Chapter 31 #2
“You speak about humans not being treated as livestock by the factions while you discuss using a woman as bait for them in the same breath. So yes, sir. I think you’ve already decided what to do, and it’s very clear exactly what kind of man you are.”
A ripple goes through the crowd at that, a collective intake of breath. Several officers look sharply between the General and Ryoden, like they’re not sure if they just witnessed insubordination or heroism.
The General smiles, a slow and mean thing as it curls up his face. “Careful, Colonel. You’re skirting the edge of treason.”
“I think I unknowingly crossed that edge the moment I let myself believe you were worth bleeding for,” Ryoden answers quietly, making my heart swell larger than it ever has for him.
I hear the disgust and the hurt bleeding through his words.
“I’ve lost lives under my command for this cause.
I’ve written letters to parents to tell them their sons and daughters died for a just cause.
For leadership that would honor their sacrifice. ”
Silence slams down around us and my hand lifts to Ryoden’s back as his body vibrates with rage.
“It was all a lie,” he seethes. “I’d rather die protecting innocent people like the woman behind me than spend one more day believing in the codex that once meant everything to me.”
For a heartbeat, everyone seems to hold their breath, waiting to see how the General will react.
A sharp, delighted bark fills the room that makes my skin prickle. “I am very glad to hear you say that,” he murmurs. “It makes this all much simpler with you admitting your treason for all of us to hear.”
He lifts his hand. “Guns up and trained on these traitors, men.”
The command is final, and all around us, metal glints as weapons come up in unison, barrels pointed directly at us.
“Ry,” I whisper as fear lurches up to grip my heart painfully, “What do we do?”
“Take the girl alive,” the General barks out as Ryoden and Eli draw their own weapons. “Kill the men if they get in the way.”
“No,” I breathe out, heat stinging my eyes as fear and helplessness tear through me.
Everything happens at once. A shot cracks through the air, shattering the last remnants of the guise of this ball as shrill screams from the wives erupt.
My ears ring and for a second I don’t know who’s been hit. Then Ryoden grunts loudly and sags back into me. My hands fly up automatically, bracing him as he lets out a half-muffled curse and half-strangled breath. His gun slips from his fingers, clattering to the floor.
“Ry,” I choke out, tightening my grip as his knees buckle.
We sink to the floor together, my back sliding against the wall, his weight slumping heavily into me.
I desperately drag him partially into my lap, hands scrambling uselessly until I find the source of the warmth seeping into my dress.
There’s a hole in his uniform just left of center, above his ribs.
Blood wells up too fast, soaking through the fabric and spilling over my fingers as I press down on it, trying to force the blood back into his body by my sheer will alone.
“No. No. No, Ry, please!” I yell as tears stream down my cheeks.
Around us, chaos erupts with screams, bodies rushing around through the harsh bark of orders, but it all blurs into noise at the edges of my awareness. All I can hear clearly is Ryoden’s breathing, rough and shallow as his green eyes stare into my face.
“Hey,” he rasps before a cough shakes his body, blood flying from the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t talk,” I beg, tears spilling down to land on him. “Just breathe. I can fix this, I just need—”
I reach again for the earth, for anything, for the faintest thread of power, and slam into a wall of concrete and steel.
Please, I scream inward, whether at the earth, or the gods, or anything listening. Please, please, I can’t let him die because of me.
My hands are slick on his chest now and I press harder.
“Listen,” he forces out, ignoring my plea. “There are things I should have said before now.”
“No,” I argue, shaking my head hard as I blink back the tears obstructing my vision. “You’re going to say them later, when you’re not bleeding everywhere. I’ll even promise to try and cook you dinner for once when we make it out of this, but I can’t promise it’ll be good.”
His mouth twitches, the ghost of a smile. “Your mind is a…fascinating place.”
“Shut up and focus on breathing,” I insist, voice breaking on a sob
Faintly I recognize Eli’s body moving to stand in front of us.
Ryoden lifts one hand, fingers trembling, and finds my cheek. His thumb smears his own blood across my skin as he cups my face. The contact makes something inside me splinter.
“You changed things,” he says, eyes locked on mine like he’s willing me to hear every word. “You changed me.”
“Ryoden—”
“I thought all that mattered was the chain of command. Orders and duty to my people.” His breath hitches as pain wracks through him and I feel it in the way his muscles seize under my hands and his lashes flutter shut briefly.
I will him to open his eyes and breathe out a shaky sigh of relief when green stares back at me once more.
“I have never respected anyone the way I respect you.” His thumb brushes a tear from my cheek, smearing it into the slick blood on his fingers. “You made me want to be a better man. If I have to go out now, I’m glad I at least got to meet you first.”
Sobs wrack my body as the sheer force of my own respect and adoration for this honorable man comes rushing to the forefront. Everything I’ve fought myself to not feel since that first day when he sentenced his own men to be cast out on the mere word of a stranger. From me.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say, even though my dress and the floor beneath us is slick with his blood. “Do you hear me? You don’t get to say goodbye.”
His lips curve faintly. “Bossy,” he whispers. “As always.”
Boots pound closer and when I force myself to tear my gaze away from his face, I see a line of guns raised again, black eyes of barrels staring down at us, at Eli.
Eli stands directly in front of us, body angled like a shield, hands steady on his weapon even though his shoulders tremble with adrenaline. He’s breathing hard, ragged breaths and it’s like my heart cleaves in two at the sight alone.
“Drop the gun, Specialist,” the General orders. “Stand down and maybe you walk out of this alive. We need answers that I think you have from your proximity, in case she won’t talk. I will give you a higher station if you turn to our side.”
Eli doesn’t hesitate for a second.
“I know what it feels like to be a coward, too scared to stand between the people that need me and my possible death,” he says, voice shaking but loud enough to carry. “I will never do that again”
The battlefield where we first met rushes back to my mind. It quickly flickers to him sobbing as he fell to his knees in front of the others in the dining hall when he saw me again.
I never wanted him to give his life in a sacrifice for me to come to peace with our past, yet it’s staring me in the face. I want to yell at him to take the deal, to keep his life as Ryoden’s slips away in my lap, but the words stay lodged in my throat.
In my heart I know he won’t do it.
They shot Ryoden, I send through the bond, the thought tearing free like a scream. They’re going to kill Eli. I can’t—Torryn, I can’t stop it.
A snarl rolls through my skull. We’re close, sweetheart.
The human circle tightens another fraction. The Admiral’s gaze is on Eli now, cool and assessing.
“You’re outnumbered twenty to one,” he points out. “Put the gun down. Don’t give up your life for someone else’s mistakes.”
“With full disrespect, sir,” Eli breathes out, “go to hell.”
A ragged sob rips from my chest at what feels like his final declaration.
“Very well,” The General says. “Shoot him. Take the girl to—”
He never finishes the sentence.
A sharp, biting cold blasts across the back of my neck, raising every hair there.
The wall at my spine vibrates just before light flares all around me, bright and familiar.
I twist, still cradling Ryoden against me, and watch as the portal blossoms open fully in a matter of seconds.
Chilling wind blasts my hair back from my face as one figure steps through.
They’re here.