Chapter 16 #2
Through it all, the rebels muttered and spat, their voices ragged with fatigue and anger. They were fleeing Osin’s Legion, yes—but worse still, they were fleeing the Shades, the wraiths that slipped between shadows. And even through the haze of pain, Ivan heard the fear beneath their bravado.
Night brought looser tongues. Drink and exhaustion made men careless.
They spoke of the traitor prince who had nearly destroyed himself carving an impossible escape from the Pit, collapsing the walls behind him so his men could slip free—bloodied, but victorious.
They had come for Elara, intending to rescue her.
Instead, they found Ivan. And took him as recompense.
A war criminal for the Hallowed.
He let out a slow breath, the sound rough in the dim confines of the tent.
“What’s the point of all this?” he asked, as Bryn’s fingers slipped beneath his shirt.
Cool air met battered skin. Her touch paused when she saw the damage—bruises gone dark as stormwater, ribs swollen and split beneath the surface.
For a moment her breath hitched. Then she steadied herself and pressed on.
“I know this may shock you,” she said, not looking up, “but we are not monsters. Not as you define them. Some of us still believe in justice. In answering for crimes properly. The sort of thing the Ulrathi abandoned long ago.”
Justice. A pretty word men clung to when they wanted their hands clean and their blades wet. “You might tell that to your man,” Ivan muttered.
Her head lifted at once. Brown eyes met his—hard now, dark as struck flint. “Yoni is not mine.”
Ivan gave a small, humorless huff and tipped his head back against the pole. He had seen the way the rebel watched her—like a starving dog staring through a kitchen door. So. One-sided, then.
Bryn’s voice softened. “Yoni is…hot-tempered. He allows anger to steer him.” Ivan gave her a flat look, and she returned it, but something wounded flickered behind her eyes.
“You’ve brought him—brought all of us—so much grief.
Hurt our people in ways we’ll never recover from.
Can you truly blame him for hating you?”
His lungs forgot their rhythm for a beat. “No, lady,” he murmured. “I cannot.”
Surprise crossed her face, but Ivan did not soften the truth to comfort her. He had long ago learned that denying one’s sins did not lessen them. It only made a coward of a man.
Bryn recovered herself and resumed her work. When she spoke again, her tone was level. “Prince Dominic is on his way, and he will not be pleased to find you in this state. Not when it was his own brother who put you here.”
Ivan’s mouth tightened. “When?”
“Now.”
Shit. Now?
When she finished, Bryn rose and crossed the tent, dragging a battered wooden chair from the far corner. It scraped harshly across the packed earth before she set it squarely in front of him.
“Sit,” she said.
Ivan lifted one brow.
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
He exhaled through his nose and let the chains rattle as he lowered himself into the chair. Iron pulled at his shoulders; rope bit where it had already done its work. Bryn crouched before him again, ether blooming faintly around her hands as she adjusted the bindings at his wrists—tightening them.
“I would like,” she muttered under her breath, reaching for her satchel of instruments, “just one godsdamned night where I sleep instead of spending hours stitching your miserable hide back together.”
“Perhaps,” he said mildly, “if you kept your man better occupied after dark, he wouldn’t feel compelled to work through his grievances on my face.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“You know well enough.”
“I assure you,” he said, voice smooth as dark velvet, “I do not.”
She drew in a long breath through her teeth, the kind a person took before disciplining a stubborn child. When she looked at him again, there was no softness left. “You are trying to get yourself killed.”
He blinked once, the only sign the words had landed.
She stepped closer, close enough that he could see the pulse beating at her throat.
“I’ve seen it written across your stupid face since you got here.
Picking fights. Baiting anyone who’ll rise to it.
You want someone else to finish what you won’t, don’t you?
Too proud to take your own life, too tired to keep carrying it? ”
High Hunter.
She did not speak the title, but it hovered there all the same.
“These people have enough blood on their hands,” she said, jabbing his chest. “I won’t let yours be added to it. So fix your face, sit still, and for once, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
His mouth tightened in exasperation before he dipped his head. She did not look convinced. Smart girl.
The tent stirred before they entered. Footsteps paused.
Voices dropped. Then, the flap lifted, and the wind carried in the smell of stew and woodsmoke from the cookfires.
