Chapter 4
don’t sleep that night.
Instead, I lie awake listening to his breathing as anxiety twists my stomach into serpentine coils.
The inevitability of his departure has me plummeting into bottomless dread.
Finn’s arrival imploded my life, infinitely expanding the scale of my world.
I can’t fathom how I am supposed to shrink it again after he’s gone.
After a subdued breakfast, I retrieve his sword in its scabbard from where I stashed it in the cupboard. “You’ll probably also need this.”
Finn lights up like a hearth. “I thought I lost that!”
“Technically, you did,” I say wryly, handing it back to him. “Maybe try to hold on to it next time.”
Now I don’t know what to do with my hands.
Perhaps Finn is racked with the same indecision, because he pauses much longer than necessary. “Can I…expect to see you again?”
The question makes my heart skip, then plummet just as quickly. I toss back a joke to evade the painful truth. “Maybe the next time you try to fight a Moragorion.”
Finn suddenly reaches out and tugs me against his chest. Cradling my head with one hand, he breathes heavily into my hair. “Thank you for saving me.”
My stomach tugs, like free fall in a dream. I haven’t been hugged since I was a child. I don’t want to let go. Not now, not ever. How can I explain how much he means to me?
I’ve spent years bracing myself for the possibility that when I finally met someone my own age, the experience wouldn’t live up to my expectations.
How could I explain that he is even more wondrous than my dreams?
I want more time with Finn. I want to go on adventures together.
I want to confide in him about what I’m really scared of… .
I never get the chance, because that’s the moment we get interrupted.
It’s voices. Outside.
Horror lances my veins, freezing me in place. “Someone’s here,” I hiss, and we hurry to the window.
Through the mottled glass, we see three armed men approaching. Two are massive, with dark hair and beards, and the other is shorter and round, built like a boulder.
“Mercenaries,” Finn murmurs. “See the patches on their vests?”
I scrutinize the men more closely. Indeed, they each have a triangle sewn onto the left breast of their uniform, but I can’t make out the detail from this distance.
“Those are Sulish raiders,” Finn continues, in a low voice. “Sellswords. They’re officially employed by the Verdish Empire, but most of them operate more like pirates.”
If they catch you, they will kill you.
I feel like throwing up.
Finn emits a noise like a growl. “You should hide.”
“What?”
“Hide. Before they make an example out of you.” Our eyes meet, and Finn’s hold a dark glint of desperation. “If they know you’re out here alone—”
“I know,” I say, cutting him off.
I’m well informed of the dangers of being found.
I’m a lone female in the Ironwoods, defiantly living outside the Crown’s protection even as tension rumbles through Verdinae.
To the wrong pair of eyes, I look like someone with something to hide…
someone without proper papers. The empire has agents trained to hunt down Elves with Talents, like me.
One brush with one of them, and I’d end up in a prison cell, begging for my life to be ended quickly.
Imperial mercenaries would be less formal.
They’d treat me as spoils of war. A prize to be shared.
Mother has good reasons for training me to stay within the wardlines.
I feel sick with shame. When I ran to rescue Finn, I broke the only rule that mattered in her absence. And here are the consequences, arriving to damn me. Stepping outside the wardlines shattered every protective spell concealing our cottage. We’re sitting ducks.
Terror clamps down on my throat, and my skin flames.
“I’ll deal with them,” Finn says firmly, grabbing my shoulders to force me to meet his gaze. When I don’t move, he adds, “Now, Lyria. I have this under control.”
I pause. My Talent churns underneath my skin, already swelling in anticipation of release. But I can’t use it in front of Finn without revealing what I am.
Seeing no other choice, I obey him, scrambling into the closet. I try to steady my breathing as I watch Finn through a tiny crack in the wood. He swipes a blade from the kitchen before hurrying to the door.
My Elven ears home in on the mercenaries outside.
“There’s smoke in the chimney,” one of them says. “Someone’s in there.”
“What d’ya think?” another replies.
“I think I’m hungry.”
I hear the door swing open, then measured footsteps. It’s Finn. “Gentlemen,” he drawls, sounding remarkably casual. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Nice place you’ve got,” the first voice answers. “Not a lot of folks out here these days.”
