The Order of Blight
The door opened without a sound.
That was what woke her. Not the crash of wood splintering or the thunder of boots on stairs, but the soft click of a lock turning and the whisper of hinges that should have creaked but didn’t.
Someone had a key. Someone had oiled those hinges.
Lark’s eyes snapped open in the darkness, her body already tensing, her mind reaching for the familiar pulse of aetheria that would bring her daggers into existence. But she had forgotten that the magic here in Summerbright was weaker, harder to access, and her daggers were slower to form.
The first man was on her before she could move.
He was fast, professional, and knew exactly what he was doing. One hand clamped over her mouth while the other grabbed her wrist and wrenched it behind her back. She twisted, trying to break free, trying to angle her hands so she could form a blade and use it.
Cold iron closed around her wrist. Then the other.
Manacles. Heavy and tight, the metal biting into her skin, her arms pinned behind her back. Her hands were useless now, trapped and bound, and she was as helpless as any ordinary woman.
Across the room, Darian exploded into motion.
Twenty years as a warrior brought him off the bed with his sword already in hand, the blade singing as it cleared the scabbard.
He took the first enforcer through the chest before the man could raise his weapon, kicked the body aside, and engaged the second with a vicious flurry of movement that spoke of countless battles.
More enforcers poured through the door, bodies crowding into the small space. Four. Five. Six. Too many for one man, even one as skilled as Darian.
“Lark Rowynn.” The voice came from behind her, calm and satisfied. “The Order of Blight sends its regards.”
She was hauled upright, her arms wrenched painfully behind her, the manacles grinding against bone. The man holding her was big, his grip like iron, his breath hot against her ear.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “Did you really think you could come back here and no one would notice? Did you think Anya Coldwell’s loyalty couldn’t be bought?”
Anya. Of course. For enough coin, anyone’s compliance could be purchased. Lark had known that, but had counted on the fact that betraying customers was bad for business. Apparently, someone had offered more than any continued patronage was worth.
“Fight all you want,” the man continued. “Those manacles aren’t coming off until we say so. And your friend over there …” He laughed. “He’s outnumbered. It’s only a matter of time.”
Lark twisted in his grip, trying to see Darian.
The room was chaos: bodies and blades and the copper smell of blood.
She glimpsed him through the press of enforcers.
Still on his feet. Still fighting. But bleeding now from a cut on his forehead.
A red stream ran down his face as he parried a blow that should have taken his head off.
“Darian!” The name tore out of her, raw and desperate.
He didn’t look at her. Couldn’t afford to. But she saw his face, saw him adjust his stance to try and put himself between her and the door, even as two more enforcers circled behind him.
“Move her out,” someone ordered. “We don’t need the soldier. Kill him.”
“No!” Lark thrashed against the hands holding her, but there were too many of them now. Two men grabbed her arms while a third took her legs when she tried to kick. They lifted her bodily off the ground and carried her toward the door.
The last thing she saw was Darian.
He was surrounded. Four enforcers still standing, closing in from all sides. Blood on his face, on his sword, on the floor around him. He was breathing hard, his movements slower than they had been, but his eyes were clear and his blade was steady.
He met her gaze and it was enough. Not goodbye, not surrender, just acknowledgment. Whatever happened next, he would face it the same way he faced everything.
Then she was through the door, they were carrying her down the stairs, and she couldn’t see him anymore.
The common room of the Broken Wheel was dark and empty.
No patrons, no staff, no witnesses. Just Anya Coldwell standing behind the bar, her face carefully blank, her hands wrapped around a mug she wasn’t drinking from. She didn’t look at Lark as the enforcers carried her through.
Lark wanted to scream at her. She wanted to curse her, threaten her, promise retribution. But the man’s hand was clamped over her mouth again, and all she could do was stare at the woman who had sold her out.
They took her out the back door, into the alley she had noted as an escape route. A wagon waited there, plain and unmarked, the kind that could travel through the city without attracting attention. They threw her into the back like cargo and slammed the door shut.
Darkness. The smell of wood and old blood. The rattle of wheels on cobblestones as the wagon began to move.
Lark lay on the floor and tried to breathe.
The manacles were too tight. Her wrists were already going numb, her fingers tingling from lack of circulation. She twisted her hands, testing the iron, but there was no give. Whoever had forged these knew their business.
