Page 21 of Degradation

“We’ll take a wagon to Adele?” I asked, curious.

“We will, but you’ll likely wish to walk. The roads are not smooth, and your buttocks will ache within minutes.” Eadric reached around to knead the aforementioned seat, and I batted his hands away.

“I believe I’ll sleep with Liam and Garron tonight since the rest of you find too much joy in accosting me.”

* * *

A chill windswept over the lake and tugged at my cloak as I stood in the yard surrounded by my men. They forked hay into the back of the wagon and debated if it was enough to see me comfortably to our destination.

“Please stop making it sound as if I am weak or fragile,” I said. “I am neither.”

“It is our egos that are both, Lamb,” Daemon said. “Grant us this small favor, and allow us our concern for your comfort.”

“Your concern is delaying us,” I said. “I did not wake three hours before dawn to witness this spectacle.”

Eadric chuckled and hugged me from behind.

“Patience, Sparrow. Sarah won’t let us leave without feeding us first.”

“Then I should go inside and help her.”

Eadric held firm when I tried escaping his embrace.

“But then you’ll miss why this wagon took months to make,” Darian said.

He ran inside and returned with one of the gem-filled chests. I watched Andrew push in a section of wood on the side of the wagon and turn it. A panel fell open to the right, exposing that the wagon had a hidden compartment just tall enough to fit the chests or a slim person.

One by one, they wedged the chests into the space.

“A king’s ransom,” Andrew said as he resealed the compartment and winked at me.

Sarah called out that the food was ready, and we returned to the cottage to eat the boiled oats with honey. Eadric giddily took his seat across from me and radiated extra joy in feeding me. When I said I was finished, he ate the rest of my bowl and his own.

Sarah surprised me by pulling each of them down into a motherly embrace and kissing their brows. Seeing them bask in her affection melted my heart, but it also created a sad ache for the childhoods they’d endured because of their curse.

I knew they’d been in the glade with Henry after their parents died, and I knew a caster had cursed them, but I didn’t know anything more about them. Why had their parents died? Why had Henry hidden them away? Was it due to the queen’s need to kill small children as Eadric had said? But if so, why hadn’t Henry married and raised these men as his own to allow them happy childhoods?

Though I had so many questions I wished to ask, I understood Brandle’s fear of sharing too much at once. Hadn’t I felt the same?

Despite my willingness to allow them to tell me their history in their own time, my curiosity grew as I watched them work with Andrew to prepare for our journey. They laughed with ease and patted the older man’s back companionably, completely different from the guarded men I’d first met when entering their glade.

Edmund and Eadric held the torches aloft as Andrew hitched a sturdy ox to the wagon. The rest stacked their packs at the front of the wagon just behind the seat.

“It’s time,” Brandle said.

Garron lifted me into the wagon’s bed and settled in beside me. Sarah waved at us as Brandle took the spot next to Andrew, and Daemon lounged on the other side of me. With the torchbearers leading the way and Darian and Liam trailing behind the wagon, I waved farewell to Sarah.

“They won’t disappoint you, Kellen,” she called. “They are good men of their word.”

I nodded and looked up at Garron.

“Rest,” he said. “It’s a long journey.”

Secured between him and Daemon, I closed my eyes and slept until the sun rose. Once the torches were no longer needed, Edmund and Eadric switched places with Daemon and Garron, using themselves to steady me on the rough road.

Close to midday, we reached another farm. Vines covered the decaying buildings, and waist-high grass moved in the breeze in the central yard.

“The water’s still good here,” Andrew said, directing the ox to the well, which looked like it was the only thing not being overtaken by nature.

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