9. Chapter 9
AMARIA
The clearing Dreadscale found for us was small but sheltered, a hollow between ancient oaks, the ground padded with old leaves and pine needles. Fireflies had started their evening dance, blinking gold and green through the undergrowth. It almost felt peaceful.
Almost.
The Sensorium Wood loomed in the distance, its treeline darker than it should have been, as if the dusk thickened around it first.
Dreadscale set to work on the fire pit, arranging stones in a careful ring and sorting the kindling by size.
Serenya was inventorying the food supplies and frowning at what remained.
I was pretending to help with the bedrolls while actually just trying to stay exactly six feet from Eryndor, which was harder than it sounded when everyone kept moving.
Camp was half-assembled when Maxx sidled up to Serenya.
I wasn't eavesdropping. I was on a pile of matted leaves, wrestling bedding, very pointedly not looking at Eryndor and counting down the minutes until our next mandatory recharge. But Maxx's whisper carried.
"We need to liven up this funeral procession."
Serenya didn't look up from the herbs she was organizing. "Hmm. What did you have in mind? Nothing that wastes what's left of our food."
"A wager." His grin was audible. "Your choice of spectacle. I make Eryndor laugh—a real laugh, not that constipated almost-smile—or..." He paused for dramatic effect. "I catch Dreadscale unaware."
Now Serenya looked up.
Her eyes drifted to where Dreadscale was gathering firewood at the edge of the clearing. Then back to Maxx. A slow smile spread across her face.
"Dreadscale. Hands down."
Maxx clutched his chest. "Your faith in me is touching."
"Your glamours are good." She resumed her work. "Dreadscale is better."
"And if I succeed?"
"You won't."
"But if I do?"
Serenya considered. "Bragging rights. One full day of me acknowledging your superior skills."
"And if I lose?"
"You give Eryndor a compliment." She held up a finger before he could protest. "A real one. Sincere. No qualifiers. No 'for a soulless killing machine.' Just... nice."
Maxx's face contorted like she'd asked him to swallow a live toad.
"That's barbaric."
"Those are the terms."
"And what do you forfeit if I win?"
Serenya didn't look up. "I already told you. You won't."
"Hypothetically."
She paused, the corner of her mouth curling, and met his eyes. Held them a beat longer than necessary.
“Win first,” she said, her tone low. “Then we’ll discuss.”
Maxx’s eyes widened and I watched his throat bob as he tried to pull himself together.
"Consider me…" His voice came out rougher than usual. "Properly motivated."
He left before she could respond, and I caught Serenya smiling down at her hands like she'd won something far bigger than a bet.
I waited until Maxx was out of earshot.
"'Win first, then we'll discuss'?" I mimicked her tone.
"Who are you and what have you done with my priestess?"
"Shut up."
"That was flirting. That was actual flirting. With your voice and everything."
"I said shut up."
But she was smiling. And when I bumped her shoulder, she bumped back.
Maxx waited until the fire was crackling and Dreadscale had settled onto a fallen log, massive axe balanced across his knees. The blade caught the firelight as he drew a whetstone along its edge. Long, slow strokes.
I ran my hands over every blade I carried before I settled in.
Daggers—seated. Throwing stars—six, flush.
I thumbed each blade at elbow, knee, wrist, ankle, shoulder, checking the harnesses hadn't loosened on the march.
Two fingers into my braid last, finding the razors tucked along the weave. All of it where it should be.
"Nature calls," Maxx announced to no one in particular, rising and stretching with theatrical laziness. "If I'm not back in five minutes, assume I've been eaten by something embarrassing."
He disappeared into the trees.
I went back to not looking at Eryndor.
A minute passed. Two.
Dreadscale kept sharpening. The sound was rhythmic. Almost hypnotic. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
Movement at the treeline. Maxx emerged from the shadows, grinning like a cat stalking a particularly oblivious bird. He caught my eye. Put a finger to his lips.
Shhhh.
I glanced at Serenya. She was watching too, cross-legged by the fire, Codex closed in her lap, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
Maxx made a show of it—exaggerated tiptoeing, theatrical crouching. Then he flickered, and the glamour swallowed him whole. One moment he was there; the next, just empty air.
Or what should have been empty air.
I held my breath. Watched the space where Maxx had vanished, trying to track movement that wasn't there. A rustle of grass, maybe. The faintest impression of weight shifting.
Nothing. He was good. I'd give him that.
Dreadscale's whetstone never faltered. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
Then—so subtle I almost missed it—the axe tilted. Just a fraction. The blade angled away from the firelight, catching shadows instead.
Dreadscale's eyes weren't on the edge anymore. They were fixed on something in the polished steel. Following it.
