The pendulum swings.
He leads me away from the tent and the camp, his stride so long that I have to take two steps for every one of his. We go up to the same embankment I stood on earlier, where five horses wait at the top of the slope, three with soldiers on them, two without.
“Can you ride?” Osrik asks.
I tug my gloves up, heart pounding, palms going slick. “Yes, I can ride.”
“Take the dappled one,” he says, and I smile at the black horse, admiring the sprinkle of gray spots on her chest. My mare is much shorter than Osrik’s horse. Honestly, I wouldn’t even be able to get up in the saddle of his stallion without a stepping stool.
Stopping in front of her, I give the mare a stroke before leaning down to make sure my leggings are tucked into my socks. “Need a leg up?” Osrik offers.
I shake my head. “No, thanks.”
He gives a terse nod and then seats himself on his horse, waiting for me to do the same. I carefully step into the stirrup and hoist my leg over, checking my skirts once I’m settled in the seat.
Maybe Osrik can tell how nervous I am by the look on my face or the way I grip the reins, but he brings his horse right next to mine. He gives me a hard look while the other Fourth soldiers position their horses to flare behind us.
“Well, you were right. You never did betray your golden king. That takes guts,” Osrik says, surprising me.
I wring the leather straps in my hands. “It’s not like you guys were torturing me,” I say with a small laugh. “As far as prisoners go, I think I might’ve been the best-treated one in all of Orea.”
He snorts. “Probably. Except I did give a good threat at the beginning. What was it I told you?”
I wrinkle my nose in thought. “I think you said if I talked bad about Kin
g Ravinger, you were going to whip me.”
Osrik grins. “That was it,” he says, proud of himself. “Did it work? Were you properly threatened?”
“Are you kidding? I almost peed myself. You’re a scary guy.”
A bark of laughter erupts from his mouth. He doesn’t look so scary when he does that. I don’t know what happened to make him not loathe me anymore, but I’m grateful. We’ve come a long way from his whip threat and calling me Midas’s symbol.
I tilt my head in curiosity. “Does it still piss you off to look at me?” I ask, remembering his previous words.
The amusement washes off his face, and Osrik studies me for a moment with a slight tilt of his head, gruff face solemn. “Yeah,” he finally replies. “But for a different reason now.”
He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t ask him to. I’m not even really sure why I asked him that question anyway. It doesn’t matter now. I won’t see him again after this. Even if we do end up at war, I’ll be on the other side.
That thought makes my stomach hurt. It’s hard enough being loyal to one side, but what happens when you have loyalty to both? I don’t want anyone to die. Not Fifth’s men, not Midas’s, and not Fourth’s army either.
“Time to go.”
Nodding, Osrik clicks his tongue, leading his black stallion down the slope. My horse follows, while the three guards keep space behind me, protecting the rear.
When we reach the flat snow plains and start making our way across, I notice that Osrik keeps us well away from the rotted path that the king cut into the land earlier. Even so, my eyes can’t seem to stop drifting to it, to follow the lines of deterioration, to take in the sickly, jaundiced snow.
I don’t know where the king is now, but I’m glad he’s not around, because I don’t think I could bear to be near that man’s sickening power ever again.
Once was enough.
As we get closer, I notice that the army is still in formation, though no longer at attention. They’re waiting now, waiting to see how kings will decide their fate.
When we ride through a line between the soldiers, I can feel the weight of hundreds of eyes watching me as we pass. We’re a silent procession, me readying to be handed off as an offering between monarchs.
The gold-touched saddle returning to her king.
Despite the fact that I can sense them watching me, I don’t feel the weight of hate or enmity anymore. I wonder what Orea would think if people knew the truth about Fourth’s army. If they knew that they weren’t monsters, not bloodthirsty villains set on killing.