Chapter Forty-Eight
Someone’s Son
Tonight he was more than just a myth, more than just a savior—he was someone’s son.
The glideway thrummed faintly beneath Viktor’s boots, a quiet current of light carrying him down into the heart of Fyreglade. He hardly felt it move until the emerald doors whispered open. A purple geode held the next door wide, faint blue light spilling into the hall.
He stepped out, hand brushing the wood grain.
“Hello?”
The infirmary answered in silence. A slab of stone stood in the center, a gutter carved round its edge, leather straps dangling for restraint. Dried herbs hung overhead, their fragrance softening the room’s cruelty.
Viktor swallowed hard.
“You’re here, Captain Seraphim,” came a voice from within.
A woman stepped from the shadows—elven, auburn hair braided back, a leather apron bristling with instruments at her waist. She crossed the room with easy confidence, though her eyes lingered on his burns.
“I am Saecily Evryn,” she said. “I’ve served in Masten Storne’s employ near a decade.”
Her voice was low, controlled, the kind that could still a storming horse.
“Tonight will be my first time assisting a Ruakite. May I call you Viktor?”
He only nodded once, jaw tight.
A second figure slipped in—a boy with dark hair and restless hands.
“My apprentice, Zakkari,” Saecily explained. “Not yet sixteen. Wide-eyed, but quick.”
The boy flushed under her glance, eyes darting when Viktor looked at him.
Saecily gestured for Viktor to sit. The stone bit cold beneath his hands as he pushed himself onto the table.
Saecily examined briskly, fingers light against his ribs and chest, her expression unreadable.
“You run. Long distances.”
“Yes,” Viktor answered, teeth tight as her hand brushed a tender place.
She drew back, studying him with a tilt of her head.
“Your body is in remarkable condition, Viktor. How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
One brow lifted, almost amused.
“A young Ruakite. Strong. And yet…”
She glanced toward Zakkari, then back to Viktor.
“Tonight you will see what it means to be what you are.”
Her mouth twitched.
“You will heal yourself.”
Viktor drew a sharp breath.
“Heal… myself?”
But Saecily was already reaching for her tools, her braid slipping forward like a rope of flame.
“Steady, Captain. We’ll help you.”
Viktor sat rigid as Saecily lifted her scissors.
“Forgive me,” she said, slipping the blade beneath his tunic. “I’ll need to cut this away.”
He shrugged. “It’s probably beyond saving anyway.”
The fabric fell, and she nodded to her apprentice. Zakkari hurried forward with a silver tray of linen strips, each glistening with a green salve. Saecily pressed the first to Viktor’s shoulder.
Coolness sank into his blistered skin, easing the tight pull of half-healed burns. Viktor drew a ragged breath as she laid another against his chest, another across his ribs, until his body was draped in damp relief.
Saecily’s eyes narrowed, her murmur low.
“…what sorcery struck you?”
Viktor’s gaze dropped to the angry red of his own flesh.
“A dragon.”
Zakkari faltered, nearly dropping his tray. Saecily steadied him with a click of her tongue.
“Keep your wits,” she scolded. Then with a tip of her chin: “Fetch a stone from my chamber—we’ll need it.”
When the boy darted off, she touched Viktor’s hand.
“Now, Ruakite. Your turn.”
“My turn?” he asked, wary.
Saecily only moved aside, rifling through herbs.
“The Midnight brought me savorspear on the very day I would need it.”
“The Midnight?”
But before she could answer, Zakkari returned, a crystal hanging from a chain around his neck. He slipped it into Viktor’s palm, cool and heavy.
“The Midnight,” Saecily hummed, “is my apothecary apprentice.” She laid a linen sheet across Viktor’s shoulders. “Blind, but gifted. He sees what others miss.”
Blind.
The word struck like flint.
The whispering figure in the wood, the hooded voice at the Vykenraven—it all returned in a rush. Memory collided, too sharp to ignore.
And then—like heat under ice—something stirred.
Not pain. Not wind. A presence. Familiar.
The same shadow that had turned a dragon’s rage, the same whisper that had pulled him back from the void.
The Midnight.
No voice, no words—only recognition brushing Viktor’s mind like a hand across flame. His pulse answered it.
Whoever he was, he’d been here all along. Watching. Waiting.
“Focus,” Saecily urged, smoothing the sheet into place.
“Send the wind through your body. Seek out the pain. Harness it.”
Viktor closed his eyes.
