Chapter 8 In The Dirt #5
His gaze drifts over the clearing, the flowers, the grass, the place where my mother’s body disappeared, anywhere but my face.
The amulet glints in his fist. The chain swings faintly, the way my cage did earlier.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
A measured, merciless rhythm. It hangs between us like something poised to fall.
“I told you already,” he says. “It’s a tide that washes you clean. Removes all trace of my world so my uncle can no longer track you.”
Wash me clean.
The words hit wrong. Puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit.
“Remove all trace?” I repeat slowly. “What does that mean?”
The moment hangs.
The bond throbs again with sorrow. Loss. Devastation.
“I mean everything,” he answers finally.
Everything.
The silver threads inside the emerald unknot, and that’s when I understand.
“You mean you,” I say, tone flat. Voice dull. My eyes narrow on him.
Sorren doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
The truth is written in the way his face angles slightly away from me, as if he can’t bear to face me head on.
“It removes you,” I say, my voice going cold. “From me.”
His eyes flick to mine, then away.
My body goes tense, but not with grief. With rage.
“Our bond.” My pulse hammers in my ears. “It severs our bond.”
He closes his eyes. Just for a second, but it’s all the confirmation I need.
Veskar draws back slightly into the taller grass.
“You were going to do it,” I whisper as the knowledge claws at my chest. “You were going to erase yourself from me.”
The betrayal burns hotter than the ice of the cage ever did.
“You decided that for me.” My hands ball into fists. “You thought that was okay? To take the bond away from me?”
Sorren’s voice goes low. Strained. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“By making me forget you?”
“By making sure you live.”
“I’m alive now!” My voice cracks, and I don’t care. “You don’t get to decide what parts of my life are expendable!”
His eyes flash, and I see the terror in them, how he’s drowning in fear.
“You think I want this?” he demands, stepping closer. “You think I want to watch you look at me like I am a stranger? To stand there while you forget my name?”
“Then why?” I fire back. “Why would you even consider it?”
“Because I have seen what he does.”
The fury drains from his face, replaced by something darker.
Memory.
“When I fled, I watched him burn villages behind me,” he says, quieter now. “I watched him drag women into the streets. I watched children die because someone whispered they were loyal to me. I know what my uncle is capable of. What he turns love into.”
His grip tightens around the amulet.
“If he kills me, if I fail, he will come after you next. He’ll destroy you in my name and not just you. Your mother too. Your aunt. Anyone who shares blood with you. You think I can live with that on my conscience? That even in death I would accept so much blood on my hands?”
The words sit heavy between us.
“I would rather be nothing to you,” he says hoarsely, “than be the reason you suffer. The reason you die.”
The bond thrums, and I feel it. His turmoil. His pain. The raw devotion of his love for me.
“You don’t get to choose for me,” I say, quieter but no less fierce. “You do not get to decide that my safety is worth the erasure of my memories. Of my love.”
His throat works.
“I am not choosing ignorance for you. I am choosing survival.”
“You are choosing control. You’re taking control away from me.”
He flinches at that. At the naked truth in it.
“I am choosing sacrifice,” he snaps back. “Mine.”
“You don’t get to sacrifice me to do it.”
The air crackles between us. Tense and frustrated and angry.
Veskar watches, his expression unreadable.
“I would rather you hate me,” Sorren says, his voice breaking, “than bury you.”
“And I would rather face death with my eyes open,” I reply, my voice steady despite the storm inside me, “than live safely without knowing who I am.”
I step into his space. Close enough that he has to either retreat or stand his ground.
“You think you are giving me life,” I say, lifting a finger between us, “but you are taking from me, stripping me of the very thing I value most.”
I press that finger to his chest.
“The right to choose who I am.”
My vision blurs, not with weakness, but with fury sharpened by grief.
“Let me tell you something, Princeling.”
I glance toward Veskar and see the flicker of recognition, maybe even agreement, in his golden eyes.
“I choose me.”
The words are iron.
“I choose you.”
Stronger.
“I choose to keep our bond.”
The amulet still hangs between us, glinting in his hand. Without hesitation, I take it and hurl it away. It arcs high, the emerald flashing once before it disappears into the tall grass.
“I choose to fight at your side,” I tell Sorren. “Not behind you. Not in front of you.” I step closer still. “By your side.”
My voice rises, fierce and unwavering. “Do you hear me?”
Silence stretches out, thick and tense, until it’s interrupted by a slow, mocking clap.
“I hear you,” calls out a man’s voice.
All three of us turn toward the sound. Sorren. Veskar. Me.
One of the figures in the seats above us rises gracefully, separating itself from the still forms around it. Unhurried, the man descends the stairs, step by languid step. Like he has all the time in the world.
The moment he crosses into the first circle of light, the air shifts. Sorren’s hand finds my arm. Not too tight. Not bruising or frantic.
Possessive.
Protective.
He draws me close, his breath hot against my ear. “My uncle. Rion,” he hisses.
