Chapter 98

ISABELLA

After Charles’ dismissal, I did not quite know what to do with myself.

I made my way back to the main area of camp, the noise of the men preparing for battle drowning out the hateful thoughts in my head. A few of the men jeered at me as I passed them, making no secret of the way they looked my body up and down.

“Whore,” one of the soldiers spat as I walked past him. I held my head high and kept moving. I tried not to let their words bother me, but I knew they would never see me as anything more than the army slut.

Even if Charles made me his queen, I would never earn their respect.

I sat alone in a tent while Charles’ army marched away. It was not long before I heard the shouts and cries of battle, the sounds of dragons diving towards the earth and breathing fire. It was fitting, perhaps, to sit there, completely abandoned. I had given up everything to support his dreams and now I was finally faced with the gravity of my decisions.

My countrymen were dying around me. No matter what Charles said, I was Fresonian. This conflict did not change my home, my heritage. And it pained me to hear my fellow Fresonians quite literally going up in flames.

A good woman would have looked at the destruction around her and fled. In fact, a good woman would have left long before this. A good woman would have never tried to poison Felix, would have never tormented Mila, would have never sworn her undying fidelity to a traitor.

But I was not a good woman. I was stupid and selfish and a pawn in the games of powerful men.

I allowed my mind to drift to Charles. He was a bitter, complicated man, and while I agreed that it was a shame he had been looked over by his family for so long, I would be lying if I said that his extremism didn’t concern me. I could never commit myself to Dragon Knight supremacy or tolerate the extermination of civilians. But the worst part of all of this was that I did truly, genuinely love him.

The night before, we’d had rough, almost violent sex. This was par for the course with Charles. He was not a man who wasted time or energy on sweet nothings or gentle kisses. He wanted to use me for his own pleasure and then dispose of me when he was done. I had once enjoyed his more improper methods, but now I just felt disgusted with myself.

I could not return to my old life, hanging around Felix like a puppy dog, hoping for his eventual love. I could not face my family, bringing them the shame of my misdeeds.

And I could not stay here, even if I did love Charles.

I tucked a few supplies into my pack–a change of clothes, some apples and protein bars, a few knives from the artillery–and walked out of the tent.

The acrid smell of smoke filled my lungs. I wrinkled my nose at the stench. The dragons had been unleashed.

Even from the encampment, I could see the edges of the fighting. Dragons dove and snapped at each other in midair. Foot soldiers were slaying each other on the ground. The river that marked the edge of the border was running red with blood.

There was no way I would be attempting a swim across the tainted waters, so I headed to the bridge into Barlow. I figured that once I crossed into Fresonia, it would be easy enough to skirt around the battle and make my way farther into the foothills. I wasn’t a particularly resourceful person, but I wasn’t stupid, either. I could survive for a few days.

As soon as I reached the bridge, the scene of burning flesh hit me like a brick wall. I fell to my knees on the ground, vomiting up the little breakfast I’d been able to stomach. Barlow was on fire, and its people with it.

But the bridge was my only path to freedom.

I summoned all my strength to race across the trading bridge, now sagging with the weight of abandoned cannons. As much as I did not want to go into Barlow and face the death there, something deep within me told me that I needed to go.

The village was ransacked. Houses were destroyed, by either dragonfire or human hands. Soldiers from Charles’ army were crawling over the village, taking whatever they wanted from the businesses and homes. Bodies littered the streets, either slashed or burned or both.

It was a horrific scene, and I had to fight the urge to throw up again. As I crept my way to the edge of the village, I ran straight into a woman fleeing.

“Miss!” she said, grabbing my arm. She spoke in the thick accent of the south. “You must come quickly! There are boats in the river come to save us!”

I looked back at the red waters, and my heart soared to see the small figures of boats making their way down the bends. When I saw the banners they were flying, my breathing stopped.

“Is that the royal fleet?” I managed to splutter out. “Why are they here?”

“The Princess has summoned them to rescue us,” the woman explained. “She threw herself into the fray to make sure we could all evacuate.”

My blood ran cold. “The Princess?”

“Princess Mila!” the woman exclaimed, seeing my confusion. “She has come here to save us!”

Mila was here?

“Where is the princess now?” I asked carefully. Surely she couldn’t still be in the village.

The woman frowned. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her. She’s probably pulling the last few souls out of the streets to get to the boats.”

My heart sank. Mila was in the village?

I looked over to see Mila pinned to the ground by one of the lesser nobles from Wisteria. He was clearly about to have his way with her, and she was crying out for help. No one was nearby to come to her aid.

No one but me.

You can’t leave her there, a voice in my head whispered.

Looking at her, lying pathetic on the ground, I realized something: maybe Mila was just as much of a pawn in this as I was. After all, the only reason she was involved in this whole mess was because she was Felix’s Destined Bride. It wasn’t as if she was able to make a ton of decisions from her own free will now that they were married.

She was just another woman to be used by the royals, same as me. Only she had made much better choices than I. She would either die or be completely and utterly destroyed here, giving her life for her people. She wasn’t even Fresonian-born, and yet, she was doing far more for the country than I ever did.

The soldier grabbed at her thighs. Mila whimpered, closing her eyes as if resigning herself to her grisly fate.

And as I stared at her, I knew I had to help her.