At once the ache of his burns roared awake, sharper for being acknowledged. He gritted his teeth, forcing the pain into the stone.
It flowed through him like wind through reeds—shuddering, then gone. Heat gathered, shimmered, and bled into the crystal cupped in his hands.
Then—all at once—the pain broke. His body sagged with the release.
Saecily clasped his hands around the stone.
“Good. But the void must be filled.”
Her eyes swept the linen sheet.
“Take in the medicines on your back—draw them into yourself. Bind every wound.”
Viktor obeyed, and the coolness spread like new skin. Breath by ragged breath, the torment eased.
Zakkari gasped. “Captain Seraphim… look!”
Viktor lowered his gaze.
The welts, the blisters—the angry ruin of his chest—were gone. Only faint streaks of red remained, like echoes of fire.
He touched his skin in disbelief, laughter breaking out of him.
“Can I always do this? Heal myself?”
Saecily’s eyes softened.
“Not without care,” she warned.
“Power leaves a void, Viktor. If you don’t fill it, it will turn on you. Use this instead.”
She pressed a jar into his hands. He unstoppered it, and a sharp, clean scent rose.
His eyes lit. “Desert dew…”
Saecily’s brows rose. “I thought you were Aerdanian. How do you know it?”
Viktor huffed a laugh.
“Friends,” he said, smiling faintly. “They gave me some when I tore myself apart on a run.”
Zakkari added quietly, “Your friends must think highly of you.”
Saecily folded his fingers around the jar.
“We elves call it lachlaren. Apply it after you bathe. It will soothe, guard, and speed your mending.”
Viktor turned the jar in his hands, wonder still shaking him.
He almost didn’t hear the step at the door.
Commander Storne entered without ceremony, tunic plain, beard rough with new growth. He stopped dead, staring at Viktor.
Slowly, he circled, laying two fingers against Viktor’s collarbone.
No pain.
“Remarkable,” Storne murmured.
His gaze cut to Saecily. “What did you do?”
Before she could answer, footsteps sounded. Gabriel and Evander squeezed through the door, uninvited.
“Who let you two in?” Storne barked.
Evander’s eyes locked on Viktor’s chest. “Storm take me—can we do that?”
Saecily strode forward, hands behind her back.
“No. Not like this,” she said.
“With discipline, you may heal others, but the wind will never move through you as it does through him.”
Gabriel lingered by the table, his voice clipped but steady.
“You’re standing, Viktor. That’s what matters.”
He gave him a curt nod before slipping out with Evander close behind.
Saecily busied herself at a side table, but did not leave. Her quiet presence felt deliberate—near enough to hear, distant enough to pretend she wasn’t watching.
Storne stepped forward, studying Viktor as though weighing both man and wounds. He exhaled through his nose, fingers flexing once before he spoke.
“I regret not getting you here sooner. I’m sorry for what you had to endure.”
Viktor’s voice came rough. “It’s done.”
Storne shook his head.
“No,” he breathed. “You’re still someone’s son.”
His voice broke, fragile, rare.
“I hope never again to watch a man’s boy suffer as you did last night.”
For a moment, quiet held between them. Then Storne gripped Viktor’s shoulder, pulling him into a brief, fierce embrace. The hold lingered just long enough for Viktor to feel its weight—then it was gone.
The rest blurred.
Viktor found his way up the stairs to the north wing, the last door at the end of a long hall. The silence followed him like a second shadow, soft but inescapable.
The chamber inside staggered him.
A bed large enough to swallow a company’s worth of blankets. Windows stretching floor to arch, glass catching what little moonlight bled through the storm. And beyond, a narrow chamber where water spilled from a spigot of carved stone.
He tore his clothes off, stepped beneath it—cold at first, then warm, sluicing away smoke and blood and the ache of too many hours on the road.
He braced his palms to the wall, head bowed as the water ran over scarred shoulders and calloused skin. For a heartbeat, he could almost believe he wasn’t broken.
When at last he dragged himself back into the main room, he wore only his smallclothes, tugging a linen shirt over damp skin. The bed loomed, impossible, and he sank to its edge, too weary to marvel at softness.
A knock came at the door.
He groaned under his breath. “We’ll talk in the morning, Gabriel…”
Another knock, more insistent.
Viktor pushed to his feet, padded across the room, and wrenched the door open. Light spilled across the threshold, gilding the curve of her braid before she stepped into view.
Amerei.