They Broke the Duke's Bastard, Now She Is His Only Heir novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Marshal on the North Road

She heals a rider's hand to save herself, the King's Marshal takes the riders, and a letter in their pouch is written in her sister's hand.

The first rider hauled me out of the ditch by my collar and threw me down on the road.

Gravel bit into my palms, and a bolt of white pain went through both knees.

I bit down on a scream so hard I tasted blood.

"Look at that," the second rider said. "She's got a good coat on. Lady's coat. We'll take it back."

"Hold her still," the first one said. "I'll do it quick."

He pulled his sword, and the blade scraped on his scabbard.

As the blade came free, its edge opened his own left palm to the bone.

He swore and clutched his hand against his chest.

Blood ran down his wrist and soaked his cuff.

I saw a way out in that, and I took it without thinking.

I grabbed his bleeding hand in both of mine.

The gift came up from somewhere deep, thin and aching.

It ran down my arms and into his palm.

I felt the torn flesh knit under my thumbs, the vein close, the skin seal over.

It took less than a breath.

He stared at his hand, and then he stared at me.

"You," he whispered. "You're one of the Saint's. You've got the Hands."

"Let me go," I said. My voice cracked. "I just saved your hand. Let me go, and nobody has to say we met."

The rider's face went gray.

He stepped back.

The second rider did not.

"It's a trick," he said. "Orrin said she was a thief. She's nobody. Kill her."

He raised his sword with both hands.

I had nothing left to throw at him.

The world was already going white at the edges.

The gift takes from the healer what it gives, and I had been starving for three years.

I heard a whistle, high and short, from the ridge above us.

Then I heard hooves, a great many of them.

Twelve riders in gray warden coats came down the slope at a gallop.

They spread across the road in a half circle, with crossbows already raised.

"Drop it," a man's voice said. "Now."

The second rider dropped his sword.

The first rider went to his knees with his healed hand held out in front of him.

The man who had spoken swung down from a black horse and came across the gravel in four long strides.

He was tall, with dark hair and a scar that split his left eyebrow in two.

His worn gray coat had a silver road-star pinned to the collar.

He knelt next to me, and I knew his face.

I had seen it once before, three years ago, in the front gallery of the Lantern Hall.

It was the moment my knees gave way beneath me on the stage.

He had been looking right at me.

Then he had turned his back and walked out.

Cold went through me, colder than the ditch.

"Liora Ashdown," he said quietly.

He said my name carefully, and he did not take his eyes off my face.

"Don't," I said. "Don't touch me."

He took his hand back at once.

"I'm Doran Rhoden, Marshal of the King's Road Wardens," he said. "I've been riding this road for a week, waiting for the camp to let you out. I was too late to be at the gate."

"You were waiting for me."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I'll answer that when you're not bleeding in the road."

I looked down.

I was not bleeding.

But the rider's blood was still on my sleeve, and the sight of it made my head swim.

"I don't need your protection," I said, and my voice scraped. "Never had it. I'm not starting now."

Doran looked at me for a long moment.

His gray eyes were steady, and not unkind.

"Then take a horse," he said. "You can't walk to the city on those knees, and we both know it."

I wanted to refuse that too.

My knees buckled before I could.

He caught me under the arms, not by the waist, and set me on the black horse's saddle.

I didn't say thank you.

Behind us, two wardens dragged the riders to their feet and went through their saddlebags.

"Marshal," one of them called. "The pouch on the big one. You'll want to see this."

Doran took a folded paper from the warden's hand and read it.

His jaw went tight.

He turned it so I could see.

The handwriting was round and soft, with little curls on the tails of the letters, the same hand that had written me a birthday verse every year I could remember.

*Moxon. Do not let her speak to anyone. Send what is needed. O.*

Under the initial, there was a small pressed lantern, in the shade of blue I had watched her mix on the dance hall floor when we were twelve.

It was Odette's seal.

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