26. Chapter 26
T he sheets clung to Ren’s legs, twisting around her ankles like tangled vines.
Ren tossed again, her breath coming too fast, heart hammering too loud. The bed beneath her felt more like quicksand.
And then the darkness swallowed her whole.
Ren stood barefoot on the crumbling edge of a city. Ash snowed from above. Stone towers cracked and fell in molten chunks as shrieks rippled through the air.
Then came the shadows wreathed in fire, wings spanning the skies. One of them banked low over the burning rooftops. Its golden eyes locked with Ren’s.
Ren bolted upright in bed. Her hands clenched the blanket like it could anchor her back to this world.
The room was quiet. Across, Mirella’s form remained dormant. Even enchanted dresses needed their sleep.
Ren couldn’t stay here – not for another second. She seized a torch from the bracket by her bed and yanked on the first set of clothes fit for the world beyond her chambers.
The corridors were cloaked in the kind of quiet that made Ren feel like an intruder in someone else’s dream .
She took a turn she didn’t recognize, past tapestries of fae wars and revered gods, past doors she didn’t dare open. And then, an archway with ivy curling along its pillars.
A greenhouse.
Ren hesitated at the edge, fingers brushing the carved stone frame.
Golden light spilled through the tall glass panes, illuminating the wild tangle of flora inside.
It was nothing like the polished grandeur of the rest of the palace.
This place was living, overgrown and riotous and humming with quiet magic and life.
And there, kneeling among the lilies and foxglove and starflowers, was Kaelin.
She had shed her formal silks for a simple cream blouse, her sleeves rolled to the elbows. Her golden hair was pulled into a loose braid, wisps curling around her face. Dirt clung to her elbows as she gently coaxed new life into the soil.
There was no crown here, no sneer, no sharp words on her tongue.
Only… softness.
The curve of her cheek turned in profile as she leaned down to inspect a cluster of pale violet blooms.
She looked… oddly beautiful.
The thought struck Ren so hard, she blinked, stunned at her own reaction.
Kaelin shifted, head tilting toward the flowers. For a moment, Ren thought Kaelin would notice her.
Ren stepped back, retreating before the fae princess could see what had flickered across her face.
Before Ren could understand it herself.
The Iron Maw glowed like the heart of a dying star.
Sparks danced above the anvil, and Elira stood at the center of it all, her golden-brown arms slick and strong as she slammed her hammer down onto heated steel.
Ren leaned against the doorframe. “Do you ever sleep?”
Elira lifted her head with a lopsided grin, teeth gleaming in the firelight. “Not when the steel sings to me.”
Ren stepped inside, heat wrapping around her like a familiar embrace. Elira tossed Ren a flask. Ren took a quick swig. The burn of it was hot and exactly what Ren needed.
Elira handed Ren a pair of leather gloves. “You’re not just going to stand there looking pretty. Grab the tongs. We’re finishing this blade tonight.”
“You always force your guests into labor?”
“Only the ones I tolerate.” Elira winked at her. “Besides, this is your blade.”
They worked in tandem, the hiss of metal and swirl of heat filling the quiet spaces between them. Ren fell into the rhythm. Elira’s commands were sharp, her movements fluid, and somehow, they moved as if they’d done this a hundred times.
Elira wiped her brow with the back of her gloved hand, squinting down at the gleaming blade cooling on the anvil. “Well,” she muttered, nudging the weapon with the flat of her tongs, “it didn’t explode. That’s a win.”
Ren exhaled, chest tight with the kind of pride she wasn’t sure how to name.
Elira shot her a sidelong glance. “Your first forge, and you managed not to embarrass us both. Well done.”
Ren laughed. “Coming from you, that almost sounds like praise.”
Elira handed Ren the blade, still warm. “She’s all yours. Split-blade.”
Ren turned the weapon over in her hands, eyes tracing every inch. The firelight caught the blade’s mirrored halves.
“Two pieces forged as one,” Elira said. “Yet ready to break apart when the moment calls for it.” She stepped closer, tapping the hilt with the tip of her finger. “Together, it’s a short sword. But split it, and you get twin daggers. Faster, more unpredictable.”
It needed a name.
Ren traced the green-wrapped hilt with her thumb.
“Ashrend,” she said quietly.
“Ashrend?” Elira repeated .
Ren nodded. “Because anything that stands in my way,” She glanced up, her lips curling into a wicked smile, “will know what it means to be turned to ash.”
Elira mirrored Ren’s smile. “Dramatic. I approve.”
