Chapter 60
Chapter Sixty
S till trembling, I let him guide me forward. My legs were unsteady. My hands slick with blood and soot.
But when he’d pressed my bow back into them, something inside me clicked into place. The weight of it. The familiarity. The purpose. It didn’t make me whole—but it reminded me how to move.
“I’m going to Thrainn’s,” his voice dripped with something dangerous—something that pulsed with vengeance. “I'll check if they’re alive. You have to get out of here.”
My head snapped toward him.
No.
No, no, no.
But it wasn’t the words that shattered me.
It was his face.
His eyes were storm-swept, swirling with uncertainty, drained of color until they were nothing but smoke.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For me.
He thought if I stayed, I’d die. That he’d lose me.
Gods, he was such an idiot.
Didn’t he know?
I would burn before I let him face this alone.
“I’m coming with you.” I didn’t wait for his protest.
I ran.
Behind me, his curse—low, furious. Then his boots. Pounding. Fast. Chasing after me like the world was ending.
The hundred yards to Thrainn’s house stretched like eternity—like grief had tethered itself to me and dragged behind with every step.
Smoke tore at my throat. Flames clawed at the edges of my vision. And still—we ran.
The ground blurred beneath us. Each step crushed everything I hadn’t come close to processing.
Everything I’d lost.
Everything I could still lose.
Grief clung to my boots. Screamed at my back.
Don’t go. Don’t look. Don’t see.
Thrainn’s home rose through the smoke—one of the last still standing. It was one of the only ones not yet devoured by fire. But not untouched. Black smoke curled from the windows—thick, greedy fingers reaching for what hadn’t yet burned, searching for a way in.
Maalikai reached the door first. Nearly ripped it from its hinges with brute, unhinged rage that I thought he was controlling far better than I was. Then slipped inside like a shadow with purpose, like wrath melting into darkness.
I faltered at the threshold.
My feet locked.
My breath shattered.
Please let them be alive.
Please.
My teeth sank into my bottom lip, hard enough to break the skin. The taste of blood flooded my mouth.
I pushed the overbearing fear aside and stepped through the threshold.
Into whatever came next.
Then the stench hit me. Thick. Rancid. The kind of scent that didn’t just cling—it invaded .
It lived in your lungs.
Your clothes.
Your soul.
And it never left.
Wrong. So wrong.
The air was thick with it—heavy with death. It wrapped around my skin, soaked into my lungs. I could feel it pressing against my ribs like a second heartbeat.
And the silence—Gods, the silence was worse than any scream.
Then I saw it.
Blood.
Everywhere.
It wasn’t splattered. It was painted on—soaking the floorboards, streaking the walls like someone had tried to carve sorrow into every surface.
It clung to the grain of the table, the fabric of the curtains, the inside of the windows–dripping like tar–heavy, thick, the color of sin. My boots stuck to it with every step, peeling free with a sickening squelch.
Then—the bodies.
They hadn’t been arranged. They hadn’t been buried. They had simply fallen.
Crimson halos pooled beneath their heads. Mouths hung open. Eyes blank, forever fixed on nothing.
A scream clawed up my throat. But it wasn’t from the atrocities before me.
Pain sliced through my arm—white-hot, immediate. Steel. Flesh. Blood.
I’d been too overwhelmed.
Too absorbed in all the death.
I dropped my bow without thinking. Unsheathed my sword. Spun.
The attacker—a tall man, masked in black—lunged again. This time I was ready. I ducked under his blade, slashing across his ribs. He snarled, pivoted, came at me with a brutal overhead strike.
I blocked it—barely. The impact jarred through my arms, rattling my bones. He came again, faster, more aggressive. Strike. Block. Parry. Duck.
He was good. But I was better.
I feinted left and caught him open. My blade plunged into his gut. He gasped. I twisted. He dropped.
Another shout.
Another flash of steel.
“Emylia!” Maalikai’s voice—close. Urgent. But I couldn’t look away.
A woman hurtled toward me, blades in both hands. Twin daggers. She moved like a ghost—silent, fluid.
Our blades clashed. She was fast, wickedly skilled.
We danced through blood. She slashed my side—shallow, but enough to burn. I gritted my teeth and countered with a hard elbow to her throat.
She stumbled. I pressed in, slashing low, then high. She blocked. Recovered. Kicked me hard in the chest. I flew back, hitting the floor hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
She charged. I rolled. Came up swinging. Steel met flesh. My blade drove through her chest. Her eyes widened. The breath she tried to take never came.
She crumpled.
I stood panting, blade dripping, hands slick and shaking.
More footsteps.
Five sets.
