“Make sure to leave a few for me.” A glimmer of a grin played at the prince’s lips. He got back on his horse and rode farther into the battle, bloody sword in hand.
The battle had progressed closer to the palace—but not yet close enough to take it. Fires burned in patches all over the expansive battlefield. The stench of death filled Jonas’s nostrils. He forced himself to take stock and found that his sword was gone.
Jonas had been out cold and hadn’t realized it. For how long had he lain there in the trampled grass surrounded by bodies? He swore loudly and worked his way through the bodies, searching for another weapon. Someone had been by—a scavenger for one side or the other who’d collected the weapons of the fallen. Finally he found an ax. It would do.
An enemy charged him—an enemy with his left arm already hanging off him after a brutal injury. But there was more fury than pain in the man’s eyes.
“Paelsian scum,” he snarled as raised his sword. “Die, you maggot!”
Jonas’s muscles ached and burned as he swung his ax upward to meet flesh and bone. The spray of blood hit his face dead on.
• • •
Lit only by the torches stuck in the ground and the bright moon in the black sky, Jonas fought his way forward. He’d traded his battle-ax for a pair of short curved swords that looked as if they belonged to one of the chief’s personal guards. They felt right in his hands and allowed him to slash through anything that opposed him.
Many had already fallen beneath his blade. He’d lost count of the lives he’d taken.
Jonas also showed the signs of a battle that had lasted nearly twelve hours without relief. He bled from a wound on his shoulder. Another blade had found his abdomen, just beneath his ribs. He would live, but the injuries were starting to slow him down.
“Jonas,” a voice called out to him from the tangle of bodies on the ground.
Jonas thrust a sword up into an Auranian’s gut and watched the light leave the man’s eyes before he glanced to his left.
A boy lay on the ground nearby, half-crushed by a fallen horse. Jonas fought to get to his side.
“Do I know you?” His gaze quickly moved over the boy’s injuries. The horse that had crushed his legs wasn’t the problem. It was the deep bloody wound to his stomach with the spill of glistening intestines showing beneath. A horse hadn’t caused that. A sharp blade had.
“You’re from my village. You’re Jonas—Jonas Agallon. Tomas’s younger brother.”
Now he recognized the pale boy’s face although he couldn’t at first summon a name. “That’s right. Leo, isn’t it?”
Two soldiers clashed nearby, stumbling past them. One tripped over a body and the other—thankfully on Jonas’s side—finished him off. To his left, a hail of burning arrows flew through the air from the archers stationed on top of the palace walls.
“Jonas,” the boy Leo said, his voice almost too low to understand. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be.” Jonas forced himself to keep his attention on the boy. “It’s only a shallow wound. You’ll recover just fine.”
He lied. Leo would not live to see the next sunrise.
“Good.” The kid gave him a pained smile, but his eyes were glossy with tears. “Just give me a minute to rest and I’ll get back out there.”
“Rest for as long as you want.” Despite his better judgment, he crouched down at the boy’s side and took his hand. “How old are you?”
“Eleven. Just turned.”
Eleven. Jonas felt the remnants of the half-cooked rabbit he’d eaten earlier churn in his gut. The whiz of an arrow pierced the air nearby and caught a soldier in the chest. Not a killing wound. It only made the soldier—a Limerian by the crest he wore on his sleeve—rip it out and let out a harsh cry of pain and rage.
Jonas turned his attention back to the dying boy. “You were very brave to volunteer for this.”
“My older brother and I weren’t given much choice. Had to come. If I could hold a sword, I would serve King Gaius.”
Serve King Gaius.
Hot anger worked its way up Jonas’s throat, thick enough to choke on. “Your family will be very proud of you.”
“Auranos is so beautiful. So green and warm and...I’ve never been here before. If my mother could experience this, have a life like this, then it’s all worth it.”
The boy coughed up blood. Jonas wiped it away with his already bloody sleeve as he sent a searching glance around the area. Men fought close by—too close. He wanted to stay with this boy, but he couldn’t afford to be here much longer. But if he could get this kid back to camp—find him a medic...
The boy’s grip on his hand tightened. “C-can you do me a favor, Jonas?”
“Anything.”
“Tell my mother I love her. And that I did this for her.”
Jonas blinked hard. “I promise.”
The boy smiled, but then the expression faded away and his eyes glazed over.
Jonas sat there a moment longer before getting to his feet. He let out a roar of anger into the skies above at the unfairness that a boy so young had to die tonight to help the King of Blood claim Auranos.
And the Paelsians—including himself!—were helping him every step of the way, baring their throats to their enemy’s blade in the process—sacrificing their very futures.
The boy’s death made it all unutterably clear to Jonas. There were no guarantees that King Gaius would hold true to any promises he’d made. He had the numbers. His army was vast and trained. Paelsia was there as nothing more than cannon fodder.