They each took another swig from the flask as if to commemorate Ren’s completed blade. Elira said quietly, “My sister would like you.”
Elira sat on a bench, her back against the stone wall, and a second flask was cradled between her knees. “She’s younger than me. Thinks she’s taller and smarter than she is. I want to surprise her this spring and forge her something, maybe a scabbard.”
Ren sat beside her, letting the stone cool her sweat-slicked back. “She has a good role model.”
Elira took another swig from the flask. “And what about you?” she asked. “What the hell is your story?”
Ren didn’t answer at first.
The clang of cooling metal filled the silence. Smoke drifted lazily in the warm air between them, and for a second, it smelled like that night – burnt wood and scorched earth, hot iron and singed cloth, the acrid bite of ash thick in her throat.
“My house burned down when I was eight,” Ren said at last. “Wood burns fast. The smoke came so thick. Every breath felt like drowning. People think fire is all noise and chaos. But when it’s really burning, really taking everything, it groans .
Like it’s in pain. Or maybe like it’s enjoying it too much.
Beams split with this horrible, cracking sound. ”
She paused.
“I still hear that groaning every night when I go to sleep.” Her fingers curled around the flask in her hand, knuckles white.
“There were intruders in the house. They wore crimson cloaks and had white masks. They bound my parents. Tied me up, too. But not my sister.” Ren pulled her knees to her chest, leaning her chin on her knuckles.
“She didn’t even flinch,” Ren whispered.
“She walked right over my legs like I was a broken chair in the way. I called her name. I thought she didn’t hear me over the flames, so I screamed.
My parents weren’t saints. My sister and I spent most of our lives tiptoeing around their brutality.
But no one deserves to die like that – watching the people they raised set the fire. ”
Her voice turned brittle .
“Eve just nodded to the intruders like it was all agreed upon. They slit my mother’s throat. Quick. A mercy, I suppose. But they took their time with my father. Maybe Eve wanted it that way. He was always crueler than our mother was.”
Ren’s stare had gone distant. She ignored Elira’s heavy stare as tears streamed down her face.
“You know the strange thing? Sometimes I wonder if I imagined this. For a moment, I swore Eve looked back at me. Just for a breath. And I thought, I saw a shine in her eyes. Tears of grief, maybe. Or regret. Or perhaps the smoke actually did get to her. Why would she cry when she played a role in our parent’s murder? ”
A long silence followed, pierced only by the crackling of the forge and the distant howl of wind through stone.
“They wrapped me in a bag,” Ren grumbled bitterly. “Threw me like rubbish on the roadside. Left me with smoke in my lungs and fire stitched into my bones. And that’s where an elderly couple found me. Half-dead, half-alive.”
Elira gently knocked her flask against Ren’s. “To the girls we were,” Elira said quietly.
Ren raised her flask. “To the women we’ve become.”
And they drank.
Ren fumbled with the hem of her jacket, still reeking of forge smoke and cheap rum. The aftertaste of both lingered on her tongue.
“Stairs,” she muttered as she reached the base of the sweeping staircase. “Enemy of the people. Fae probably float up these things. I’m pretty sure they glide like smug little peacocks. Pointy-eared prissy bastards.”
The first step met her foot wrong, and she lurched forward with a graceless oof , catching herself on the banister. She blinked hard, squinting as if the marble had somehow shifted under her.
“Rude,” she informed it, wagging one finger at the step as though it should apologize.
She tried again .
One step.
Two steps.
A triumphant hum slipped from her throat, followed immediately by her toe catching the edge of the next stair. She pinwheeled her arms, whistling through her teeth in sheer panic before careening sideways into the wall.
The impact made a dull thump .
“Fine,” she announced to no one. “I meant to do that. Testing structural integrity. Gotta hand it to whatever prissy fae built this place.”
With renewed determination, Ren pushed off the wall and trudged upward, steps loud, gait crooked, humming a tune of a song she did not remember the words to. Halfway up, she paused to steady herself.
“Gods, if I fall and die here, I’m going to haunt this place.”
She took another step, then another, making her way toward her chambers with all the grace of a newborn foal learning how legs worked.
She nearly missed the tall shadow cutting across her path until she collided with something distinctly… regal.
“Oof,” Ren grunted, catching herself with a hand against cool velvet. She blinked up, blinking again just to be sure. “Oh, no. Just my luck. The last person I wanted to see right now.”
Kaelin stood before her like the embodiment of frost. “You reek.”
Ren groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “You’re everywhere. Like a damn fly.”
“And you’re clearly drunk.”