Chapter 13 – Lucian #2
The next sound is worse: silence breaking into a war cry.
The door explodes inward as two soldiers surge through.
I meet the first with a slash across his throat, dragging him down before his scream can rise.
The second slams into me, driving me back against the table.
His weight pins me, the stench of sweat and iron flooding my nose.
I twist, driving the boot blade up under his ribs. His breath rattles once, then fades.
Rourke’s rifle cracks, the sound deafening in the cabin. A figure collapses at the window. Vera swings the hatchet with a cry, splitting another’s shoulder as he charges through the door. Abigail screams, clutching the satchel tight.
More pour in. The cabin erupts into chaos, blades clashing, wood splintering, firelight strobing across faces twisted in rage. I lose count of how many fall, only that each heartbeat brings another body to the floor.
Then, silence again. My chest heaves, sweat stinging my eyes.
The floor is slick with blood. Rourke leans on his rifle, cursing, his cheek split open.
Vera stands near Abigail, the hatchet trembling in her grip.
The girl’s sobs echo, high and piercing, until Vera pulls her close and whispers her into quiet.
I cross to the door, scanning the treeline. Lights lie abandoned, burning low. The rest fled into the dark. Cowards, or messengers. Either way, we cannot stay.
“They’ll return,” I say. My voice is hoarse. “With more.”
Rourke spits blood onto the floor. “And what then? We keep running until the world ends?”
I don’t answer. Because I know the truth: Declan will not stop. He will burn every tree, every house, every field to smoke before he lets us slip away. The hunt is not ending. It is only beginning.
I clean my blades in silence, my reflection glinting sharp and cold in the steel. Vera watches me with an unreadable expression, her hand smoothing Abigail’s hair. She knows the weight pressing on me, even if she cannot share it.
For the first time since the tower, I feel it fully, the truth I’ve tried to deny. This is not survival. It is war. And war does not wait for the willing. It consumes, dragging us all down to its depths.
The bodies lie heavy in the cabin’s silence.
The fire gutters low, smoke curling through broken shutters.
I drag the last corpse outside, leaving it in the frost-bitten grass.
When I return, Abigail hides her face from me, clinging to Vera’s side.
She has seen too much. I try not to look at her eyes, because I know what I’ll find there. Fear. Of me.
We cannot linger. Dawn presses closer, the horizon faint with gray.
The air smells of blood and ash, a trail the Crown’s hounds will follow.
Rourke bandages his cheek with strips of cloth, muttering curses under his breath.
Vera tightens Abigail’s cloak, then lifts Marta’s satchel with steady hands.
She is pale, but her voice does not falter when she says, “We move now. Before the ground freezes our tracks into stone.”
I lead them north, deeper into the trees.
The forest is brittle with frost, each step crunching underfoot.
We move in silence, broken only by Abigail’s soft sniffles.
I hear every sound as though the world itself has sharpened to a blade: the snap of twigs, the whisper of branches, the thrum of distant drums. My senses stretch thin, half man, half shadow.
By midday, we reach a ridge overlooking the river.
The water cuts silver through the valley, fast and merciless.
Across its far bank, I see them, riders bearing the Crown’s colors, their formation tight, their eyes sweeping the treeline.
They hunt with purpose now, the patience of the game over. Declan drives them with an iron will.
Rourke groans. “They’re herding us. Just like I said.”
He’s right. The riders push us toward the cliffs, toward the deadfall where the forest ends in jagged stone. The perfect trap. Unless we carve our own escape.
We double back through the trees, keeping low, Abigail muffled in Vera’s arms. Hours drag until the forest breaks into marshland. The ground sucks at our boots, each step a battle against muck and ice. The air reeks of rot, thick and cloying. Perfect ground to vanish, if we survive it.
By nightfall, we find shelter in the ruins of an old mill, its wheel broken, its stones black with moss.
The roof sags but holds against the cold.
Rourke collapses near the hearth, too tired to curse.
Vera tends to Abigail, wrapping her in wool scavenged from a chest of moth-eaten blankets.
I take first watch, blade in hand, eyes fixed on the shadows.
Hours creep. Abigail sleeps. Rourke snores. Vera crosses the room, quiet as mist. She stops beside me, her face a pale shape in the moonlight. “You didn’t kill him,” she says softly. “The boy. Jonas.”
I don’t answer. My jaw clenches. She places a hand on my arm. “That choice matters, Lucian. More than you know.”
Her touch is light, but it anchors me. For the first time in years, the rage inside me loosens, if only a fraction. I turn my hand, covering hers. No words, just the weight of silence between us.
Outside, the wind howls through broken shutters, carrying the echo of distant horns. The hunt has not ended. But tonight, in the hollow of the ruined mill, we endure.
And endurance is the seed of defiance.