Chapter Thirty-Four #2
The commander at the head of the unit sits atop a silver-white stallion wearing full battle armor and a helmet concealing their face.
Ronyn fights the urge to snarl. He’s had too many run-ins with Thalmyr’s butchers over the years.
Virellin was crawling with them every heartbeat—not even bunkering down in homes kept you safe.
They’d come for you there, too. Bloodbond assholes, mostly.
Never able to control their need for blood and brutality.
The rest of them? The Aetherstrides, Venomshades, Runewrights—they rarely came out from The Barrier. Save for gambling and whores and state-altering elixirs. Something the slums had in spades.
So this show of a full unit? It was even new to Ronyn despite being raised a Virellin slummer.
The unit stops at the fringe of Vyrhal’s main streets.
For a moment Ronyn expects them to approach the forges.
They don’t.
Instead, the unit splits.
Half the soldiers dismount and begin filtering into the taverns lining the square. Others drift toward the inns. A handful wander through the markets, boots heavy against the stone streets.
Laughing, drinking, ordering food like soldiers on leave.
The townsfolk react exactly as expected: doors open. Tables fill. Shopkeepers scramble for coin. Towns like this rely on visitors to keep the coin circulating. No one in their right mind would turn this kind of business away.
The square becomes a swarm of noise and movement within minutes.
Orrin beams like a man who sees profit walking toward him instead of people. But Ronyn feels something colder coil in his chest. A pattern.
One he’s seen before.
That’s the thing when you’re raised in a place determined to keep you blind to its deceit—you learn to smell it before it even arrives. You learn to read body language, patterns of behavior, strategies in motion.
And this? This was a fucking strategy if Ronyn had ever seen one. Because soldiers don’t disperse like this unless they want eyes somewhere else. He drags oil across the blade in his hands, watching the sheen spread across the steel.
A distraction. That’s what this is.
But the people of Vyrhal are blinded by the glint of fresh coin—they either don’t notice or don’t care.
Every tavern in Vyrhal fills with Royal Guards.
Every shopkeeper busy.
Every curious eye pulled toward the spectacle.
Which leaves one question hanging in Ronyn’s mind: if the soldiers aren’t here for the weapons… then what, exactly, are they here for?
Tarrakai stirs in the back of his thoughts, groaning like he smells it too. And for the first time that morning, Ronyn smiles.
“Get ready, sunshine,” Orrin murmurs low, eyes downcast and averted. Almost like he’s… scared. Or intimidated. Or perhaps he’s… admiring?
The heavy clink of armor approaches Ronyn’s station, and Ronyn slips a mask on—the mask of the competent smith. His eyes lock on the golden helmet that sat atop the white stallion, and the commander seems different than he expected.
Imposing, yes. But smaller, perhaps.
He watches the Crown’s Blade approach—the gait, the proportions, the movement…
Something about the commander feels distinctly… female. But not soft. Not in the way men often meant it. There is something honed about her. Tightened. Like violence has been threaded through her so young it has fused with her bones.
He hasn’t seen many females in Thalmyr’s Royal Guard. Perhaps he keeps them behind The Barrier, perhaps they hide in armor and helmets like the commander. Perhaps he was always too fucking hungry to notice… or care.
“Almost finished your weapons, lad?” Orrin mutters under his breath, a too-wide smile forced onto his face as the commander approaches.
“Orrin, you left me upwards of seventy blades this morning alone,” Ronyn retorts. “No, I haven’t fucking finished.”
Orrin grunts something indiscernible, but his smile never falters.
The commander strides toward them, closing the final stretch.
“Orrin,” a female voice says from behind the helmet, clipped and level.
“Commander, it’s a pleasure to see you again. As always,” Orrin fawns, his tone sickly and saccharine.
The commander ignores him. “I’m assuming you’re not finished with the order yet? Shall we start inspecting the craftsmanship?” she asks, her head scanning across the crates where the completed weapons are lined up.
For a heartbeat, Ronyn feels her gaze on him, burning a hole through his chest. Not predatory. Curious.
“Surprised you let a new smith finish our order,” she observes, a slight hint of challenge in her tone.
Orrin opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. All signs of confidence evaporated with the slightest challenge.
Fucking typical.
Ronyn stands with vigor. “Ronyn Holt, at your service,” he says cheerily, letting his lop-sided grin pull up easily.
The commander’s helmet tilts fractionally. Assessing.
Ronyn gets the strange impression she’s already cataloged where he keeps his weight, which hand reaches fastest, how long it would take to kill him if she needed to.
Efficient.
Detached.
Like sharpening a blade.
So Ronyn pushes forward.
