding. Captain Amalia, who sent my squad and one other off on the evacuation mission, marches into view.

She frowns down at Signy. “We’ve heard enough out of you. Keep your foolhardy thoughts to yourself, or we’ll add a gag along with the ropes.”

I wince inwardly at her caustic tone, even though I was essentially trying to get Signy to do the same thing. A flurry of whispers, some supportive and some agitated, ripple through the mass of refugees around us.

Signy glares back at Amalia, but she appears to take the captain’s authority seriously. Her mouth clamps shut, wary of the threat.

Then a man who can’t be more than a year or two older than she is shoves to his feet from where he was sitting among his neighbors. The dawn light flares in his reddish-brown hair like the fires in town last night.

“She shouldn’t have to shut up,” he says, his voice pealing through the forest. “Signy’s right.”

Chapter Five

Signy

I’m so busy staring at my unexpected defender that the first surge of conversation rushes past me without my comprehending.

Landric stands tall and defiant, his dark brown eyes penetrating beneath the sweep of his coppery hair. He’s staring down the soldiers rather than looking at me.

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