Chapter Thirty-Four
The clever fox may know the trail
The wiser snare ensures he'll fail
Ronyn hasn’t seen Jax in two days.
Not since the night those words finally broke loose between them and scattered across the floor like shattered glass.
Not since she used him, discarded him, and refused to let him in.
She hurt him, and he’s not afraid to admit it. Because despite her assumptions, he’s not hiding his pain, or pretending it doesn’t exist—he’s choosing to live loudly in the face of it. Choosing to defy what Thalmyr wants him to become: bitter, broken, and callous.
He’s seen it before, in the eyes of every broken Earthbound in Virellin.
And he refuses that fate. Refuses to drown in his own misfortune. Because Revryn taught him something years ago: the past shapes how we see the world, but it doesn’t get to decide who we become inside it. It can’t. Pain cannot be the only measure of his life.
He will not add to the suffering of the Known Realms. He will defy it at every turn.
The day he watched his parents swing from the gallows, Ronyn decided something:
His mark on the world would be joy.
Because anger was easy.
Bitterness was easy.
The world was already drowning in men who let their wounds turn them cruel. Joy, though? Joy in a broken world—that was defiance. That was a rebellion all of its own.
Sometimes he had to fake it first—he wasn’t blind to the atrocities of the world.
But the strange thing about joy was that if you practiced it long enough, it started to feel real.
The more he smiled, the more he believed he was happy.
The more he laughed, the more he believed he was leaving the world a little better.
The world had already hurt him.
Ronyn refused to become the kind of man who passed that hurt on to everyone else.
But he never missed the truth. It forced itself down his throat every night.
Memories of his parents, strung up and blue.
Memories of an infant brother ripped from the arms of his arrested mother.
Memories of a humble but real home, warmed by a modest hearth.
He used to visit it from time to time on the way to a raid, watched the next family make a life in it.
There is no denying that pain and grief exist right down to the core of him. But he’d be damned if he’d let it define him.
The world had already taken enough from him.
It didn’t get to take the rest of his life too.
Jax wears her pain like armor—every snarl, every needless jab, every fight she starts just to make sure no one gets close enough to see the wound underneath.
He sees it—and gods help him, he still wants her.
All of her. Wants to hold her until she remembers touch doesn’t have to hurt. Wants to please her until she believes not everyone is out to take. Wants to give her something she’s forgotten how to accept.
But she won’t let him.
Won’t even let him close enough to try.
So he hasn’t gone looking for her.
Hasn’t gone to the tavern.
Hasn’t gone to the inn.
Hasn’t gone anywhere except the forge and the cot in the corner of Orrin’s humble lodgings.
The sun rises over Vyrhal the same way it always does—slow and red through the haze of ash that hangs permanently over the valley. Ronyn is already working when it does, sweat running down his back as he drags the whetstone across a blade.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Like he can grind away the heaviness in his chest.
Steel sings beneath the stone, the sound sharp and steady.
It’s the same rhythm Revryn taught him years ago. The rhythm that lives in every good weapon.
Work the edge.
Test the balance.
Feel the blade.
Ronyn channels every ounce of rage and grief and rejection into the metal in his hands. Into the hammer strikes. Into the long hours bent over the forge beside Orrin.
Orrin, unfortunately, talks.
A lot.
Ronyn loves to flap his gums as much as the next man, but Orrin? He has no idea when to shut the fuck up.
Which makes him the perfect mark for Ronyn.
“Big day today, boy,” the old smith says for the fifth time that morning, wiping soot across his brow with the back of a meaty forearm.
Ronyn doesn’t look up.
He keeps sharpening.
“Royal Guard arriving before midday,” Orrin continues, voice full of the self-importance that comes with being the only forge in Vyrhal capable of meeting the order volume. “Not just any unit either.”
Ronyn drags the blade through the whetstone again.
Screeeeee.
“The Crown’s Blade,” Orrin says, lowering his voice like the name itself might be listening.
That gets Ronyn’s attention. He lifts his head slightly, eyes flicking to the street beyond the forge.
Vyrhal is already restless. Merchants are dragging crates off the roads. Market stalls are packing up early. People move quicker than usual, shoulders tight, voices low. Like the town itself knows something dangerous is coming.
Orrin leans closer, eager for an audience.
“Venomshade commander,” he mutters. “Thalmyr’s favorite butcher.”
