The battle continued the whole night and the corpses stacking outside my tent were too eye-catching. Now it was obvious. The thieves were taking notice of their brothers being killed and pilled outside, so they decided to set fire to my tent to lure me out. How naïve of them, I had already lost count of the corpses behind.
"Ha, so this is the famous bride of the Great Duke of Docrem."
Hum, so this is the thieves' leader. Somehow, I pictured him differently, of course, he was an ugly-looking middle-aged man with a large tattoo on his right arm. But it was the symbol of a mercenary clan, a skull pierced by a dagger. For sure, they weren't normal thieves.
Suddenly, the knights surrounded Irina and me, and the Duke stood in front of me as if he were sheltering me.
Were they protecting me? How funny.
"Your Highness, my men are surrounding this camp, and more are coming, you should know what is best for you and hand over the seal."
Now I understand! That's how such a simple group of thieves dared to stop the Grand Duke and his knights for so long. In the novel, it was mentioned that the Duke's greatest enemy was his brother, the King. He wanted something in the Duke's possession, it was a kind of power he inherited from his mother in the form of a seal.
"Who sent you?"
"You don't need to know Duke, what you need to know is that a hundred more men are coming for your head to take part in the reward, so what do you wish to do?"
The Duke's knights were exhausted and injured, one of them mortally wounded. The so-called thieves were not in good condition either, however, they were many times more and were waiting for reinforcements. We won't be able to escape, and I have the hunch that the soldiers would leave me behind if they had to. Well, I could escape on my own with Irina, but it will be dawn soon, and I don't want to attract unnecessary attention. What to do?
"The seal, Duke, don't let us waste time!"
"Your Highness, leave quickly, we'll stall for time." A brave knight with a deep scar in his eye whispered. The other knights turned to look at the Duke and nodded. What a cute group of big loyal soldiers. Well, of course, that didn't matter to me, since the only way the Duke had to leave was to go alone. I bet they never once thought of letting me escape with him.
"Miss Lucia, we should hide in the forest." Oh, my dear and cute Irina, she is so loyal to me.
Thinking about the plot of the novel. It is true, the knights sacrificed themselves for the Duke's sake, but he never abandoned them, he fought with them till the end, while Lucia remained hidden all the time in the darkness of the forest. After a long and intense battle, some troops of the Crotia Kingdom and the Princess's knights caught up with the Duke and helped him. I can't clearly remember how she knew that he was in danger, but the novel did mention how the Duke resented Lucia for not helping his knights when he discovered she was powerful enough to exterminate the whole bunch of thieves.
Should I help them? He wanted me to die a few hours before and his men never extended a hand to help me, no one ever stood by my tent from the beginning. Why should I help them? Why should the Lucia from the book help them?
Goodness! I took a deep breath and cleared my throat, but nobody paid me any attention. I felt so ridiculous about what I was about to do.
"Duke, I don't care about your knights' lives nor yours, I care for Irina's life and mine, so this time I will help you, just this time, did you hear me, asshole? After this, you owe me one."
Now the whole bunch of thieves looked at me in surprise, and let out chuckles and mockeries. Then I felt the murderous gazes from the knights that wanted to chop me into pieces for my disrespectful tone, but when they turned to look at me carefully, they were stunned. After all, I looked completely different from a few hours before.
Then, the next moment, I dropped my cape, and my long, beautiful black hair came loose swinging with the soft breeze of the night. The thieves and the knights were enchanted, I knew it was a gorgeous sight. Even the Duke turned to look at me with deep eyes.
"This is a deal Duke, do you agree?"
"What can you do woman? Don't joke around and shut up!" One of the knights shouted, he had woken up from the enchantment and the others followed him too, then hurled insults and harsh comments at me. The Duke stayed silent and turned to face the leader of the mercenaries.
Ha, is he ignoring me? Well, I should start now before sunrise.
Without warning, my shadows helped me turn off the flames making the entire camp dark and cold. Nothing was visible, only the soft moonlight while the temperature was dropping almost to freezing.
"What's going on?!"
The painful screams from the thieves and bones breaking invaded the hearts of the knights. I could feel their fear growing as the blood in their veins flowed faster each second. The knights surrounded the Duke in a protective human barrier, completely forgetting about Irina and me, who should have been behind them.