Chapter 30 The Hunt at the Gate #2
First Guard pressed in together, years of practice evident in the rhythm of how they fought: Maeren striking with living stone, Thane a force at her side, Savina with her brutal finesse, Soren vanishing from the ground to reappear where he was most needed.
Jakobav was at the center, his sword a shield between the monster’s reaching hands and the pocket that betrayed him. Blood darkened his shirt. Too much of it was his, yet his stance never faltered.
Ella’s chest cracked open with the sight.
The breach still churned behind the creature, its edges fraying wider with every second it lingered here.
If this thing had been sent, there might be more, and whoever commanded it was likely watching closely.
She moved at the thought, needing to be useful, to help, raising her weapon and lunging into the chaos.
“Ella,” Jakobav growled, looking back. “Stay behind me.”
“Not a chance,” she answered, sliding right, her blade angling to close his blind spot.
The monster struck again and Jakobav parried, but the second hit landed hard against his shoulder. The wet rip of tearing flesh carried across the stone. He grunted but held.
Thane cursed and drove his blade deep, a cut that should have felled any mortal or beast. Savina slashed its hamstring, but the creature spun, backhanding her with a force that sent her skidding bloody across cobbles.
She rolled, teeth bared in a smile that promised pain in return. “I’m fine,” she spat. “Keep it busy.”
Soren vanished, his body dissolving into earth.
He rose behind the beast, arms clamping around its throat, trying to drag it down.
Smoke bled against his grip, but still the creature strained forward, its red leaking eyes locked unerringly on Jakobav’s pocket.
Every feint, every strike curved back toward him.
Soren’s eyes swiveled from Jakobav’s pocket and then back to the creature.
“Jake,” Soren said, moving to cover him, quiet and calm even in the chaos. “Drop it. Whatever you’re guarding is not worth your life.”
Soren vanished from its flank and rose beside Jakobav with one hand already outstretched, as if ready to tear the pocket free for drawing death to his commander.
The thing lunged faster than it had moved all night. Soren caught its forearm and twisted, tendons popping under his grip until it gave with a wet crack.
This was her opening. The creature’s head cocked again like it was listening, scenting, and she cut in hard from its blind side. Her blade drove up beneath its jaw and punched out near the ear, a clean line of steel that sent a sheet of black and red blood across the cobbles.
It bucked loose from Soren and clawed toward Jakobav, still reaching for that godsdamned pocket even as Thane’s cut took both tendons at the back of its knees. Savina followed through without hesitation, her strike slicing through its neck, finishing what she started.
The head toppled, the mouth still stretched too wide, a last ripple of that awful echo spilling out. The body staggered back, smoke still leaching from it, before collapsing.
Shadow unwound from the corpse like breath from a dying fire and twisted back toward the waiting breach.
Silence fell, and then sound returned all at once.
“Jakobav,” Maeren said, stepping toward him and stopping only when he swayed.
“I’m good. I’m fine,” he answered, though the torchlight showed him pale and set his soaked shirt to a darker red along the ribs.
Ella moved to help him, and he let her, which was its own small miracle. Or a very bad sign.
She pressed her palm to his side, and heat surged against her skin. She couldn’t tell if it was the wound burning or simply the furnace of him whenever she stood too close.
“Stitches,” Bryn said briskly from Jakobav’s other side, already fishing through his satchel. “Also a fresh rack of ribs, if anyone happens to be carrying a spare.”
“Bryn, not now.” Ella shot him a glare before turning back toward Jakobav.
“Can you walk?” Maeren asked, eyes on the blood.
Jakobav gave one short nod. “Take the head,” he said. “That thing is a Tracker, but nothing like the ones I’ve seen before. I want it studied.” His tone was resolute.
Savina nudged the severed thing with her boot, lip curling. “I would rather lick the sweat from Thane’s disgustingly hairy backside than touch that thing ever again.”
Ella’s gaze had already gone to the breach.
It was still open, thinner now, but open all the same, leaking smoke that curled like beckoning fingers.