She was trapped. Helpless. Alone.
Was Darian alive? Dead? She had seen him fighting, seen him surrounded, but she hadn’t seen him fall. He was too stubborn to die in a tavern brawl. Too skilled and too determined.
But she didn’t know. And there was no way she could.
The wagon rattled on through the streets of Summerbright. Lark had no way to track their route, no way to know where they were taking her. To an Order stronghold? To a prison? To whatever fate Isolde’s former associates had planned for her?
She thought about Rion. About Pippa. They were supposed to be at the enclave, negotiating, building alliances. Did they know what had happened? Had they sent a Brightwing that arrived too late? Or had something gone wrong on their end too?
What if they had faced betrayal from both directions?
The cell was small, damp, and utterly dark.
They had taken her down stairs that seemed to descend forever, through corridors she didn’t recognize, into a part of Summerbright she had never seen. The air grew colder as they went deeper, the walls changing from rough brick to older stone.
Then they had shoved her into this hole, slammed the door, and left her alone with her thoughts.
Lark sat with her back against the cold stone wall, her hands still manacled behind her, and stared into the blackness.
The aetheria was still there, faint but still answering her call despite the iron around her wrists, so she summoned a key and twisted her wrists, trying to angle it toward the lock at her back.
Useless. She couldn't see the mechanism, couldn't feel where the keyhole was, couldn't even be certain the key she'd made was the right shape.
She let it dissolve with a frustrated sound.
Time passed with no way to measure it. Minutes or hours, it all felt the same in the dark.
That last image of Darian was burned into her mind: surrounded, bleeding, still fighting.
He had tried to put himself between her and the door, even when it was hopeless.
Even when there was no chance of winning.
That was the man he was, the kind who kept fighting even when the odds were impossible.
Was he alive? Dead? Had he escaped somehow, slipped away in the chaos, gone to find Rion and Pippa and tell them what had happened?
She didn’t know. She might never know.
She thought of Rion and the promise she had made just two nights ago, sitting by a dying fire in the shadow of the golden oaks.
When this is over. When we go home.
She had said yes and let herself believe that a future was possible. A home. A life built with someone instead of alone.
And yet she was here, in chains, in the dark, with everything Rion had offered feeling as distant as the stars.
Did he know she was gone? Was he looking for her? Or was he locked in his own cell somewhere, betrayed by the enclave they had come to for help?
And what of Pippa? Bright, relentless Pippa, who had teased her about romance, bullied her into buying nice things and stubbornly refused to let Lark retreat into herself. Pippa, who loved Darian, who would be devastated if he were dead, who deserved so much better than any of this.
Only Noctis had seemed to feel that anything was amiss. He had followed Rion so reluctantly, looking back at her with those knowing amber eyes. Would she ever see him again? Would she ever see any of them again?
The darkness surrounded her, thick and absolute.
She had survived so much. Wintersorrow. Isolde.
The Ashen Citadel. She had clawed her way through a lifetime of violence and manipulation and come out the other side still breathing.
Finally, she had found people who loved her, people she loved in return.
And with that love, she had believed that maybe, just maybe, she could have more.
And now she was back where she had started. Alone in the dark, waiting for someone else to decide her fate.
No.
Lark straightened her spine against the cold stone. Her hands were bound, but her mind was not. Her body was trapped, but her will was her own.
She was Lark Silvertree. Daughter of Alisse. Survivor of Wintersorrow. The woman who had broken into the Ashen Citadel and walked out again with the man she loved. The woman who had killed Isolde Viremont and escaped the Order of Blight once before.
They had caught her, chained her, thrown her in this hole and left her to rot.
But they had not broken her. And they would not.
And as long as she was breathing, as long as she was thinking, as long as she had even the smallest spark of life left in her body, she would find a way out. She would find Rion, Darian, and Pippa, and she would burn the Order of Blight to the ground if that was what it took.
She just had to survive long enough to do it.
Lark closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the wall, and waited for whatever came next.
The darkness held no answers.
But somewhere, far above her, the sun was rising on a new day, and somewhere in Summerbright, the people she loved were fighting, dying or searching for her.
She had to believe they were still out there. Had to believe this wasn’t the end.