The Ranger of Marzanna (The Goddess War #1) - Jon Skovron Page 0,3

fiery explosion.

“Absolutely not!” his father said. “I forbid you to use magic. That would be playing right into their hands.”

Before his father could explain further, the soldiers knocked the door off its hinges and the wardrobe fell forward with a loud crash.

His father squeezed his shoulder. “I have told you what to do, Sebastian! Go now!” Then he placed himself between Sebastian and the soldiers, his sword held at the ready.

“Mother…” Sebastian turned to where she was huddled on the bed.

“Listen to your father,” she said in a pinched voice, her eyes glistening with tears behind a curtain of long, snow-white hair. “Go!”

He gritted his teeth, feeling the hot shame of helplessness fill his throat as he yanked open the window and climbed out onto the ledge. The clang of steel on steel rang behind him as he half slid, half fell down the side of the house and into a snowdrift. Since he was only dressed in a shirt and trousers, the harsh, biting chill of winter suffused him immediately. He stumbled to his feet, shook the snow from his clothes, then turned in the direction of Olga Slanikova’s farm.

Except his father had underestimated the imperial soldiers. Sebastian only took two steps before the tip of a sword appeared inches from his throat.

“The commander said to take you alive, unless you resisted,” growled the soldier with the sword. He was flanked on either side by several more soldiers, all with swords drawn. “Are you going to resist?”

Above, the sounds of combat from the bedroom window ceased. Then he heard his mother scream out his father’s name, followed by her heartbroken sob.

Sebastian closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “If you give your word not to harm my mother, I will come without a fight.”

The soldier nodded approvingly. “That’s a good boy.”

Sebastian almost lashed out at him for that. People were forever calling him a “good boy,” or worse, a mama’s boy, and it was never a compliment. But it was precisely to protect his mother that he kept himself in check.

The soldier whistled shrilly. “Bring the old lady out unharmed!”

Sebastian stood shivering silently in the cold with his captors as two soldiers emerged from the house holding his mother between them. Her long hair was disheveled, but she walked with her usual quiet dignity toward Sebastian. She had never been one to show weakness.

The lead soldier looked to see if there were any more soldiers coming, then grunted. “Did we lose the rest?”

One of the men escorting Sebastian’s mother nodded tersely.

The soldier looked impressed. “Pretty good for an old guy. I’d heard stories about Giovanni the Wolf but figured they were mostly exaggeration.” He shrugged, as if he found the loss of life of little import. “Let’s move out. The commander is expecting us back at the garrison by morning.”

The soldiers placed Sebastian and his mother in the back of a carriage with bars on the windows and a door that locked from the outside. But it was surprisingly comfortable inside. Sebastian and his mother sat across from each other on benches padded with soft quilting, and there were several thick wool blankets to keep them warm during the journey.

Sebastian immediately pulled one of the blankets over his shoulders, but he noticed that his mother merely sat there, shivering as she stared blankly into a corner of the carriage. Sebastian leaned forward and draped a blanket across her back.

She gave him a sad but grateful smile as she took the edges of the blanket in her hands. “Thank you, dear.”

“Are you okay, Mother?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

“My Giovanni is dead,” she said quietly. “His loss feels like a limb has been severed from my body.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

Even as he said the words, Sebastian realized with an odd shock that he wasn’t as grieved by his father’s loss as he was by the pain it caused her. It was true that he had never been close with his father. For all their arguing, his sister had always been much closer to the man. Even so, surely Sebastian should feel more than fleeting grief for the death of a man who had sacrificed everything, including his life, for him.

His mother reached out her hand, her skin so pale he could see the blue veins beneath. He took it in his own hands and tried to warm it.

“Don’t worry about me, my son,” she said. “Your father is dead, and now you must be your own man and make your