Chapter 21
Wren
My heart does something unhelpful in my chest, a small stutter that feels like it might echo in the stillness of the room. I push myself against the headboard, tugging the blanket a little tighter around my legs like it’ll give me the support I need to get through this.
“Come in,” I offer before asking, “Can you close the door, though?”
I don’t know if Derrick stayed behind and I don’t want to risk anyone else hearing this.
He hesitates only a second before stepping inside fully. The door clicks shut with a soft finality that makes the room feel smaller, the shadows pooling deeper in the corners. I have to rip my mind away from envisioning the shadows swirling, alive with their connection to Azyric.
Ryoden moves to stand near the foot of the bed, gaze on the window where he’s illuminated fully by pale, silver light.
“Before we start,” I say, folding my hands together in my lap to stop myself from fidgeting, “I need to ask you for something.”
His brows lift a fraction as he glances over at me curiously. “All right.”
“Let me get it all out at once,” I request, the words beginning to tumble over each other now that I’ve accepted we’re going down this path together.
“Everything. From the beginning, or at least the beginning as I remember it. No interruptions and no questions, not until I’m finished.
If I get knocked off the path, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find my way back through all of it again, and you deserve to hear the whole… mess in one piece.”
Something in his face softens at that, the line between his brows easing slightly.
“I think I can manage to keep my mouth shut that long,” he says, a faint hint of wryness threading through his tone. “Go ahead.”
I draw in a breath, thankful for the levity he threads into the moment, and then I begin.
I tell him about waking up on a battlefield with magic in the air and no name of my own, surrounded by corpses and four supernatural kings who should have killed me on sight but didn’t.
Then I connect the dots of how Eli and I know each other and how those humans leaving me behind is what paved the path to meeting the kings.
I tell him about the way each of them felt like a different kind of irresistible pull at me to understand their people, the same it does for humans.
How their world unfolded around me in fragments: treaties and wars, factions and histories, power and prejudice.
I tell him about the earth, about the way it used to answer me, how I could sink my awareness down through soil and stone and feel everything it needs on the other side.
That I’m not like any other magical being on this planet and that I was created as a failsafe for the planet to deploy when it was heading for destruction.
How that connection to the earth has been cut entirely, as if I’ve committed some unforgivable sin it can’t quite reconcile because I want to avoid a path of bloodshed.
I tell him about the threads. I describe the golden lines stretching across my vision like spun light, each one humming with potential futures, each one ending badly.
I don’t offer the full details of each path, explaining that it feels deeply personal to keep the details between the earth and myself.
It’s a truth I didn’t even offer the kings when I told them I can’t be with them for now because of what I know.
His jaw tightens at that, but he doesn’t speak. His hands curl loosely at his sides in a way that suggests he’s deliberately trying to not clench them.
I tell him how I came here because the human side of the world is the part I understand the least and therefore I can’t in good conscience choose any path without trying to see all sides of this war and planet clearly.
Finally, I tell him about how I was only slightly losing my mind on that ridge outside of his city when his patrol found me, but that it was an argument with the earth for cutting me off when I needed the connection the most.
“And that,” I finish, every muscle in my body tight as I anticipate his utter disbelief now that I’m at the end of my winding story, “is why I’m here, in your city instead of hiding in some supernatural stronghold.
I’m trying to find a third option for peace.
A way to keep the world from tearing itself apart completely. ”
Ryoden releases a slow breath through his nose, eyes closed for a moment like he’s cataloguing every insane piece of information I just dropped in his lap.
“So,” he says at last, “your first clear memory is a battlefield. You’re something the earth accepted from the gods to act as a…
failsafe, and it showed you two futures where everybody loses.
You walked away from both, and now you’re here trying to build a third from scratch, under my roof, while four kings and my entire chain of command circle the two of us like wolves. ”
When he puts it like that, it sounds even more impossible.
I manage a weak huff. “That’s the short version, yes.”