Five more warriors in black armor poured in through the back.
We didn’t wait.
Maalikai surged forward like a storm, and I followed—not behind, but beside him.
They were fast. But we were faster.
Sharper. Angrier.
Two came for me.
One swung wide, reckless. I stepped inside his guard, plunged my blade beneath his ribs, and ripped it free. He dropped like a stone.
The second met my blade head-on. Steel shrieked. We locked. Grunted. Pushed. He shoved me back, then lunged with a growl. I twisted sideways, grabbed the hilt of my dagger, and buried it in his throat. He staggered.
Dropped.
Behind them—a boy. Barely old enough to be called a man. He slipped in the blood. Fell.
He was young. But they had murdered children.
So I didn’t hesitate.
My blade met his chest before he could rise. The breath left him in a single exhale. Gone.
A scream split the air. “That was my son!”
The words came from the man still fighting me. Older. Wild-eyed. Grief soaked every syllable.
I didn’t respond.
What could I say?
He came at me with everything he had. Wild. Devastated. Sloppy.
But I had lived with rage longer than he had lived with grief. I wasn’t just angry. I was anger—forged by it, hardened through every wound life had given me.
We clashed. Blades sparked. His strength met my precision.
I struck low. He blocked. He slashed wide. I ducked. Came up under him. Our swords locked again. He pushed me against the wall. I kneed him hard in the gut. He doubled over. I raised my blade—but before I could strike, Maalikai came from behind.
His sword came down with a sickening crack, embedding in the man’s skull.
He dropped. No cry. No final word.
Just silence.
We stood in the aftermath. Chests heaving. Hands dripping.
“Thanks,” I breathed, voice ragged.
Maalikai nodded, already scanning the room.
I followed his gaze.
Bodies. So many.
Enemy. Family. Strangers.
I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
The house reeked of death and ruin. It was a sea of black and red.
And then?—
There it was.
Beneath the wreckage, half-swallowed by gore and splintered wood:
A familiar blue dress.
Bleeding into the floorboards.
Still.
Silent.
Dead.
I sprinted toward the body, barely breathing—hope and dread colliding like thunder inside me.
I dropped to my knees—too hard. Bone struck wood, but I didn’t feel it.
Didn’t even flinch.
Trembling, I reached for her. Rolled her broken body toward me.
Agony ripped through me—wildfire through bone, through sinew, through everything that kept me upright.
Not the kind that screamed.
The kind that folded. That sank. That swallowed.
Stephanie.
What was left of her.
Blood soaked her small frame.
The delicate slope of her throat had been torn open—crimson painting her from chin to toes.
A gouge—so deep, so wrong—split her stomach wide.
Entrails spilled through the tear as if her body had tried to purge the violence done to it.
Then the stench hit.
Acrid. Rancid.
Ruptured intestine.
Decaying flesh.
I gagged. Choked. The bile climbed high—but I swallowed it down.
I made myself.
Because she deserved better than my weakness.
She was gone. I knew it. But I reached for her anyway.
Because I had to.
My fingers pressed to her throat.
No flutter.
No pulse.
Just the echo of what she’d been.
Everything inside me broke—quietly. Completely.
Not with a sound.
With silence.
So absolute, it felt like a reckoning.
And still—my body moved. Acting on some ancient instinct, like it didn’t know how to stop.
Because stopping would mean dying. Because stillness would mean giving in.
I bent low and pressed my lips to her blood-slick forehead.
Her skin was warm.
Gods, it was still warm.
Still pretending to hold on. Even as death curled greedy fingers around her and dragged her under.
My final goodbye.
The sob that ripped out of me didn’t sound human. It scraped from the back of my throat like claws on stone.
Tears blurred everything. Hot. Relentless.
I let them fall.
I let myself fall.
My body caved forward—curling around her like I could shield her from what had already happened. Like I could take it back if I just held her close enough.
But I couldn’t.
My stomach heaved with grief—dry, retching, shaking. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. My jaw locked. My chest seized. I couldn’t get air.
Couldn’t get out .
She had been a child.
She had loved sunflowers. Honeycomb.
She had braided my hair with ribbons and flowers we picked in the fields.
And now?—
Now she was nothing.
Just blood in the dirt. Just a flicker of what had been. Of what would never be again.
The world would forget her.
But I wouldn’t.
She was gone. And I was still here.
How was that fair?
She hadn’t deserved this.
Not this fate.
Not this end.
I should’ve been there. I should’ve protected her.
But I hadn’t.
And because of me—her life was stolen. Ripped from her body like it meant nothing.
And now all I could do was hold what was left.
And break.