Only the Bold

…the way she had at Olivia’s home.

Maybe that was part of what made her want to find Genevieve so badly. She knew that someone who would just come there like that, demanding to see Royce, wouldn’t stop at that. She would never just go away. She rubbed the ring she wore again…

“I’m going down there,” Olivia declared, kicking her horse forward once more.

Haam was there, grabbing for the horse’s reins.

“My lady, you are not going down there,” he said.

“You don’t get to tell me what I will and won’t do,” Olivia snapped back, surprised by how she sounded, even to herself. “I have to do this. I need to—”

“We need to go home,” William cut in. “We’ve come too far. We’re right outside the enemy camp!”

“You can go home if you want,” Olivia snapped. She dismounted, heading off in the direction of the keep. “I’ll find a way to do this.”

“No,” Wells said. “It’s suicide.”

He and William dismounted and grabbed hold of Olivia, holding her back. It took everything Olivia had not to fight to break free and just run down there. She had to find Genevieve… she had to.

“My lady, this is not sensible!” Haam said. “We can’t just walk into the camp of the enemy, no matter the reason. Think, we have already achieved something to get this far. We have seen the forces that they have. If we get back now, we will be able to tell the others what we will be facing in the battle.”

“We don’t even know that the woman you’re looking for is there,” Wells said.

Olivia felt herself calming a little, and she was ashamed to admit that Wells’s point had a little more to do with it than Haam’s. If she had been able to see Genevieve there, Olivia suspected that she would have run down there, and that nothing would be able to stop her.

As it was, she could at least seek out some kind of certainty.

“You’re right,” she said. “But that just means that we can’t go back yet. We need proper sketches of what we’ve found, and we need to find out if there are any weaknesses to be seen. Come on.”

Brushing them away, she started to lead the way around the encampment. It meant that Olivia could look down, trying to find the thing that she truly wanted: a safe way in. There had to be one; with an army that size, it was impossible that everyone would be accounted for. There would be coming and going, with people delivering food from the surrounding farms and messages from the world beyond.

Olivia thought of the challenges that faced their army. They were gathering people every day, and that process was one that brought risks with it. Already, there had been plenty of chances for spies to slip in, and controlling the flow of people here looked as if it would be almost as bad. Perhaps if they could find some way to fit in with a group trying to join the king’s forces, she would be able to get into the keep, and from there, find her way to Genevieve…