Chapter 43 #2
“Ronan! Stop the fire!” My voice cracked across the chaos. That blaze hindered more than helped. The Velli slipped through it with unnatural speed, while we risked burning alive.
The blue inferno winked out, and their bulky comrade joined us with a roar, swinging a heavy blade that whistled through air. Greaves struck in tandem with me. One enemy fell beneath his cut, body collapsing in a boneless heap.
“No!” Nienna’s scream tore through the clash.
The hulking man staggered. A Velli’s strike slid between ribs. He crashed to the ground, breath leaving him in a wet rush.
Lifeless.
Rage transformed her cry into something feral. She hurled herself at the monster.
“Ronan!” I surged harder, sword flashing in brutal arcs alongside Greaves. Speed meant little without skill. The Velli lunged. I pivoted. My blade carved clean. Teeth snapped inches from my face before the head slid free and struck stone with a hollow knock.
Blood sprayed in a warm arc across my cheek.
I spun toward Nienna.
Her opponent already lay still.
She stood over it, white knuckles wrapped around Greaves’ dagger, hand drenched red to the wrist. Ronan wrenched his sword from a Velli chest with a sickening pull.
“Back. Now.” I seized her arm.
“No! Hur!” She struggled against my hold, straining toward the fallen man.
“He’s dead.” The words tasted like ash. I dragged her to the hall from which they had come. Leaving him felt wrong, but staying would be fatal. We had not yet carved a path to the Heart of Sol. We still fought along its shell.
Inside the nearest home, I released her. Ronan slipped in after us, face drained of color, pupils blown wide. Greaves shut the door and slammed three iron bars into place. Metal thudded into brackets.
Silence settled, thin and fragile.
Nienna stumbled backward until stone met her spine. Her blood-slicked hand pressed to her chest. Then she slid to the floor.
I dropped beside her and searched for wounds. Any tear in fabric. Any seep of red that belonged to her. I gripped her shoulders and turned her, scanning her back, her sides. My gauntleted fingers cupped her chin and lifted her face to mine.
“Are you hurt?” Anger, fear, and exhaustion scraped my throat raw.
“It’s not my blood.” Tears tracked down her cheeks. Her gaze fixed somewhere far beyond me, unfocused.
My jaw hardened, not trusting her words. She was in shock. I watched men insist they were fine while life poured between their fingers because they couldn’t sense their pain. My hand skimmed down her arms, her ribs, her waist, searching for warmth that should not be there.
Whole.
I rose slowly. “What were you thinking?” Each word cut as I advanced on her brother. “She was to remain on the fields. Then in the manor. You took her to the skies and brought her here. Do you wish her dead?”
“No one tells a Draconis what they can and cannot do,” Ronan spat. Red mottled his pale skin. Fear sharpened his breathing. He was nervous, even scared, perhaps. But that wasn’t good enough.
“I do!” My fist tangled in the collar of his leathers and hauled him close.
His dagger flashed up. The blade scraped uselessly along my armor and stilled in his grip.
“I am King of Radaan.” My voice dropped, cold as the stone beneath our boots.
“I have faced these monsters before. Here, you obey me. You do as I say, not as you wish. Your sister’s life depends on it.
Do you understand what they would do if they captured her?
If they turned her against us?” I shook him once.
His head snapped forward. “We would fall. You would walk into their hands like a child chasing a toy. She is the key, and you led her into a labyrinth they built.”
“It’s my fault.” Her voice fractured the air between us.
The confession did nothing to dull my fury. It fed it. Her shame rang clear, brittle.
“I asked to see the city,” she said.
The words struck like a hammer against my chest.
She did not trust me—didn’t wait for me. She defied my order, knowing the risk. Foolhardy. Rash. The same wildfire that once drew me to her now threatened to consume her.
A battlefield did not bend to passion. It demanded structure. Procedure. Discipline carved by loss.
Frivolous desire had no place here.
I wanted to order Ronan to drag her back to the estate at once. Yet doubt gnawed. Would he heed me? Would she defy me again, drawn toward danger by her immature curiosity?
Fatigue pressed in. My bones throbbed. I needed rest. Just a few hours.
