Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
KASTER
Silence.
I stand in the center of the destruction, ribs expanding with each breath, blood coating my hands to the elbows. The Executor is gone—not dead, not defeated, gone. Slag and ash and scattered armor.
Soreia hasn’t moved.
She’s still against the rock formation, watching me with an expression I can’t read.
Not fear—I’d recognize fear. Not horror, though she probably should be horrified by what she witnessed.
Her face holds a calm that borders on unnatural, a stillness that suggests she’s processing rather than reacting.
Her gaze finds mine.
Recognition passes between us. Understanding. The quiet acknowledgment that what I did was excessive and necessary in equal measure.
She’s not afraid of me.
The thought should bring relief. Instead, it brings a different kind of tension—the awareness that her acceptance means more than her fear ever could.
I cross the distance between us. Three steps. Four. Each one deliberate, controlled, a reclaiming of the composure I abandoned during the fight.
She watches me approach without flinching.
I stop within arm’s reach.
“You’re bleeding.”
I’m not. Not really. Scratches, minor cuts, nothing that won’t heal within the hour. But she’s tracking my injuries anyway, her gaze moving across my body with that clinical assessment she employs when calculating costs and risks.
“Surface wounds.” My voice comes out rough. Scraped raw by the sounds I must have been making during the fight—sounds I don’t remember making. “Nothing permanent.”
“That’s not—” She stops herself. Takes a breath. “You almost lost yourself.”
“I knew exactly what I was doing.”
“The creature stopped moving. You didn’t.”
“It was still regenerating.”
Her eyes hold mine. Steady. Unblinking. “Was it?”
I don’t answer. We both know the truth. The Executor stopped regenerating minutes before I stopped destroying. The rest was... a different impulse entirely.
“They’re targeting you specifically.” The words emerge before I fully decide to speak them. “Not me. Not the territory. You. The gods want you dead because of what you represent.”
“An Anchor witch.”
“An Anchor witch who can make my kills permanent.” I watch her face for reaction. “They’re not afraid of me alone. They’re afraid of what we become when we work together.”
The word together sits between us like a physical presence.
She doesn’t acknowledge it. Neither do I.
“That changes the plan.” Her tone stays level. Measured. Soreia processing information and calculating responses. “If I’m the priority target, I become a liability. Drawing attacks. Forcing you to protect me instead of eliminating threats.”
“No.”
The rejection is immediate. Absolute. No room for discussion or negotiation.
Her eyebrows rise slightly. “Kaster—”
“You’re not a liability.” I step closer. Inside what normal people would consider comfortable distance. “You’re what makes this work. Without you, I can win every fight and still lose the war. With you, we end this.”
“We could separate. Draw their focus in two directions. Make them—”
“No.”
“You’re not listening—”
“I heard you.” My hand moves before conscious thought—reaching toward her face, stopping short of contact, hovering in the space between us. “Separation doesn’t work. We tried that already. The attacks intensify when you’re not beside me.”
She doesn’t point out that we never actually tried separation. We both know the closest we came was the mountain pass, when she was nearly crushed, and I discovered priorities I didn’t know I had.
“What do you suggest, then?”
The question hangs in the air. She’s offering me the choice. The decision. Letting me define the terms of whatever this is becoming.
I should defer to strategic logic. Propose multiple scenarios, calculate probabilities, approach this like the problem it objectively is.
Instead, I say: “Stay where I can reach you.”
Not a request. Not a suggestion. Not open for negotiation.
The words emerge as a rule—the first rule of a world I’m building in my head where she exists and I protect her. Where her survival is the axis around which everything else becomes negotiable.
She doesn’t argue.
She doesn’t negotiate.
She simply... nods.
The acknowledgment strikes a chord I don’t have words for. A lock sliding into place. A key turning in a mechanism I didn’t know existed. The final piece of a pattern that’s been forming since the moment her magic first intruded on my territory.
“Stay where I can reach you,” I repeat. Softer this time, but no less absolute. “That’s the rule. The only rule that matters.”
Her eyes search my face. Looking for what, I don’t know. Vulnerability, perhaps. Weakness. Evidence that I have a heart that beats for reasons other than pumping blood.
Whatever she finds, it satisfies her.
“Close enough to reach.” She accepts the terms without making them feel like submission. “Not a liability. A partner.”
I don’t correct her word choice. ‘Partner’ is acceptable. ‘Partner’ is workable. ‘Partner’ doesn’t imply the things I’m not ready to imply.
