FIFTY #2
Training has been starting earlier these past couple of weeks. Daylight grows shorter with each passing day, the sun slower to rise and quicker to fade as autumn nears its end. The mornings arrive cooler now, but not yet biting.
Thane turns to face us, the flames along his arms curling into nothingness. He walks the front line at an unhurried pace, taking in every soldier, every weapon, every patch of scorched earth left behind by training.
His voice carries across the field on a current of wind shaped by the air channeler.
“You fight like a unit now. But a storm is coming. A real one. The kind that doesn’t give second chances.”
His attention passes over the formation before finding me for the briefest moment.
“So tomorrow, we do it again. And we make it harder. We will be ready for whatever comes our way.”
He raises, then lowers his blade, and the formation dissolves.
By the time we reach the soldiers’ mess hall, I can barely feel my legs. My arms ache. My shoulders throb from holding a shield for so long. Dirt clings to my hair, sweat dries against my skin, and I’m starving.
Lyra collapses onto the bench beside me with a groan that sounds more like a dying animal than a person.
“If I ever say I miss formation drills again, hit me.”
“Gladly,” I say, grabbing a hunk of bread and tearing into it like a wild thing. “I’ll use my sword next time.”
Across from us, Rowena dumps a ladle of steaming stew into a bowl and slides it to Sera before serving herself.
“I think my spine cracked in three places during that last formation,” Rowena sighs.
“Three?” Garrick appears with a tray stacked high with food. Before sitting, he leans over and presses a quick kiss to Lyra’s head. She beams.
“Lightweights,” he declares as he drops onto the bench beside her. “Mine’s shattered entirely. I’m just pretending to function out of sheer pride.”
“Pride and stupidity,” Jarek says, settling beside him.
His usually neat hair is plastered to his forehead, and even he looks wrung out.
Rian joins us, bowl in hand, taking the seat across from Lyra and me. He doesn’t say much, but the way he exhales as he sits says everything. Even he’s tired.
Then Kieran saunters in, looking suspiciously refreshed for someone who should be dead on his feet.
“Well,” he says, setting his bowl down and stretching like a cat, “I, for one, feel amazing. Nothing like a few hundred formation shifts to keep the blood flowing.”
Lyra glares at him. “Were you even there?”
The words come out with enough bite that several people glance up from their food.
Kieran lifts both hands, suddenly looking very nervous. “Garrick?”
“Yes, sweetheart, he was,” Garrick says soothingly, rubbing a hand down her back. “Maybe eat some of that stew first. I think you’re hungry, not actually angry with Kieran. Right, love?”
Lyra narrows her eyes at Kieran, then grumbles something that might be agreement before returning to her food.
The table settles into the soft clatter of spoons and the low murmur of conversation. Somewhere behind us, laughter erupts from another table.
Sera starts braiding her hair in between bites. Garrick’s telling a story no one asked for. Lyra snorts into her cup.
One of the things I admire most about Thane is that he chooses to sit with his soldiers after training. He doesn’t disappear behind rank or retreat to a private chamber. He’s here.
While the rest of us are already seated at one of the long tables in the soldiers’ mess hall, plates of food in front of us and steam rising from metal bowls, Thane is still moving through the room.
I watch him as he makes his way between the tables, exchanging quiet words, listening more than he speaks. Sometimes I wonder if he knows how much they trust him. How much I do.
He says very little, but they feel it. The consistency of his presence. The confidence he inspires. The simple fact that he sees them as people first and soldiers second.
But I also know what still lingers beneath that calm exterior.
The curse.
At least, that’s what I still call it. I don’t know what else to name it anymore, and the word doesn’t quite fit the way it once did. We just don’t have enough information. Maybe finding the ledger will help us understand what truly runs through Thane’s veins.
Even now, after everything, there are nights when I feel it moving beneath his thoughts, like a shadow he can never quite leave behind. He worries about what lives inside him. About what it could become and the consequences if he ever loses control.
Most of all, he worries about the people who trust him.
About me.
But when I look at him, I don’t see a monster waiting to emerge. I see a man who leads with his heart as much as his power. A man who chooses his people again and again, even when no one is watching.
He stops at each table he passes, speaking to soldiers in low tones, nodding, offering a few words or a brief smile.
