Page 9 of The Iron Hex

“I missed you too,” Hugo said, patting the gelding’s neck quickly before throwing Eira onto the saddle, feeling his body stir as he grabbed her waist. “But we need a quick escape, buddy.”

The horse whinnied, and Hugo heard the clanking of plate armor in the distance.

“Shit,” he muttered before jumping on the horse in front of Eira and cracking the reins. He felt her thick arms wrap around his waist and instantly felt a rush of heat at her touch. He’d dreamed of this moment for so long, but in these circumstances, he couldn’t truly enjoy the moment.

“Let’s go, Arthur,” he said, shaking his head to clear it as the horse ran out of the stables.

“You’re going to need to hold on tight, my lady.” Hugo could see members of the Iron Retinue in the middle distance.

“Stop!” they shouted, running toward him and Eira.

“Go, Arthur!” Hugo said as Arthur broke into a gallop toward the open road out of Cilirien.

“Are those knights from the capital?” Eira asked, clutching Hugo’s waist as she looked back at the soldiers chasing them. “Why did they attack the Honeyed Horn?”

“I don’t really want to stick around to find out,” Hugo said as they kicked up a cloud of dust in their wake, not ready to explain that he was the reason they were here.

He could hear the soldiers’ shouts waning, and he looked back to see Eira watching the lights of Cilirien fade into the distance.

Before long, Hugo directed Arthur to take them off of the Empire’s Road. He remembered a stream from when he had first come into Cilirien. They could use it to hide their scent and tracks and, hopefully, the Iron Retinue would lose their trail altogether.

He listened as Eira’s ragged breaths slowed to a normal rate, leaving just the sound of Arthur’s hooves beating into the ground and rattling tree branches as they sped past. Hugo strained his ears, searching for any sound in the night that wasn’t them tearing through the forest.

The woods were blissfully quiet.

After riding through the shallow river for a few moments, Hugo headed northwest. There were a half a dozen smaller townsbetween Cilirien and Redfield; he figured he’d better skip to the second or third just to be safe.

“Where are we going?” Eira finally spoke, making Hugo tense. He’d almost forgotten she was there, her with her rabbit and her strange behavior, pretending not to know him.

He didn’t answer, kicking Arthur into a gallop and hoping they could get to somewhere safe so that they could sleep and warm up—it was nearing winter, and neither of them had dressed for a long night outside.

She elbowed him and he winced, grumbling.

“Don’t do that when I’m steering a horse,” he snarled.

“Answer me or I’m going to find the first member of the Iron Retinue wherever you take me and tell them you kidnapped me,” she huffed indignantly.

“I explained that you were in danger, and you needed to come with me, and you did—that’s hardly kidnapping,” Hugo said.Ugh, he thought.This may have been a massive mistake.Hugo still wasn’t sure what game Eira was playing with her pretense that he was a stranger... but she was playing it convincingly.

“I’m taking us to a town so that we can sleep, but it can’t be the first town after Cilirien because the Iron Retinue is going to be looking for us,” he explained as he bit down his desire to call her out for her games.

“Why are they looking for you?” she questioned again. “I’m not stupid. The Iron Retinue doesn’t care about a little potions witch in a town like Cilirien. I’m no elemental caster.”

“Now that you’ve been seen with me, they’ll be looking for you too,” Hugo said, dodging the question and speeding Arthur into a gallop again. He could vaguely see the town he’d stayed in a few nights ago through the trees, which meant they were about a quarter of the way to their destination. He heard Eira open her bag and start whispering to the rabbit to soothe the creature as what he had just told her sat between them in a silence that felt heavier than any he’d felt before.

“Oh. Fantastic,” Eira said before letting them fall into silence again.

Hugo hoped desperately that the late night would carry them through the forest with no issue, and as quickly as possible, because he wasn’t ready to have any more conversations with Eira tonight.

The two fell into a strained silence—Hugo could feel how much Eira wanted to say something, but after a short while, the weight of her behind Hugo’s back became heavier as she fell asleep on him. His life was about to get much more complex, and Hugo wasn’t exactly sure how happy he was about that.

7

Eira

Eira woke to a shake from the man she’d left Cilirien with the night before, and a feeling of panic that still lingered in her mind from a shadowy figure in the dream that had just been interrupted. In a moment, it all came rushing back to her. The bar, the beautiful man, the Iron Retinue, the two of them fleeing town. She panicked, reaching for Pennyroyal and feeling a familiar head poke out of the bag, nibbling lightly on her fingers before jumping into her arms.

“Are you going to get down?” the newly familiar voice of Hugo said. He stood next to his horse, motioning to let Eira know he was going to help her down.