“What do you mean?” Braizen asks, slowly moving towards us.

Lorna is on her feet, dusting off her rear. Her face asks the same question.

“She saved me earlier. First, she cut me loose from these cursed vines. I tell you, they were going to devour me! They had me wrapped up like a fly in a spider web. I couldn’t breathe until she started hacking away at them. Then, she took on some of the sentries! By herself. I’d be dead right now if not for her.”

I smile awkwardly as I meet Lorna and Braizen’s suspicious eyes.

“I think it’s safe to say you’d be dead too, Lorna,” Torrent says.

The redhead spits on the ground, but for once, she doesn’t look at me with her face twisted into a ferocious scowl.

“If Torrent was trapped, and the guards were here to take you back to safety, why didn’t you go with them?” Braizen asks. His glacial eyes interrogate me.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

He crosses his arms. “You don’t know?” His voice trickles with cynicism.

I look down and do not respond.

“So you saved not one, but two Baellileans, giving up your chance for freedom, and you don’t know why?”

I refuse to look up but shrug once more. “I guess so.”

“You fought Aeradian guards, risked your life to save an enemy? And you don’t know why?”

I offer nothing.

“Lady and Shield,” he finally exclaims. “She might be a bandit!”

Lorna shoots him a furious look but Torrent howls.

“I told you! Today is the day we make history! We got the cargo, and I found a Verdanian I might actually like?! Who’d have thought?!”

“You can’t be serious?! You trust her already?” Lorna’s look and voice seep with spite.

Torrent shrugs his massive shoulders. “She saved my life. Why shouldn’t I trust her?”

“You’re too easily bought,” Lorna snaps. “She’s still an enemy to our Kingdom. Don’t forget what happens if Braizen gets too close to her.”

Braizen frowns, and Torrent pulls his arm from my shoulders. It’s clear what’s at stake. I know the heightened energy that still courses through my body will soon fade, and the reality of my circumstances will set back in.

Braizen looks me over, and this time, his smile reaches his eyes. “Those vines really got you, didn’t they?”

Confused, I hold out my arms, which are covered in small cuts. My mouth mangles into a frown.

“I wouldn’t be too worried about those. I, for one, think they suit you,” he says.

My jaw drops, and I take a step back. “You think what suits me? My wounds?!” I ask sharply.

A small laugh escapes him as he lifts himself back onto the carriage. “Wounds from a fight are just reminders,” he answers coolly. “Reminders that we care enough about something to fight for it.”

Chapter Ten