He rests a hand on a shoulder here, gives a clasped forearm there.
He pauses to check on a young fire wielder nursing a burn and crouches beside two scouts from the outer range to ask about their patrol.
It’s not for show. Most people probably wouldn’t notice.
But I do.
Every time.
When he finally reaches our table, he doesn’t say a word. He simply slides onto the bench beside me and reaches for his bowl as though he’s been here all along. As he sits, his hand finds my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze.
I reach for him through the bond, a gentle breeze brushing against his shield of fire. He lets me in without so much as a glance, as though the door was never closed. We’ve been communicating this way for a few weeks now, and it feels effortless.
“You are a light. In the truest sense of the word.”
His hand slips beneath the table and settles on my leg.
“Only because you see me that way,” he replies.
My heart belongs to this man.
To the one who still sees himself as cursed. Who can’t quite believe he’s worthy of love, of peace, of anything untouched by the shadows he carries. The one who mistakes a single part of himself for the whole.
So he carries the burden himself, believing he has to work twice as hard, love twice as fiercely, and be twice as strong just to make up for what he thinks he lacks. And gods help me, I love him all the more for it.
Thane’s hand slips away, returning to his bowl without a word, but the warmth remains.
A flash of movement draws my attention away from Thane. A soldier approaches, moving with enough urgency that my stomach sinks. He leans down and murmurs something in Thane’s ear, his voice too low for me to hear.
Thane goes still.
It’s subtle, but I catch it. His grip tightens on the edge of his bowl, and every trace of ease disappears from his posture.
He rises in a single, decisive motion.
“Rowena. Garrick. Jarek. Rian.” His voice carries the authority of a leader, but there’s an edge to it now. “War room. Five minutes.”
Chairs scrape back immediately.
Rowena is already on her feet, her attention sharpening. Jarek doesn’t say a word. He simply nods and rises, every bit of humor gone. Garrick’s easy demeanor disappears just as quickly. He gives Lyra’s hand a brief squeeze before standing.
Rian is the last to move, calm and efficient as ever.
Around the table, the mood shifts. What was laughter a moment ago gives way to a heavy silence. Every soldier here knows what it means when the war room is called without warning.
Then Thane turns to me.
“I need you to come too,” he says, meeting my gaze.
A suffocating tension settles over the table. I search his expression for more, but whatever this is, he has already locked it behind the Warlord’s mask. And he believes I am ready.
I nod. “Alright.”
Kieran’s eyes tighten. Sera leans over and presses a quick kiss to Rowena’s cheek before giving her a nod. Lyra looks my way, concern lining her face.
“If Amara is going, I’m going,” Lyra announces as she rises.
Thane and Garrick exchange a brief look. Garrick blows out a breath as if bracing himself, and turns to her.
“You’re staying.”
Lyra fixes him with a look that promises violence.
“Don’t start with me, Ly. For once, please do as I ask. You don’t have a dragon, and I need to know you’re safe while I’m dealing with whatever this is.”
For a moment, it looks like neither of them intends to back down. Then Garrick reaches down, cups her face, and kisses her hard enough to leave no room for argument. When he pulls away, he doesn’t wait for a response. He turns and strides from the hall.
Lyra watches him go before lowering herself back onto the bench.
“Gods,” she mutters. “I find it incredibly unfair when he does that.”
Kieran raises a brow but wisely keeps his thoughts to himself. I squeeze Lyra’s arm once before rising to my feet and following the others out of the hall, my pulse already beginning to quicken.
Several minutes later, we gather around the war table. The council is already there.
Master Orlon Revic stands nearest the glowing map, his attention fixed on the pulsing red light at its center. Beside him, Lady Sienna Dain waits with her usual stillness, poised and unreadable. Lord Edric Voss leans forward on scarred knuckles, his expression grim.
Valen stands just behind Thane, his staff resting lightly in one hand as he studies the map in silence.
The display glows brighter at its center, a pulsing red flare hovering over the southern edge of the realm.
Orlon is the first to speak. “There’s been an attack. We haven’t seen this kind of assault in more than a decade.”
The words barely settle before Thane cuts in. “Where?”
Edric’s answer comes immediately. “Greythorne Keep.”
The mood in the room changes instantly. I feel it in the way everyone straightens in the silence that follows.
Greythorne.
I know that name.