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Maria had seen Jonathan’s reassuring smile; she had seen him reach out for her. He had forgiven her! The relief had rushed through her, but now everything was chaos.
When Gustaf had yelled: “Run!” she had wanted to run as well, but her legs were so stiff from the weeks in captivity that she couldn’t run that fast and only very clumsily. She had sought Anna’s hand and they had managed to get to relative safety behind Jonathan’s men. The men waiting further back in the clearing had joined them, but Gustaf had brought more men and it was clear that the fight wasn’t even.
She stopped on the edge of the forest and looked at them. Then looked at Anna who had a wild gaze in her eyes.
“Should we run...?” she asked.
Anna nodded slowly and they ran in between the bushes. There was no way they could help the men, other than not being taken captive again. They almost fell over someone hiding in between the shrubs. The wise woman, Elena. What was she doing here? Maria thought before she heard Gustaf shout:
“Stop, stop or I’ll kill him!”
Maria instinctively stopped, even though she had no way of knowing whether the command was directed at her or not. She ducked down in the bushes and slowly turned to see what was going on in the clearing.
It felt like her heart fell to the bottom of her stomach. Gustaf had overpowered Jonathan and was holding a knife to his throat. The fighting stopped.
Gustaf slowly walked backwards with his men and Jonathan, keeping his knife at his throat, while Jonathan’s men slowly moved the other way, giving them space.
Maria jumped up from the bushes. She could feel Anna trying to hold on to her, but she pried herself loose and ran into the clearing again, pushing Jonathan’s men aside and then standing in the middle of the clearing facing Jonathan and Gustaf. She could see the look of terror in Jonathan’s eyes, and she had to tear her gaze away and look at Gustaf instead.
“You will release him right now, Gustaf Helmholdt,” she said. “If you have any honor left in your body you will release him right now.”
“What makes you think that I will do as you say?” Gustaf asked with a smirk. For the first time Maria felt a pang of fear that the brother she had once known and loved might be gone forever.
“If not because I’m your queen, then because I’m your sister,” she said in a desperate voice. She was close to them now. Just a couple of feet.
Gustaf laughed in a sneering way. She suddenly remembered the times when he had jokingly said that she was his favorite sister – and she always dryly had added that she was the only one. They had both laughed. That brother was gone now.
“I don’t take orders from a woman,” he shouted and without saying anything else he moved the knife towards Jonathan’s chest.
Maria didn’t think. She simply lunged forward with enough force to tumble both men. Gustaf landed on the ground with both Jonathan and Maria on top of him. He let out a grunt, while Jonathan shrieked with pain. Maria saw the knife lodged in his shoulder.
The shoulder was bad. It was terribly bad. But it wasn’t his heart. It wasn’t his throat. He would live. Maria felt the relief wash over her.
Underneath her, both Jonathan and Gustaf were struggling to get up. Maria yanked the knife from Jonathan’s shoulder, causing him to shriek again.
“Be still, both of you,” she demanded as she held the knife to Gustaf’s throat. He looked at her with terror in his eyes.
“Maria, you would never...” he whispered.
“You were going to kill him, Gustaf,” she said slowly. “You were going to kill the man I love. If you had any notion of the child that I’m carrying, you would have killed that too. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you?”
“I’m your brother,” Gustaf whispered.
Maria shook her head. The tears were burning behind her eyes.
“Not anymore,” she whispered and pressed the blade hard enough into Gustaf’s neck to draw blood. He groaned with pain.
She should press harder. She knew that she should press harder. It would end all their problems, but to her annoyance, she felt her eyes starting to water.
“Don’t do it, Maria,” Jonathan whispered beneath her. One of his hands had come to rest on her hip. The sensation was so nice, so reassuring. “It shouldn’t be you. You shouldn’t have to kill your own brother.”
“No,” she said.
“Rosenkranz? Goodwin!” Jonathan called out.
Maria realized they had to have been standing much closer than she had thought. The tip of a sword was pressed to Gustaf’s neck, pinning him in place, while someone helped both her and Jonathan get up.
Jonathan crushed her to him the moment they were both standing, and she hid her face at his shoulder, not minding what was going on around them.
“I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you,” he whispered.
“I thought you hated me,” Maria whispered back.
“I did. I did for a while. It took me a long time to realize that you couldn’t possibly have known enough details of Valdemar’s operation to reveal anything of consequence to your brother.”
Maria moved her head to be able to look into his eyes.
“I would never have jeopardized Valdemar’s life. Never,” she said, searching his green eyes for a sign that he believed her. All she saw there was love.
“I know,” he said.
She felt that he was leaning heavier on her than before.
“Jonathan?” she asked, then was unable to hold him as he fell to the ground. The wound on the shoulder. She quickly lifted the cloak and saw that his jacket underneath was covered in blood.