Aradya
FORTY-EIGHT
He rises from the cot. Crosses to the small chest in the corner and begins pulling out items—a spare cloak, waterskins, the kind of compact travel gear that suggests he’s always been prepared to leave on short notice.
“Then we start fresh.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “The dead don’t care about our possessions. They care about whether we show up to listen.”
I watch him move around the room—this man who has burned so many, who has carried so much guilt, who I’ve chosen despite every reason to run.
His body is a map of his work. Scars from handling corpse-iron.
Burns from standing too close to pyres. The muscle of someone who has spent decades doing physical labor that would break most people.
My mate. The ending I was always meant to find.
“The dog tags.”
He pauses in his packing. Follows my gaze to the small metal tags hanging from the nail above the bed. The only personal item in the room.
“Torval’s.” His voice is carefully neutral. “I never told you—”
“I know.” I rise from the cot, pulling the blanket with me like a makeshift robe. Cross to stand beside him, close enough to touch but giving him space. “You heard his voice in the King’s realm. He forgave you.”
Drokhar’s expression hardens. The subject of his brother is still raw—will probably always be raw—but he doesn’t pull away when I rest my hand on his arm.
“I spent twenty years running from his ghost.” The words come out rough.
“Burning the dead so I wouldn’t have to hear him.
Silencing grief so I wouldn’t have to face my own.
” He reaches up. Takes the dog tags from the nail.
Holds them in his scarred palm like they weigh more than metal should.
“Now I have to figure out who I am without that weight.”
“You’re the man who listened.” I step closer, press myself against his side. “That’s who you are now. The Ashwalker who learned to hear.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh. Might be grief finally finding release.
“Is that what the dead will call me? The Ashwalker who listens?”
“The dead will call you whatever they want. They’re not known for their manners.” I tip my face up to his. “I’ll call you mine.”
He kisses me again. Softer this time. A benediction instead of a claim.
“We should leave before the Council realizes we’re planning to disappear.” He tucks Torval’s dog tags into a pocket close to his heart. “Varn will buy us time, but she won’t lie to the Arbiters. Her loyalty has limits.”
“Where will we go first?”
“East. There’s a mining town called Ironreach that’s been having trouble with their catacombs.
The dead there are restless—have been for decades.
The local death wardens have been burning without rites, and the situation is getting worse.
” He moves to the weapons rack. Selects his curved blade and begins strapping it to his belt.
“They sent a request to the Guild three days ago. Requested assistance.”
“And you think a death warden and a mourning witch showing up uninvited will be welcome?”
“I think we’ll be useful. That’s usually enough.” He offers me a set of clothes from his chest—a shirt that will hang loose on my smaller frame, trousers that will need to be rolled at the ankles. “It’s not much, but it’s better than a bloodstained rag.”
I take the clothes. Dress quickly while he finishes his preparations. The fabric smells like him—smoke and iron and the clean scent beneath that I’ve come to associate with safety.
Safety isn’t a location anymore. It’s a person. This impossible orc who burns the dead I speak for, and we’ve found a way to do both.
A knock at the door makes us both freeze.
Drokhar’s hand goes to his blade. I step back, positioning myself behind him without needing to be told. Old instincts. The survival mechanisms of a mourning witch who has spent her life dodging death wardens and Council enforcers.
“Commander?” Varn’s voice, muffled by the door. “The Council has sent word. They’re demanding a report within the hour.”
Drokhar and I exchange a glance. In his eyes I see the same calculation I’m running—how long we have, how far we can get, whether it’s worth trying to negotiate or better to simply disappear.
“Tell them I’m indisposed.” Drokhar’s voice carries the flat authority he uses with subordinates. “The assault took more out of me than expected.”
A pause. Then: “Commander, they’re not going to accept—”
“Tell them the Gravetide King is dead. The revenants have returned to their graves. The crisis is over.” He moves toward the window, checking the angle of the sun. “They can wait one more hour for the details.”
Another pause. Longer this time. I can almost hear Varn weighing her options—loyalty to her commander against fear of the Council, duty against whatever conclusion she’s drawn about what’s happening in this room.
“Understood.” Her footsteps retreat down the corridor.
Drokhar turns back to me. “We have an hour. Maybe less.”
“Is that enough time?”
“It’s enough to get outside the walls.” He crosses to the door, cracks it open, checks the corridor. “After that, we improvise.”
I gather the last of our supplies—waterskins, dried food, the medical kit I found in the corner of his room. The work is familiar. I’ve fled before. Hidden in the Undercroft while the Council’s enforcers searched for the mourning witch who gave grief a voice.
But this time is different. This time I’m not running alone.
Drokhar takes my hand as we slip out of the compound. His grip is solid. Reassuring. The hand of a man who has navigated worse situations than a political escape.
The Ash Pits stretch around us, still and hazy in the morning light, the pyre-smoke thinned but never gone.
Death wardens are already at work—burning the corpses from last night’s battle, tending the pyres that have been the city’s defense for generations.
They don’t look up as we pass. Don’t notice their commander walking away from everything he’s built.
Or maybe they do notice. Maybe they’re pretending not to see.
We reach the edge of the compound. Beyond lies the road that leads out of Blackreach—past the lower districts, through the main gates, into the countryside that stretches toward the horizon.
Drokhar pauses at the threshold. Looks back at the pyres one last time.
“Twenty years.” His voice is quiet. “I built my entire life on those fires.”
“You can build a different life.” I squeeze his hand. “One that doesn’t require you to silence things that deserve to speak.”
He turns back to me. In the early light, his gray eyes carry unexpected warmth—the cold ash thinning to reveal the man beneath.
“You’re certain about this? Leaving everything behind?”
“I’m leaving grief and running and hiding. I’m leaving the fear of being burned by men like you.” I step closer, press my palm against the claiming mark hidden beneath his armor. “I’m not leaving anything that matters. Everything that matters is standing right here.”
He pulls me into his arms. Holds me the way he held me in the tunnels beneath the city—like I’m the only solid thing in a world that keeps shifting. The mark on my collarbone burns in answer to his. Not painful. Reassuring. The constant reminder that I belong to him and he belongs to me.
“Then let’s go.” He releases me, takes my hand again, and turns toward the road. “The dead are waiting.”
We walk out of Blackreach as the sun rises fully over the city walls. Behind us, the pyres burn low. Ahead, the road stretches toward Ironreach and the restless catacombs and all the graves that need tending.
The mourning witch and the death warden.
Giving the dead what they need. We begin, always, from the beginning—and Ira Genn was the beginning. The first price paid. The door that opened everything. We carry her name too.
Giving each other what we never knew we were missing.