Chapter 6: Hostage Terms

The war room sat above the great hall, a square chamber with a map table the size of a boat.

Torren stood over it with both fists planted on the Lowmarch border.

"Three thousand riders by tomorrow night," he said. "The Red Ridge chief will bring the Red Ridge, and the northern clans follow."

"No," Marit said.

He did not look up.

"He forged my seal. He named me a murderer in front of my own people. He has your sister."

"That is exactly why he did it."

Now he looked.

His gray eyes were hard as the stone walls.

"Explain."

"If you ride south, you cross the border with an army."

"My father says you broke the treaty and murdered his daughter."

"I did neither."

"It does not matter what you did. He will have every lord in Lowmarch screaming for your head, and he will take the Wildlands back."

She came around the table.

"I have seen how it ends, Torren. He wants you angry."

"How have you seen it?"

She stopped.

How could she explain?

I died once, and I watched my sister die, and I woke up.

He would think her mad, and she did not blame him.

"I know my father," she said. "And I know Casimir."

"You knew about the saddlebag four days before it rode in."

"Yes."

"You knew the seal. The notch in my ring."

He straightened, and his voice dropped.

"You told me where the lie would be hidden, and you were right."

"Yes."

"Do you know what that means, to a man in my seat?"

She shook her head.

"It means I believe you," Torren said. "Gods help me, I believe every word, and I have no idea why."

Something hot and aching turned over in her chest.

"Then believe me when I say no war."

"And your sister marries that snake on Sunday."

"I will get Odile out."

"How?"

"I don't know yet." She laid her hand flat on his chest. "But not with three thousand dead men."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Swapped Bride: Awakening of the True Princess from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.