She felt the pull distinctly and looked around. It didn’t seem to be calling to anyone else—only to her. If another Tracker slipped through, or if something worse stepped out while Bryn had his hands in Jakobav’s side, they would all pay for her hesitation.
She moved before caution could catch her.
“Ella,” Thane snapped, reading her angle. “No.”
She ignored him and stepped to the cusp of the shimmer’s threshold, close enough that the fine hairs along her forearms lifted. The air tasted like metal shavings and summer rain as she closed her eyes and reached for the threads.
The first time she Threadwalked she’d slipped by accident. Anger and fear had opened the world under her feet, and she’d clawed her way back with instinct, stubbornness, and a prayer to gods. This time she went looking on purpose.
She pictured the threads as the seer had described them, not a single rope but a thousand strands braided and unbraided by intention.
She reached for where they loosened near the breach, slick and writhing like living current.
She caught one, and it seared her palm. She caught another and pulled it to the first, forcing them to twist together, and her Orchid tattoo sparked in response, heat blooming under her skin before dimming as though pouring itself into the space between worlds.
The sounds of the courtyard blurred, but she registered faintly that someone had called her name, Jakobav’s voice, low and furious, laced with fear.
But she held the threads anyway and pulled them tight.
The shimmer shoved back, a raw current slamming into her arms until they shook and her knees threatened to buckle. She dragged harder.
“Shut,” she hissed through her teeth. “Close.”
The seam widened in defiance. She tasted oranges and smoke and something sweet, like Fae wine spilling across her tongue.
She thought of Orchid soil and the way her fire had always come when she called it. She wished she could burn the breach shut with something that belonged only to her, but she didn’t have her flame, she had only this.
She steadied. The threads brightened beneath her grip, like they recognized her after all.
Finally, they surrendered.
The breach folded inward like a curtain pulled closed by an unseen hand, smoke vanishing into nothing. The hum in the air cut off so suddenly that the silence rang in its absence.
Ella swayed. The world tilted, despite the ground being solid beneath her boots. She would have gone down if Savina had not caught her forearm in a grip that was pure strength and only a trace of gentleness.
“Easy,” Savina said.
Ella blinked up at her. Savina was close, eyes dark, the scar across her cheek pale against flushed skin.
She looked the same as ever: furious, unflinching, ready to kill anything stupid enough to breathe near her, but something else glinted beneath it now.
Something harder to hide. Respect dragged reluctantly into daylight.
“That was…” Savina’s mouth tightened, as if the words themselves resisted her. “Impressive.”
Ella stared. “Did you just compliment me?”
Savina’s expression soured like she had bitten straight into a lemon. “Do not make me repeat it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ella said.
Savina’s grip steadied her with a firmness that was almost protective.
“You were ordered to stand down, but you stepped toward the breach instead. No hesitation.”
Something raw flashed behind her eyes, brief yet unmistakable.
“You know…I’m starting to think you belong here.”
The words seemed painfully honest, and Ella forgot how to speak. The moment stretched too long, both fleeting and endless.
“I hope you decide to stay.”
Ella’s mouth went dry. She had no clever answer for that, only a breath held tightly, one that she couldn’t seem to let go.
Savina cleared her throat as if to erase the softness.
“Tomorrow…there are five phases to the Claiming,” she said, tone clipped and practical again.
“The one being Claimed gets to choose who stands with them in each phase, anchoring the rite. It’s tradition and strategy both, and if Jake wakes tonight, you need to ask him to put your name forward.
The High Vexari will want it finalized before the first bell. ”
“What are the five phases?” Ella asked, still catching her breath. Jakobav had changed the subject when Ella asked him questions about the High Vexari so it was unlikely that he would want or let Ella be a part of the ritual, but she didn’t say that to Savina, not wanting to shatter the moment.
Savina gave a single nod. “Binding of Stone, Tempering of Mind, Warding of Earth, Anointing of Flesh, Claiming of Truth. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?
Really, it’s just blood, dirt, oil, water, and a lot of theatrics.
