Chapter XV • Clemence

“Eternal suffering…” I mutter to myself as I pull back the hemp bowstring to nock an arrow. “That is what they all deserve… They will pay for what they did to their own kin.”

When I release the bowstring, the arrow flies past my head and into the hay target thirty paces away from me. The arrow lands just slightly off the middle ring. I curse under my breath.

I risked my life just to escape the manor. I was hurt, alone, and in a half-naked state.

I suffocated the man I was to wed to death beforehand. I jumped across my window, latched onto the old oak tree across it, and climbed down. I knew not where to go, but I had to get out of what was once called my home. Going around the entire manor’s walls was no easy task; I had to ensure that I was not going to be seen or caught, so I took the perilous route— nearer the valley.

Right when I went past the forest’s edge, this band of rebels found me, and took me in. If it hadn’t been for the healer they were with, I would have been left to