CHAPTER 23
Jakob
The war room hummed with low voices and restless energy. Maps were spread across the table like open wounds. Jakob stood with his hands braced against the polished wood with his eyes fixed on a charcoal sketch of terrain that had already cost too much blood.
Across from him, Sven, King of Stagholt, pointed to the mountain scenes on the maps. His sharp eyes missed nothing.
“Their movements make no sense,” Sven said and tapped the map. “Ruecrags never commit this much force unless there’s a spectacle involved.”
“They aren’t an army,” Jakob replied. “They’re a sleeper cell of a greater group. They don’t normally go this far with their terrorist activities.”
A renegade group with no banner worth honoring and no land to defend. Ruecrags existed for one reason only and that was to disrupt, destabilize, and disappear before consequences could catch them. Chaos for its own sake just because.
An advisor shifted uneasily. “Their latest raids suggest they’re drawing attention east, but that leaves their southern flank exposed.”
“Which means the east is a lie,” Jakob said without hesitation.
Sven’s gaze snapped to him. “You’re certain?”
Jakob nodded even though his focus was already slipping. “Ruecrags don’t want territory. They don’t even care about it. They just want reactions and panic. If we chase shadows, they win. We just don’t know why or what their end game is in all this.”
Sven grunted softly. “So, then the question becomes what they’re really after.”
Jakob opened his mouth to answer but hesitated.
The feeling hit him again, stronger than before. A tightening in his chest. A wrongness that had nothing to do with troop placements or false offensives.
Mallory.
He’d felt it all morning, a quiet unease he’d tried to bury under distraction and discipline. She’d agreed too easily when he told her to stay put. Too calm and too accepting.
She’d been hiding something and he had let her get away with it so that he didn’t feel like he was pushing her too hard.
Jakob straightened and forced his attention back to the room. Sven and the others were debating routes and the maps. It all blurred together.
Jakob checked the time. Too much had passed.
“I need to step away,” Jakob said abruptly.
Sven looked up. “Now?”
“I won’t be long.” Jakob was already moving. “Send for me if you reach a conclusion.”
Sven studied him for a long moment, then gave a curt nod. “Go.”
Jakob didn’t slow once he left the room. His boots echoed through the corridors as he found an empty library and pivoted to head straight for Mallory’s quarters. Every step tightened the knot in his gut.
He told himself this was nothing. That she was resting. That he’d find her exactly where she was supposed to be and curse his own paranoia.
Please be here.
The door was unlocked which caused his pulse to spike.
“Mallory?” he called as he stepped inside.
Silence.
The room was untouched. The bed was still neatly made. Her phone sat on the table beside the lamp. No coat or boots. And no sign she planned to return quickly.
His gaze went back to the table. Her phone.
He crossed the room in three strides and snatched it up with his thumb already moving. The screen lit instantly. No lock made things much easier. Jakob swallowed and opened the messages.
The thread wasn’t long. It didn’t need to be. He frowned as he tried to figure out the sister connection. He needed to find Mallory to ask her.
It’s time. He’s in the war room.
His pulse stuttered. Someone in the castle watched him like a hawk. Mallory had replied instantly.
Where?
No hesitation or time lapse. She had waited for instructions. Another message followed, time-stamped less than an hour ago with a pinned location.
Come alone. If Jakob follows, you both die slowly.
Jakob’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding as heat surged behind his eyes. His fingers tightened until the edge of the phone bit into his palm.
The one that had decided everything.
Jakob sucked in a sharp breath and pain punched straight through his chest.
“She did this for me,” he whispered. The words tasted like ash.
Of course she had.
The last message was hers. One line. No fear in it. No hesitation.
I’m headed there now. Leave Jakob out of this.
Something inside Jakob fractured.
He stared at the screen until the letters blurred, until the weight of her choosing him over her own safety pressed down so hard he had to brace a hand against the table.
He’d told her to stay. He’d believed she would listen. That was on him.
Jakob straightened abruptly and turned, striding out of the room with Mallory’s phone clenched in his fist like a lifeline. The halls seemed narrower now and the distance to the war room unbearable.
When he burst back inside, the advisors fell silent at once.
Sven looked up, instantly alert. “Jakob.”
“They have her,” Jakob said flatly.
Sven didn’t ask who. He didn’t demand proof. He simply straightened. “How long?” he asked quietly.
Jakob set Mallory’s phone on the table and his hand lingered a fraction too long before he pulled it away. “Less than an hour.”
Sven picked up the phone himself. He read every message in silence, his expression unreadable. When he finished, he didn’t curse. Didn’t rage.
He exhaled slowly.
“She’s brave,” Sven said at last.
The word hit Jakob harder than any accusation.
“She shouldn’t have had to be,” Jakob replied hoarsely.
Sven looked at him then, not as a king but as a man watching a friend break in real time.
“No,” he agreed. “She shouldn’t.” He set the phone back down carefully, like it was fragile.
“They chose their meeting place deliberately. Easily defendable. Easy to see anyone coming. They want you out in the open.”
Jakob’s mouth tightened. “They won’t have to wait very long.”
Sven moved around the table, slow and deliberate, until he stood in front of his friend. He rested both hands on Jakob’s shoulders..
“You can’t depend on your dragon,” Sven said gently. “Too many witnesses.”
Jakob didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“I know that look,” Sven continued. “I wore it once. When Bryn was taken by the Skelvarns.”
Jakob’s breath caught despite himself.
“I went alone,” Sven said. “Because I believed speed mattered more than survival.” His voice softened. “I was wrong and it almost cost me everything.”
Jakob finally looked at him. “But you saved her.”
Sven held his gaze. “Yes, I did.”
Hope flared. Jakob swallowed. “I don’t care what it costs me.”
“I know,” Sven said. “That’s why I’m afraid. And we don’t know what the sister connection is. It could be a trap.” He reached out then, an unexpected and steadying hand on Jakob’s forearm. Not restraining, but anchoring.
“You are not weak for wanting to run to her,” Sven said. “You are human. And you are loved.”
Jakob’s composure cracked at the edges. “They’re using that.”
“Yes,” Sven said simply. “And they are wrong to think it makes you careless.”
Sven straightened, the king returning but gentler now. “I will gather the army. Every soldier who owes you their life will answer.”
Jakob shook his head. “It won’t be fast enough.”
“No,” Sven agreed. “It won’t.” He paused. “So you will go ahead. And we will follow.”
Jakob stared at him. “You’re letting me walk into this.”
“I’m trusting you,” Sven corrected. “To survive until I arrive.”
Silence stretched between them.
“You won’t wait,” Sven said.
“No.”
Sven’s mouth curved into something like a sad smile. “Then promise me one thing.”
Jakob hesitated. “What?”
“Don’t die proving you’re brave,” Sven said. “Live long enough to be rescued.”
Jakob let out a shaky breath. “That’s not how this usually goes.”
“I know,” Sven said. “But indulge an older, wiser friend.”
Jakob nodded once.
As he turned to leave, Sven spoke again. “Jakob.”
He paused.
“You are not alone,” Sven said. “Even if you ride ahead of us.”
Jakob didn’t trust himself to answer. He just inclined his head and left.
The cold air outside hit him like a slap as he headed after her. Mallory’s phone was heavy in his pocket and every unanswered second screamed in his ears.
Hold on, he thought fiercely. I’m coming. Even if it kills me. His dragon stirred and demanded release. Jakob wasn’t sure he would be able to control it once they found Mallory.
Find her, it growled.
And for the first time ever, Jakob wasn’t thinking like a commander.
He was thinking like a man who refused to lose her.