Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
IAN
The first pass was steep and rocky. The snow is piled in drifts here, even after the warmth of the dry season.
We lost our donkeys and three men to injuries, but the rest of us have made it to the other side.
There is another climb tomorrow, but I see no reason we won’t make it through the pass in the next few days.
Previous expeditions may not have found the correct passage, but we have.
Our unit will make it to the northern lands and open up a land trading route. For your honor.
Isadora’s hand ran through Ian’s curls as he lay in her bed, his eyes closed. He was supposed to be sleeping, but his racing mind wouldn’t quiet enough to let him.
He was thinking of Sofia and the shapeshifter she’d sent—this Lumi.
The resistance needed to find a new way into the city—a way to get the rest of them out.
And he was worried about Fox and what the man would do in his grief and pain.
Fox’s face had been black and blue, a trickle of dried blood under his nose when he’d knocked on his barracks door.
The man had barely looked Ian in the eyes when he’d pulled him outside to speak with Lumi, speaking to the shapeshifter in near monotones.
Ian hadn’t seen him since the meeting. He wondered if he should check in on him again—force Fox to face him. Or was that cruel?
Ian needed to go. It would be dawn soon, and he needed to be in the barracks before first meal.
Chief Commander Harlow had sent him a brief message indicating the second and fifth units would be out in the field starting today, which meant he and his men would need to take over the fifth’s section of the city to finish the sweeps.
There were fewer than fifty houses left.
Ian wasn’t sure what would happen when Harlow ran out of Dragonborn to torment.
“You don’t have to leave,” Isadora said, voice soft as if she might lull him into agreeing.
“The last thing I need is for my superior officer to come barging in here and asking for me,” he said.
He’d hidden the fact that he visited the same person at the inn every time he came.
It wasn’t unusual for the soldiers to have their favorite girls, but he didn’t want anyone to know about Isadora.
They definitely couldn’t find out about their relationship.
Ian, the bastard son of a merchant, definitely wasn’t supposed to have a Dragonborn half-sister.
It was his job to protect her from prying eyes.
Just as she protected him from the details of her work at the inn.
He didn’t need to know what soldiers used her services and if he was friends with any of them.
He’d accepted from the day he started spying that his life was forfeit, as were the lives of anyone he loved. So, he refused to love. Or he’d tried. He’d failed once—at not loving—at protecting what was his. He wouldn’t fail again.
“It sounds like I’ll be busy for the next couple of days,” he said. “But I’ll try to get back here when I can. You don’t have to save any slots for me. I’ll wait if you’re with someone.”
Isadora smiled, leaning forward from her spot on the bed and placing a hand on his cheek. “I know. Please take care of yourself. Every time you come here, it looks like you haven’t slept in days.”
“I’m fine.” He pushed himself up, the room feeling colder already. He’d lingered long enough.
“I’m serious, Ian. Sleep. Or I will put a curse on you and your descendants.”
“You don’t know any magic, and I won’t have any descendants.”
She stuck her lip out. “Don’t say that. Someday this will all be done, and we’re going to find you a handsome wife—”
Ian opened his mouth.
“Or husband. And you’ll adopt any babies I have as your own.”
“So, you’re planning on cursing your own children?”
She threw a pillow at him.
“Fine,” he said, pulling on his boots and brushing the wrinkles from his clothes as best he could. “I will sleep tonight. Then next time I’m back here you can explain to me how to curse someone.”
She stood, pressing a kiss against his cheek before pulling him down into a hug.
“I’d curse them all for you, if I could,” she said.
“I know. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He turned and strode out, taking the stairs two at a time.
The inn was never exactly quiet, but it was as quiet as it ever got, with only a few patrons left in the dining room, two of whom were slumped at the tables where they’d apparently fallen asleep.
He rolled his eyes, recognizing one as his own.
“Fucking—” he said, grabbing a half-empty glass of mead from the table and throwing it at his specialist. “—Simon!”
