Chapter 22 Kragna
KRAGNA
Night drops onto Kyrdonis like a heavy cloak—dense with stars, heavy with unease.
I walk alone through the half-lit streets of the capital, cobblestones glinting with melted ember from the day’s fires.
The air tastes like soot and mourning, but I breathe it in, steady.
I need to see the city as it is—not what I protected it from, but what lies beneath the armor of truce.
Dark elves pass me with wide eyes and tight-pressed lips. They part like black waves when I pass, fear coating their breath, but not hatred. People don't fear what they can own. They fear what they can’t understand, and I? I'm living proof of that fear.
I don’t care.
Because I know who I am.
Still, watching River walk beside their elites—perfect posture, sharper voice—my blood churns.
She’s weaving peace out of knives and doubts, and she’s brilliant.
But I want to rip her from their halls and drag her back to the woods where she batshed in sunlight and silence, where her heart didn’t walk across a political razor. I want her safe.
I pause in front of a statue of an ancient elven queen—torched, but still proud—and I wonder what she’d think of this city now. A glance of metal in the shadows turns my pulse into drums.
Skeela steps from behind the ruined throne room, her step soft and certain. I haven't noticed her come up behind me.
“You think too loud,” she says, voice still like steel laced with silk.
I let out a breath. “Can’t help it.”
She moves closer, shoulders straight, regalia draped across scars. “Thank you—for saving me,” she says. Those words pull the wind out of the midnight.
I try a smirk, light and dangerous. “Well, you didn’t get inked for easy.”
Skeela turns, study me in firelight. “I want to make this right.” The phrase isn’t soft. But it carries age-old weight—broken soil, impossible climbs.
Her next words nearly tilt me off balance.
“Kragna, I want to make you... ambassador to the monstrous.”
I blink.
She doesn't waver. “You’d be my liaison to every non-human group—your people. My bridge.”
I stare through her. Through the scars I caused, the blood I shed. I see her offering me a place not as weapon, but as voice.
I laugh. It’s abrupt, ugly.
“I’m not a diplomat.”
Her gaze hardens, as fierce as any affront. “Then what are you?”
I step forward. Close enough that all I smell is sweat, cold armor, forest rain. “I’m a predator,” I say. “And I didn’t eat you— because I... I like you.”
That cracks the moment. Her eyes flicker—something half- triumph, half- survival.
“You like me?”
My nod is slower. More honest than most words I’ve ever spoken.
She exhales, low and surprised. “And I don’t deserve your chains, Kragna.”
I brush a scar on her temple, hand rough and soft both.
“If you didn’t feel fond of me... I’d have to fix you,” I say, tone stitched with humor and need.
She steps back, chest heaving, face alive with newly minted gratitude—and something softer. Trust.
“You’re no diplomat, you’re no mediator,” Skeela whispers into the night. “You’re something better. A protector.”
I just nod, because she sees me better than I see myself, standing beneath the weight of ruined statues and fractured treaties.
Outside, a rabble of Ranger voices rises from the enclave courtyard. I glance that way—River must be waiting. I turn to go.
Skeela steps a hand onto my arm. “We’ll need you,” she says.
I nod again, the air in my lungs flaring with purpose. Darkness grips us both—city and past and fear—but for once I feel like belonging to something more than battle.
I walk back, silent, toward River.
The city fears me. But for the first time, I fear leaving her.
The shadows in our quarters stretch long by the flicker of moonlight slipping through cracked stone.
Silk drapes catch pale patterns, dust motes trembling like stars burned free from the sky.
It smells of cooling embers, sweat, and something oak and unfinished from the wood furnishings—comfort pressed into ruin.
We stand in the center of the room—River on one side, I on the other, blood and regret thick between us.
I’ve just walked us back from diplomatic duty. I still taste the city’s tremor, its cautious breathing, its need for us both. But in this room… there’s tension.
“You’re burning yourself out,” I say, voice low, rough, wound tight around words. “You’re wasting yourself on politics.”
She stares at me—eyes rimmed with exhaustion and resolve. “We need me,” she whispers. “More than ever.”
I grind my teeth. “I need you alive.”
She huffs a laugh, sad as an echo in a cave. “Not better. Just necessary.”
“A cut that won’t heal is a scar that stays,” I growl. “You’re not like them. You’re better.”
Her eyes flash hurt. “I’m not better,” she snaps. “I’m just trying to fix what I helped break.”
Silence blooms, heavy and brimming with every battle we’ve fought together.
The fire’s glow softens. I don’t move.
Then she turns, backs toward me.
I want to reach for her. I can’t make the damage undo itself, but I can keep her alive. She’s still drawing air. Still fighting.
So we climb into bed, each facing away. Mistakes and regrets pressed against cold linen, bodies rigid in nightly exhaustion.
But our hands? They find each other. Under corners of cloth, fingertips curl against skin like roots seeking water.
I feel her pulse—steady, stubborn, her heartbeat echoing mine. It’s a prayer. A promise.
Even when we’re hurt, bent, crucified by duty, we’re here. Tethered by breath and shadows and something soft beyond vows.
We fall into silence. Into wounds. Into each other.
And though words fail us, this touch says everything.
Goodnight, love. I’m still here.