“This is his home?” I released Ronan.
Nienna met my gaze. Tears clung to her lashes. Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she steadied herself. “Yes.”
“Then we rest here.” The word was foreign. “Greaves, call for a runner and–”
“His family is still here.”
My command died.
Greaves’ attention locked with mine. He understood what she was saying. Those brown eyes held steady, unfaltering, grounding me when I felt like falling apart.
“His family,” I repeated.
“His wife. Two children.” Her voice trembled. “And their goat.”
The image pierced deeper than any blade. It struck right into my soul. He survived Tallon’s overthrow. Endured siege and hunger, certain he would return home and watch his family thrive.
Then a queen crossed his threshold.
A symbol of hope stepped through his door.
And killed him.
Her request ended his life. Her command made a wife a widow and stole a father from his children.
That guilt settled across her shoulders. A burden I knew too well.
“Where are they?” Pain laced my demand. I would bear this—for her sake. She was too pure, too shattered already, knowing what she’d done.
“In the bedchambers. I’ll show you.” She wiped at her cheeks and pushed upright.
“No.” My hand caught Ronan’s, tugging him forward. “Take her to the main streets. And wait for me.”
“Kallias, this is my fault.” Her chin lifted in defiance. Her jaw was set, but terror rimmed her eyes. She was petrified.
“Go.” Agreement burned at the back of my tongue, yet I swallowed it. I couldn’t soothe her fears, nor lie and tell her the blame wasn’t her own. But what would further condemnation do other than scar her deeper? She already knew.
I could only hope this death on her hands would be enough for her to learn from.
“Kallias, I–”
“Go!” My shout cracked the room as I jabbed a finger toward the hall.
She flinched. The guard rose in her eyes like a shutter slamming closed. My demand hurt her—sprinkled salt into her open, aching heart.
I didn’t move. My hand remained raised between us, command suspended in air.
Her throat worked. A single tear slid down her rosy cheek.
“The goat’s name is Oreo,” she whispered.
Then she turned and walked down the hall, spine straight despite the tremor in her shoulders.
I stepped aside for Ronan to follow, fury radiating from the look he cast me. I ignored him.
When the door shut in their wake, my eyes closed.
Agony surged through my chest, ripping apart my heart, and I wrapped it tight, binding it for later. I’d become adept at that—picking up the pieces others broke. I dealt heartbreak as if it were currency.
Breath filled my lungs once, caught, then steadied.
Duty waited—to my people, a family.
After that, I would rest.
One foot before the other.
A single step.
Then another.
Silence followed us. Not peace. Absence. The image of a widowed wife clung to me, her hollow stare threading through every footfall. Nobody spoke. Tension hovered over our small group, heavy and watchful, like carrion birds tracing slow circles overhead, waiting to see who would falter.
The entrance opened to the manor in muted light and polished stone. Ronan was dismissed with a curt nod. I did not trust my voice with him.
I led Nienna down the corridor to our chambers.
My body howled for collapse. Muscles trembled. Vision blurred at the edges. Sleep beckoned with soft hands and dark promise. But I couldn’t surrender to it. Not yet. I had spent too many years fighting to have such a lapse in discipline.
Inside, the room smelled faintly of lavender oil and fresh linen. Quiet pressed in.
Nienna reached for the straps of my cuirass.
I stepped back.
The movement was small. Instinctive. A reflex born from irritation or habit or both.
She recoiled as though struck. Her face had gone pale beneath dried tear tracks. The faint salt lines traced her cheeks like silver scars. Her eyes, dark as a midnight sea, shimmered. Hurt flickered there. Not anger. My rejection wounded her.
We faced one another.
My jaw locked, and my brows drew low. I held my ground.
She waited, breath caught high in her chest.
I did not move.
Air filled her lungs in a slow, controlled draw. Dragonfire. I saw it settle beneath her skin, a mask sliding into place. Pride straightened her spine. Steel entered her posture, chin lifting in pure defiance.
Without a word, she turned toward the washroom.
I let her go.
No apology followed. No explanation. How could I even begin? She had defied me before my soldiers, made a mockery of me. Her curiosity had cost a man his life after he survived a withering siege? I had stood at his door and delivered the news of his death to his wife and children.
