Free Lady Of Regret (Book 2) by James A. West

she thought angrily.
    She jammed one orb into a leather sack, pulled the drawstring tight, and hung it off her belt. Leaving her at Valdar the way he had, supposedly for her protection, still sounded too much like an excuse to be rid of her. She could still feel the brush of his lips over hers, a chaste farewell kiss under Queen Erryn’s heated gaze, before he and Loro had ridden into the forest. She had watched until he vanished, and not once had he turned back. She departed Valdar the following morning.
    Cursing Rathe for a mud-headed dolt, and naming herself twice the fool for getting entangled in his roguish charms, she spun a windlass. The hatch of her wagon ratcheted open, becoming a set of narrow steps with a loud mechanical clacking. She climbed out into the cool of the dawn.
    “I trust you did not think to go adventuring without me?” Fira asked, coming around the wagon’s bowsprit. Much the same as Nesaea, she had garbed herself as a woodland ranger, and carried an exquisite bone-and-wood bow, in addition to the short sword strapped to her back. Her fiery hair hung in a thick braid.
    Nesaea twisted a wooden rosette beneath the paw of a winged leopard carved into the side of her wagon, and the hatch ratcheted closed. “If this were an adventure, I would have invited you along.”
    “Invited or not, I’m going.” Fira folded her arms, her chin jutting defiantly. “I heard Lynira speaking when she brought you down last night, so I know whatever you are up to is dangerous, and you will need help.”
    Nesaea had seen the stubborn look in the woman’s green eyes before. There was no use trying to change her mind. “Seeing as you have already dressed for the outing, I suppose there’s no point telling you no.”
    Fira’s face lit up with a wide smile, and she fairly bounced on her toes. “Where are we going?”
    “If we’re not careful, to our deaths,” Nesaea said, trying to temper the woman’s enthusiasm. Her effort failed.
    “I’ve already saddled the horses,” Fira announced, and raced to the stables across the sprawling yard behind the Silver Archer. Of all her girls, Fira was the most skilled fighter, the most eager to join battle. She could also dance so seductively as to enthrall any enemy. How those two attributes went together, Nesaea had never figured out, but she had to admit she was glad for the company.
    After telling the gate guard they had awoke with the song of the hunt in their veins, they rode out of Sazukford. The guard allowed that it was a fine morning to bag a pheasant or two, and cautioned them to avoid the lands north of the city, Lord Arthard’s private preserve. They accepted the warning with beaming smiles and gushing thanks, road out of Sazukford, and promptly turned north.
    A few miles outside the city, Nesaea and Fira halted their horses atop a grassy hill overlooking an ancient graveyard. Tall grass and briars had overgrown most of it, leaving the roofs of several burial vaults poking up. Beyond those, the rolling amber plain stretched north to the hazed feet of the Gyntors. Peaks grim and dark and jagged reached all the way to the Sea of Muika, and beyond. Even from afar, that barrier to the Iron Marches held an air of foreboding. Only crazed traders and unwitting fools dared cross the spine of the Gyntors, what with its abundance of unspeakable creatures and haunted places.
    Fira’s attention rested elsewhere. “How can a thing of gold be so ugly?” she asked, lips turned down in distaste.
    “Not ugly, merely stark,” Nesaea said.
    Dionis Keep sat atop a jutting blade of rock, both made golden by the rising sun. The keep’s curtain wall stood high, buttressed by a score of drum towers pocked with arrow loops. A stone bridge, supported with a dozen high arches, spanned the eastern flank of the River Idoril, and ended at a drawbridge.
    “You really think your father is in there?” Fira asked.
    “Lynira believes he is.”
    “Are you sure you care to risk your