After My Husband Abandoned Me, I Rule All Dragons novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: The Gorge

I got down from the cart with my hands up.

Dorrit didn't.

"Shoot that earring and I'll feed you your own bow," she told the girl.

"Dorrit."

"She started it."

More of them came out of the pines, men and women in furs with bows and spears.

There were a dozen at least.

The girl kept her arrow on my face.

"You're the Voice," she said. "The crown's leash. I've seen you on the Marshal's back."

"I was. I resigned."

"Liar."

Behind me the oat sacks shifted.

Wystan sat up in the back of the cart, blinking, with straw in his beard.

Every bow in the trees swung toward him.

The girl's arrow didn't move, but her face did.

It went white and then furious.

"What is that?"

"Bettris," Wystan said.

"Don't," she said. "Don't you dare use his voice. My brother's a dragon. He's been a dragon for fourteen months. We watched the Wing run him into the burn."

"I know. I was there."

"He's dead, or he's worse than dead."

"Bet."

"Don't call me that!"

Her bow hand was shaking.

Wystan climbed out of the cart slowly, holding the horse blanket at his waist.

He was so big the cart rocked back up when he left it.

"When you were six," he said, "you put a live trout in each of my boots. Because I wouldn't take you flying."

The bow dipped.

"I wore them to the Moot of the clans before I noticed. Father laughed so hard he fell off the bench."

Bettris lowered the arrow.

She looked at his scars, and his beard, and his grey eyes.

Then she dropped the bow on the stones and ran at him.

He caught her.

She hit him twice in the chest with both fists, sobbing, and then held onto him.

The clan in the trees started lowering their bows one by one.

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