Daughters of the King |✓|

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I paced the dirt floor, talking fast, my thoughts rushing forward. "I need to know what you've got. What are your numbers? Your resources? And what is it you're hoping to achieve? I need to know everything."

"We want to stage an attack—"

"That's pointless," I cut him off.

"You're not in charge here, Olya," Bjorn reminded me, eyes flashing, green as moss. Green as a forest.

"Aren't I?" I lifted my chin at him, and he opened his mouth to say something, but I charged on before he got the chance. "I'm a Daughter of the King and my mother is the queen. I'm the only one here that knows what we have to do. I can help you, but you have to do as I say."

I slammed my hand down on the table between us, but Bjorn only stood there, arms crossed over his thick chest, and said nothing. Upon closer inspection, I noticed he looked tired behind that beard. More tired than I'd ever seen him look before, his bronze skin almost ashen beneath the surface, and deep lines of fatigue forming around his eyes.

He'd been carrying too many burdens. And he needed me. He had to see that.

Despite this, he laughed, a dry sound, and rubbed his face hard. "Olya, go back to bed. Get some more rest."

I straightened and fixed him with a stare, as though giving him one last chance. He only shook his head at me. The answer was no.

"Then I have no reason to stay," I said, and I turned and exited the hut.

Outside, the air was cool with the early nightfall. I heard someone following, I assumed it was Wolfe, but I didn't look back to check.

The earth crunched beneath my boots as I cut a path through the woodwork. The footsteps behind me picked up their pace, rushing forward. A hand grabbed my wrist.

I stopped. Wolfe looked torn, with conflicting emotions passing like clouds over his face. Did he know who he was loyal to? Me or Bjorn? He didn't seem sure. He stared, seeking an explanation, an excuse he could use. He couldn't seem to find one; he was coming up empty.

"Where do you think you'll go?" he asked instead. Was he trying to make me doubt myself? Did he really think I needed them more than they needed me?

All I said was, "Does it matter?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uncertain. He was a soldier in many ways, it showed in the way he held his shoulder, the way he clenched his jaw, but like his brother he was also part of this forest. In that moment, seeing him standing amongst the trees like this for the first time, he looked like belonged here. Like there was a permanent streak of wildness in him.

I admit it made me like him a bit more.

I narrowed my eyes at him, my vision focusing more clearly so I could see the desperation written on his face. "Why did you bring me here, Wolfe?"

"We thought you'd be asset to us," he admitted. "That you would fight alongside us."

"I'm not a fighter."

He seemed confused by that.

I laughed. "It might surprise you, but I don't want any more wars. Does that make me crazy? That I don't think going around killing each other off is the way to survive?"

He appeared to consider that for a moment, then he shook his head. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

He looked at me as though understanding me a little bit more than before. Then he me go after that. He didn't follow me again.

...

Bjorn only showed up again hours later, late in the night. Wolfe was at his heels.

I wasn't sleeping when they slipped into my hut, and Bjorn took a seat across from me in the dark, so all I could see of him was a silhouette and a pair of sharp eyes. Wolfe remained close to the door, a tall shadow of a guard looking over us.