“I can assure you I’m only new to Vyrhal, not to smithing. Taught by the best of the best in Virellin, actually. My work puts his to shame, if I’m honest,” he quips, elbowing Orrin good naturedly. Though he definitely means it.
The commander goes unnaturally still. Not surprised, exactly. Contained. Rigid. Muscles coiling tight.
He can’t see her eyes, but he knows they’re squarely on him, and the space between breaths tightens.
“The smith at The Black Stream Markets?”
Ronyn nods enthusiastically.
“Yep. That’s him. You know his work?”
The commander nods slowly.
“You could say that,” she murmurs.
Interesting.
He doesn’t push. Doesn’t say more on the matter. But he clocks the change of tone. Files it away to investigate later.
Her voice turns to steel then, hardening. Almost like she slips a mask in place, too.
“Commander Calira,” she introduces. “We’ll inspect the shipment and take what meets Crown standards.”
Ronyn smiles in a way he hopes looks like over-confidence. “With me on the finishes, Commander Calira, I’m sure you’ll be taking the lot.”
But she doesn’t react. She gives a curt nod to the unit of ten guards behind her, and they disperse through the forges like ants on sugar.
Ronyn knows he shouldn’t say what he’s about to say. He knows it could fuck up every precarious piece of groundwork he’s laid. But he can’t stop himself. Cannot stop the words that slip off his tongue.
“You know, Commander Calira, I’ve never actually seen any Dravari Royal Guards carrying Vyrhalian weaponry. Why is that?” Ronyn asks, trying to sound genuinely puzzled.
She’s not facing him, but her surprise is evident in her stiff muscles. The way her breaths become too steady—forced. The way she hesitates, for just a fraction of a heartbeat.
She turns slowly, clearing her throat.
“No, you’re right. Royal Guards on patrol don’t use Vyrhalian weaponry,” she says, her tone sounding rehearsed, planned. “We are stocking our reserves for our elite war battalions.”
It makes sense.
There’s logic to it, no doubt.
But Ronyn’s not buying it.
“Stocking up the war battalions? That sounds ominous,” he muses, pretending to shudder at the thought. “Are we expecting war in Dravara, are we?”
He shifts his eyes back to the weapon he’s oiling, layering it in long, smooth strokes as if he’s making conversation about the weather.
Commander Calira huffs a laugh that sounds anything but amused—that too feels forced. “Preparedness is constant,” Calira replies evenly. “Concern is unnecessary.”
Rehearsed.
Planned.
It rolls off her tongue too easily. Like she’s repeated the words enough times to sand the truth off them.
He wants to push. To ask if she believes the people outside The Barrier feel like it’s warfare every fucking day.
To ask if she believes Thalmyr’s Starborn army can possibly protect the people across all of Dravara considering their only base is in Virellin now that guards have been pulled back from The Joining?
What of Vyrhal? What of Galreth? What of Mount Lyssar?
But he’s too practiced in the art of performance to succumb to those desires.
So he offers a nervous chuckle. “What a relief,” he drawls, puffing out an exaggerated exhale. “What do you lot actually do with them all in those reserves? Please tell me you oil them and maintain them.”
He sounds like a pathetic smith with a weapon obsession. He knows it. But when people know they’re more powerful than another, they become relaxed, disarmed. Because if everyone was going to underestimate him, he may as well use it to his advantage.
Commander Calira lets out a mildly frustrated huff, and he can’t see her face, but he knows she’s rolling her eyes. “Weapon care is essential,” she says evenly. “Venomshade alchemy is volatile. A neglected blade becomes a liability.”
The way she says liability makes Ronyn think she means people, too.
She turns her back to him.
Conversation over.
But Ronyn doesn’t need to keep talking—he got exactly what he needs: they’re all fucking Venomshades, and that story was a load of horse shit.
A sharp, forceful nudge jolts him from his thoughts, knocking the wind out of him.
Orrin leans down, and whispers, “Stop fuckin’ talkin’. This is my operation.”
Ronyn can’t help the smile that stretches across his face. “Well someone had to—she asked you a question and you just opened your mouth like a drooling dog.”
Orrin waves him away with an annoyed flick of his wrist, and a grumble.
But Ronyn can’t stop. “Do you fancy the Crown’s Blade, Orrin? The scary, powerful, deadly Crown’s Blade?” he teases.
“Course not,” Orrin snaps. “I— I just want the coin, all right? Can’t argue with profit.”
Ronyn chuckles, rich and free. And he knows he has Orrin exactly where he wants him—nestled in the sweet bosom of camaraderie.
“How’d she get that endearing little nickname, anyway?” Ronyn asks, hoping the diversion from teasing will feel like a reprieve for Orrin.