“It’s just me and my father,” replies Finn, and I marvel at how easily he lies.
“Just you and the old man, eh? Where is he, then?”
“On a hunting trip. He should be back soon.”
“Well,” another man says, “with Daddy gone, I’d say the proper thing to do is offer us some hospitality.”
“Of course,” says Finn. “Come in, and I’ll see what I can spare.” My blood runs cold as they push past him, storming inside. But there’s a dark curl in Finn’s voice I don’t recognize when he adds, “I hope you boys brought an appetite.”
Someone starts to respond, but the attempt is cut short with a gurgle. I can’t see clearly from my hiding place, so I don’t realize what’s transpired until a mercenary thuds to the floor and I see the knife buried in his neck.
Then everything happens all at once.
Finn leaves no time for reactions. His sword is out before the other two can charge, and I stop breathing entirely as Finn whirls, plunging his blade between the nearest mercenary’s ribs. The man topples as Finn yanks it back with a grunt.
The third soldier is all that remains, and he raises a longsword to meet Finn’s next attack, bellowing curses.
Steel meets steel. As they lock into a duel, I realize that what I saw in the swamp didn’t do his skill justice.
Finn fights with lethal efficiency, darting and feinting to match the larger man’s blows.
His movements aren’t just precise. They’re perfect. Every decision is quick and unyielding. There is no hesitation about what needs to be done. He could almost be dancing with the mercenary, executing choreography known only to him.
He’s doing exactly what I would have done in his place. Eliminating the threat. This is the inevitability I’ve braced for my whole life—a fight to the death. I just never expected I’d have someone to battle alongside me.
It’s over as fast as it started. When the last body drops, Finn rushes straight to the closet and yanks open the door.
“Lyria! Are you all right?” As I shakily step out, apologetic explanation pours out of him.
“I’m sorry that was so quick, I calculated that my greatest odds were if I struck while I could still surprise them… .”
Restraint is beyond me. Apparently sanity is, too, because I leap forward and crash into him. Finn’s arms envelop me, his body folding against mine. We’re both trembling.
I scan with my Talent to confirm he’s uninjured. Then, with my face buried in the warmth of his chest, I choke out,“Consider us even.”
Finn stays to help me burn the bodies.
We work together in silence. I stack wood for the pyre while he strips them of their weapons, then helps me haul them over.
His movements are deft, his expression hard and unreadable.
When it’s finally over, we stamp out the flames to avoid attracting any more unwanted attention.
I walk back to the porch and sit, drawing my knees to my chest.
I’ve seen death before. It’s not a memory I care to revisit, but the cold, lancing ache of guilt is familiar. And when I close my eyes, I can still see Mother’s face against the blackness, her revulsion burned there like a brand.
Monster.
“Lyria,” Finn says gently, rousing me from my thoughts. “If I hadn’t handled it, if those men had found you alone, they would have done the same to you, or worse. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I answer dully, my throat raw. Mother has always been candid about how women and girls pay the price for men’s wars. My gaze flicks sidelong. “You’ve done this before?”
Slowly, he nods. “More than once. Never if I didn’t have to.”
I feel dizzy. “Who taught you?”
“My family had swordmasters. And then I served in the military.”
Swordmasters. Plural. I add this to the information I’ve gleaned. Hunts for fyrehounds. Trained by multiple swordmasters. And the last, most distasteful fact, which now requires clarification. “You served in the Verdish military?”
“Yes.”
My thoughts flash to Mother’s stories: the cities burned, the loved ones slaughtered, the people driven from their homeland by soldiers like him. Finn didn’t just inherit that legacy. He’s continuing it. My stomach goes leaden, weighing this revelation against a lifetime of fear.
If they catch you, they will kill you.
Except Finn just saved my life.
I feel numb as he collects his belongings inside a travel pack I gifted him.
Before departing, Finn embraces me one final time.
When he pulls away, his eyes drop to my mouth, and he leans in.
For one bizarre, heart-racing moment, I think he might kiss me—but his lips press against my forehead instead.
“I won’t forget you,” Finn whispers.
