Chapter Eighty
We Are Bound
Sovereign and soldier. Forged from the same fire. And neither would break alone.
The cliffs had long since vanished behind him, swallowed by scrub and dust and distance. Now came trees—taller than anything he’d seen since Fyreglade, thicker, older. Redwoods. Their hulking shadows stood like ancient sentries on either side of the road.
Viktor ran anyway.
He could no longer see the path, but he didn’t need to.
The wind told him where to go, curling around low branches and warning him of twisted roots.
It whispered of the incline, the bend, the split rock veiled by moss.
He listened to it like a soldier listens for the faintest shift before an ambush.
The salve on his skin was wearing thin. His legs burned. Each breath was sharp and dry as flint in his chest.
The night reeked faintly of smoke. He thought he could still hear distant screams carried on the wind, imagined or not.
But he didn’t stop.
Westport was ahead.
His father was—
“He’s alive.”
The voice sliced through the dark like a blade drawn slow.
Viktor stumbled, caught himself on a tree trunk, chest heaving.
“What?” he whispered, not aloud, not really.
The wind stilled. The trees hushed. And then—calmly:
“Our father is alive.”
The quiet dropped like a stone.
And Viktor, still gasping, clenched his jaw and said—
“You knew.”
The Midnight’s presence hovered near him, as real as the dirt beneath his feet.
“Why…”
Viktor’s tone grew cold.
“…didn’t you tell me?”
The Midnight stilled, his voice low.
“The dragons reached Glaston before the wind could change. There was nothing you could do.”
Glaston.
It would always be the place Viktor had first met Amerei. Always the place where his breath caught, trembling as he first looked upon her in that pit.
It would have to stay alive in memory.
Because now—
it was ash.
Viktor closed his eyes to the darkness. Drew in the cold night air, and it burned like grief.
“They were my people,” he whispered.
His fists tightened. Not in rage. In loss.
“Brother,” The Midnight said. “They still are.”
Viktor stilled.
Storne’s words echoed in his mind: Glaston, gone. Briar’s Keep, gone. Silver Hills is still fire.
He opened his eyes.
“Do dragons linger in Kryon? I’ll go there. I’ll stop them—”
“My eye is on the dragons, Viktor.”
The Midnight’s voice grew stronger.
“Mind what is yours to defend.”
Before Viktor could reply—before he could even breathe—he felt it.
A warning on the wind.
Hooves. Torchlight. The rhythm of pursuit.
“The Queen of Casqadia comes this way.”
Viktor looked back. Breath gone.
“Amerei…”
He was already running.
He turned, launched back through the trees like a man chased by fire. Branches clawed at his shoulders. Roots tore at his runners. The forest blurred, the wind rushing ahead, leading him.
Amerei. Amerei.
Light broke through the dark—small at first, then brighter. A flare of gold between redwoods. His heart slammed against his ribs.
He drove harder.
* * *
“Do you hear that?” Gabriel’s hand went to his sword.
Amerei didn’t answer. She was already out of the saddle.
“Amerei—”
But she was running.
Blind through the trees.
The sound of him was everywhere—footfalls crashing through the underbrush without care, like nothing else in the world mattered.
And then—
He was there.
She collided with him, breath knocked from her lungs.
Salt-sweat against her cheek.
His arms crushed around her before they could fall.
Her fists caught in his tunic, his head dropped to her shoulder.
Trembling.
Gasping.
Whole.
“What are you doing out here?”
His voice cracked, ragged with fear.
“I’ve got to take you home.”
“I won’t leave you,” she cried, fierce through her tears. “Not now. Not after I thought—” Her breath broke. “I won’t let you face this day alone.”
Her sobs fell hot against his armor. She drew back then, striking his chest with trembling fists.
“You can’t leave me again, Viktor.”
Her voice rose.
“Viktor—you can't. You—”
She hit him once more, tears streaming, then clutched at him as if he’d disappear if she let him go.
“We are bound,” she cried, shaking. “Do you understand? Bound. You try to go from me again and I’ll follow you into death itself. I won’t be left behind.”
Her last words fell into a whisper, desperate and raw.
“I can’t lose you.”
He crumbled, head falling to her chest. His body shook, wracked by the weight of what he’d done, of what she said. Breath came hard, shallow.
His vow rose from his ruin. No defense left. No armor. Only truth.
“I won’t leave you, Amerei,” he choked out. “Not again. Not ever.”
He wept, shoulders shaking, hot tears streaking down to dampen her tunic, the sound of it ragged and raw against the hush of the forest.
She held him.
Dask, she held him.
The way she had in the bath. The way she had in their bed.
“Naleir, Tory.”
(I forgive you, Tory.)
She tightened her hold, unwilling to release him, his weight sinking against her as if he might break apart without her. At last, her hand slid from his back. Her fingers brushed his jaw, lips pressing to the tears on his cheek.
