The Redwood Rebel (The Redwood War Book 1)

by Lorna George

  There was a sickening crunch from behind him, and whipping around, he saw that the vines restraining Paget had tightened and snapped his neck and spine. The boy was still alive, eyes wide with shock and fear as he looked at the broken form of his commanding officer. The vine gagging him moved with a flick of The Watcher’s hand, and he knelt down in front of the boy.

  ‘You are being spared out of my respect for King Arun,’ he informed the gasping, sobbing young man. ‘But let me take this moment to warn you that should you go running back to that traitor who calls herself Queen, or partake in any further damage to the forest and its inhabitants, I will not be as merciful to you as I have been to your friend.’

  Arun looked at the crushed, purpling form of the dead man and felt a little sick. He supposed at least it was a quick death, but didn’t care to think on what might have happened had the baby wood sprite been hurt.

  The boy nodded quickly, and with a disgusted roll of his eyes, The Watcher released his bonds. As the young man scrambled to his feet, looking fearfully as though he expected it to be a trick while he backed off, Arun nodded once to him, and he fled. He had no weapons, no provisions, and Arun wondered if he would even survive the escape that had been granted him. Still, he had done what he could, and dared not ask for further mercy on his behalf. The Watcher and Naomi both seemed perfectly content to have simply killed him and have done.

  It shocked him to find that all the rumours amongst his own people about all Ffionites being violent and practically lawless weren’t all that far from the truth. He tended to take things like that with a pinch of salt, but having been here himself now and seeing even good people like Naomi and Tristan kill without thought or trial had made him realise that it was just how things were here in Ffion. It made him uncomfortable, but to say anything would make him as bad as Naomi, who had judged his culture so dismissively with very little knowledge of her own to go on. This was not his land, and he had to abide by their rules.

  ‘I take it you weren’t aware of her identity then, Your Majesty?’ the Watcher spoke casually, lightly petting the small wood sprite still wrapped snugly about his forearm. ‘I apologise. I’m sure whatever her reasons for not telling you, she wouldn’t have meant for you to find out in such a way.’

  Arun sighed. ‘I’m equally sure she didn’t mean for me to find out at all, but thank you.’

  ‘She doesn’t trust you.’ It was more of a statement than a question, but Arun felt compelled to answer anyway.

  ‘I haven’t exactly shown her my best side. I’m afraid the conditions of our first meeting and subsequent accidental marriage caused me to think badly of her, and her of me in the ensuing fallout.’

  The Watcher nodded slowly. ‘Then I’m sorry for you both. I only hope you’ll treat her with the respect and compassion she deserves, and you both can learn to be happy.’

  ‘I appreciate that, but as you heard, at this point she doesn’t even consider our marriage to be legitimate.’

  He didn’t know why he was being so open with this man of the forest, this complete stranger, but somehow it felt right. He obviously knew Naomi very well, and it was possible he could help Arun gain some insight into how best to handle the situation. Arun needed help now more than ever. He was at a loss as what to do, and through their magic-raw Bond, exposed by the loss of control on her part, he could feel how angry she was to have her identity revealed.

  ‘I’m not a diplomat, your Majesty, nor am I schooled in the ways of Courtly romance,’ The Watcher eyed him critically. ‘Still, it’s my firm belief that if you offer respect, you will receive it in return. Naomi isn’t the kind of person that would hold a grudge without just cause, and restraining her against her will isn’t going to endear you to her.’

  Arun immediately felt defensive. ‘The Bond is indisputable. There’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing anyone can do about it.’

  ‘I understand that, Sire, and if that truly is the case then I’m certain Naomi will realise it for herself sooner or later, but the fact remains that you are holding her in other ways you do have control over.’

  Arun knew immediately that it was the restriction spell he was once again being criticised for and frowned down at his boots. Realising how long she had been locked away, seeing her nightmares, and experiencing the cold torment for himself, he knew it wasn’t helping his cause that she still referred to him as her gaoler, but what choice did he have really? If she ran, and she would, he would have no choice but to follow her. The Bond wasn’t made to cover long distances, and it would cause them both great pain to be too far apart. He needed her to stay with him, to be his wife and Queen, and come back to Koren with him to live and sleep by his side. He knew it was cruel, that she didn’t want to, but what could he do?

  If only she would understand that whatever she felt about it, they were Bonded to each other. It was unbreakable, and while knowing her lineage certainly made his life a lot easier and removed a great deal of worry from his mind, until she accepted it , he had no choice but to use every method available to him to keep her by his side.

  ‘I have no choice.’ He looked back up. ‘She’s mine, and that’s the end of it.’

  The Watcher looked angry for a fraction of a second, startling him slightly, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. When he spoke, he sounded tranquil, but Arun could feel the malice behind his words. ‘Then perhaps the root of the problem is that she expects to be treated as an equal, and you clearly have no intention of doing so.’

  ‘I don’t-!’

  ‘She is a person, your Majesty, not a thing to be owned,’ the Watcher cut across his outraged response.

  The Watcher turned and left, leaving Arun completely dumbfounded. He hadn’t meant it in that way! He knew she was a person, of course he did. He just meant that she was his wife, whether she liked it or not.

