All the King's-Men (The Yellow Hoods #3)

Head and Heart - Chapter 1, Part 1

"I'm coming with you," said Richy adamantly. "Bakon and you are family to me. I'm coming."

Egelina-Marie smiled proudly at the yellow-cloaked young man. It seemed like an eternity ago that he'd come running up to her in a flash of yellow on her first day of guard patrol. He'd been so nervous and desperate when he'd asked for her and the sergeant's help to save Nikolas Klaus. Her smile grew as she remembered taking the leap of faith to follow him, and how her superior threatened to shoot her for it.

That scared boy, who had quickly become a haunted teen, now stood before her as a young man of conviction. His electric blue, almond-shaped eyes and yellow, hooded cloak contrasted sharply with the old brown ledger under his arm and the Ginger Lady's decrepit house behind him.

Egelina-Marie stared at the ledger. How could so much ill have come from such an old thing so quickly, she wondered. "I can't begin to imagine what that moment was like for you."

Richy folded his shoulders in and tucked his head down, as if bracing himself against the icy-cold truth that threatened to hit him again. "It..." He paused, lost for a moment. "I'm glad Bakon was there."

"I should have been there, too," Eg replied. "I can't—"

"Honestly," interrupted Richy, an awkward expression on his face. "I think it was easier for me to just be with Bakon. To have him be the one to tell me that ten years ago I was sold to the Ginger Lady, to help me understand that for two months I lived in a place like that... it made it easier for me to hear it from him. Is that wrong?"

Egelina-Marie gave him a hug and kissed him on the forehead. His words lightened her emotional burden. "Did you have any sense from him what he was thinking? That he suspected that maybe he and his brothers were in those ledgers somewhere?"

A look of guilty disappointment stared back at her as she released him from the hug. "I couldn't think straight. He was my anchor. I—"

"Hey," she said, wiping the fledgling tears from her eyes. "You are amazing. Don't forget that. I don't know what I would have done in your situation." She'd seen something in Bakon's eyes when she'd arrived with his brothers to pick up him and Richy. She should have suspected something when he'd insisted on catching up with them, rather than leaving with them immediately for Mineau. She was disappointed in herself for letting the man she loved run into the arms of his greatest insecurity alone.

A gunshot startled Egelina-Marie back to the present.

"What was that?" asked Richy.

Eg scanned the forest and clearing, finding nothing. Remembering a trick her father had taught her, she closed her eyes and turned her head slowly, trying to remember where the sound had come from.

Another shot rang out and Egelina-Marie pointed sharply. "There," she said, opening her eyes. "I'd guess that it's at least two parties shooting at each other. We need to check it out."

"Are you sure?" said Richy, willing to back her, but nervous.

"For all we know, this whole area is about to get overwhelmed with more foreign soldiers. Richy, can you find us a ladder to a canopy bridge to take us toward the shots?"

"Yeah, I'm on it," he replied, pulling his hood down and running off to study the surrounding trees in detail.

Egelina-Marie quickly walked her horse over to a tree and tied it up. She freed the repeating rifle from its saddle strapping and checked it: there were only two shots left. "Richy?" she called out, glancing around.

"Over here!" he yelled, a surprising distance away.

As she approached the tree, she marveled at how hard it was to see the ladder carved into the large tree's trunk, even up close. The bark had regrown over it perfectly, and though it had clearly been used recently, it looked perfectly natural.