Eloise caught the rustling sound and held her breath, straining to listen.
In a night forest, such noises were ordinary enough. A rabbit creeping from its burrow, a fox stalking that rabbit. Mice skittering through the underbrush, a snake threading silently after them. She knew this perfectly well—and yet the sound that reached her now brought no comfort.
She loosened the reins and pressed her palm lightly against the horse's flank.
It was the signal for speed.
The horse understood, and tried to oblige, but the forest made it difficult. The road had narrowed to little more than a dirt track, rutted and uneven underfoot, and the dense summer canopy swallowed even the thin moonlight that had guided her path. The familiar route she usually rode without a second thought felt different tonight—strange and close, as though the trees themselves were leaning in.
*Just yesterday she'd ridden this same stretch with Sergeant Thornton, talking of nothing in particular, not even noticing the miles slip by...*
"We need to hurry."
She said it aloud, as though someone rode beside her, and urged the horse on.
*Once I clear the forest, I can push harder.* Rushing now was foolish—a hidden stone or rut could send the horse stumbling, and a fall out here, alone, would be far worse than whatever was making that sound.
The forest sat roughly halfway between Feltham and Blissbury. If something went wrong here, help lay equally far in either direction.
Eloise drew a slow breath and steadied herself, coaxing her horse forward with careful, deliberate steps.
*Shrrk.*
The sound came again—closer this time. Sharper.
"Who's there?"
She spoke clearly, deliberately, projecting her voice into the dark. Forest creatures startled at human sound and bolted. Whatever this was did neither. It drew nearer.
Eloise fixed her eyes on the tree line ahead. The path was ending. Beyond it, open road stretched silver under the moon.
*Just reach it. That's all.*
She leaned forward, heels ready to press—
A dark shape erupted from the treeline.
The horse screamed and reared, lurching sideways, and Eloise threw herself forward over its neck, fingers knotting in the reins, fighting to keep her seat. A large figure circled in the darkness. A man.
The horse continued to thrash and rear, hooves striking the air. The man knew the danger—he threw himself clear, then something caught the moonlight.
*A blade.*
He swung low, aiming for the horse's leg. The horse twisted away, instinct saving it, but the animal's terror had surpassed reason now. It reared again—higher—and Eloise, grip finally failing, was thrown.
She struck the ground hard.
The impact scattered stars across her vision, pain crashing through her in a cold wave. For a moment there was nothing but the sky wheeling overhead and the sound of her own ragged breathing.
*Get up.*
Her body obeyed before her mind had fully caught up. Everything ached, but she could move—nothing broken, by some mercy.
No time to be grateful for it.
The horse's screaming hoofbeats faded back down the road, away from the man, away from her. She chose the opposite direction and ran.
Toward Feltham. Toward anything.
One shoe caught and tore free somewhere in the dark. She didn't slow.
"Damn it—stop!"
The voice behind her was rough, unfamiliar, male. The sound of it drove her faster. *Unfamiliar.* Some distant part of her mind noted this as almost a mercy—if she'd recognized it, the fear would have been something worse entirely.
Heavy footfalls thundered behind her. They were faster than hers.
*The deserter—they said he'd been caught. Had he escaped again?*
The thought dissolved the moment a hand seized her by the hair and wrenched her backwards.
She cried out as the ground came up to meet her, the fall punishing in the same way the first had been. Her vision swam. The man's fist tightened in her hair and pulled, and the pain was sharp enough to drag her fully back to herself.
Then he let go.
Eloise curled on the ground, trembling.
"Make a sound," the man said, crouching over her, "and I'll cut your throat. Understood?"
Something glinted at the edge of her vision. She turned her head slowly.
A dagger—short, corroded, the blade jagged with age and neglect. And from him, a smell: unwashed skin, old sweat, the particular rankness of someone who had lived rough for a long time. She'd caught that smell before, from the wandering nomads that passed through Cambon.
Eloise pressed her teeth together and raised her eyes.
As her pulse began to slow, so did her vision clear. She took in his clothes properly for the first time.
A military uniform. Old, filthy, falling apart at the seams—but unmistakable.
*Deserter.*
The word settled in her chest like a stone. He had training, however degraded. She could not fight him outright.
She stayed where she was, still and silent, giving him nothing to react to.
Stories surfaced unbidden in her memory. The deserter had begun with food—stealing quietly from farmhouses, vanishing before anyone could give chase. Then the thefts had grown uglier. A traveler's horse, killed in the road. The man stripped of everything he carried. *Everything.*
A cold crawl moved down her spine.
"Food?" the man grunted.
She shook her head. She had none.
"Then hand over everything valuable."
Eloise reached back, unclasped her saddlebag, and set it carefully on the ground between them.
He snatched it up, turned it over, shook it out. The contents scattered across the dirt: a handkerchief, a small notebook, a fountain pen, a slim collection of parables. Hardly a fortune. But coins rattled among the rest, and he gathered them quickly, fingers hunting through the grass for any he might have missed.
Eloise used the moment to look around.
She already knew what she would find. For weeks now, this road had been empty when she rode it home, even at far more reasonable hours. No passing carts. No other riders. No one.
*Run?*
She discarded it almost immediately. He was faster. She'd already proven that. And the distance to any shelter was too great.
*Then hope he takes the coins and goes.*
But when she looked at his face—at the way his eyes moved over her, restless and calculating—she knew he wouldn't. The coins weren't what he was deciding about now.
He pocketed the notebook and the pen along with the money, apparently on principle, then drew the dagger again and turned it slowly in his hand.
The silence stretched.
*Beg? Scream?*
Neither sat right. And beneath the fear, something harder was forming—fury at herself for sitting here helpless, fury at the situation, fury at the memory of a conversation from a year ago.
*If only I had a gun.*
Her father had asked, before leaving for the capital, whether she needed anything. He'd mentioned it himself—young women there had started carrying weapons, given how things had deteriorated. Her mother had found the whole idea horrifying. And Eloise had faltered when she heard the price, turned the thought over, set it aside.
She had never regretted anything more completely than she regretted that moment now.
Eloise pressed her lips together.
She could not sit here and mourn what she didn't have. She had to work with what she did.
Her heel found something solid in the dirt beneath her. A stone—large, heavy, angular. She felt its edges without looking down.
*That's it. That's all there is.*
The deserter lunged.
Eloise dropped sideways, letting his hands close on empty air, and in the same motion swept the stone from the ground.
"Oh, you—!"
He twisted back toward her, reaching again, and then—
"Eloise!"
A voice cut through the dark from somewhere behind her.
It was Ryan.