"Fuck off, all of ye!" the guard I attacked shouted, hurling the bloody cloth at the group of men. "Get them on the horses so we can get back in time for supper. I'm hungry."
Three guards still on horseback approached, hands stretched down to us.
“There’s more people that way.” Riv pointed in the direction of the stream.
One of them tugged on his reins, and his horse turned toward the stream. “Half of you come with me to get them.”
I watched as the group tore off, ripping up the ground as they did.
"W-what about the dead?" Isla asked the man who she was to ride with.
"They'll be collected," he replied, clipped.
"Now," I barked. Not a question. The guards looked at me. “They will be collectednow.”
The guard I'd attacked marched over to me and bent down so we were face to face. "Listen here. I've excused your behavior earlier due to you being absolutely out of your head, but there will be no more excuses. You'll get your arse up on that horse, or I'll throw you up there like a sack of potatoes. What's it to be?"
I ground my teeth together. I did not want his hands on me. I glanced at where Kael lay, and my eyes welled with tears. He'd tell me to just go. That I shouldn't fuss over him.
"I'll go," I whispered, absolutely hating the feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had no choice. I had no say in what happened to me. It was fucking terrifying.
"Sterin, get the girl on the bloody horse," he snapped, walking away to his own horse.
Riv and Isla were pulled up, and their riders kicked the horses into a gallop straight away. I'd be damned if we got separated now. I clasped Sterin's hand and groaned as my muscles objected to the effort it took to get on the horse. We took off, and all I could do was look back, my vision blurring through tears and my dirty, windswept hair.
"I'll see you buried, Kael," I whispered, my throat constricted with grief. "It's my turn to protect you."
When I could no longer see the place where he'd fallen, I turned back and couldn't hold my head up another second. I rested my cheek against Sterin's back and let the tears fall like rain. My father always told me that thunderstorms were his favorite because they were more than just water. They were thunder crashing, lightning flashing, and the speed with which the rain fell from the sky was clarifying. It washed away the messes of the world and provided what was possible for new growth.
I pulled back slightly, just enough to see the tears I'd left behind on Sterin's metal armor. Dirt and dust smeared wherever my tears touched.
My heart finally slowed, my hands ceased shaking, and I took my first steady breath of air since before Alasdair had shown up in the forest. The castle came into view, and I straightened my spine and remembered that conversation with my father like it had been just yesterday and not two years…
“So, now that I’ve explained why I love storms so much, why do you?” Father asked me as we watched the rainfall from our covered front porch.
I was about to answer when a deafening boom of thunder ripped from the clouds and caused both of us to jump.
”That. That right there,” I replied, grinning at him.
“The thunder?" Lightning flashed overhead, lighting up the entire sky.
I shook my head. “No. The moment before the thunder. You know it's coming, and you can do nothing to stop it. Everything kind of stills for just a moment, like even the raindrops fall a little slower, providing the thunder with a grander entrance. Just when you think it's not going to happen—” I paused with a smile and continued, “BOOM!” in perfect timing with the explosion of sound from above.
As we crossed the gate into the castle walls, I wiped my cheeks.
I was the storm. My tears were the rain, while the lightning was my fury that would keep me going... And the thunder?
The thunder was going to be my justice.
Kael's justice.
And they'd never see me coming.
Chapter fifteen
Ifeltmyheadpounding before my eyes even opened.
Groaning, I tried to think, and that was a mistake. A sharp pain shot through my skull, and I pressed my palm to my forehead.
