Page 163 of Revealing Fate

Felíne swallowed and nodded, throat suddenly too tight to speak.

“We’ll be right behind you.”

She squeezed her calves. The sorrel stepped forward.

You’re ready, she thought, mentally chanting Kal’s assurance. You can do this.

Felíne’s gelding broke through the line of demarcation that marked the boundary of Stillwater Wood, gaze trained ahead. Somewhere behind her, Kal tracked her progress, waiting for her to reach that invisible point in the field, his archer at the ready.

Ahead, a lone rider on a massive black charger waited. She gripped the reins tighter, fighting the tremor in her stiff fingers. Her father. The King of Asteros. Even from this distance, she could discern his rigid posture, the arrogant tilt of his head. Felíne couldn’t yet make out fine detail, but she wagered he wore his ever-present elitist expression, surveying his yet invisible foes with perpetual disdain.

The king might have been the only other rider on the field, but he was not alone. A rope was tied to his pommel, the other end fastened about the neck of a tall, dark-skinned man who stood near the warhorse’s shoulder.

Cinah Creed. Kal’s friend. The man who’d helped to shelter Kal as a boy after Felíne’s parents had slaughtered his. The man whom Santhe said had sacrificed dignity and personal freedom to help his friends. And her father had dragged him by a leash onto the field like a scolded hound.

Every thud of her horse’s hooves reverberated through Felíne’s skeleton. Closer. Closer still.

Another tremor wracked her frame. Nerves? Anger? Shame? She couldn’t tell.

Five more paces. Felíne spied the outlier sapling that marked her destination, its skinny green branches bowing to the gust that swept through the open plain. The lower half of Felíne’s unpinned hair whipped over her shoulders and into her face.

Finally, she gathered the sorrel’s reins closer and eased to a halt. The swaying of the browning grass was the only sound. Felíne counted her heartbeats.

Then her father spoke.

“Prima.”

Prima. Never daughter. Never my blood, my joy, or my treasure. Just Prima. She’d heard the title of her birthright a thousand times. So why did the coldness of that one word suddenly rip into her with frigid claws?

“Domitan,” she replied with an apathy that surprised her. He’d never really felt like what she imagined a father should, and she no longer believed he deserved the title of king.

The king glared across the distance down his proud aquiline nose, taking her measure the way one might assess livestock for purchase. “I trust you have retained your purity.”

Felíne clenched the reins. The gelding pawed the ground, sensing her stiffen with offense. For all her father knew, she could have spent these past weeks suffering mistreatment and abuse. “If I haven’t?”

The king’s lip curled. “Then this retrieval will have been in vain. What value has a soiled maiden? Bloodline notwithstanding, the Goddess requires a chaste Prima.”

She recoiled. Retrieval. As though he’d come to collect a heifer that had carelessly wandered from the herd. “Fear not, King of Asteros, your daughter remains untouched.”

He grunted. “Your mother’s mender will ascertain as much. Come.”

Felíne didn’t move. “Your bargain.”

Domitan’s eyes lit with ire. He jerked at the rope’s tie on his saddle and tossed his end to the ground. Cinah staggered forward, hands bound in front of him.

Please don’t miss, Felíne prayed silently to Kal’s archer. She tapped her heels, and her gelding stepped forward past the sapling tree.

A whistling pierced the air. Domitan’s head snapped to his left, where a single flaming arrow buried itself into a rough patch of ground. Felíne flinched, ducking her head away, bracing for the explosion.

One breath. Two.

Nothing happened.

A second arrow joined the first.

Again, nothing.

Fear, cold and consuming, lanced through her. A terrible sound filled the impossible silence. One that rattled Felíne’s courage and snuffed out what little optimism she held. Laughter. King Domitan threw his head back and laughed.