The only decent thing to come out of staying at Orrin’s place is the trust the idiot now places in Ronyn.
Ronyn says nothing.
But Tarrakai shifts in the back of his mind, the dragon’s attention sharpening.
Remove yourself from the tiresome imbecile. Tarrakai grumbles through Ronyn’s mind. Find my kin, vessel, and stop playing idiotic human games.
Ronyn huffs in agitation. That’s what I’m trying to fucking do. And if I don’t, your vessel will be dead. He snaps the words, exhausted by… everyone. Every person who expects him to tolerate their mistreatment.
Tarrakai growls in response, and for once, Ronyn shoves it from his mind.
Not today.
Orrin is still fucking talking.
“Mean one too, the Crown’s Blade,” Orrin continues, enjoying the drama. “They say the Blade’s carved through three rebellions and left nothing behind but bones.”
Bullshit.
The rebellion left Virellin weeks ago, and Gellesk is the only leader they’ve had.
Not that Ronyn is about to tell Orrin that.
“You don’t say,” Ronyn comments sarcastically, but Orrin doesn’t notice, only mindlessly pours at the forge.
“Seems like an awfully big ordeal to send an entire unit to collect less than half of the weapons order, but who am I to complain about coin made in earnest?” he barks obnoxiously, elbowing Ronyn in the ribs with a decent force.
“An awfully big ordeal, indeed…” Ronyn mutters, mind spinning over the limited details he’s been able to glean from the big oaf.
Ronyn says nothing for a while, but finally sets the blade down.
“What’s the name again?” he asks.
Orrin shrugs.
“No one says it out loud. Just the title.” The old smith spits into the ash beside the forge. “The Crown’s Blade.”
“And what exactly does the Crown’s Blade look like?” Ronyn prompts.
Orrin’s eyes narrow with a hint of wariness.
But Ronyn recovers quickly. “You know, just in case the commander arrives and I unknowingly make a crude joke about last night’s whore,” he quips, smoothing it over.
Orrin slaps him on the back with vigor, barking a laugh that expels out of him with a wheeze.
“Oh trust me, lad, you’ll make no mistake. The fuss that this lot ride in with, you’d have to be blind not to see it,” he jokes.
Right. No visual prompts then.
The smiths and their labor hands settle into a frantic but predictable rhythm as the morning drags toward midday.
Steel moves from anvil to bench in a steady procession.
Hammer.
Quench.
Grind.
Repeat.
The forge fills with the clang of iron and the hiss of hot metal kissing water. Sparks leap into the smoky air while sweat darkens the backs of tunics and the smell of hot steel thickens in the open air.
Weapons pile up faster than they can be finished.
Spears lean in bundled rows against the far crates.
Short swords stack across the long worktable.
Axes sit in neat lines waiting for their final edge.
Ronyn has already been moved from the hammer.
Not because he asked—because they noticed.
After the first hour it became clear that he knew exactly what he was doing with a blade. His hands found balance without looking. His fingers could feel a flaw in the steel before anyone else spotted it.
So Orrin put him on final checks.
The only clever thing the man’s done all day.
Ronyn sits near the outskirts of the open air forge, whetstone in one hand, cloth in the other, finishing every weapon before it’s wrapped for delivery.
Sharpen.
Test the flex.
Oil the steel.
Wrap the blade.
Again.
Again.
Again.
It gives him something better than just work.
It gives him time to think. To notice. And the more he thinks, the less sense the order makes.
Because Ronyn knows exactly how long it takes to prepare a shipment like this—too long.
No forge produces this volume of weapons in a single month.
Which means one thing: this order wasn’t meant to be ready when the Royal Guard arrived.
It was meant to keep the town busy.
Ronyn drags the whetstone across another blade.
Steel sings.
His eyes drift toward the street beyond the hustle of the forges.
Waiting.
Midday comes with the distant thud of hooves.
The sound carries down the valley like thunder rolling over stone.
Orrin straightens instantly.
“Ah fuck. Right on bloody time, but we’re not,” the old smith mutters, wiping his hands on a rag before stomping past the chaos.
Ronyn doesn’t move.
He just watches.
A strong unit of Thalmyr’s Royal Guard rides into Vyrhal in a long column of gold armor and polished steel, their forest-green banners snapping in the ash-laced wind.
More of them than needed.
Far more.
Ronyn counts them without meaning to.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Closer to forty.
That’s not a collection unit.
That’s a deployment.