Page 66 of The King's Man 4

The wyvern will be trampled if I leave it here.

I scan the woods, eyes darting. There—a hollow at the base of a tree.

Heart pounding with the rising battle, I gently shift the dragonette onto my spare shirt and tuck it into the hollow. As I scramble to repack my things, I spot the last of my food—berries I collected yesterday.

What good is saving it if it starves?

I pile the berries beside the wyvern, knot my belongings, and sling the pack over my shoulder.

More metal whistles nearby. I don’t wait to see what kind. Doubling over, I scramble through the underbrush, thorns tearing at my cloak, one slicing a line under my temple. Blood trickles down my jaw.

I scurry down a small bank.

Wrong way.

Leather-clad soldiers with axes and round shields—Iskaldir’s stormblades, on Lumin turf.

I back slowly into the shadows—

And bump into something warm, solid.

Someone.

Someone who freezes against my back.

I whirl around; the figure spins with a flutter of dark cloak. Our gazes lock—

“Megaera?” I gasp, staring at the woman before me. She arches a brow, her lips silently forming my name.

In an instant, our hands cover each other’s mouths, eyes wide with surprise and a silent warning: stay quiet, stay careful. One wrong move, and we’re dead. Or worse, captured.

A stormblade’s crow rings out, and Megaera and I press back to back. She gestures toward the sound, and I nod, pointingwest where the merchant paths are guarded by sentinels—a safer route to the coast.

We carefully inch our way out of the battle, and as soon as the clash of metal fades, we tumble onto a broader path. I lurch away from her.

Her elegant, sharp features turn toward me, eyes locking onto mine with a shrewd intensity. Her voice curls through the damp air, edged with a soft, shivery laugh. “You trusted me through the woods.”

I look away, focusing on the darkening path ahead, the towering black outlines of ancient oaks. “My choices were limited. You were the safest option.”

“Where’s your sidekick?”

“He’s our king.”

“He’s alive, which is the only respect I’ll give him.” Her gaze sweeps over my drenched cloak, my pitiful belongings. She sneers. “He cast you away.”

Live. Love. Leave.

The final words of his note, his last command. Words he’s spoken before, but this time in his kingly scrawl. An edict.

My grip tightens on the fabric cutting into my shoulder. “Why are you headed south?”

Megaera’s lips press into a thin line. “Turns out I value this cheap life of mine.” She forces a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Didn’t you enjoy me begging you to save me?”

I’d hesitated to save her. She was a venomous presence in my life, lashing out and hurting those I cared about.

But then, hadn’t I set her on that path?

My negligence, my arrogance as a healer, had killed her father—the only family she had left.

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