My eyes widen when Rion steps onto the arena floor.
His dark hair is neatly trimmed, the same texture as Sorren’s, but ink-black instead of gold. Where Sorren’s features are open, almost luminous, his are sharply carved. High cheekbones. A narrow mouth that curves easily but not kindly.
Their resemblance is unmistakable.
The same height. The same broad shoulders. The same royal bearing.
But where Sorren burns, this man smolders.
His eyes are not green. They are the deep, metallic brown of old coins left in the earth too long. They watch us, sparking with amusement.
“How?” Sorren demands, outrage flashing across his face as he turns on Veskar. “The Egg was meant to seal once we entered. It admits only the bonded. Not armies. Not strangers. Not enemies.”
The snake’s golden gaze does not waver.
“You are bonded,” Veskar replies. The grass flattens beneath his coils, his tail twitching once.
“Your uncle is blood, a bond that cannot be severed.” He rises slightly.
“You assumed the bond meant love. Mates.” A faint hiss extends each word.
“But there are other bonds as well.” He tilts his head. “Ones just as strong.”
Rion strolls toward us, hands tucked loosely into his pockets as though this were a garden party and not a battlefield.
A few feet away, he pauses. Glances down.
“Well now,” he murmurs. “What’s this?”
He bends with unhurried grace and retrieves something off the ground. He holds it out to us, lets it hang off a single fingertip.
My teeth grind.
The Amulet of Springtide.
“Pretty little trinket,” Rion says softly, watching the emerald catch the light. It flashes in the light, green and alive.
A faint curve touches his mouth.
Slowly, deliberately, he slips the necklace into his pocket. “Think I’ll hold onto this.”
Rion straightens and closes the distance between us. “It’s true,” he continues lightly, as if resuming a pleasant conversation. “I am your blood.” He smiles at Sorren, an empty gesture. “And blood,” he adds, “is difficult to wash away. It stains.”
“What do you want, Uncle?” demands Sorren.
Without looking, I slide Thornreaper into his waiting hand.
“Not much,” Rion grins. “Just your head on a plate.” His gaze swings my way, and I shiver at the coldness I see there. “I’ll take your mate too. Even though she has no magic. I’m not picky.”
Sorren’s hand tightens on Thornreaper.
“You will not touch her,” Sorren growls, his voice lethal.
Rion throws his head back and laughs. “You show your hand too easily, Nephew. Now I know what she means to you.” He tips me a wink. “You should be angry with him, mortal,” he says lightly. “I might not have noticed you, if he hadn’t just made you worth killing.”
Sorren lifts the sword and aims it at his uncle’s heart.
“It ends here.” He says the words quietly, yet they carry across the space. “For my father. For my people. For everything you’ve destroyed.”
Rion sighs like we’re boring him. “Well,” he says, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve, “if we must.”
He removes both hands from his pockets and extends them lazily.
Without breaking eye contact with Sorren, he drags his thumb across his palm. Skin splits. Dark blood wells but does not fall.
It hangs there. Suspended.
The blood stretches downward in a thin ribbon, then thickens. Lengthens. Hardens.
Metal forms where it drips, and a blade takes shape. It’s long and elegant with a black-red surface, like steel forged in a furnace and never cooled.
Rion lifts his injured hand to his mouth and gently blows across it. Frost spreads in a lacelike pattern across his skin, then melts. The cut in his palm seals instantly. Grinning, Rion flexes his fingers, then grasps the newly formed hilt.
“There,” he murmurs. “That feels more appropriate.”
Veskar glides toward me, scales whispering over the grass. He nudges against my hip, cool and unyielding, trying to guide me away from Sorren.
I brace my feet and push back. “No,” I say, my gaze fixed on my mate. “I stand with Sorren.”
“The heirs must battle alone, human,” Veskar replies, without cruelty but also without mercy. “Nature demands balance. Spring and winter cannot coexist in the White Warren. One must prove himself worthy.”
I open my mouth to protest, to demand my right to fight next to my mate. To fall with him, if need be, but then I catch a glimpse of Sorren.
He does not tell me to move. He does not order me back.
He simply looks at me, his eyes brimming with love and trust. In a way that tells me he believes I will do what is right.
Not what is easy.
I exhale slowly. This is not about stepping aside. This is about not breaking the law of the place that just armed him. If I interfere, I may weaken him, which is unacceptable. I will not be the thing that costs him this fight.
I step back. Not too far.
Just enough to give him room.
“I’m still here,” I tell him.
The bond between us tightens, a drawn bowstring.
Rion watches the exchange with an eyebrow lifted.
“How sweet,” he mocks. “Stay close, little mortal. It will make you that much easier to kill.”
Sorren doesn’t fall for the bait. He stands steady, Thornreaper leveled before him, knees bent, weight balanced.
Rion runs his eyes over his nephew and laughs, but it’s just a distraction. Theater. He’s already moving before the sound fades from the air. Without flinching, he strikes.