Rogue, Prisoner, Princess. Morgan Rice

in armor too shiny for his own good?”

      “A noble though,” the older one said. “You can see that by the armor.”

      “And he’s been stabbed in the back,” the younger pointed out. “By his own men, it seems.”

      “So he’s not even good enough for the scum who are trying to take our island?” the leader said.

      Thanos watched as the man moved closer, kneeling beside him. Maybe he intended to finish what the Typhoon had started. No soldier of Haylon would have any love for those on his side of the conflict.

      “What did you do that your own side would try to kill you?” the newcomer asked, quietly enough that only Thanos could hear him.

      Thanos managed to find the strength to shake his head. “I don’t know.” The words came out cracked and broken. Even if he hadn’t been wounded, he’d been lying on the sand a long time. “But I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to fight here.”

      That earned another of those strange smiles that seemed to Thanos to be laughing at the world even though there was nothing to laugh at.

      “And yet here you are,” the newcomer said. “You didn’t want to take part in an invasion, but you’re on our beaches, rather than safe at home. You didn’t want to offer us violence, but the Empire’s army is burning homes as we speak. Do you know what’s happening up that beach?”

      Thanos shook his head. Even that hurt.

      “We’re losing,” the man continued. “Oh, we’re fighting hard enough, but that doesn’t matter. Not with odds like this. The battle still rages, but that’s just because half of my side are too stubborn to recognize the truth. We don’t have enough time for distractions like this.”

      Thanos watched as the newcomer drew one of his swords. It looked wickedly sharp. So sharp that he probably wouldn’t even feel it as it plunged into his heart. Instead, though, the other man gestured with it.

      “You and you,” he said to the men, “bring our new friend. Perhaps he’s worth something to the other side.” He grinned. “And if he’s not, I shall kill him myself.”

      The last thing Thanos felt were strong hands gripping him under his arms, yanking him up, dragging him away, before he finally lapsed back into darkness.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Berin felt the ache of longing as he trekked along the route home to Delos, the only thing keeping him going, thoughts of his family – of Ceres. The thought of returning to his daughter was enough to make him press on, even though he’d found the days of walking tough, the roads beneath his feet rough with ruts and stones. His bones were not getting any younger, and already he could feel his knee aching from the journey, adding to the pains that came from a life of hammering and heating metal.

      It was all worth it, though, to see home again, though. To see his family. All the time he’d been away, it was all Berin had wanted. He could picture it now. Marita would be cooking in the back of the humble wooden home, the scent of it wafting out past the front door. Sartes would be playing somewhere around the back, probably with Nasos watching him, even if his older son would be pretending that he wasn’t.

      And then there would be Ceres. He loved all his children, but with Ceres there had always been that extra connection. She had been the one to help out around his forge, the one who had taken after him most, and who seemed the most likely to follow in his footsteps. Leaving Marita and the boys had been a painful duty, necessary if he was to provide for his family. Leaving Ceres behind had felt as though he’d abandoned some part of himself when he left.

      Now it was time to reclaim it.

      Berin only wished he brought happier news. He walked along the gravel track that led back to their house, and he frowned; it wasn’t winter yet, but it would be soon enough. The plan had been for him to leave and find work. Lords always needed bladesmiths to provide weapons for their guards, their wars, their Killings. Yet it turned out that they didn’t need him. They had their own men. Younger, stronger men. Even the king who had seemed to want his work had turned out to want Berin as he had been ten years ago.

      The thought hurt, yet he knew he should have guessed that they would have no need for a man with more gray in his beard than black.

      It would have hurt more if it hadn’t meant that he got to go home. Home was the thing that mattered for Berin, even when it was little more than a square of rough-sawn wooden walls, topped with a turf roof. Home was about the people waiting there, and the thought of them was enough to make him quicken his steps.

      As he crested a hill, though, and the first view of it came, Bering knew that something was wrong. His stomach plunged. Berin knew what home felt like. For all the barrenness of the surrounding land, home was a place filled with life. There was always noise there, whether it was joyful or argumentative. At this time of year too, there would always have been at least a few crops growing in the plot around it, vegetables and small berry bushes, hardy things that always produced at least something to feed them.

      That was not what he saw before him.

      Berin broke into as much of a run then as he could manage after so long a walk, the sense of something wrong gnawing away at him, feeling like one of his vises clamped around his heart.

      He reached the door and threw it wide. Maybe, he thought, everything would be all right. Maybe they had spotted him and were all just ensuring that his arrival would be a surprise.

      It was dim inside, the windows crusted with grime. And there, a presence.

      Marita stood in the main room, stirring a pot that smelled too sour to Berin. She turned toward him as he burst in, and as she did, Berin knew he’d been right. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

      “Marita?” he began.

      “Husband.” Even the flat way she said that told him that nothing was as it should be. Any other time he’d been away, Marita had thrown her arms around him as he’d come in the door. She’d always seemed full of life. Now, she seemed…empty.

      “What’s going on here?” Berin asked.

      “I don’t know what you mean.” Again, there was less emotion than there should have been, as though something in his wife had broken, letting all the joy out of her.

      “Why is everything around here so… so still?” Berin demanded. “Where are our children?”

      “They aren’t here right now,” Marita said. She moved back to the pot as though everything was perfectly normal.

      “Where are they, then?” Berin wasn’t going to let it go. He could believe that the boys might have run down to the nearest stream or had errands to run, but one of his children at least would have seen him coming home and been there to meet him. “Where is Ceres?”

      “Oh yes,” Marita said, and Berin could hear the bitterness there now. “Of course you would ask after her. Not how things are with me. Not your sons. Her.”

      Berin had never heard his wife sound quite like this before. Oh, he’d always known there was something hard in Marita, more concerned for herself than for the rest of the world, but now it sounded as though her heart was ashes.

      Marita seemed to calm down then, and the sheer speed with which she did it made it suspicious to Berin.

      “You want to know what your precious daughter did?” she said. “She ran away.”

      Berin’s apprehension deepened. He shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”

      Marita kept going. “She ran away. Didn’t say where she was going, just stole what she could from us when she left.”

      “We have no money to steal,” Berin said. “And Ceres would never do that.”

      “Of course you’ll take her side,” Marita said. “But she took… things from around here, possessions. Anything she thought she could sell in the next town, knowing that girl. She abandoned us.”

      If