Chapter 13 Steel Remembers
STEEL REMEMBERS
JAKOBAV
He found Maeren in the upper corridor, where the evening light cut hard across the stone. She didn’t look surprised to see him. She looked irritated.
“You want to tell me why Bryn is acting like he swallowed a secret?” she asked.
Jakobav exhaled once, low.
No point delaying it.
He didn't tell her everything, especially not the way it had felt to have Ella trapped beneath him, her breath catching at his accidental touch, but he told Maeren enough. About why he hadn’t sent Ella to the dungeons the very first night when he discovered her.
And how he didn’t believe locking her up or executing her would yield anything useful.
And he told her what he’d been dreading saying out loud, that something about the girl mattered.
“I don’t know what she is yet,” he said quietly. “Spy, runaway, something else entirely. But she didn’t break into my castle to slit my throat in the night. And whatever she’s hiding, I need to know what it is and why.”
Maeren stared at him, unimpressed.
“And how long,” she said, voice sharp, “were you planning on waiting to tell me this?”
“I was hoping to discover the answers to my earlier questions,” Jakobav replied, “before I announced to my most trusted guards and friends that I have been harboring our intruder, convinced Bryn to heal her, and have been feeding her, clothing her, and housing her in secret ever since, when I should be preparing for my Claiming and protecting the kingdom from the breaches.”
Maeren huffed, seeming to accept that, but she still complained anyway. “I cannot believe Bryn knew and said nothing.”
Jakobav gave her a thin shrug. “In his defense, I told him I would revoke his potion privileges if he said anything to anyone about it. I also implied that I would tell you myself.”
“He overestimated you,” she snapped.
He didn’t bother arguing.
She dragged a hand through her hair, then finally relented with a low growl. “Fine. You owe me two things if you want this forgiven.”
“I’m listening.”
“Training. Dawn. No excuses.”
He nodded.
“And after that,” Maeren continued, “you’re going to let me give you the full state of the kingdom. Court politics, border tensions, breach reports, everything you’ve been ignoring while you’ve been distracted.”
He didn’t rise to the jab. “You will have my full attention, I promise.”
Breakfast that morning had been quick but grounding: kiln-baked stonebread brushed with smoked salt, seared riverfish, and a bowl of ember-root broth thick enough to heat the blood. It was fuel for a fight neither of them intended to hold back on.
They stepped into the courtyard just as the first light broke across the ground, the cold biting hard enough to tighten breath and thought alike.
Frost clung to the training posts and the archways, glittering like shards of glass beneath the rising sun.
The space was empty by Jakobav’s order, cleared of trainees and officers so he and Maeren could face each other without distraction, without an audience, without expectation beyond the metal they carried.
The castle was only beginning to wake, distant footsteps muted by cold stone. Jakobav welcomed the chill. It scraped away the noise in his head, clarifying everything that had gone unspoken the night before.
Jakobav’s blade cracked against Maeren’s, the hiss of steel on steel carried by the bite of morning air.
Frost-hardened dirt shifted beneath their boots as they circled, each movement measured in the hush of the empty yard.
There were no eager trainees, no curious officers, no prying eyes waiting to catch a slip, only their resolve and the relentless rhythm of battle.
He drove forward, muscles taut, and she met him head-on. Their swords sang, each one testing, demanding, never yielding.
“How’s Savina?” he asked between blows, his breath steady as his arm. “Back in form yet? Or is she still snarling at everyone for keeping her sidelined while she heals?”
Maeren closed in, her gaze slicing through every weakness. “Close enough. Training again, but not ready for First Guard.”
He inclined his head, measuring her. “Anything else?”
The pause was slight, but it was there, a hitch in her blade before she gave the answer. “Another breach, but it was small and contained quickly. Nothing for you to lose sleep over. You should stay focused.”
His sword faltered mid-strike. Breaches were happening too often, creeping toward a pattern he didn’t like, and Maeren’s hesitation ignited something angry beneath his ribs. He didn’t need protecting. He didn’t need to be handled. The kingdom was his to command, not something to be shielded from.
“Oh, do not look at me like that.” She caught his hesitation and snapped at it. “Your second-in-command doesn’t need to hold your hand to report a problem I already handled.”
His mouth curved, humorless. “Then stop acting like you want to cradle me.”