“We should keep moving,” she said softly. “Halyon by daybreak. Westport by noon.”
“We’re—”
“We’re going to Westport. To your father. To your home.”
She smiled then, the briefest curve of light through the heaviness—and it stole the breath from him. For a heartbeat he could only cling to her, overwhelmed, until she eased back, pulling away though her fingers lingered at his temple.
“But you must let Ruby carry you the rest of the way. You need your strength, High-Captain. Father prepares for war.”
He bowed his head, then kissed her.
“Yes, my queen.”
“Come.”
She took his hand and led him to the horses.
Her fingers grazed Obsidian’s black mane. She hesitated. Looked at Ruby.
Before Viktor could even settle into the saddle, she swung up behind him with sudden resolve. Her arms wrapped tight around his waist, her face brushing his back before she leaned close, lips grazing beneath his ear in a kiss that promised more than comfort.
“You’re the only stallion I’ll ever ride.”
His jaw flexed beneath her cheek. His hands locked hard on the reins, leather biting into his palms. Heat surged through him—wrecked, grateful, half-mad with the need to stop everything and keep her pressed against him. He swallowed it down, the horse shifting beneath him as if it felt the strain.
From ahead, Gabriel groaned. “Tell me we’re not doing this the whole ride to Westport.”
Viktor didn’t even turn. “No promises.”
The warmth lingered, the banter still humming in his chest. But then the memory struck—sudden, sharp—like an arrow through the haze.
“The Midnight told me,” he said quietly, “Father lives. The dragons retreated north.”
Amerei lifted her head, gaze scanning the trees.
“He’s here?”
Viktor laughed, soft and strange in the stillness.
“He speaks to me… in my mind.”
He nudged Ruby forward to match Faerin’s pace.
“He told me how to bring down the wall, in the Vykenraven—before I even knew who he was.”
Gabriel shook his head, a smile flickering beneath the torchlight.
“You and your brother, both touched by the strange. What kind of magic are they weaving on the Isle of Eilles…”
“Better question…” Viktor’s brow furrowed. “How did my mother end up in Westport?”
“Dask, Tory.” Gabriel grinned. “You’ve got to give your father some credit.”
Viktor huffed a laugh, low under his breath.
Issachar Seraphim. Dockhand on the Aerdanian seaport. Once the husband of a seer.
Did Eiliyah ever tell him?
Maybe she never did.
Maybe he was just as lost as Viktor, the morning she rode away.
And how would he react now—when Viktor came home not just as a son, but as a man with the Endowment?
The last time he had crossed his father’s threshold was three months ago, nearly to the day. Summoned to Rhidian. Nothing odd. Nothing unusual.
To Issachar, Viktor was only ever caught up in some mission—details he was never meant to speak of, things his father pretended not to know.
On some unhurried day, he’d come home unceremoniously.
Boots by the door. Scour the cupboards for stonebread.
Brew a kettle of emberbrew. And just… sit.
Listening to the tide roll in. Talk of elves and kings and war—things that never touched Aerdania. Never darkened its door. Until today.
Gabriel led them through the darkness, the path winding beneath a hundred elven homes swaying in the redwoods. Viktor eventually looked up. Felt the warmth of each hearth, the sigh of each elven child still fast asleep. Safe, here on the east side of the mountains. Far from the ruin that lay ahead.
But how many human children had slept in their beds when dragons befell Aerdania?
The thought twisted into Viktor like a knife.
Amerei felt it. Pressed her palm against his chest.
“It’s alright, Tory,” she whispered.
And for a heartbeat—it was.
Then first light broke through the crevice of Hythe’s Gap, a blade cutting cloud.
Viktor sensed it before he saw it. The winds changed. Cooler. Sharper. As though the land beyond the mountains was holding its breath.
They broke through the pass in silence, the sea a whisper too far to reach. But the road ahead soon stirred: riders. Messengers.
The first one tore past without stopping, cloak ragged, face streaked in ash.
“Silver Hills is on fire,” he shouted. “Go around.”
Another thundered through.
“Briar’s Keep has fallen. Glaston ash. I saw it with my own eyes.”
But when Gabriel called out, Westport?—no answer came.
The silence was worse than a scream.
They rode harder. Down through the tree-thick valleys of Halyon, where moss clung stubborn to stone and the forest seemed whole. Too whole.
Amerei clung tighter. Neither of them dared to speak.
It wasn’t until the sun rose above the tree line that Viktor saw them.
The hanging oaks.
Bent and reaching, their long arms trailing moss.
Home.
Aerdania remembered him. And this time, he was not returning alone.
Amerei kissed his jaw, and his grip on the reins tightened, on her tighter still. His blood burned with the truth that had carried him through fire and ruin.
Mine.