Curious, Reid watched Markis raise his bow, grab an arrow, and nock it. He aimed to the left, past Reid. They’d been traveling alongside a dense forest. She squinted, but she didn’t see an animal lurking in the shadows of the trees.

Markis’s eyes narrowed as he took a steadying breath and released his arrow. It whizzed by Reid, flying straight into a tree. When Reid peered closer, she realized he’d impaled a six-foot-long brown snake that matched the coloring of the tree trunk.

Blinking, she gaped at Markis as he calmly slung his bow back over his shoulder. “You just shot a snake.”

“It was venomous.”

Her question wasn’t why he’d done it, but how he’d managed to hit a small target that completely blended in with its surroundings.

He must have sensed her curiosity. “Since I was a boy of only five, I’ve had a bow in hand. My grandpa taught me to shoot. I took to it naturally. Because I’m so good at it, I try to find ways to challenge myself—like striking moving objects or trying to hit something with my eyes closed. That’s why Prince Dexter recruited me.”

“He saw you shoot?”

Markis nodded. “My village has a fair every year. The year I turned seventeen, I was showing off for money.” Almost preening, he grinned. “People were placing bets on what I could or couldn’t hit. Unbeknownst to me, the prince was in the crowd. A seven-year-old girl had run out into an open field to set up targets for me. I don’t know what made me look, but I sensed something was amiss. Maybe it was the way the forest surrounding the field stilled or the unnatural sway of the tall grass. Regardless, I nocked my arrow and shot before I even knew what I was doing. Just as a mountain cat leapt for the girl, my arrow struck it. It landed right next to her, dead before it even hit the ground. If I’d hesitated for even a second, it would have killed her.”

“And Prince Dexter saw this?”

“He did. Recruited me right there on the spot. Said he needed a man like me in his army.”

Reid mulled over this information. Had the prince wanted Markis because of his skill with the bow or because he hadn’t hesitated when he saved the girl? Both said a lot about the type of man Markis was. Begrudgingly, she admitted it said something about the man Dexter was, too.

When the sun started to set, Dexter called a halt for the day. Reid realized they were heading east instead of south. “Where are we going?” she asked as she dismounted.

“To the City of Radella.” Yawning, Markis stretched his arms over his head.