  Even as he finished the thought, he realised how awful it had sounded. He’d never even considered the way he spoke and thought about her often reduced her to little more than a lump of meat that belonged to him. It was with a great sense of shock and mortification that he realised he spoke about his hunting dogs in much the same way.

  It was similar to the mixture of emotions he had felt only that morning when she had pointed out how disrespectful his constant need to touch her in order to get her attention was. It seemed so obvious now it had been said aloud, but he had never even considered it before.

  Naomi was a Princess, but she had clearly been raised to believe herself capable of anything she wanted to do. She could fight as well as any man under his command, and she was clever and strong. She bowed to no one, and it made him wonder just what his people would make of her. They valued strength, and while Korenian women were sheltered, protected as bringers of life and beauty, there was something so compelling about Naomi’s brand of femininity. He didn’t want to be drawn to it, attracted to her sheer force of will, but somehow he couldn’t help himself. What was more, he knew he wasn’t alone in that. None of his soldiers had seemed disapproving of her skill and leadership, and it made him wonder if the problem was actually just him having warped expectations.

  There was a clatter of wood as Naomi dismantled their sleeping platform, and he turned to watch her land on her feet, bedroll and weapons slung across her back. She didn’t look at him, but began to kick the various branches they had used so it didn’t look as obvious that someone had made camp here. He knew it was habit that she did this, and didn’t like to point out that the blackened remains of the sell swords and their camp would be a giveaway to any passer-by. She was always very thorough in everything she put her hand to, he silently acknowledged with a small smile as he walked across to her.

  ‘So…’ he began, but she quickly cut him off, calling up to the other soldiers.

  ‘Make sure you remember to dismantle the platforms, please. We don’t want to encourage that clabbert nesting ground to spread.’

  There were a few calls of assent that floated out of the tree
s to her, and Arun felt slightly displaced by her interruption. She didn’t look at him, instead knelt down and tied the bedroll a little tighter, trying her best to keep it out of the black soot. He decided to try again.

  ‘Why didn’t-’

  ‘Where’s Tristan wandered off to?’ she again spoke over him, still not looking up from what she was doing.

  ‘I’m, uh… I’m not sure,’ Arun hesitated. ‘Firefly? I just wanted to-’

  ‘My dart wound is gone,’ she stood and brushed herself off casually. ‘There’s a scar, but it looks old now. I’m feeling a lot better as well.’

  He frowned and she turned to him, but still didn’t meet his eye, rolling her sleeve and showing the small scar where the wound had been only hours before. He didn’t know what to do, her behaviour not at all what he had been expecting, and watched her very deliberately not watching him.

  ‘May I?’ he asked, indicating her exposed arm, and she nodded. Very gently, he held her slim elbow in his hand and twisted it slightly so he could get a better look at the mark. It looked well enough, and he noticed that the limb was slightly fleshier than it had been that morning. Thoughtlessly, he ran the pad of his thumb over the little scar, and she flinched, jerking away. He let her go, annoyed with himself, and folded his arms over his chest in an attempt to keep from touching.

  ‘The automatic reaction of the Bond is to keep us both alive and well,’ he informed her quietly. ‘We’ve been repressing it until now in an attempt to make the situation easier on us both, but when you opened it up in your anger, it gave the spell a chance to repair you more than it’s been able to so far.’

  Naomi rubbed the mark vigorously. ‘The spell has been healing me, though. I’ve felt it, and I’ve been using it each day to make up for my own weak energy reserves. You told me that.’

  ‘It would have been healing you much quicker had we left it open, though,’ he explained. ‘It’s been little more than a steady trickle, but the explosion you released gave it a greater chance to act.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she said, sounding surprised at the revelation. Finally she looked up at him, her eyes wide as she touched her stomach. ‘I’m really hungry.’

  ‘We’ll get you something to eat.’ Arun smiled at her childlike wonder of such a simple thing. Then he remembered that while she had always eaten with the rest of them, there had never been any enjoyment on her part. She had eaten because she knew she had to, but had been slow and only taken small amounts at a time. Her long-term starvation had made eating a painful process, and she had probably grown so used to having no food that it had been years since she had truly, honestly felt healthy hunger.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she grumbled, looking away again, and he realised his smile had turned into something sad and sympathetic for all she had suffered. He sighed.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Her usual authority was returning, but she still looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. ‘Not now. Not yet. Not with anyone.’

  ‘I understand, and I won’t push you, but I just…’ Arun struggled with his words for a moment. ‘I just want to know why you didn’t tell me. It would have made things so much easier on us both.’

  She looked up at him, and he recognised the displeased look in her eye, that irritated twist to her lips and quirk of her brow. ‘You were deliberately going to marry Adrienne. You knew what she’d done, what she was responsible for. She murdered her own family--most of us, at least--for the sake of gaining power. She has run Ffion into the ground, sucked the life from it for no other reason than vanity and riches, and at the expense of the people who suffer and starve under her rule. You knew all of this, and you were still going to marry her.’

  ‘I’ve already told you that I’d decided not to unless she proved herself worthy,’ he said, defended himself and feeling hunted.