“Yes, sir!” the young man shouted, jumping to attention before his eyes had even opened. He blinked, eyes bloodshot as they met Ian’s. “High Sergeant.” He opened his mouth, but Ian held up a hand.
“Don’t. Just come with me. You need to take a bath before first meal.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, wobbling on his feet as he followed him.
Ian didn’t slow his pace, despite the gray tint of Simon’s face. He’d hopefully learn after this not to drink so much while on duty. Every soldier had to learn their limits at some point.
They made it three blocks down the road, the barracks just in sight between the buildings, towering up alongside the wall.
Ian would have bet if he could see the horizon it would be a pale gray.
The street was wet, although the sky was already cloudless.
Ian had missed the first rain in blinks, and he tasted bitter disappointment.
There were some other king’s men milling about, some waking for duty and others ending their shifts.
Ian was so focused on getting back to the barracks that he didn’t understand what he heard at first. The air seemed to crack, and the street shook beneath his boots.
Then there were men running toward him. Simon yelled something, and he couldn’t quite hear it properly.
He didn’t understand what had happened until Simon forced his shoulders to turn around the way they had come. Black smoke against a black sky. Right above where the inn stood.
Ian ran, any exhaustion wiped from his body at the sight before him.
Dozens followed, some soldiers from the barracks, others bystanders from their homes.
The curfew of the night hadn’t lifted, but no one screamed at the Dragonborn to return to their homes.
No one bothered. As Ian rounded the corner, his heart plummeted, and he tasted ash on his tongue. The street was gone.
They’d spent the last week cleaning up the rubble from the resistance attack. He knew what it looked like after a bomb had gone off. He just didn’t understand why. Why was he looking at a bombsite at the end of the street where the Wall’s Inn used to stand?
“Sir,” Simon said, “what are your orders?”
Ian focused back on the young man looking up at him as if he might have an answer. He always had the answers.
He wanted to throw up.
“Inform Chief Commander Harlow there’s been an attack. Find Junior Sergeant Vin and tell him what happened. He’ll help you gather the rest of our unit. Get them out here.”
Ian watched as Simon disappeared back around the corner. He didn’t run immediately. His first steps toward the rubble were stumbling. It was as if he were trudging through water, unable to move faster. He didn’t want to know.
The absence ached through his chest as if the universe knew for him.
And then he ran, feet finally catching up to his brain.
He wasn’t the first to make it to the rubble, but he ignored the others as he climbed and crawled over stones and smoldering wood.
The area was in chaos, and no one paid him any attention.
He hissed as his hand made contact with a beam that was still red-hot.
The acidic smoke filled his lungs, and the sounds of chaos moved through him, vibrating his very bones—screams, moans, crackling wood.
He knew he’d reached the exact spot where the inn had stood when he saw the remnants of the fireplace, its distinct stone pattern broken and blackened.
The first person he pulled from the rubble was a soldier—perhaps one from the dining room or from one of the bedrooms. He was dressed, so he guessed the former. The next three were Dragonborn, some dressed, some practically naked. All of them breathing, but barely. The next three weren’t so lucky.
He lost count—lost track of how many he saved and how many he didn’t. No matter how many arms he pulled at and stones he moved, he didn’t see her face.
Until he did.
He’d almost missed her. Almost didn’t recognize her with the side of her face crushed in.
She was still wrapped in the blanket from her bed.
He pulled her into him, ignoring the cold press of her skin against his.
He ignored the blood, no longer flowing from her wounds.
He sat there, pressing his ear against her chest, praying to the dragons and the kings and every demon that walked the forest that she would just take a breath.
When a hand tried to pull him away, he felt the scream tear from his throat.
Not again. Not again.
He’d already lost so much. His heart had already been torn from his chest. His mom. Leon. Isadora. Death haunted him, chasing in his footsteps at every point he gave his heart away. It wasn’t fair.
Hot tears streamed down his face, and he tasted salt. He pressed his lips against her cheek, the only spot free of blood, and he felt a part of himself die.