His gaze stays steady on mine, and there’s so much less shock than I expected. Honestly, I’m not even sure if he is shocked, as it seems he’s taken everything in stride as a reluctant understanding.
“I have questions,” he hedges, which kicks my stomach back into a pile of knots. “A lot of them. But first…”
He trails off and runs a hand over his face, palm rasping against the stubble on his jaw. When his hand drops, he begins.
“First, I need you to know that I believe you.”
The confession hits me hard, and my spine straightens as if my entire body is perking up at that confirmation.
“You…do?” I ask, almost disbelieving.
I mean, really, I threw a lot of truly unbelievable things at him.
His mouth curves in a humorless half-smile. “I’d rather believe in you and what you’ve just told me than believe I let myself get completely fooled by a beautiful woman with a silver tongue.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks so fast it almost makes me dizzy.
“A beautiful woman,” I repeat, because my brain has apparently decided that’s the only part of the sentence it can process on short notice.
He huffs out a dry laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners for just a heartbeat. “You heard that part, did you?”
“I’m not sure I heard anything else,” I admit under my breath as heat rushes to my face.
The flicker of levity doesn’t last long, but it’s there, a small, warm thing in the otherwise cold room.
“I’d also rather believe,” he continues, sobering the mood, “that the person I’ve been trusting with my instincts and my people’s safety isn’t secretly planning to stab me in the back the first chance she gets.
I’m aware that may make me na?ve, but it’s a na?vety I can live with.
The alternative means assuming I’m unfit for this role and should step down immediately. ”
“I don’t think you’re na?ve,” I say, the words slipping out before I can stop them. “I think you’re brave and honorable.”
That earns me a small, real smile that softens some of the angles of his face. “Thank you.”
His shoulders roll back slightly as if he’s bracing for the next part. “I need to tell you what I’ve done with this information. Or rather, what I haven’t done.”
A knot tightens in my stomach. “I’m listening.”
“I called my headquarters,” he says gently, as if he’s expecting me to freak out. “I requested an in-person audience. The General agreed to gather the colonels and higher-ups within three days. I’m expected to be there.”
I think of Derrick warning me that he could be stripped of his rank, jailed, or executed. The room presses in around me and I swallow down the fear gathering in my throat.
“Why would you want that?” I ask, not understanding why he’d put himself in such a bad position after what happened here today.
“I was supposed to send an official paper report with all the details. My officers gathered with me to debrief and draft the report, but I couldn’t bring myself to list everything.
” His jaw tightens just before his throat bobs heavily.
“I had to mention having a prisoner up on that wall with me to assuage my officers who already seemed concerned over the decisions I made today.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him I understand and that I don’t blame him for doing what he needs to protect himself and his position, but he gazes back out the window and continues on.
“After everyone left and it was just me and that parchment in my office, I realized that I’m damned if I send the missive, and damned if I don’t,” he admits hoarsely.
“I…I can’t allow that report to be sent and for my boss to rip it apart for how many details were left out and to fixate on the part about you, however vague it may be. ”
“Ryoden, I—” I start, but he cuts me off as his stare whips back to me.
“I burned it, Wren. I threw it into my trashcan and watched it burn, knowing the only way to protect you and myself is by handling the flow of information myself, directly to the source without anyone around to contradict me.”
My eyebrows shoot up and my words come out a bit breathless. “You…what?”
The weight of that settles heavily in my chest and I feel my shoulders slumping in turn. He is risking everything on me, and he knows it.
“Ryoden,” I breathe, fingers tightening in the blanket. “If they find out you are purposefully omitting or falsifying details with you right in front of them…”
My throat tightens and Derrick’s words echo: You stand with him while this plays out and you help him shoulder whatever comes of it.
“I don’t want you punished for helping me,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. “I never wanted that.”
“I know,” he replies, and there’s no accusation in it, only simple acknowledgment. “But that’s not your choice to control. It’s mine. What is your choice is this…”