*
Kyra and Maltren galloped down the road, over the rolling hills, toward the wood, she breathing hard as she dug her heels into her horse, anxious to save Aidan. A million nightmares swarmed through her head. How could Aidan have broken his legs? What were her brothers doing hunting out here, close to nightfall, when all of her father’s people had been forbidden to leave the fort? None of it made any sense.
They reached the edge of the wood, and as Kyra prepared to enter it, she was puzzled to see Maltren suddenly bring his horse to a stop before it. She stopped abruptly beside him and watched as he dismounted. She dismounted, too, both horses breathing hard, and followed him, baffled, as he stopped at the forest’s edge.
“Why are you stopping?” she asked, breathing hard. “I thought Aidan was in the wood?”
Kyra looked all around, and as she did, she suddenly had a feeling that something was terribly wrong—when suddenly, out of the woods, she was horrified to see, there stepped the Lord Governor himself, flanked by two dozen men. She heard snow crunching behind her, and she wheeled to see a dozen more men encircle her, all aiming bows at her, one grabbing the reins to her horse. Her blood ran cold as she realized she had walked into a trap.
She looked at Maltren in fury, realizing he had betrayed her.
“Why?” she asked, disgusted at the sight of him. “You are my father’s man. Why would you do this?”
The Lord Governor walked over to Maltren and placed a large sack of gold in his hand, while Maltren looked away guiltily.
“For enough gold,” the Lord Governor turned and said to her, a haughty smile on his face, “you will find that men will do anything you wish. Maltren here will be rich forever, richer than your father ever was, and he will be spared from your fort’s looming death.”
Kyra scowled at Maltren, hardly fathoming this.
“You are a traitor,” she said.
He scowled back at her.
“I am our savior,” he replied. “They would have killed all of our people, thanks to you. Thanks to me, Volis will be spared. I made a deal. You can thank me for their lives.” He smiled, satisfied. “And, to think, all I had to do was hand over you.”
Kyra suddenly felt rough hands grab her from behind, felt herself hoisted in the air. She bucked and writhed, but she could not shake them as she felt her wrist and ankles bound, felt herself thrown into the back of a carriage.
A moment later, iron bars slammed on her and her cart jostled away, bumping over the countryside. She knew that, wherever they were taking her, no one would ever see or hear from her again. And as they entered the wood, blocking out all view of the falling night, she knew that her life, as she knew it, was over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE