Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The sun shines too cheerily for the night we’ve endured. Snarled muscles ache as I rise from the bed, stretching only tightens the knots further.
Strange fatigue lingers—worry and grief exact a unique toll.
Still wrapped in a robe, Vale speaks to someone just beyond the door, informing the others we will soon be ready, no doubt. By the time we are dressed, Soria and Odrin wait to join us.
We walk the halls in hushed solemnity. The distance to the hospital ward is thick with fear. I do what I can to hold to hope—imagining Ace’s wicked grin, demanding to know what took us so long.
The image vanishes when I see the grim look on the healer’s face. “He remains stable,” he says quietly, “but the wound is not behaving as it should. Healing isn’t merely slow—it seems not to occur at all.” His hushed words shake something inside me.
“Can we see him?” I ask. I know they would not deny Vale and me entry unless they themselves were in the midst of urgent work. The eerie quiet of the ward makes it clear that is not the case.
“He is resting. Still weakened from the strike. I suggest keeping it brief. He may have a long fight ahead of him.”
We fall into place around Ace’s bed. I sit beside him and reach for his hand. It’s icy cold—too near to death, too far from life. I look up at Vale standing behind me, and the same worry washes over his face.
“We’re here, Ace,” I say softly.
His pallor makes me want to weep, but then the faintest squeeze answers my hand. A ghost of a smile lifts where fresh tears threaten to fall. He tries to speak—no doubt something wickedly amusing—but the effort is too much in his frail state.
I keep talking to him anyway. Soothing with my words, my presence.
When it becomes clear he has only a wavering awareness, Vale and Odrin confer with the healer.
I try not to listen too closely, pouring what steadiness I can into the man before me.
They’re right. He still needs his strength.
As much as I want to stay, Ace’s innate need to charm us seems to ask too much of him just now.
I hold a damp cloth to his forehead. His head rolls slightly when I adjust it, and the way his face sits between listless and pained crushes my heart. My fingers hover over the bandage on his bare chest, the blanket resting just below the dressing. Bright red bleeds through to the surface.
I remember Vale’s wounds. How he barely survived.
Barely. But he did.
After reminding Ace to fight, reminding him how loved he is and how much we all still need him, we step out into the corridor.
“The blade that pierced him seems to be cursed indeed,” Vale says.
“The healer says the wound still weeps. Ace fights for every breath. Even with their skills, there is little they can do for him now.” He remains strong, but it’s clear this attack has struck him as deeply as any blade.
“Someone like Fenloris wouldn’t have a blade like that by chance,” Odrin adds.
“Just as poisoned as the sword that struck you. Whoever placed it in his hand surely sent the attack on you as well, m’lord.
We know from what Mira shared that he informed someone of your movements.
If we can uncover who he was working with, we may uncover the secrets behind that blade as well. ”
Soria and I are brought up to speed. Odrin secured Fenloris’ office, but he and Daerin have had little time to make sense of the wreckage left from the melee. They sealed the door with the king’s own mark, ensuring anyone who entered would do so in direct defiance of the crown.
We arrive and step inside, each of us drifting in a different direction.
Shattered glass has been cleared, the broken window draped with cloth.
The room is a frightful mess. If it was organized chaos before, now it is true upheaval.
With only those few souls trusted with the full truth allowed to cross this threshold, we begin to sift through the ruin.
Standing over the desk, I see the trellised ivy shattered on the ground, and rage begins to boil inside me.
I bend and gather the pieces of broken pottery, placing them in a bin.
I reach for one of the discarded mugs from when I first tried to tidy his desk yesterday—an act of kindness so clearly in vain—and nestle the green tendrils and soil within.
By the time I have the plant righted, I am seething.
I can feel Soria’s gaze on me. Vale’s too—it would be impossible to miss. They are wise enough not to approach. Not yet.
“That bastard,” I say at last. The closest thing to hate I have ever allowed my heart to hold. When others turned on me, I was hurt—but I knew their minds had turned toxic, that they would have to live with it while I could escape.
But this—
“I trusted him. He let me trust him. And all the while he clung to the shadows…” I ball my hands into fists.
Never have I burned with such fury. I strike the desk with the side of my hand.
The room falls quiet. “And just like that, he’s gone,” I spit.
“The coward will never face me. Never face what he did.”
It hits me then: I still do not know how he died.
The turmoil I felt when the messenger arrived nearly wrecked me. By the time I’d clawed back even a little, all my thoughts were for Ace—and praying the gods might spare him.
Vale approaches slowly. “He was a coward,” he says.
“It’s monstrous that he will never pay as he should for his actions.
” His hand settles on my arm, steadying, and then he glances toward Odrin, reaching for the theories they’ve already traded.
“We believe he was silenced. Whoever he worked with ensured he couldn’t speak their names.
All the more reason no one has touched this room until I could enter it myself. ”
A tear falls down my cheek. I wipe it away.
That one was for me. For Ace. For the fact that I will never be able to look Fenloris in the eye and tell him just how sickeningly weak he truly was.
I steel myself. I will not shed another tear for our betrayer.
We spend hours combing through the stacks of paper, sorting them into small, neat defeats.
Routine. Harmless. Ordinary. Nothing as damning as the hidden seal press surfaces—only a few vague messages, half-phrases, and signatures that go nowhere.
There is little to grasp from them beyond the one line that has begun to haunt my days.
Long live the Ironborne Flame.
Leaning back against the wall, all of us sagging under the weight of diminishing hope, I turn over the only place I haven’t yet searched.
My own mind.
I replay every word Fenloris spoke from the moment he realized he’d been found out.
He spoke of power. Gods, he was so entitled.
Everyone lost something in the Fade. Even someone like me knows the sting of loss—no one escapes it in their lifetime.
He twisted his into hate. An insignificant man fighting in all the wrong ways to matter.
“Real power will rise.”
I don’t realize I’ve said the words aloud until the others look up, grateful and wary at anything new after such a fruitless slog. Their eyes ask the question I’ve been trying not to name aloud.
“That’s what he said,” I tell them, pushing off the wall. “Real power will rise. It wasn’t just his own bitterness turned against us. He was acting in service of something. More than a person.”
I swallow, the truth settling like stone. “A cause.”
“Causes have a way of outliving the fools who serve them,” Soria says. “We may not find answers here—only more questions. None of which will help save Ace.”
Having exhausted our search as best we can, we leave the tragic scene.
Daerin stays behind with those appointed to finish the work.
His talent for blending in among any assortment of people—and his keen eye for their behavior—will ensure anyone reaching for something we’ve yet to uncover will not do so unseen.
Back in our chambers, we set aside the pile of papers that may relate to the threat ahead, along with Fenloris’ ledgers. If there is anything to decode, we will find a way. But for now, I want to be where it truly matters.
We’ve been told Ace seems slightly improved. He’s more lucid. And I can think of nothing more important than being at his side.
Hoping to offer the same comfort Vale and I found in each other when the night pressed too harshly against us, I grab the crooked leather-bound book from beside the bed.
Warmth stirs in my chest at the thought of the stories Ace and I might spin from prophecies long forgotten.
My imagination may have its uses, but Ace—his gifts are limitless.
“I must tend to the council,” Vale says.
“I know you’ll look after Ace.” He holds me a moment before we part.
I cling to him—strong and steady as the mountain itself.
“You have a healing way about you, Mira,” he murmurs, that quiet faith of his keeping the flame of hope alive in me. “I will join you soon.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead, and we separate where the corridor splits.
With the book clutched tightly to my chest, I inhale and tell myself it will all be alright. Sunlight reaches through a nearby window, still high in summer’s late afternoon sky. I let it warm me. Feel the way it touches not only my skin but something in my soul.
The light is softer when I reach the hospital ward, but fresh air still slips past the gossamer curtains. Ace smiles when he sees me, and I nearly run to his side. My skirt lifts behind me with the urgency of my steps.
“You’re awake,” I say, choking back my emotions.
“Your earlier visit seems to have done him a world of good,” the young healer says, joining us.
“He’s had slow but steady improvement since this morning.
” Color has returned to Ace’s face, but the sudden shift in his expression alarms me.
With mock seriousness, he takes my hands and pleads, “Mira, save me.”
Unsure if this is simply a bit, I answer with tentative playfulness. “Anything for our hero,” I whisper.
“You must save me from Tarris,” he says, eyeing the young healer over his shoulder with theatrical suspicion. “He’s trying to kill me.” Ace’s melodrama is the greatest peace I’ve felt in what seems like an eternity.
“Then he must be stopped at once,” I say, giving the man an over-the-top look of warning.
“I’m just here to change the bandages,” Tarris protests, hands raised in surrender. From the faint pink visible at the edge of the gauze, I can tell the dressing has been changed since morning—and the wound, while still angry, seems to have slowed to little more than a trickle.
“Never fear, Ace. I will defend thee.” I extend my hand, and Tarris places the fresh bandages in my palm. No stranger to tending wounds, I set to work.
After washing my hands at the nearby basin, I return to Ace’s side and begin to peel away the gauze.
The stitching is finer than my coarse bindings on Vale in the dark of the cabin.
Pressing a damp cloth over the injury, I try not to dwell on how deep into his chest the dagger struck.
The way he’d sputtered blood in the immediate aftermath was evidence enough.
With each gentle swipe across fragile skin, I focus on the love I bear the man beneath my touch. Family too precious to lose.
“You know you’re one of my favorite people, right?” I say, keeping the tone light because I can, because he’s still here to hear it.
“How could I not be?” he says. He seems to have more to add, but then he flinches, and I worry I’ve brushed too close to the wound.
Our eyes both drop to the mark—just in time to see it. Shimmering golden light threads along the edges of the injury.
I smile, remembering the faint glow that shone when I cared for Vale that first night. I have never seen such a thing in my own rapid healing. Perhaps it’s magic only awakened among their kind.
But then I see Ace’s expression. He looks down, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Mira,” he breathes. “Did you do that?”
“What do you mean? Isn’t that… normal?” I trail off as I ask, his face answering before his words can.
“Magical healing light?” he says. “No. Absolutely not normal.”
Tarris starts to approach, perhaps thinking I’m out of my depth from the pause in my work. Ace quickly waves him back. Let the healer grumble at my methods so long as he keeps his distance.
Ace stares at the wound again, its color now more rosy than foul. “Best bandage me now,” he urges. “Before we have much explaining to do.”
I act without thinking, still not sure what there even is to explain. I affix the fresh gauze. I move a bit too fast, and it tugs at the stitches. He winces. “Alright. So only slightly magical.” He settles back against the pillow and looks up at me, more awake now than when I arrived.
“Why weren’t you surprised by that, Mira?”
I explain what I saw the night I tended Vale—a similar shimmer, fainter, but unmistakably akin to what we both just witnessed.
“They told me the blade that struck me likely carried dark magic,” Ace says. “They weren’t sure how I survived without something to counter it. Mira… I think you may be the light that kept that dark from claiming me.”