Laena spotted soldiers patrolling not far from the area where she and her husband had been hiding as she made her way back to the small house they had been staying in. The moment she saw the armored men moving through the village, her blood ran cold.
Without hesitation, she darted off the road before any of them could notice her and slipped behind the crumbling remains of an abandoned stone wall, crouching low among the tangled weeds that had grown around it. There, she remained perfectly still, scarcely daring to breathe as the king's soldiers passed nearby. Every creak of leather and clink of armor seemed deafening in the silence.
