46. Chapter Forty Six
Chapter Forty Six
Avod
Something was wrong with Fen.
Not wrong in the way most people meant it—she still moved with that lethal, effortless grace, her knives as precise as ever. She still showed up when she was needed. Still trained harder than anyone else in the caverns. But something had changed since Felix died.
She didn’t grieve like the rest of us. Didn’t cry or rage or even speak about him. She just vanished. Into the training halls. Into the tunnels. Into herself. I hadn’t seen her eat in three days.
I leaned against one of the carved stone pillars near the western overlook, arms crossed, trying not to look like I was watching her.
She was down below, where the natural light barely reached, practicing with those blades again—sharp arcs, tight pivots, the rhythm clean and brutal.
Her strikes had no waste. No art. Just violence.
The Riftborn gave her a wide berth. Can’t blame them.
She didn’t look like a soldier anymore. She looked like a ghost. Something barely holding together, and maybe not trying to. Her face was thinner. Her eyes hollowed. Even her movements, as flawless as they were, carried an edge I didn’t like. Not rage. Not even pain. Purpose. That was worse.
I’d seen what happened when grief curdled into purpose. I’d buried people like that. Proud, dangerous people who stopped seeing the line between sacrifice and suicide.
A younger Riftborn approached her once—maybe trying to offer help or company—and she turned on him so fast I almost jumped from my perch.
No words, just a flash of daggers and a stare so sharp it cut the air between them.
The kid fled without a sound. Fen just turned back to the target wall and kept going.
I let out a slow breath. Dragged a hand down my chin. Something gnawed at the back of my mind, something I couldn’t name. A weight that hadn’t shifted since the battle. And not just because we lost Felix.
I pushed off the pillar and made my way down the steps. Maybe I was a fool, but someone had to try.
She didn’t stop when I reached the edge of the chamber. She knew I was there. She always knew. But she didn’t so much as glance over.
“Training alone again?” I asked, keeping my voice light.
No answer.
“Riftborn’ve started calling you the Widow,” I added after a beat. “That’s not a compliment.”
Still nothing. Her daggers sang through the air. One embedded itself in the wood with a heavy thunk . The other followed half a heartbeat later.
I stepped closer. “Fen.”
This time, she paused.
Turned.
The look in her eyes nearly stopped me cold.
This wasn’t just grief.
Her face was unreadable—utterly still—but her pupils were too wide, the whites of her eyes just a little too shadowed. Her hair clung to her sweat-slicked face like vines, and her skin, already pale, had taken on an odd cast in the dimness of the cave. Like moonlight on water. Cold and shifting.
“You’re wasting your time, Avod,” she said finally. “Go play caretaker with someone else.”
“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”
“I’m fine.”
I huffed. “You’re not. You haven’t been since the tower. You look like you haven’t slept in days. You flinch when someone says his name.”
“Don’t say it,” she snapped.
My jaw clenched. “I understand loss, Fen. You know I do. But this thing you’re doing—cutting everyone out, treating us like threats—it’s not helping you.”
She stepped forward slowly. Her boots made no sound on the stone. “I don’t need help.” The way she said it sent a ripple up my spine.
The shadows behind her shifted. It could’ve been the torchlight.
Or not.
“You know,” I said, testing the ground, “some of the younger ones are scared of you now. They say you’ve been talking to the walls.”
Her eyes flicked to mine. For just a second. And in that second, I saw it. Something watching from behind her eyes. Not Riftburn. Not madness. Influence.
Godsdamn it.
When she finally looked at me, her voice was barely more than a breath. “What would you do, Avod? If it meant bringing him back?”
I didn’t answer. Because I knew the answer. And so did she.
“That’s what I thought,” she whispered, more to herself than me.
The shadows behind her stirred again. A flicker of motion. I reached for the hammer on my back—not threatening, but ready.
She noticed.
“Don’t,” she said quietly.
“Then talk to me. Before you do something neither of us can undo.”
For the first time, her mask cracked. Her throat bobbed like she was swallowing something hard. The glint of grief flickered in her expression—real and raw.
Then she turned away again.
And the shadows swallowed her.