CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I thought the village would fall apart after Will and the rest left. I kept waiting for Arche to show up at the bakery again. For soldiers to swarm the streets, drunk on power. I expected screams and shouts and blood.
But none of that happened.
Jorek had been right. For some reason, the Eredian soldiers had pulled back.
Maybe they’d all gone to that celebration Arche mentioned.
The promotion ceremony. Arche had said something about getting promoted, hadn’t he?
Of course he’d be there, standing tall, back straight, smiling like he deserved it.
Soaking up applause while someone draped a gleaming medal around his neck.
Without the soldiers around, we could breathe again. On my way to the bakery I heard laughter, real laughter. And I heard women talking about their sons who had run off to join the rebellion.
They were proud, their eyes shone when they said their names.
After the wake, everything had felt just a little lighter. Not better. Not really. But something had shifted.
I saw it in my parents too. Not peace, but something close to it. Acceptance maybe.
My mother hummed as she hung the laundry, a lullaby I didn’t even know she still remembered. And my father was fixing the barn door when I left for work. He hadn’t spoken in days, but he’d found a hammer. It was good enough. It was something.
I wanted to believe we were healing.
For the first time in weeks, I let myself believe that Will would come home. The Wardens would win, and free us from King Devore, and from the Vultures picking at what was left.
They had to.
“They’ll get what’s coming to them,” Mrs. Holt muttered as we worked side by side, folding thin slices of apple into dough.
Not bread for once. Pastries.
“If the gods are good,” I murmured.
“The gods aren’t good,” she said. “But they’ll get what’s coming anyway.”
I didn’t argue, just kept working.
We filled the shop with warmth, cinnamon, sugar and butter crackling in the oven. Customers came and went with sticky fingers and full bags, the air rich with sweetness and something like peace.
And then it hit.
A sound like thunder split the air.
But it wasn’t thunder. It was hooves.
Horses.
Dozens of them, charging straight through the village.
Then screams, loud and sharp.
People running past the bakery windows, their faces twisted in panic. One tripped and was cut down before she even hit the ground.
Mrs. Holt screamed and dove behind the counter, knocking over the tray of apple tarts.
“Lock the door!” she shrieked. “Lock the damn door!”
I’d let myself believe we were safe. That we could breathe again. How stupid had I been? To think that some village boys in borrowed armor could stop the Vultures. They always won.
And their horses were heading toward the outskirts. Toward my home. My parents.
I had to do something. Maybe it was reckless. Maybe I should’ve stayed.
Boarded the bakery and cowered behind the counter with Mrs. Holt.
But I didn’t.
I pushed through the door and ran straight into the chaos. Into smoke and screams and steel on stone. A soldier drove his sword into someone right there in the street, and blood sprayed like ink across the cobblestones. Another man was on fire.
I ran faster than I ever had, my feet barely touching the ground. I didn’t care who I passed or who fell. I just ran. All I could think about was getting home. Reaching my family.
The thunder of hooves came too close. I swerved, barely avoiding the stampede.
The neighbor’s farm was already burning. Flames snapping at the sky.
Then I saw it. My house.
And I knew that I was too late.
Horses stood at the fence. Riderless.
The soldiers were already inside. With my parents.
For a second, I thought about running. About disappearing into the woods, climbing a tree, hiding in a broken boat, an old sauna, anywhere they wouldn’t think to look.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t leave.
Novil was an insignificant, small town in the north of Vestance, but it was my home. Maybe that’s why my feet wouldn’t move.
Maybe that’s why, even with the smoke rising and the horses waiting, I stayed.
I knew what awaited. I knew it before I saw his vile grin. I knew, and I went in there anyway.
Arche was standing in my home with a knife pressed to my mother’s throat. Her eyes found mine and didn’t look away.
"Run!" my father shouted from behind her. His voice was hoarse, raw with panic, as two soldiers held his arms behind his back. His face was bruised, one eye swollen shut beneath a line of blood across his brow.
“Welcome home, Kera,” Arche said with a sickly sweet smile. ”Did you miss me?”
His voice slithered beneath my skin. My heart pounded so loud it drowned out everything else. I couldn’t move.
“Kill them,” Arche ordered. “I’ll take my time with this one.”