The traitor prince stepped through first, filling the narrow space without effort.
Broad-shouldered and thick-limbed, built for war, he moved with the certainty of a man who had never doubted his place in any room.
Long black hair fell down his back, his skin still sun-warmed bronze despite the northern cold, weathered by wind and frost.
Dark eyes swept the tent, pausing on Bryn before settling on Ivan.
Yoni followed close behind, restless as a struck match. His dark braids brushed his shoulders as he took his place beside his brother, jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth.
And then—of fucking course.
Elara’s friend.
Dario slipped in last. Taller than both brothers, fair-haired and broad-shouldered, he moved with soldier-straight precision. His gaze met Ivan’s and held. The hatred there cut clean.
Ivan’s lip curled.
The guard had no notion of the blood spent on his behalf—how many men he had silenced to bury rumors of desertion, how carefully he had steered Osin’s suspicions away from Dario’s name.
It had been Ivan who convinced the Lord Sovereign to force the man into the Legion rather than hang him for cowardice.
Ivan who kept him close to Elara, believing another set of eyes at her back was worth the risk.
And this was his reward.
The wrongness beneath Ivan’s skin stirred under his stare—hungry. It had been this way since he’d woken in the rebels’ captivity. Still, it did nothing but shift and writhe inside him, an uneasy sickness spreading through his veins. Ivan breathed through it and met Dominic’s gaze.
“My apologies for the hospitality,” he said, breaking the silence.
His voice was light, as if remarking on sour wine.
“It appears my people have forgotten that prisoners awaiting trial are meant to arrive in one piece.” Dominic’s eyes flicked pointedly toward Yoni, who shifted at the subtle reprimand.
“I was assured you were being supervised. It seems that assurance was overly optimistic.”
His attention returned to Ivan. “The guards responsible have been replaced,” he said. “Dealt with. And I have been promised that from this moment forward, Vredian law will be observed without exception.”
A pulse beat visibly in Yoni’s throat, but he held his tongue.
“There are,” Dominic went on, clasping his hands loosely behind his back, “a number of matters I would like to discuss with you. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of time.
” He tipped his head toward the darkness beyond the tent.
“As you’ve probably noticed with all our charming stops and starts, we’re being hunted by your lord’s assassins.
Persistent bastards.” A breath of a laugh.
“They can’t crack our wards—can’t track us worth a damn once we’re inside them. ”
He shrugged, casual. “But they are becoming inconvenient. And I dislike inconveniences.”
Ivan regarded him without expression. “You seem to be under the impression I care.”
“Mind your tongue,” Yoni snapped. “You speak to a prince.”
Ivan snorted. “There are no more princes. Not in the south. Not in the east. Not anywhere that matters. Borders and banners mean nothing. Crowns even less. There’s one man who holds power now.
One shadow that answers to no crown. Whatever title you’re clinging to is as much of a sham as that pathetic attempt you made to rescue the Hallowed. ”
Bryn swore under her breath, and Ivan caught it dimly, almost feeling sorry for the long night she’d have ahead of her.
Dominic’s mouth curved, not quite a smile.
He shifted his weight, boots settling into the dirt as if rooting himself there, claiming the ground.
Up close, the exhaustion showed: bruising beneath his eyes, his hair tangled from restless hands.
A commander carrying too many dead on his back.
“Funny thing about shadows.” His gaze slid—casual, almost bored—to the lines moving under Ivan’s skin.
“They can’t do a damned thing without something solid to stand behind.
” A ghost of a smile then touched his lips.
“You’re correct. Crowns are brittle things.
That is precisely why I do not lean on one.
Power founded on terror always collapses inward.
Ask any tyrant who feeds the soil beneath his own monument. ”
He stepped closer—close enough that Ivan caught the scent of spiced tobacco and leather.
“What matters,” he said, “is who’s still standing when the terror finally devours itself.
Who gathers the pieces. Who binds them together long enough for something worth keeping to take root.
” Dominic watched him for a moment, something thoughtful settling into his expression.
“I’ve heard some interesting things. Reports that the Lord Sovereign’s Hunter—the most ruthless bastard Osin ever forged—was seen sparing Vredian lives. Fighting beside them in the Pit.”