“Move when I move. Stop when I stop. If a threat engages me, you stay behind my guard until I neutralize it or tell you otherwise.” The instructions flow automatically—rules I’m building in real-time. “Your magic is valuable. Your life is more valuable. Don’t spend one to preserve the other.”
“And if your life is in danger?”
“It won’t be.”
“Kaster—”
“My job is to kill things that threaten you.” I hold her gaze with absolute certainty. “Your job is to make sure those things stay dead. That’s how this works. That’s how we end this.”
She absorbs the allocation of roles without comment. Her expression remains neutral, processing, calculating.
Then: “You’re not as cold as you pretend to be.”
The observation lands like a strike. Precise. Targeted. Designed to slip past defenses I didn’t realize I’d lowered.
“I’m exactly as cold as I need to be.”
“You destroyed that creature long after it was dead. That’s not cold. That’s—”
“Thorough.”
“Kaster.”
“We need to move.” The words come out rougher than intended. “More will follow. They know where we are.”
She accepts the deflection with grace I don’t deserve. “Southeast. The ice-scarred plains.”
“Yes.”
We gather what little we have. Check weapons. Verify supplies. The morning sun climbs higher, burning away the gray fog that clings to the ruined landscape.
When we walk, she stays close.
Close enough to reach.
The terrain opens up as we travel. Rocky outcroppings give way to sparse grassland, then to the first traces of ice damage—earth scarred by old enforcement, vegetation struggling to return where god-sent cold held sway for too long.
I scan constantly. Process every shadow, every movement, every shift in air current that might indicate an approaching threat.
Her presence registers as a constant awareness at the edge of my perception. The sound of her breathing. The rhythm of her footsteps. The particular scent of her magic, that signature of endings and anchors that my senses have learned to track without trying.
“You’re thinking loudly.”
Her voice breaks through my evaluation cycles. I glance at her—calm, composed, watching me with eyes that see more than they should.
“I don’t think loudly. I think in straight lines.”
“You’ve been clenching your fists for the past mile.”
I look down. She’s right. My hands have curled into weapons on their own, talons partially extended, ready for combat that hasn’t materialized.
I force them to relax. The talons retract.
“Anticipating threats.”
“Or processing what happened back there.”
“Rumination is a waste.” The creature is dead. The threat is eliminated. We move forward.
She doesn’t call me on the obvious deflection. Instead, she returns her attention to the path ahead, scanning the landscape with the same constant evaluation I employ.
We’re learning to function as a unit. Separate awareness combining into a shared threat detection.
Complementary systems.
Partnership.
The word still fits, even if it feels increasingly inadequate.
We stop at midday to rest.
Not because I need it—my body has recovered fully from the morning’s violence. Because she needs it. The magic she used yesterday, clearing the divine toxin from my wounds, cost her more than she’s willing to admit. Her movements have grown careful again. Her breathing slightly labored.
I don’t mention it. She’d only deny it.
Instead, I position myself between her and the open ground.
She eats dried meat and drinks from a waterskin we refilled at the shrine. Her eyes stay alert even while resting, tracking the landscape, processing potential threats.
“The Veiled One.” She speaks without preamble. “The informant mentioned it. A god that designs monsters rather than commanding armies.”
“I remember.”
“The rule stands.” I don’t need to name it. “That’s how we survive this.”
“Close enough to reach.”
Whatever we’re becoming, there’s no going back now.
The terrain has shifted completely—frozen earth giving way beneath our feet, ice sheets cracking and groaning as they melt. The remnants of old enforcement breaking down, the world slowly remembering how to be alive.
I select a defensible position for the night—rocky overhang, clear sight lines, cliff face at our backs. The routine is automatic now: she takes the sheltered wall, I take the entrance.
“You should rest.”
Her voice carries through the gathering darkness. Quiet. Concerned in ways she probably wouldn’t admit.
“I will.”
I don’t deny it.
“Tonight is different.”
“How?”
“Tonight I know what we’re facing.” I keep my attention on the darkening landscape, cataloging shadows, tracking movement. “The targeting. The strategy. The gods’ priorities.”
“And that changes whether you sleep?”
“It changes everything.”
The quiet settles between us. Comfortable. Familiar, in ways that should concern me.
“Rest.” She shifts deeper against the stone. “I’ll be here when you wake. Within reach.”
The words should be a simple confirmation of our established protocols.
They feel like a promise instead.
I don’t examine that feeling. Don’t let it grow beyond the moment.
I turn my attention back to the darkness and resume my watch.
But her words echo in my head throughout the night.
Within reach.
I’ll be here when you wake.