Chapter 47 Malachi
Malachi
Lanterns glowed in the branches above me, their light swaying in the damp breeze. Rope bridges stretched between massive trunks, creaking softly beneath my steps. For a long time, I walked in silence, unsure if I was inside a dream or something far stranger.
I walked the bridges alone, the sound of water and faint laughter rising through the canopy. I intended to go straight to the tavern. Instead, my feet carried me deeper into the heart of this place.
“Malachi?”
The voice pulled me still. Gravelly and weathered. But familiar.
An old Keeper leaned in the doorway of a home carved into the trunk of an oak that must’ve stood a thousand years. His hair had gone white, his back bowed, but his eyes were sharp, and I knew them.
“Darren,” I said, my voice catching on the name.
He smiled faintly. “I thought you were lost with the rest.”
I shook my head. Words failed me.
He stepped forward, laying a hand heavy on my shoulder. “We held on,” he said simply. “Even when the forest tried to take us.”
Behind him, another figure moved. Younger, though not as young as I remembered. My stomach tightened.
I knew that face.
“Ryn.”
The soldier I had dragged half-dead from the breach at Nyxarra’s wall. I remembered the shaft of the arrow buried deep in his side, the blood running too fast to stop. I’d stitched him up myself and left him holding on to hope.
“You saved me,” Ryn said.
My mouth went dry. “I left you to die.”
He shook his head. “You carried me far enough.” His eyes softened, but his words cut clean. “When Eryndis came, I was nearly gone. We all were. The forest had started to eat us. Piece by piece.”
The memory of the creatures we’d faced outside the clearing—their twisted forms, their hollow eyes—flashed sharp in my mind.
“How?” I asked, sharper than I meant. “How is she here if she was banished?”
Darren’s lined face softened, but his pause was long.
“That… may not be mine to tell. What matters is this—when the forest had nearly claimed us, she came. She carved wards no one else remembered, sealed this place against the rot, pulled us back from the brink. Whatever bound her away before… it didn’t keep her from us.
” His voice lowered. “But the how of it? That answer lies with her.”
Ryn added quietly, “There is a price. Once you choose to remain, you cannot leave. We were mortal once. You age here, but slower. Not like those marked by the goddesses, and not like the bloodbound. The wards anchor us. They keep the rot out, but they keep us in. Step beyond them, and the forest will finish what it started.”
The air thickened in my lungs. I thought of the soldiers who’d died believing they fought for freedom and wondered if this was what freedom had bought them.
“She built a cage,” I muttered.
“No,” Darren corrected gently. “She built a haven. She gave us a place to live.”
We stood in silence for a long moment. I couldn’t stop looking at them—at the proof of lives I thought ended, of people I thought erased. The world outside told me they were dead. And yet here they stood, still breathing.
“Go on,” Darren said finally. “There’s more who’ll want to see you. Some who never stopped waiting.”
I turned away before grief could hollow me out entirely.
The path wound upward, the bridges narrowing. Families leaned into the glow of braziers. Children darted across rope planks, beads clacking in their hair as they chased one another, laughter cutting sharp through the cold.
A little girl slept between her mother’s knees.
Her mouth hung slack, half of her hair in braids already finished, lying glossy and orderly down her back while the rest—thick, unbroken curls—rose in a halo, a crown made to meet the sun.
The mother’s pick slid precise, parting a line through the dense coils.
She hummed low as she worked gel between her palms and smoothed it along the strands, fingers weaving them into another sleek row.
The scent hung in the air—herbal, faintly sweet—and for a breath it was like the past breathing at me, like the nights my mother’s hum carried through our kitchen walls. The girl didn’t stir.
Dice cracked farther on. Cards slapped against planks, elders laughing hoarse as the game turned.
Then the square broke open. Music pounded from hollow gourds and taut skins.
Children stomped to its rhythm while families roared them on, voices so loud they shook the cold from the air.
Hugs crashed through the noise, loud and unashamed, joy wielded like defiance.
They didn’t look like survivors. They looked like people who had carved a life out of exile.
And still, I couldn’t shake the bitterness. Why here? Why not Nyxarra? Why weren’t they beside the rest of us when the city fell? Why were we left?
“Malachi.”
I froze.
The woman who stepped from the doorway was gaunt, but her eyes—brown, steady—pulled me back across decades. Yira. My mother’s dearest friend.
“You’re still alive,” I said, the words strange in my mouth.
Her lips curved. “So are you.”
I couldn’t find the words. Finally, as if reading my mind, she said, “We didn’t choose this exile.
The forest pulled us here. Eryndis found us.
She gave us a choice. Stay, and live, or leave, and be unmade.
” Her gaze hardened. “I stayed. Because living meant something, even if it wasn’t where I thought I belonged. ”
My throat felt tight. “And you never tried to leave?”
A shadow flickered in her expression. “Some did.”
“And?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. I remembered the way the creatures outside moved, their almost-human limbs, the wrongness in their joints. My stomach went hollow.
“I don’t know what this place is,” I said, “but it feels like another kind of prison.”
“Maybe,” Yira said. “But it’s one where children laugh, where we bury our dead with names, not numbers. Call that a prison if you must. I call it mercy.”
Her words followed me long after I left her at her door.
By the time I reached the broad platform at the village’s center, the noise of the tavern rolled out—laughter, voices raised, the thrum of a drum somewhere inside. The scent of spiced meat and ale hit me.
For a moment, I stood outside, caught between the pull of the past and the weight of the present.
“Commander.”
I turned. A man stood near the entrance, maybe eighteen at most, armor scarred but intact. I knew the insignia. Nyxarra’s crest, though dulled with time.
“I never commanded you,” I said.
