Page 6 of Hunting the Warlord's Daughter

Inside the shed, the air was thick with the familiar tang of stored vegetables and the odor of fish, from Wren’s fishing poles, buckets, nets, and knives.My lures,she thought with bittersweet longing, gazing at a lifetime’s worth of painstakingly crafted pieces.

From a compartment behind a dusty shelf, Sabra removed two pouches no more than the size of her fist. “Your dowry was lost in the fall of the palace. We’ll have nothing except what we can carry in our pockets. Some jewelry and gems. A little money.” She attached one pouch to Wren’s belt and the other to her own. They closed their coats over all.

“Let me fix your hair for travel.” With the efficiency of many years, Sabra made quick work of tying Wren’s hair into tight, scalp-hugging braids, the typical style of a Drakken country girl.

“Hoy!” Ilkka burst through the door then. Her coat flapped over her tall, rangy frame, her silver hair in disarray. “The hopper is ready to go. We’ll fly out from under their noses.”

“No need, Ilkka. We’ll stick with my plan. We’ll evacuate with everyone else and blend in.”

“Blend in withbelievers, you mean. They’ll be amongst them, you know, on that ship. Practicing openly.” Ilkka pulled her glare from Sabra and aimed it at Wren. “Do you know what will happen if they discover who you are? They’ll make you suffer in the most gruesome way in retaliation for what was done to them—centuries of genocide.” She stood tall. “We’ll proceed with our original plan.”

“Too much risk, Ilkka,” Sabra said.

“Your plan is worse!”

Wren’s gaze bounced from one guardian to the other. “What plan?”

Ilkka answered, “When you were small, Sabra and I made a plan, a very good plan, to get you to safety in the event anything happened to the warlord. His loyalists would meet us at the cabin and take us off-world.”

His loyalists, the horrible men in the red uniforms. “You were going to hand me over to them?” A chilling scenario—Wren’s worst fear. “Sabra, you’d have allowed that to happen to me?” First the praying, then this bombshell.“I feel like I don’t know you at all.”Has my whole life been a lie?

“I would have remained at your side no matter where we went. I took vows to protect you until my last breath. However, my view of what I consider safe has changed. It changed when I changed.” Sabra’s expression gentled. “Whenyouchanged me. Wren, you are the daughter of my heart, if not my flesh and blood.”

Ilkka rolled her eyes. “That’s what got you addled. You’ve let your emotions get in the way of reason. We can better protect her at the cabin. That’s where we’ll stay until we join with the warlord’s men. You know how important she is!”

“Woman, you heard the governor—the Triad is executing battlelords as fast as they can find them. If she goes with the loyalists, that’ll put her squarely in their crosshairs. It’s the first place they’ll look. We’ll evacuate with the villagers. Hide in plain sight. End of argument.”

“I’m no traitor.” Ilkka’s voice was low, with the menacing growl of a panth. Her strong fingers locked around Wren’s wrist. “Sabra can evacuate if she likes. You’ll come with me.”

Wren yanked her arm away. “I will do no such thing!”

Ilkka’s eyes widened. Was she surprised that the little “mar-mouse” had spoken up? At the age of thirteen, she hadn’t had the guts to do so. Now, she was determined to have a say in her destiny. The prospect of freedom danced before her, and by the fates, she wasn’t going to let Ilkka—or anyone else—take it away. “The warlord is dead. My future is mine to decide.”

“It’s notyourfuture. It never was.” Ilkka swung her gaze to Sabra. “You can’t do this. The value of that treasure is unimaginable. It’s the last thing of worth the Empire has—besides her.”

Treasure?

“Sabra wants it in her control, not yours. She wants thepower.”

“That is a lie!” Sabra yelled.

More secrets. Was there no end to them?

“Tell her, Sabra. Tell her what she is—”

“No!”Sabra’s shout thundered in the small space. “Not yet. It is forbidden. When the time is right, I will tell her everything. I who was chosen to do so, who took the oath—not you. The treasure belongs to Wren.”

“Andshebelongs to the Empire.”

The women faced each other, their chests heaving, tension crackling between them.

Suddenly, Sabra brought her hands together and touched them briefly to her forehead. “Do no evil,” she whispered to herself. “Never bow to evil.” Then she told Ilkka, “Come along if you like, but Wren and I are leaving. I’m taking her on that Triad ship.”

Ilkka lowered her head and rammed her shoulder into Sabra, knocking her backward. Wren swerved out of the way and tripped over a crate. Fishing poles toppled. Her glasses fell underneath her sprawled legs, already tangled in the nets. Blurred figures and grunts warned her of the worst—Sabra and Ilkka were fighting.

Overher.

Frantically, she searched for her glasses, shoving them on as an awful howl rang out through the shed.

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