My scream ripped through the room as soldiers grabbed my parents, and dragged them out back.
“No! Please don’t hurt them!” I begged, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. I’ll be your wife! I’ll give you sons. Please! I’ll do anything!” The words tumbled from my lips, frantic and meaningless. Nothing I could have said would ever have changed his mind.
He was hurt.
Hurt and wounded, by me. And there was nothing I could do to undo it.
Arche stepped toward me, slow and sure. He was savoring the moment. Dragging it out.
“I always get what I want,” he said. “But I think I’m skipping the wedding this time.”
Then he lunged.
I stumbled back and ran for the kitchen.
There. On the counter.
A knife.
I grabbed it with one hand, my fingers curled tight around the handle, slick with sweat.
He was almost on me, so I turned and drove the blade forward.
It landed between the plates of his dark armor, right at the shoulder joint.
He let out a grunt. More startled than hurt.
I should’ve gone for his neck.
“That all you’ve got?” A smirk tugged at his mouth as his hand shot out.
Fingers clamped around my throat and everything else vanished. My head snapped back, then I was off the ground.
His grip tightened, and my lungs locked and panic surged like fire through my chest.
The room tilted. My vision blurred.
Outside, the chaos pressed in. Screams. Sobs.
My mother’s voice.
Raw.
Broken.
Then silence.
My father’s screams followed, hoarse and broken.
I looked up at Arche. Searched his face for the man who once acted like he cared, there was none of that left. No warmth. No mercy. Just cold, hollow malice.
I sank my nails into his skin, using the last of my strength to break his grip. His smile faltered, and I hit the floor.
The world spun, but I forced myself to stay awake. To stay alive.
He crouched over me, one knee jamming into my ribs.
I didn’t want to die.
Not like that.
Then his mouth touched my neck. Not with a kiss. A bite. Hard enough to slip my skin open. It felt like he’d torn my throat open with his teeth.
The pain came fast. Sharp. Hot.
Then I felt it. Cold steel pressed to my throat—the knife I had stabbed him with. He was going to kill me with my own knife, in my own home.
"Shhh," he whispered, holding a finger to his lips.
The blade kissed my skin and I felt the sting. The warmth of blood spilling out as the cold sank deeper.
I wasn’t really there when it happened.
Not really.
My body was in that room, but my mind had floated far away.
Somewhere safer. Somewhere warm and unreachable. A place where pain couldn’t follow.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t even cry.
I didn’t hear the rip of fabric.
Didn’t feel his hands.
Didn’t smell the stench of his breath or the sweat on his neck.
My mind had already gone. It had to. It was easier to pretend I was somewhere else than to witness what was happening. I imagined a knight on horseback. Someone riding through fire and ruin to save me. Someone strong enough to stop it.
To stop him.
It was the only way I could survive.
How else could I go on, knowing they had taken everything? How was I supposed to live in a world with men who, at any moment, could turn into monsters?
They had no horns.
No claws.
Just hands.
The dream was mercy.
“There’s leftovers, if you’re still hungry.” I heard Arche scoff through the haze of my mind. His voice sounded like it came from the edge of the world.
“Still warm,” he said.
Boots scraped across the floor, but the sound of laughter scraped at my soul.
My body didn’t move. It was limp. Useless. Pain blurred at the edges of everything, slipping further away as my mind clung to the dream.
It was the only place none of them could reach me. Somewhere far from the ruin. Somewhere the warmth didn’t hurt.
But even the dream began to twist as heat pressed against my skin, and smoke crawled down my throat.
At first it was just a tickle. Barely there. Easy to ignore. But, then it thickened. Turned sharp. Choking.
My eyes snapped open.
The world was on fire.
Smoke swirled above me, curling through the rafters. The ceiling groaned overhead, blackened and breaking. Beams cracked above me, and the roar of the flames swallowed every other sound. Blood stained the floor beneath me, and the soldiers were gone.
I was alone.
And everything was burning.
A part of me told me to stay down, to let the flames take me.
Let it be over.
It would have been quick.
But something deeper refused, and forced me to crawl. Every movement tore through me. My muscles screamed, and nails caught under my skin as I dragged myself across the floor, splinters digging into my arms. But I kept going. I forced my body toward the back door.