Then he hesitates. I sense that he’s waiting for something. A declaration? An offer to return? Some kind of promise for the future?
There are a thousand things I want to say, but they all wither and die on my lips. Because there is no future. Not for us. In the end, all I can manage is “Be safe.”
Finn smiles. And there it is again, that flicker of pain behind his eyes. A glimpse behind the mask. “Take care of yourself, Lyria,” he says softly.
I listen to his footsteps long after he’s disappeared.
Finn’s absence makes the cottage feel unbearably vacant and cold.
Even the colors look dim. The next morning, I force myself through my usual routine, but every part of it feels wrong.
I can’t look at my sewing kit without remembering the holes I patched in his clothes.
I search for my favorite chipped mug, and find it by the windowsill, next to a book Finn was reading before he left.
Even the smell of him lingers, ruining everything.
Mother will be home tomorrow. I know I’ve got a big storm coming. There’ll be hell to pay if I tell her what I’ve done, but I can’t bring myself to care.
To cut through the loneliness, I pick up the book.
It’s a volume about the Aldain dynasty, the old kings and queens of Evermore, including some accounts that terrified me as a child.
My favorite chapters were about Queen Soleste, the last Elven queen.
She was born in the Ironwoods as a commoner and married into the royal family before the kingdom crumbled.
The fables claim that Queen Soleste worshipped Nocturn, Goddess of Death, and could kill with a glance.
There’s a whole section dedicated to her execution after she surrendered to King Verdin.
I’ve never taken these stories at face value.
It doesn’t make sense that humans vanquished someone so powerful.
If anyone knew the truth, it would be Mother, considering she served the queen until the queen’s death.
But Soleste exists in the same category as my father: wholly unmentionable.
I flip through the worn pages until I find the one Finn bookmarked. It’s the prophecy of the Heir of Evermore—more of a song than a story, the preachy, sentimental kind that makes Mother misty-eyed. She sometimes sang it to help me fall asleep when I was little, so the lyrics are familiar.
One day, through ash and ice and fyre, an acolyte will rise,
To hoist the fallen banners and to break the binding ties.
A hero with the gifts of Gods, rekindler of the flame,
Honor-sworn and duty-bound, a homeland to reclaim.
With starfalls of divinity at hand, and heart, and brow,
They’ll walk two worlds and dine with Death, unconquered and unbowed.
When legions of our fallen kin rise up and march again,
The unbreakable will shatter and unyielding knees will bend.
And all will hear the triumph of the old kingdom restored,
Through pain and retribution by the Heir of Evermore.
I slam the book shut, annoyed with myself.
It was foolish to think revisiting the book might make me feel closer to Finn.
It’s just a painful reminder of his absence and the vast chasm between us.
I’ve never found comfort in the prophecy as Mother does.
The empire stole her past and robbed me of my future. Those aren’t things you can reclaim.
I try to shove Finn and the stupid fables out of mind as I prepare for Mother’s return. No doubt there will be dire consequences for my rebellion, so I compose another speech—this time, an apology.
But by dusk the next day, Mother hasn’t returned.
One day of waiting rolls into two, and then three, and my apprehension grows exponentially.
In all her years of travel, Mother has never returned late.
After a week with no word or sign, I resolve to go after her.
But a raven arrives in the midst of my packing, carrying a note with a word scrawled in Elven runes:
Delayed.
Frustration sears through me. Of course she wouldn’t feel the need to explain any further. What does it matter if I wait here another day, another week, another month? What does she care?
I crumple the note and toss it into the hearth, gritting my teeth against the swell of my Talent.
I can’t remember the last time I was this furious.
The magic is screaming for release. I pace the cottage, considering another trip to the waterfall to temper the liquid fire.
The wardlines are shot to hell anyway—what’s one more rebellion?
I’m on my way to grab my shoes when I hear the BANG! BANG! BANG! of a fist on the door.
I wish I could say I spring into fighting stance, ready to face the threat. But the knock catches me so off guard, I jolt with such force that I fall flat on my ass. I’m clambering back to my feet when I hear a man shout from outside:
“OPEN UP! THIS IS THE ROYAL GUARD!”