Chapter 11
Rell
The Hive estate should have felt like home.
Instead, it felt like a familiar embrace that smothered him, a comforting blanket knitted with needles of expectation, each stitch saying, “welcome home” while secretly meaning “explain yourself.” The pressure tightened around his chest as he grappled with returning to a normalcy that now felt as distant and unappealing as one of Vye’s infamous hangover remedies.
He’d made it back from Kilfaire in one piece—which was more than he deserved.
Every step through Aszona’s winding streets had been hollow.
His horse knew the way better than he did; he’d just held the reins and pretended he was still functioning.
He couldn’t recall if he’d greeted the gate watch—probably not, judging by the sidelong glances lobbed his way as he shuffled up the avenue.
His body had gotten him home. His mind was pacing a different set of corridors.
He’d spent the entire ride back from the city replaying the moment he’d lost her, carving it into memory so he wouldn’t forget the price.
Elora—swift claws and a sharp tongue, the only one who could strip away his arrogance with a single look, besides Vye.
She was a contradiction—soft yet wild, fragile but brave, a timid spirit wrapped in ferocity.
And now she was gone, torn from his orbit at the last possible second.
There’d been four nightgliders, maybe five, he couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter.
He’d done nothing. He’d let the logic talk. One against four. You’d die, the little voice said. She chose it. She wanted to go, the little voice said. That voice could fuck itself.
He pushed into the estate’s front courtyard, expecting the usual hush. The Hive wasn’t exactly known for laughter and bright colors and—
Children?
Two boys shot across the courtyard in a blur of limbs, one shrieking with joy, the other chasing him with a stick raised like a sword. Rell stopped short. Blinked. Looked again.
Yep. Children. Running. Laughing. Inside The Hive.
“What in the—”
The smaller one skidded past him, nearly barreling into his legs. The kid bounced off, muttering “sorry!” and kept sprinting. The taller one followed, and Rell’s breath caught.
He looked exactly like a miniature Symond. Same messy blond hair, same sharp jawline, same half-feral glint that said I will throw this stick at your face if you get in my way.
Rell scrubbed a hand over his face.
Maybe he actually had died somewhere on the road back and this was some messed-up afterlife.
The estate wasn’t just noisy, it was crowded.
Strangers navigated the corridors as if they’d lived there for years.
Fresh-faced youths brushed past weathered elders.
People carrying supplies, carrying food, carrying crates of weapons.
The Hive had always been a collection of shadows and blades. This? This looked like a refuge.
Florence must’ve returned with the apprentices. That explained some of it.
But not the children.
He made his way toward his favorite common room.
Usually a place of raucous mercenary banter.
Exploits and bullshit and laughter. Not today.
Today it was stifling. Walls closing in.
Too much noise. Too much heat. All these strangers taking up space where his people should be.
What the hell happened while I was gone?
A side door creaked open. Vye stepped inside from the training yard. Braid half-undone. Cheeks flushed from sparring. Beside her— Symond.
Fucking perfect. Just what I needed.
Vye’s eyes landed on Rell first. Relief lit her face, bright and quick—then died. She saw it all. His posture. The exhaustion. The hollowness. Her shoulders softened.
Symond noticed him a beat later.
The kid straightened, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. Looked like the same old Symond—scarred, sharp-eyed, perpetually pissed at the world. But there was something empty behind the eyes. Something wrong.
“Did Elora make it to Kilfaire?” Symond asked.
Rell stopped.
Not because of the question, but because of how it was asked.
No edge. No challenge. No heat.
Just a quiet check, like Symond was making sure something fragile hadn’t broken while he was gone.
Rell turned slowly. “You’re asking about Elora?”
“Yes.” No sneer. No qualifier.
Rell studied him carefully now, every instinct pricking. “What? Are you hoping to hear she was captured and sent back to The Institute?”
He expected Symond to drop the act here, snicker and admit that he was dreaming of that happening. But he didn’t. He furrowed his brow as if it were absurd to even consider that outcome.
“Yeah,” Rell said, finally. “She made it.”
Symond nodded once. “Good.”
The word landed wrong.
Rell let out a short laugh, sharp and humorless. “That’s new.”
Symond frowned. “What is?”
“You caring,” Rell said flatly.
Vye, walking a few paces behind them, stiffened. “Now really isn’t the time for this.”
But Rell didn’t look away from Symond.
“You spent weeks trying to convince everyone she was dead weight,” he said. “Now you’re asking after her like you’re worried.”
