Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
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No.
No, I would not be coming back to find the man again.
Even if he did set my blood alight like no one else before.
Even if he had a face crafted by the old goddess of beauty herself.
Even this Oren, in his unearthly, hallowed divineness could not sway me from returning back to my sister and her husband and begging them to leave me, to leave this place and flee, or else the king's man would find her as well as me, and he would not be merciful.
The king's men were many things, but merciful was never one of them.
I could barely focus on the rough terrain ahead of me as flashes of Oren's deep umber hair struck me almost as hard as the stray whips of branches and thorns that dug deep into my skin, painting once porcelain, now deeply tanned skin with gashes and lines of glistening golden blood, but still I did not slow my pace.
Not even as the ratcheting heart inside my chest threatened to give way wholly and completely to the panic swelling in that blood now dripping down my calves as I lifted my skirts so as to not hinder my steps.
Racing past sky high conifers and live oaks that stretched so high their leaves and pine needles blotted out the full blue above, the turning of the seasons bled into my surroundings and only then did I realize my grave mistake.
I had waited too long.
Marlisa and her husband, Drevan, along with the child growing in my sister's stomach would have to get as far away from me as they could.
They couldn't be associated with me any longer.
I'd run away in the night if I had to, but I refused to continue being a danger to her and her unborn child any longer.
I slowed as the signs of the small village we'd settled into upon arriving too long ago came into view, and I threaded my fingers through the hair on my sweat soaked head rife with twigs and small branches decorating the pale auburn color it held once it was properly washed and cleaned.
Too long.
We'd been living in relative peace amongst the innocent people in the villages decorating the land around Avanth for too long, and even though the land was a few week's trek and a boat ride away from the king, no matter where I ran, how far I trudged—somehow, someway, he still found a way to sink his talons into me.
The wind ruffled my skirts and sent a breeze flitting through the air scented with baking bread and that undeniable fragrance of the harvest.
The weather would turn, and I'd need to travel farther south to reach the warmer climate toward the Port of Barron, maybe even stow away on a ship bound for the Irenic Ocean and the unheard of continents to the West, somewhere even the king couldn't find me, if somewhere like that even existed.
