I’m really glad I’m not still on top of the wall, because I flinch on instinct at the sudden sound. All three of us look over as a soldier stalks toward us. He’s wearing Ranhold’s armor and a purple cloak, but none of that is as well-tailored as the deep-cut scowl on his face.
Lowe tilts his chin practically down to his chest. “The Gilded Lady was just wanting to take in the view, Captain.”
Displeasure rolls down my skin like beads of water and I shoot Lowe a look. Now all of a sudden I’m the Gilded Lady?
A stony gaze falls onto me as the man stops in front of us. “Well, she can take in the view through a window. The parapet is not a place for females to be carousing around.”
“Of course, Captain,” Lowe quickly says in deference. “We’ll leave straight away.”
Maybe I’m overreacting, but a wave of irritation rushes over me. Why is it so easy for everyone to boss me around and dictate my actions? Everyone always expects me to bend, to behave, and for some reason, right now it just rubs me the wrong way. It nudges at some perched temper inside of me until I feel a budding animosity flexing its wings, talons stretching out with ruffled ire.
I’ve realized that there are so many different kinds of cages, and if I want to stay out of them all, then I have a fight ahead of me. Because the world will keep on trying to leash me, men will continue trying to steer me in their grips of control. So I can’t just roll over every time. I can’t let that repressed temper of indignation sit stuck on that perch.
The goddesses made me a female. War made me an orphan. Midas made me a saddle. Up until now, those things have roped me. I’ve let myself be bridled, jerked around this way and that. But I’m sick and tired of gnawing on that bit at the back of my jaw with every tug of the reins.
Which is why I look the captain steadily in the eye and say, “We will not leave yet. I’ll go when I’m ready.”
The steel in my voice has the men looking at me with disbelief. They didn’t expect me to do anything other than what I’m told. They don’t have to say it, because it’s there in their eyes.
The captain is the first to recover, giving me a scathing look that’s so dry I’m surprised it doesn’t peel right off his face. “You will leave now, madam. The wall is for soldiers only, not females, and quite frankly, you are not welcome here.”
I’m not welcome here, as in the wall, or here as in Fifth Kingdom?
I give a cursory look around. “Are we so high up that your manners have evaporated, Captain?”
His expression is stony enough to rival the bricks we stand on. “You may be the golden girl of Sixth Kingdom, but here, you’re just a female who’s on my wall without permission. You need to leave,” he says, eyes as hard as his tone. “You wouldn’t want to get hurt out here, would you?”
My temper bristles, like feathers puffing up. “Are you threatening me?”
“You wouldn’t be the first trespasser to fall off the wall.”
I stare at the man in shock. His words might seem innocuous, but his eyes imply something much darker.
The unfurling temper of mine takes flight into full blown anger, gliding through me with a swoop, and it screeches the challenge of a sinister song. Let it be a threat.
“Fall? Or get escorted over the edge by a domineering wall captain?” I lob back.
Beside me, I feel my guards stiffen, feel the tension pull taut between all four of us. But I only have eyes for the arrogant captain whose mouth tightens, cold-chapped lips pressing together in a hard line of offense. “Of course not, and hysterics such as this are proof enough that you have no business up here where one needs to keep their wits about them.”
Hysterics? I can show him hysterics.
“Leave, madam.”
My spine snaps straight. “No.”
The sudden standoff between this stranger and me calcifies, fusing my dug-in heels right where I stand. I should probably just go, since I was going to leave anyway, but because he’s ordering me, because he’s sneering at me, I just can’t.
The captain scoffs, but the noise is stunted, the cockiness cut off at the knees with too much time passed between. “No more of this foolishness,” he says dismissively. “You are interrupting my duty and taking up my valuable time.”
I don’t point out that he was the one who interrupted me. “By all means, go do your super important duty of wall-watching, Captain. You’re blocking my view,” I say with a fake smile.
He matches me, stubbornness to stubbornness. I don’t know whether I’m more irritated or darkly glad.
His voice lowers. “Leave now, or I will remove you myself.”
A polluted laugh fumes from my chest, and I lean in toward him before I can stop myself. “Go on. I dare you.” My eyes burn with the flash of my challenge, my pupils taking on the heat of this airborne rage, and I want him to. I want him to try to grab me, to try to move me. Because right now, unaccountable violence is screeching through my veins and tightening the ribbons at my spine.
Do it, I chant wordlessly.