"Where are we going?" Starlex addressed the tense, thickly muscled back of Bonn Skaard as he stood silently on the raft's bow.
A fan of sea spray hit her in the face. The horses shuffled their hooves nervously. The raft had passed through the Canopus Strait and was heading into deep water.
Starlex turned to Leiffen. ”Why are we heading out to sea?"
Leiffen shrugged, cutting his eyes out to the choppy waves. "Ask yer captain."
She knew he meant Bonn, but she was scared to approach him again. She was still feeling the frost from the cold look in his eyes when he realized Scipio Davadas had gone back on his bargain. Surely, there had to be a reason for it.
The raft careened over a wave and crashed down, bringing her stomach with it. She had no choice but to hang onto the Skaard warrior's arm or else risk being swept overboard.
Pride stung her eyes alongside the saltwater. After all, this wasn't her fault. It was the king's doing. She would explain it to him.
"You want to know where we're heading?" Bonn asked, jaw tight beneath his beard. "There!" He pointed toward the white-capped mountains bobbing in the distance through a cloud of mist. "I'm going back to Kadaar to fight for my people. And you, princess," his lipped curled contemptuously, "you are my bounty now." He reached out and picked up a silver lock of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers.
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Starlex pulled away. Her hair tugged at the roots. Her eyes flashed. "I demand you take me home!"
"You demand, eh?" The Skaard warrior spread his muscular arms wide. "Do you rule this vessel? No!" He pounded a fist off his chest. "I rule this vessel! And that means I rule you!"
Starlex stumbled backward, her back pressing into the stallion's warm hide.
"And from now on," Bonn continued, "you'll do as I say!"
"But it wasn't I who gave that command to recall those troops," Starlex insisted, pointing out to the sea where the fleet had disappeared into a cloud of mist. “It was the king’s command, and he must have had a good reason for it.”
"I don't care about his reasons! I made a bond. I gave my word. I risked my life and my friend's life," he gestured toward Leiffen, who now whistled a soft tune as he gazed out over the choppy waves. “My absence put my people in peril. I killed a Nazeer prince, which now means there is a price on my head in this land. I risked all that. For what? For you? A silly Illymium girl with purple blood running through her veins? Who doesn't have enough strength in her bones to lift a sword? I should throw you in the sea and be done with you!" With that, he turned his back on her and pressed his face into the biting salt wind.
Bonn Skaard is right, she thought as she clung miserably to the roan's bridle. I'm worthless. I've always been worthless.
She pressed her face against the roan's hide, feeling more dejected for having opened the gate of her heart even a small crack.
Leiffen sat nearby singing a melancholy old sailor's tune she thought, hoped, was meant to comfort her.
She was a prisoner again. And as the sea air became cooler, the closer they came to Kadaar, the more her tears flowed. She was adrift now, more than ever, and the companionship and camaraderie she had thought she had found with these two Skaards were as fleeting and elusive as the foam caps on the sea.