1. Sage

CHAPTER 1

Sage

"Bring your guard up. Your guard!" the armsmaster of Herstind Castle yelled, his sharp words carrying from the far side of the bailey all the way to the step outside the kitchen door where I sat.

My pulse jumped. Yelling like that could only mean one thing: the armsmaster was training my younger brother in the middle of the day's sweltering heat.

I dropped the potato I'd been scrubbing back into the bucket and jerked to my feet, but Udara, the Herstind Keep cook who sat beside me also scrubbing vegetables, grabbed my wrist, stopping me.

"It's your stepfather's command," she said, shading eyes too wide with fear against the glaring sun and glancing up at the hazy summer sky. "No one would train in this heat if they were given a choice. Pylos isn't a fool."

She was right. The Herstind Keep armsmaster was a gruff man, as rough and cruel as my stepfather, but not a fool. And neither was my stepfather.

"He isn't even trying to hide his intentions anymore." I yanked my wrist free, grabbed a fist-full of skirt in each hand to avoid tripping, and raced around the keep, praying that this time wouldn't be the time where Sawyer's body gave out on him.

He was all I had left and as much as I wanted to runaway from our stepfather's rule, I wasn't going to leave him behind.

Except if things kept going the way they were, if our stepfather, Lord Edred Wyare, Marquis of Herstind March, got his way, Sawyer would die just like our parents and other brother had.

His sword training, or rather his beatings since there was no way he'd ever have the stamina to become a good swordsman, had been coming more and more frequently, giving him less time to recover between lessons.

And while our stepfather told his soldiers — who were no better than the brigands we defended the March from — that he was making a man of Sawyer, everyone, including the soldiers, knew Edred was really hoping the lessons would kill him. He was, after all, Edred's heir, a point of shame Edred constantly reminded Sawyer of.

And things had only gotten worse this spring when Edred married his new wife. She could give him an heir of his own blood, and while she wasn't pregnant yet, she was young enough — younger than me by a few years even — and Edred must have felt confident she soon would be and wasn't going to keep Sawyer around.

Especially since Sawyer would turn sixteen next season and be able to petition the king to get our father's land back. The land Edred only controlled because he'd married our mother. Edred wasn't the marquis by birth and Sawyer was, and that meant Edred's time of running the March into poverty was almost at an end.

If Sawyer survived.

Which was why Edred was doing everything in his power to ensure Sawyer had an unfortunate accident. He couldn't just kill Sawyer. That would draw suspicion from the throne and the king could send inquisitors to look into the matter.

And while I loved my brother dearly and knew he wasn't an idiot, he was a complete fool when it came to our family's land.

He should just run away. We wouldn't have much — there wasn't much left in the keep we could take and sell — but we'd at least be away from Edred.

But Sawyer wasn't going to allow Edred to continue ruling our people through fear, and he wasn't going to let the brigands hiding in the wastelands at the edge of our boarder continue growing in number. Herstind was already poor, the wild, rugged land hard to farm, and Edred had pretty much pillaged his own people to provide himself with the lavish lifestyle he'd adopted the moment our mother had died eight years ago.

"It won't stop until you bring up your guard," Pylos yelled. "Defend yourself."

My pulse pounded faster. If Pylos was telling Sawyer to defend himself that meant the man was likely whacking away at him, as if that would somehow make Sawyer regain his bearings and his breath and figure out how to fight back.

Which was ridiculous. Yes, fighters needed to be push past their limit to grow, but Sawyer could trip over his own feet without moving. Beating him relentlessly and expecting him to fight back wasn't going to work. He just wasn't at that skill level and I doubted he ever would be.

I rounded the corner and stumbled.

It wasn't Pylos fighting Sawyer. He stood to the side, leaning against the stable wall, his arms crossed, his weathered, deeply tanned face twisted with a satisfied sneer, watching as our stepfather whacked the flat of his blade against the side of Sawyer's unprotected head.

My brother staggered and fell to one knee, and it was clear, even though they were on the far side of the bailey near the stables, he was fighting to breathe.

"Get up," Edred snarled, his big, burly form towering over Sawyer.

Despite the fact Edred was training, he wore his regular clothes, a loose-fitting cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and half the buttons undone, revealing the thick scars crisscrossing his large chest. He usually had at least two days worth of scruff on his chin, cheeks, and scalp, but today his skin was smooth — likely because he'd known he'd be training during the day's hottest hours.

As usual, he fought with his regular heavy two-handed sword, the blade always sharp and ready and not a blunt practice weapon, partly because he didn't care if he hurt Sawyer and partly because with Sawyer's meager skill level, he'd have no problem controlling the fight and doubted he'd accidentally kill him.

It was the ‘didn't care if he hurt him' part that made me furious, and I knew the only reason our mother had married Edred was because she'd needed a husband to rule the March, and he'd been a general for the King's army and had the strongest political connections as well as martial and tactical training.

That and His Majesty had pushed for Edred. And while our mother had lived, he'd been fine… or maybe I'd just been too young and naive to have noticed the truth about him.

Sawyer, on the other hand, was his opposite in every way, his frame slight, his features, like mine, sharp. On me they called it refined, if a little too severe to be beautiful. On him they called it overly feminine — which was another reason Edred found Sawyer wanting as a man.

At a quick glance strangers assumed we were twins even though he was five years younger than me. We had the same small build and brown eyes that, depending on the light, were flecked with green, the same red hair more commonly seen on northerners, and the same pale skin that burned in a heartbeat if we weren't careful. All of which we'd gotten from our mother. Unlike Edred, Sawyer was weighed down with a heavily padded practice tunic that was supposed to protect him, but really meant that Pylos, or in this case Edred, could hit him harder without fear of breaking skin.

"Get up," Edred barked.

Sawyer coughed and gasped and struggled to stand, but Edred didn't wait. He smashed his blade against Sawyer's back, toppling him forward and drawing a strangled, phlegmy cry.

"You're making this too easy." He whacked Sawyer again and again, not giving him the chance to get up, and I knew from having faced the brunt of Edred's cruel nature that Sawyer's world was reeling. I couldn't imagine all that on top of not being able to breathe.

Another whack and Sawyer dropped his sword, curled in on himself, and covered his head.

"Get. Up," Edred snarled, his ruddy face even redder with the heat.

Great Father above, I had to stop this. Edred took pleasure in suffering, and while I'd thought he wouldn't outright kill Sawyer, watching him hit my brother again and again as his expression brightened with wicked glee made me doubt my initial assumption.

Maybe this was the day Edred wouldn't care what the king thought. Maybe he'd figured out how to dispose of Sawyer's body and not raise suspicion… which meant he'd have figured out how to dispose of me as well, since he knew I'd go to the king myself to beg for justice if Sawyer went missing. It wouldn't matter that I was just a woman. I'd create so much trouble, be so loud and disobedient that someone would have to listen to me.

"Useless child," he spat, raising his blade and turning his wrist so he'd strike with the sharpened edge.

"No." I bolted toward them. I didn't have time to beg as expected of me, and I doubted Edred would even notice me if I acted like I was supposed to.