” The ghost of a smile touched her mouth and died quickly.
“I’m sure Bryn will call the fifth phase something ridiculous like bubbles and bath time. Ignore him.”
“Savina,” Bryn said from behind them, scandalized. “It does involve a sacred hot spring, and there are indeed bubbles.”
“The sacred spring is not something to be downplayed. Or underestimated,” Maeren snapped, approaching her and Savina with a pointed glance toward Ella and the place where the breach had been. “Good work.”
Thane slung the creature’s severed head into a sack with theatrical flourish. “Are we keeping this for décor? I know a spot in the great hall.”
“Try your room,” Savina said. “It’ll pair nicely with the horrors that probably occur there,” she muttered, smirking.
Soren’s focus was fixed on Ella with unsettling intensity. She met his gaze, and he didn’t look away. Instead of speaking, he gave the smallest tilt of his head and shifted his focus to Jakobav.
Shit, Jakobav.
They turned together.
Bryn had already pressed him back against the stone wall, hands moving quickly as he examined the wound. Blood streaked Bryn’s fingers to the wrist. Jakobav’s face had lost the color it wore when he was winning, and he seemed to be standing only by sheer refusal to do otherwise.
“Stop pretending you’re granite,” Bryn said flatly. “Granite bleeds less.”
“How bad?” Maeren asked.
“Cracked at least,” Bryn said without looking up. “Broken. The claws shredded through muscle but missed the lung, because fate has a twisted sense of humor. He needs rest, but please somebody, anybody, take his sword before he stabs me for suggesting it.”
“I’ll take it,” Thane said while reaching out, offering to hold the weapon, but Jakobav’s grip did not loosen on the hilt, seeming oblivious to the blood soaking his shirt or to Bryn’s hands pressing into his side.
His gaze swept the courtyard until it found Ella. His voice didn’t sound as furious as she’d expected. “Are you okay? What did you do?”
“Closed it,” she said, and only then did she feel what it had cost, exhaustion and pain coursing through her veins. Still, she was standing, breathing, and that would have to count.
His focus jumped to her collarbone, to where her Orchid mark was now faded, nearly gone, and his mouth drew into a hard, flat line. “This isn’t over. You disobeyed a direct order.”
“Technically, Thane was the one who protested,” she countered.
Shouts rose near the gate before he could answer. “Breach is gone!” a guard called, breathless. “Sealed completely.”
The courtyard relaxed, soldiers sagging in relief before straightening again, as if reminded that their Commander still bled. Maeren shouted orders through the night. Torches swung high while one runner bolted toward the healers’ quarters, and another sprinted to ring the all clear.
Savina was already barking instructions at the gate captain.
Maeren returned and slid beneath Jakobav’s arm without hesitation, bearing his weight as if it belonged to her alone.
Thane fell in beside them, sack swinging over his shoulder, sword still in hand.
Soren moved like a shadow wearing the shape of a man, sticking to the darkness along the wall. Somehow Jakobav kept moving.
Bryn walked backward to keep pace, voice brisk and relentless. “No more heroic lunges. No more frolicking in the gardens or tearing the sky open. Your injuries are questionable at best, so listen to me when I tell you, take shallow breaths and don’t even think about sneezing.”
Jakobav’s jaw flexed, looking irritated by the effort of restraint.
“That’s the spirit,” Bryn said, utterly unfazed. “Spite heals.”
“Spite is not a medical plan,” Maeren muttered, bracing him harder when he shifted too quickly.
Thane glanced over his shoulder with a grin. “I don’t know about that. Spite has worked for me.”
Savina snorted. “You’re too stubborn to die. That’s not the same thing.”
“But it’s effective,” Thane said cheerfully.
Jakobav didn’t respond to any of it, and his eyes stayed forward, every step measured, his weight balanced between Maeren’s shoulder and the stone wall. Ella kept close, ready to steady him, though she knew he’d rather bite her than lean on her.
His hand remained locked over that pocket like a man guarding the last secret he owned.