He knows exactly where Maxx is.
Dreadscale shifted. One fluid motion, sliding left on the log like he was simply adjusting his seat.
A yelp. A thud. And suddenly Maxx was there—sprawled face-first in the dirt where Dreadscale had been sitting half a second ago, glamour shattering around him like shards of broken mirror.
Dreadscale didn't even look up.
"Glamour shimmers. Blades reflect," he said, still drawing the whetstone along the blade.
Maxx lay sprawled in the dirt, leaves in his hair, dignity in ruins.
"You saw me?"
Now Dreadscale looked at him. Flat. Unimpressed.
"You were never invisible. Just quiet." A pause. "Barely."
Serenya was trying very hard not to laugh. She was failing.
"Well." Maxx pushed himself up, brushing dirt from his coat with exaggerated dignity. "That was humbling."
"Was it?" Dreadscale returned to his sharpening. "Good."
Maxx caught Serenya's eye. Her smile was radiant. Victorious.
Then it faltered.
Her brow creased. The smile didn't fade—it dropped. She looked at Maxx on the ground. At Dreadscale. At the rest of us standing around like we were waiting for something.
"What..." She lifted a hand to her temple. "Why is Maxx in the dirt?"
Maxx's grin died on his face. He pushed himself up slowly, brushing leaves from his coat, his eyes never leaving hers.
"We made a bet, Starlight," he said. His voice had gone quiet. "I lost."
"A bet?" She shook her head slightly, like she was trying to dislodge a trapped memory. "I don't... when did we..."
"Just now, Starlight." He stepped closer. "You bet I couldn't catch Dreadscale unaware. You were right. I couldn't."
She stared at him. Lost. Afraid.
"What..." She swallowed. "What did I bet?"
"I owe Eryndor a compliment. A real one. Those were your terms."
A fragile barrier crumpled behind her eyes. The fear shifted into shame. Grief for the pieces of herself slipping through the cracks.
"Forget it." Her voice came out small. "You don't have to. I don't even remember asking—"
Dreadscale's whetstone stopped. The silence where the scraping had been was louder than any of us expected. He looked up at Maxx. His hand hovered over the blade, and it stayed like that until Maxx stepped toward her, then he resumed.
"Serenya," Maxx said, kneeling in front of her and tilting her chin gently. My heart ached watching them, how tenderly he held her.
"You won," he said softly. "Fair and square. And I always pay my debts."
He swept into a bow—deep, graceful, not a trace of mockery.
"Let me deliver what I promised my lady."
She didn't smile. But something in her face eased. Just a fraction.
Maxx straightened. Brushed the dirt from his coat. Turned to face Eryndor without another word.
I glanced at Serenya. She was watching him with her lips slightly parted. Like she was seeing him for the first time.
She didn't remember why he was doing this.
That made it matter more, somehow.
Maxx took a breath. For a long moment, nothing came out.
Then he walked straight up to Eryndor.
"In the cave," Maxx said. "When Dreadscale did the math."
Eryndor's expression shuttered.
"One day left in her. Three days to the border." Maxx's voice had lost its usual music. "Most men would've begged for more. Demanded she push harder. Drained her to the last drop if it meant another hour of breathing."
He tilted his head, studying Eryndor like a puzzle he couldn't solve.
"You ripped the packing out of your own wound."
I stopped breathing.
"You heard the numbers and decided you were the variable that needed removing." Maxx shook his head slowly. "You weren't panicking. You weren't giving up. You were solving the equation. And the answer you came up with was: subtract yourself."
The fire crackled. No one moved.
"I've met heroes," Maxx said quietly. "Men who'd die for glory, for honor, for a good story. I've never met anyone who'd die just to stop being inconvenient."
He stepped back. Exhaled like he'd been holding his breath underwater. His eyes found Serenya's—held for a beat—before he shook himself loose.
"There." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Done. I need a drink."
Serenya didn't smile. She was looking at Maxx the way she looked at prophecy fragments—like a scattered pattern had just rearranged itself into meaning.
Eryndor stared into the fire and went utterly still.
He said nothing.
I watched Maxx turn away, watched Serenya's mouth soften, watched Eryndor stare into the fire with his expression strained and his bandage dark with blood, and a magnetic ache in my sternum pulled toward all of it. Toward them. Toward the circle they were stitching closed.
The ache sharpened. And I understood—too late, the way you understand a fall after your foot has already left the edge—what I was actually feeling.
Not grief. Not guilt. My body wanted to be here.
Wanted the fire and the voices and the weight of Eryndor nearby.
Wanted it so badly my hands were shaking.