Symond hesitated. Just a beat too long.
“I wasn’t worried,” he said. “I just wanted to know.”
Rell didn’t buy it. “How do you go from hatred to neutral overnight?”
The kid looked like he was just learning the sky was blue, as if demonizing her wasn’t ingrained into his bones.
“I don’t remember hating her,” Symond said.
Rell’s stomach dropped. There was no smirk, no provocation, no familiar spark of anger. Nothing.
“What do you mean, you don’t remember?” Rell asked.
Symond shook his head, frustrated now. “I just don’t.”
Vye stepped between them. “That’s enough.”
Rell backed off, but his eyes stayed on Symond.
Because whatever was standing in front of him looked like Symond.
And didn’t.
Something inside Rell snapped tight. “What do you remember?”
Before Symond could answer, Vye cut cleanly between them.
“Rell,” she said, voice low. “Later.”
He opened his mouth to argue. She shook her head once.
Rell swallowed the words burning up his throat.
Vye turned to Symond. “Go get water. You’re overheating.”
Symond left with no complaint—another sign that something was very, very wrong.
When he was gone, Vye’s composure cracked. Not much—she would never allow that—but enough for Rell to see the worry simmering beneath her steady exterior.
Vye glanced once more toward the hallway Symond disappeared down, then back at Rell. “You look like death.”
“Feel better than I look,” he muttered.
Her lips quirked. “Doubtful.”
Before he could come up with something clever—or at least defensively sarcastic—her expression shifted from relief to concern.
“You must be starving,” she said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying,” she answered flatly, already turning toward the corridor that led deeper into the estate. “Come on.”
“Vye—”
“Nope.” She didn’t slow. “Your eyes are sunken, you’re pale, and you’re standing like the wind could knock you over. You’re eating.”
He grimaced. “Not hungry.”
“Stress suppresses appetite,” she said, rolling her eyes like she was quoting a medical handbook. “Now stop being stubborn and walk.”
She didn’t give him much choice, as her hand hooked into the back of his coat and tugged.
Rell let out a frustrated breath but followed.
Because she was right. And because if he stood out here any longer, his mind would drift back to wings disappearing into the night and fingers slipping out of his grasp.
The mess hall was quieter than the common room but still too full for The Hive he remembered. More unfamiliar faces. More noise. More children.
“What happened to ‘we’re a ruthless mercenary organization, not a daycare’?” Rell muttered, then stopped completely. He tugged on her arm, bringing her closer. “Vye… Did you bring back more strays? We agreed only one at a time.”
Vye shot him a warning look. “Florence came back with reinforcements.”
“And apparently a kindergarten.”
“Hush.”
They found a corner table, far enough from the crowd that they wouldn’t be overheard. Vye pushed a plate toward him. Eggs. Bread. Some kind of spiced porridge. He pretended he didn’t care. His stomach growled so loud even Vye lifted an eyebrow.
“Eat.”
He did.
And once the shaking in his hands started to fade, Vye spoke.
“Start from the beginning.”
He swallowed hard. “You first. What’s with Symond?”
Vye hesitated—something she rarely did. “He… erased his memories.”
Rell froze mid-bite.
She continued quietly, “Whatever happened at The Institute—his trauma—he decided he’d rather not remember any of it. It gave him this… false calm.” Her eyes flicked toward the door Symond had absentmindedly wandered through earlier. “But it isn’t healing. It’s avoidance. And it’s dangerous.”
That explained the emptiness in Symond’s gaze. The absence of disdain. The absence of… everything.
Rell exhaled slowly. “So, he really doesn’t remember her.”
Vye paused. “He barely remembers The Institute as a concept. People and details are…” She made a vague, unhappy gesture. “Fog.”
Rell stared at the table. Fog. Of all things Symond had wanted to forget, he’d erased the girl he’d spent years resenting. Why?
It didn’t matter. Rell shoved the thought aside before it could burn.
Vye cleared her throat. “Your turn.”
Rell finished chewing. The food sat heavy in his stomach—too warm, too grounding—and for a moment he thought he might choke on the truth.
But Vye waited. Patient but expectant. Like she always did.
So Rell talked.
Not the whole nightmarish mess—just the pieces he could spit out without falling apart.
Leaving Ravenpoint. Getting Elora to Kilfaire.
The way Thorn’s damn trap had fucked everything up.
How narrowly she had avoided being dragged back to The Institute.
How her father died. How Rell had saved her. How she’d broken.
He didn’t say her name too often. It hurt every time.