  ‘A very short, and not particularly probing conversation, if memory serves,’ she reminded him flatly, and hearing it said in such a way made him uncomfortable. Crossing her arms, her expression softened slightly and she shook her head. ‘I know how it works, of course I do. I understand that there are expectations placed on you about who you take as a wife, but you were going to marry her, despite all her atrocities simply because she was royalty. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

  It was a genuine question, and he thought hard about his answer. He had chosen to accept Adrienne as his wife partly because he felt responsible for Ffion’s troubles, their instability caused at first by his war with Tsumetai. His marriage to Adrienne would give them the power and finance they needed to get back to normal and begin trading properly again. That was the most honourable answer to her question, but he knew it wasn’t all there was.

  He needed Ffion to begin farming again. Ilios depended on their produce and livestock, the wood from their forests. They were part of a delicate balance, and one he had taken it upon himself to help restore, but could only accomplish by marrying their Princess. In the end, it was both true and fair to say that he had chosen to marry Adrienne because, no matter how illegitimate her claim to the throne, she was the ruler of Ffion. He nodded.

  Naomi smiled, but looked sad. He wished he could have given her a different answer, one she had been hoping for.

  ‘If you were willing to take her as your wife, despite all the evil she has done, then now you know I’m royalty, you won’t ever let me go.’ The sad smile faded and she frowned down at the ground. ‘For all you think I’m a liar and a whore.’

  It was like a punch in the gut, and he was left reeling by the cruelty of his own words coming back to haunt him. He knew he’d hurt her at the time, but hadn’t given it a great deal of thought since. It had obviously left a mark on her, and thinking back he realised he had never seen her as angry with him as when he’d called her that.

  Clenching his fists, he forced himself not to grab her, as instinct was dictating, and fought to keep his voice level. ‘I should never have said that to you and I’m truly more sorry than I can say. I was angry and foolish. It wasn’t for me to judge your actions, and I’ve recently come to the realisation that in your place I would likely have acted in the same way.’

  He meant every word of it, and did his best to make sure she believed that without touching her or projecting his emotions through their Bond. Naomi looked surprised, as though she hadn’t expected that reaction at all, and the small, sad smile came back.

  ‘I appreciate your apology, but we were both in the wrong. Mostly me, in actual fact. You’ve been wronged by me and I won’t do you the discourtesy of trying to spare myself through attempting to justify my actions.’ She seemed to wilt slightly and he hated to see the fight going out of her like this. ‘In truth, deciding to be a party to the deception against you was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. I’ve tried to dress it up as my only way to get revenge, to take back the country and bring peace and prosperity to the land, but it wasn’t about honour or duty, not really. I just didn’t want to die in that hole, and it was my best chance to see the sky again.’

  He felt her pain as if it was his own, and inhaling sharply, he carefully placed his hand on her shoulder. She looked up, a scowl mingling with surprise at the contact, but before she could protest, he spoke quickly. ‘You can hit me as much as you like afterwards, but I’m asking your permission to hold you.’

  She looked ready to protest, but he cut her off. ‘Please. Just for a moment.’

  There was a long silence, and he was sure she would refuse. Her face had darkened considerably in embarrassment, but the small nod of acceptance was enough for him.

  Without even a second of hesitation, Arun pulled her into his arms and wrapped her up tightly. He knew how she felt about physical contact, but this was different. He wasn’t trying to dominate her, he was just trying to offer comfort. If she had continued to fight him he would have let her go, but he could feel her soul crying out for contact. She had been alone so long, only touched w
hen someone meant her harm, and he wanted--needed--to show her that taking comfort from another was nothing to be afraid of.

  She didn’t hold him back, her arms by her sides and fists clenched as though ready to defend herself at a moment’s notice, but he didn’t expect her to. When she finally relaxed enough to plop her forehead against his shoulder, he felt an immediate sense of gratification. How long had it been since she had been able to lean on someone else, even a little bit? She had been mistreated by a great many people, and he was one of them.

  He didn’t release her, not wanting her to feel she had to let go if she didn’t want to, but loosened his hold on her. Naomi didn’t seem to want to stay any longer, and as she stepped back a little unsteadily, he saw how red her face had become and the way she looked everywhere except at him. The expression she wore was one of mild annoyance, and when she punched him in the shoulder afterwards it was playful, with no real weight behind it.

  Smiling wryly, he made a decision.

  ‘I’ve told you numerous times that the Bond is unbreakable, and that’s true,’ he said. ‘The problem we’ve had is that I haven’t given you the opportunity to see it for yourself.’

  Arun reached into his magic and found the restriction spell that tied down her movements. It only took a swift tug to unravel the magic, and Naomi was free. She gasped, placing a hand over her heart and pitching forward. After a few gulps of air, she looked up through her messy hair in utter shock.

  ‘I should never have done that to you,’ he admitted softly. ‘I don’t want to be your gaoler, little Firefly. I want to be your partner. Not because of your lineage or because you feel you owe it to me, but because we’re already Bonded to one another and there’s no way to sever it. Will you at least think on that before you try to run?’