Something deep urged me to follow her.
She was new to war. The rules carved in blood and bone. No lecture could teach them. Only consequence.
I learned that lesson alone. No parent or loved one softened the blow or steadied me when my first reckless command buried a soldier in the earth. No hand eased that shame. I carried it. I let it carve discipline into me.
But she was fire. Blazing and wild. Heat and healing in the same breath.
She was not a young warrior king chasing glory. She was a princess given a mantle yoked with bloodshed.
A snarl caught in my throat, and I yanked at the straps of my gauntlets. The metal bit back, refusing to yield. Trapped. Armor clung to me, splattered with dried blood. The scent of iron rose sharp and metallic. Breath stuttered in my chest. Panic curled tight, squeezing.
I could not free myself alone.
Guilt pressed in from every side. Death crowded close. I turned her away to what—teach her a lesson? And now I stood shackled in gold like a fool. Cursed to repeat the same pattern. Bloodshed and a loveless–
A hand seized the back of my neck.
My forehead crashed against Greaves’. His fingers dug into my nape, holding me there. Dark brown eyes met mine. Deep woods. Steady.
He breathed.
I matched him.
Inhale.
Exhale.
My erratic pulse slowed. The room sharpened into focus. Stone walls. Polished floor. We were safe. The armor would come off. I was not imprisoned. Only burdened.
The tightness in my chest eased.
His hand slid down to my pauldron, lingering as though confirming I remained whole.
“Help me get this off,” I muttered.
He caught my wrist and began with practiced efficiency. Buckle. Strap. Clasp. Years of routine guided him. We had stripped one another of armor more times than I could count. Metal thudded to the floor piece by piece.
Freed of gold, I felt lighter yet exposed.
We moved to opposite ends of the chamber to wash. Privacy granted without discussion.
Water struck skin, pink at first as it carried diluted blood into the basin. The scent of soap cut through the ruddy tang. My shoulders burned when I lifted my arms. Bruises bloomed beneath the surface.
Through the thin door, I sensed Nienna’s presence in the washroom. A quiet, painful current in the air. I felt like a coward, as if I were hiding from her.
But I wasn’t.
I stood in our bedchamber, scrubbing enemy blood from my hands—something she wanted to do. An act of service and love that Veridis would’ve blessed.
The mirror caught my reflection. An old man stared back. Hollows shadowed my eyes. Lines bracketed my mouth. Gaunt cheeks stretched over bone. I looked worn thin, as though battle had scraped away something vital.
This was not what she deserved.
Doubt murmured low and relentless, whispering painful reminders of all my shortcomings. A warrior should return to his queen with hunger and heat. Instead, I recoiled from her touch.
“Kal.” Greaves had stacked our armor near the entrance, ready for cleaning. His chest rose with a measured breath. “Sleep it off.”
My gaze drifted to the washroom. Behind that door waited my wife. My future heir. I imagined stepping inside. Would I lash out? Would I say something sharp enough to scar?
Did she fear me?
The thought lodged beneath my ribs.
Was I not afraid of her as well? Scared of the wound she could open in this old heart? Terrified that history circled back, repeating itself in some nightmarish loop?
“Kallias.” Greaves used my full name—a warning wrapped in concern. He gestured toward the bed. He would not rest until I did. Gods, he didn’t even have a bedroll here. He would claim the floor without complaint.
And that knowledge pricked me.
My fingers dragged through my hair. I tugged hard. No pain answered. Numbness and exhaustion dulled everything.
I crossed the room and sank onto the bed.
A hiss slipped through my teeth as my back met the mattress. Muscles locked in protest. They resisted release, knotted tight from hours of combat. I lay there rigid, staring at the ceiling.
One breath.
Then another.
I counted them, forcing each exhale to carry tension away. Gradually, my spine lowered. Inch by inch, it surrendered to the mattress. When my back finally settled flat, a stray thought surfaced. I should call for Nienna. Her name hovered at the edge of my lips.
But sleep struck before it formed. It fell over me like sodden wool, heavy and suffocating. Sound dulled. Light dimmed.
And my mind slipped from consciousness.