He straightened. “No, sir. But you knew my father. Jalen Aross.”
I blinked. Jalen had been one of mine — stubborn, loud, the sort who cursed more kindly than most.
“You’re his son,” I said, the fact tasting strange and sharp.
The man nodded. “He talked about you. Said you carried him out when the wall fell. Said you didn’t give up when everyone else did.”
My fists clenched before I could stop them. “He was a good man. I’m sorry you lost him.”
The soldier’s jaw tightened. “Not before he told me to find you. Said men like you made the fight worth it.” The admission stuck in my chest and knocked my breath from me. “He believed in you.”
I let everyone down. I’d chosen the oath and watched as the world paid the price. Did they not see that? Did they not see the men and women I’d traded for a line of defense, the faces that haunted me when sleep dared to show itself?
The thought burned hotter than the lanterns. For a breath, I wanted to turn and walk away—leave their faith in me as someone else’s mistake.
I stepped inside.
The tavern glowed with firefruit lanterns and warmth.
Santiago’s laugh rang over the crowd, his arm slung casually around Lysara as she tried—and failed—to look annoyed.
Across the table, Gabriel nursed a goblet of wine, his lavender-tinged cheeks already deepened with more than one serving.
He stared into the dark liquid like it might answer him, lifting the cup again before I could catch his eye.
Eyes turned toward me as I entered. Some widened. Some softened. Some whispered my name.
Aurelia wasn’t here and I felt her absence like a pull.
The thrum of a drum carried under the chatter, boots stomping the floorboards in rhythm, laughter spilling bright enough to chase shadows. The smell of roasted meat and spiced ale clung to the air. For a moment, I stood near the threshold, uneasy in the noise after years of guarded quiet.
Santiago spotted me first. His grin was wide and sloppy, his cup raised high.
“Malachi! Finally.” He leaned hard into Lysara, nearly knocking her shoulder. “I told her you’d show.” A scar now sat where the arrow had been removed.
Lysara didn’t even bother to mask the roll of her eyes, though her lips betrayed the faintest smile. She shifted him upright with one hand on his chest, muttering something about keeping his ale from spilling. “If you spill on me again, I’ll stitch your mouth shut instead of your wounds.”
Her words were sharp, but the curve of her mouth betrayed her. Santiago only grinned wider, looking down at her like she was the only thing in this entire place, and throwing his free arm around her as if she hadn’t just threatened him.
I swallowed the knot in my throat and forced myself forward, to the long table where the others sat.
I moved to join them, lowering myself onto the bench. A barmaid pressed a mug into my hand before I could refuse. The ale burned sharper than I remembered, but it was clean. I drank, and the fire went down easy.
Santiago launched into a story—louder now, his words slurring just enough to betray the wine. “Did I ever tell you,” he said, arm tightening around Lysara, “how I wooded her in the prison?”
“Wooed,” Lysara corrected dryly, though her lips curved.
“No, no, I meant wooded.” His grin widened, daring her to stop him.
“See, we weren’t supposed to have anything sharp, right?
Prisoners and all. But I stole a splinter of cedar from a cart the guards rolled in.
Hid it in my boot for weeks.” He leaned forward like he was sharing a state secret.
“And with that little scrap of wood, I carved her a rose. Petals, thorns, everything.”
Lysara shook her head, but she wasn’t hiding the warmth in her eyes. “You gave me something the size of a thumb, barely recognizable.”
“It was art!” he protested, thumping his chest. “A rose. The most beautiful rose that ever existed. For the most beautiful woman, naturally. And you kept it.”
Her gaze flicked down to her lap for a heartbeat before she met his again. “Because no one had ever given me something that was mine to keep.”
The table went quiet for a breath too long. Santiago—maybe sensing the weight creeping in—grinned crookedly and raised his mug. “So yes, I wooded her. And she never stood a chance.”
Lysara rolled her eyes, but her laugh—low, unguarded—broke the moment like a spark splitting tinder.
Their bickering tugged at the corners of my mouth in ways I didn’t expect.
I drank again.
The warmth spread faster than it should have. My edges softened, the weight in my chest easing just a fraction. For the first time in centuries, I wasn’t holding a line, wasn’t bracing for the strike. I let myself lean back and listen.
Maybe it was the ale. Maybe it was the noise. Maybe it was being surrounded by people who weren’t waiting for orders, or waiting to die. For a flicker of a moment, I belonged.
But belonging was a dangerous thing.
I tipped the mug again anyway.
Lysara’s laughter broke through—unrestrained, genuine, sharp as glass and bright as flame.
Santiago looked at her like he’d just been given the sun. My chest tightened at the sight. It was a reminder of what I’d kept locked away, what I’d told myself I couldn’t have.
The mug in my hand went empty faster than I realized.
I set it down with a quiet thud, the room tilting just slightly.
The door swung. Aurelia stepped in, and the noise of the tavern dimmed in my ears.
Her hair was loose, a few damp strands clinging where she’d smoothed them back.
She wore a loose tunic, the neckline dipping low enough to reveal the scar that carved its path across her chest. Tight brown leathers hugged her legs, boots laced to her knees.
She looked less like a girl pressed raw by fate, and more like the woman fate had been warned about.
She caught sight of me. And smiled. It was small. Quick. But it landed with more force than the ale in my blood.
She crossed the room without hesitation, sliding onto the bench beside me. The brush of her shoulder against mine set every nerve sparking awake.
I turned toward her, unable to keep the words from leaving my mouth. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Her lips curved, a spark in her eyes. “Hopefully not for long.”
“Just my entire life.”
For a heartbeat, silence hung between us. Then her hand drifted along the rim of the cup that had been placed in front of her before she glanced at me again. The warmth in my chest wasn’t the drink anymore.