The moment fresh air hit my face, it pulled me back from the edge of death. Black smoke rose into the sky, blotting out the stars as fire consumed everything. Everything and everyone I had ever known.
I stumbled into the yard, barefoot, bloodied, trembling.
Then I saw them.
My parents.
Their bodies had been tossed like garbage, left in a heap beside the shed. For a moment I thought it couldn’t be real. That my eyes were lying to me.
But they weren’t.
My father lay sprawled across the dirt, one arm twisted beneath him. His eyes stared upward, blank and glassy, and blood clung to his hair, thick and dark around a wound near his temple. His lips were parted, the scream still lingering on his face.
My mother was next to him. There was a deep gash across her throat, and both arms were still raised, like she’d tried to protect herself.
I dropped to my knees, my breath hitching as a cry ripped out of me.
“Please,” I whispered as I grabbed my father’s hand. “Please wake up.”
But he didn’t.
Neither of them did.
My sobs turned into gasps, my body trembling from the inside out. I pressed my face into my mother’s chest, still clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, she’d stir. That it wasn’t real.
But it was.
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so sorry. This was my fault. I should have… I should have said yes. I should have said yes and you would still be alive.”
No one answered, and behind me the fire roared.
You can’t imagine the sound of a village burning. It’s louder than you’d think. It sounds like the end of the world.
I wanted to give up. There was no one left to fight for. No one to stay for.
Just pain that wouldn’t end.
“Please… let me die with you.” I begged.
I didn’t care if the soldiers came back. Didn’t care if the whole world burned. None of it mattered anymore.
I curled into her side and wept. But even as the grief swallowed me, something deep inside refused to let go.
A voice stirred, beneath the sorrow.
Faint, but stubborn.
I couldn’t die.
Not yet. Not like that.
The Eredians would pay for what they’d done.
For what they took from me.
Arche had gotten his revenge.
And I would get mine.
I would find them, and I would make them suffer. Even if it took years. Even if I had to crawl through ash and blood and bone. I would make sure they never forgot my name. I would make sure they knew my pain.
And to do that, I had to keep living.
“I’ll make them pay for this,” I promised.
Not to my parents, not even to myself. To the gods, if they were listening. To the dirt beneath my knees. To the wind. To anyone who might be listening.
“I swear it.” I whispered as I kissed my fingertips and pressed them to my mother’s lips.
Then somehow, I stood, though my legs shook beneath me, trembling like they’d forgotten how to hold me up.
I took one step. Then another.
There was a hill at the edge of our land, and beyond it, a stream wound its way through the trees. On the far side, tucked into the woods, stood a small hut. I told myself the fire wouldn’t reach that far. Maybe it would be safe there.
The water was so cold it cut into me, sharp as knives against my burned and blistered skin.
And then I saw blood.
It spiraled in red ribbons through the current, swirling around my legs.
I looked down and saw myself clearly, dried blood streaked my thighs. Bruises mottled my skin, spreading in uneven patches, and my arms were torn up. My body wasn’t just injured, it had been butchered.
I collapsed into the river with a choked cry as my knees gave out. The water closed over me, icy and merciless, biting at every open wound. I gasped and forced myself forward, my hands scraping stone, slipping in the wet mud at the bottom of the stream.
Each movement sent knives through my body, but I kept going. Crawling, dragging, until I reached the other side and dropped, shaking, onto the bank.
Alive.
The hut came into view, a small, sagging thing barely standing. Einar and I had built it with stolen planks and crooked nails back when life was simple. Back when monsters only existed in scary stories.
The door creaked open, revealing a dusty pile of old blankets and toys. A drawing of a bird was pinned to the wall and a rusted tin cup with colored pencils stood on the floor.
Remnants of innocence.
My innocence.
I curled into the corner, pulling a blanket over my body. It smelled of mildew and age, and wasn’t soft or warm, but it was something.
Outside, the sky turned darker. I stared at it through the crooked slats in the walls and pulled the blanket tighter.
I could still taste blood on my lips as tears slid down my cheeks, quiet and hot, carving tracks through the soot on my cheeks.
There was only one thought left in my mind.
I would make them pay.