2. Chapter 2
R en knew she was no match for him. Not after days without food, nights without sleep, and wrists rubbed bloody from iron.
This wouldn’t be a fight.
It would be a show of power for the rest of them to learn to keep their heads down, their mouths shut, and to obey .
But, the fae soldier only scoffed, exhaling a sharp huff as he kicked his horse into motion again, galloping ahead.
The dark-haired man exhaled and leaned back, muttering, “And people wonder why I pissed in their wine.”
Ren let the moment of eerie quiet settle around her, broken only by the creak of wheels, the jangle of chains, the soft whimper of a prisoner lost to despair. The air smelled more like sweat, stale blood, and something metallic, something final.
They were near.
“What’s your name?” Ren asked and leveled a stare at the heavyset man. “If we’re all headed to die in the same pit, I’d rather not call you stupid in my final hours.”
“Fair enough. It’s Corrin Fenwick. Corrin With Two R’s, Puker of Enchanters and Defiler of Statues.”
“Noted.” Ren's gaze drifted to the blonde-haired man. “And you?”
“Joss. ”
Ren gave a small nod. “I’m Ren.”
Corrin raised a brow. “Ren what?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. No one’s going to write it down.”
Her gaze drifted back to Joss, whose jesting about one last drink had seemed foolish at first, but perhaps he wasn’t so foolish after all.
Ren swallowed, her mouth dry as dust. What she wouldn’t give for a last sip of wine — red and heavy, sweet on her tongue, warming her belly just enough to dull the edges of what was coming.
Perhaps she wouldn’t feel the axe slicing through her neck.
She let herself imagine the taste of wine against her lips, a fleeting, indulgent fantasy to cling to while the world as she knew it would come to an end.
“What’s one thing you’d want, just once more, before you go?” Corrin’s question interrupted Ren’s thoughts.
Joss looked down at his hands. His voice was barely audible. “My ma’s stew. The kind with dumplings and that cheap yellow root she’d insist was ‘a healer’s gift.’” He paused. “I hated it, until I didn’t have it anymore.”
Corrin’s expression softened as he gave a slow nod. “I’d want to sleep in a real bed. With sheets. Maybe a soft-bottomed girl named Mara, or hell, any name’ll do. Long as she laughs too loud and doesn’t mind scars.”
Ren shot him a side glance. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m fixing to die , Ren. Let me have one last fantasy.”
They both looked at her. Ren paused, gaze flicking to the trees beyond the bars. Then she admitted quietly, “I’d like to sail the sea. Not painted on some inn wall, not some story someone tells me. I want to feel the wind, hear the waves. Just once.”
The wagon rolled on, and for a heartbeat, none of them spoke.
Corrin cleared his throat. “If we somehow make it out of this alive, we find a bed, a stew pot with dumplings, and a coastline.”
Ren smirked faintly. “Deal.”
Beside her, a girl no older than fifteen shivered, arms wrapped tight around her frail frame.
Matted hair fell in tangled clumps, sunken cheeks pale.
Ren wanted to reach for her, to offer comfort, but her own wrists were chained to the post. The fae soldiers hadn’t bothered to shackle the girl, some small mercy perhaps.
Amidst the sounds of despair, Ren heard the murmur of the girl’s voice murmuring words of prayer .
“Figures I survive three border skirmishes, one bandit raid, and two angry wives just to die in a snow-covered piss cart,” Corrin grumbled.
“Three wives, actually,” Joss pointed out. “You’re forgetting Lady Ysra Thornwick.”
Corrin scoffed. “She doesn’t count. She left me for a bard with softer hands and fewer fleas.”
“If this is what’s rattling around in your skulls before death, maybe the block’s doing the realm a favor,” a woman retorted.
The woman was long-limbed and wiry, all elbows and angles, with tangled raven hair that fell around her sharp cheekbones.
Her clothes were threadbare and stained, and a thin scar tugged at the corner of her mouth, like the world had tried to silence her and failed.
She looked like she hadn’t eaten a full meal in weeks, but there was a strange elegance to her still, an old beauty buried beneath grime and defiance, like a wilting flower that dared to bloom through frost.
Corrin raised an eyebrow at the woman’s unwavering stare. “Sharp tongue on this one. She’d have made a fine fourth wife.”
“And you’d still die alone.”
As the men broke off into laughter at the woman’s quick retort, the young girl beside Ren rocked gently. Her lips moved with quiet reverence.
“Ash to air, wing to flame,
guard the lost, forget no name.
Though bound and broken we remain…
let the last flame wake again.”
Ren barely heard the girl at first. But then, the last line struck Ren like a spark to dry tinder :
"May flame find kin, and stone remember."
Ren’s head turned sharply.
The girl’s lips were still moving, eyes squeezed shut, as though she hadn’t even noticed she'd spoken the words aloud.
Ren’s pulse quickened. The chains at her wrists suddenly felt heavier, tighter. Heat prickled up her spine, not from fear, but recognition. The words coiled inside her like smoke searching for fire. She leaned toward the girl, and just when she opened her mouth to speak-
Arrows whistled through the trees.
Ren ducked, hands reaching up to shield her neck, but the iron from the chains around her wrist bit into her skin.
Then chaos erupted.