She moved aside, grin flashing like a knife. “I would. But you are not nearly pretty enough to make it worth the effort.”
A snort broke from him, and in the space it opened, she went low and fast, blade slicing near his ribs. He twisted, barely, muttering, “Relentless.”
“You’re distracted.” Her blade swept for his knees. “That girl is in your head, admit it.”
He slammed his shoulder into her, breaking the rhythm, voice iron. “You speak too much for someone whose lungs should already be pierced.”
“And you brood too much for a man with a Claiming in less than two weeks.”
The words landed and his grip faltered, the moment stretching long enough for her blade to kiss his side.
“Dead,” she said brightly, stepping back with her fox’s grin.
“Shit.” He lowered his weapon, the word half a growl. “Insufferable.”
“Predictable,” she shot back, tipping her head. “Still leading with your left. Still flinching. Forgive me for speaking freely to my commander, but you need to focus. The solstice is almost here.”
He almost told her she always spoke too freely, but bit down on the retort.
And he wasn’t thinking about Ella this morning—not here, at least.
Maybe yesterday, while bathing, when her scent had still clung to his skin.
And after that, she had stared at him with those wide blue eyes while he stood in nothing but a towel, daring him with that stunned look and parted mouth. He hadn’t dried fully, letting the towel sit lower on his hips than necessary, just to see what she’d do.
She rewarded him twice: first, she looked deliciously furious, and then her gaze slid over him, bold enough to eye-fuck him before shame caught up just a heartbeat later.
Gods, he loved seeing her flustered and angry.
Shit, now he was fixating on Ella when training and discipline should have ruled his thoughts. She was a storm battering at his stronghold, and storms were meant to be weathered, not worshipped.
Regardless, Maeren was wrong. All morning his mind had been consumed by the Claiming, with every possible outcome running through him like a drumbeat he couldn't silence.
He woke up well before the sun, donned his training leathers, and slipped out of his room without Ella even moving an inch, all to carve out some extra preparation.
He had the utmost respect for the ritual, and what his kingdom gained from it.
The rite loomed over every warrior, and the solstice that followed thirteen full years of service was no accident.
Whether a warrior stood at twenty-eight or at thirty-three, it was the moment where loyalty met power and the realm chose whether to claim them.
For Jakobav, it would draw attention as all royal rites did, but this one felt heavier.
Reports stacked higher every day, whispers of power bending in ways it never had, the Veil twitching like a nerve ready to snap.
Many would show up just hoping to see the King of Dravaryn, his absence felt increasingly by the day.
His father had warned him years ago of the signs of Threadshifting, back when it wasn’t happening so quickly.
Ella had spoken that word in a whisper as though she’d discovered something forbidden, not realizing he already carried the knowledge like a scar that wouldn’t heal.
Gods, maybe he should stop watching her sleep, letting her spill secrets into the dark like prayers. But he knew there would be no stopping.
And Threadshifting was not the only truth she’d let slip.
He’d known about it for some time, and the First Guard had done everything in their power to keep the kingdom from suffering.
Yet the Claiming was no ceremonial pageant.
If he failed, he would gain nothing—no new ability, no strength to wield against what bled through the breaches—and Dravaryn would not stand behind an heir who faltered at the rite that defined them.
They were already fighting to survive the cracks in the Veil.
Without the power they expected him to claim, Threadshifting would spread like a sickness until Dravaryn itself cracked open.
No fucking pressure.
“Eyes up,” Maeren barked, her voice cracking across the ring like a whip in the cold.
Their rhythm resumed, blades colliding in a relentless cadence that sent a deep vibration through his arm and reverberated across the frost-hardened stone.
Strike followed strike, the tempo ingrained into him by years of training, until she feinted left and drove the hilt hard into his ribs.
The impact surged through him like a bruise spreading outward, raw and punishing, and his control faltered.
Something inside him slipped, and the frost along the ring cracked like shattered glass, hairline fractures webbing outward from his boots. The courtyard wall, veined with obsidian, shuddered as though it had a pulse of its own, dark veins twitching in time with his heartbeat.
Maeren stilled. Her eyes, bright and unblinking, swept over the fractures, catching every tremor. “Jake,” she said quietly, and there was no humor in it. “This is getting worse.”