Chapter 22 #3
“And you?” Bryn asked. “Surely you know something of what he’s building.”
Ivan’s mouth twisted. “I was never invited to the workrooms.”
Yoni sneered. “You expect us to believe he kept secrets from his favored hound?”
“You overestimate my value,” Ivan said evenly.
“Osin shares nothing beyond necessity. No single person—not even me—holds all the threads. That’s how he’s survived so long.
He’s meticulous. Brilliantly paranoid. A master manipulator who trusts no one fully, shares information only when it suits his plans.
If it were so simple, someone would have cut him down years ago. ”
Dominic’s mouth tightened. “You speak as if you admire him.”
Ivan met his eyes. “Not admiration,” he said. “Understanding.”
Dario snorted, shaking his head, the sound full of contempt. Ivan ignored it, indifferent. They could think whatever they wanted. Why should he care?
Dominic studied the diagram again, one hand braced on the table, the other tapping lightly beside the curved line Ivan had drawn. “Athelric will review it,” he said at last. “He understands Void theory better than anyone I still have. If it holds under his scrutiny, we move.”
He straightened, the map crackling beneath his palm as he pushed upright. “The eight will be chosen before dawn.” His voice carried easily through the tent—unembellished. “Until then, rest. Eat. Sharpen what needs sharpening.”
His gaze lingered on the map once more. “We don’t step into a warded prison half-ready.”
The command fell over the gathered men like a drawn curtain. Chairs scraped against the packed earth as they rose. The lieutenants were the first to go, pushing back from the table and slipping into the night beyond the tent.
Bryn lingered.
She moved around the table. As she passed Yoni, she pressed a folded cloth into his hand—linen, neatly bound, carrying the faint scent of herbs.
She leaned close, murmuring something low enough that only he could hear.
Whatever it was left him staring after her like a man who’d just been struck across the mouth.
Then she slipped through the tent flap without another glance.
Yoni stayed by the entrance, the cloth still clutched in his fist, and a muscle ticked briefly at his temple before going still again. Slowly, his gaze swept back across the tent and settled on Ivan—a warning—before he too stepped out into the dark.
Dominic was the last to move. “If this works,” he said, “we’ll owe you for more than Godfrey.”
Ivan only shrugged, as if the outcome were incidental—of no real consequence to him.
It meant everything.
“She would want him found,” he said.
Dominic inclined his head, though his gaze didn’t soften. If anything, it grew keener—studying Ivan not as enemy or ally, but as something harder to define.
“Get some rest,” Dominic said. “Athelric will find you if he has questions.”
He hesitated.
“And if this works—” the lamplight caught along the line of his cheekbone, leaving the rest of his face in shadow, “—then you’ll have done something that cannot be undone.”
For Vredia.
For a kingdom he despised.
The knowledge alone—how to slip unseen through the currents of the Void—would have been prize enough. But Godfrey, once freed, would be more than a rescued Druid. He would be leverage. Living memory turned into a weapon. Power the north had never held.
Power didn’t always march with armies. Sometimes it hinged on humbler things.
Sometimes, a single man could tilt the balance of a realm.
Dominic stepped away then, leaving the tent without flourish. The canvas fell shut behind him, and the space seemed to exhale. Only the braziers remained, hissing softly in the damp, their coals shifting like half-lidded eyes.
Ivan felt Dario before he turned—rigid as a spear shaft, arms folded, posture set as if braced against a wind yet to come. His gaze wasn’t on the map anymore. It was fixed on Ivan.
Here we go.
“If this is a trap,” Dario growled, “if you’ve drawn us into something you plan to close behind us—”
Ivan didn’t let him finish.
“If it were a trap, you’d have tripped it already.”
He stepped past Dario and out into the night. Beyond the inner ring of tents, the wardposts trembled faintly with layered sigils—Vredia’s unseen wall, murmuring against the weight of the wider dark.
A raven perched atop the nearest post. Waiting. Was it the same one as before?
Ivan slowed. The bird didn’t startle when he drew near. It didn’t blink. Its gaze held his with an unnerving focus, as if it had been expecting him.
“You again,” he murmured.
A prickle flared in his chest—sharper now—and the post beneath the raven gave a faint shiver; its runes flared once, light threading through the carved channels before fading back to their usual glow.
Boots crunched on the gravel behind him.
“Move,” Dario said.
Ivan didn’t. He held the bird’s stare a heartbeat longer before it lifted, wings cutting clean through the dark, silent as falling ash.
East.
Toward Arwn’s Void.
Toward Godfrey.
He stood watching until the last trace of black dissolved into the night.