Chapter 5
LIGHT IN THE DARK
Annora's POV
Days don’t pass so much as they blur—smearing together in the cold belly of Blackwood until I’m not sure which morning is which.
I learn the fortress by feel: the stair that creaks on the third step, the corridor that always smells like iron and smoke, the patch of sun that crawls across my window for ten whole minutes before the clouds swallow it again.
I patch split knuckles and torn palms in the infirmary, and I try not to notice how the men stop flinching when I reach for them—like my hands have become something other than trouble.
And in the quiet moments, when I’m rinsing blood from cloth or grinding herbs with a stone pestle, that warmth wakes under my skin.
Not a miracle. Not a choir of angels. Just a soft pulse in my palms, a faint glow I feel more than see—like my body is remembering a language it was never allowed to speak.
Vorak watches it happen with an expression that makes my throat tighten, like he’s terrified of hoping.
Like he’s already decided I’m the only thing keeping him human.
But the crown doesn’t stop being the crown just because I’m far away from its jeweled teeth.
The oath they pressed into my life doesn’t vanish because Vorak’s bed is warm and his hands are careful.
Some nights I wake with my wrist aching, as if an invisible chain has yanked hard enough to bruise bone.
Some mornings I catch Vorak staring out over the battlements, jaw clenched, shoulders rigid, like he can see the next cruelty marching toward us through the snow.
We don’t say the number of days left—because naming it feels like surrender—but it’s there anyway, counting down in the spaces between my breaths.
How long before they come to collect? How long before they decide the contract is only ink…
and they have steel? I tell myself I’m not afraid anymore.
Not the same way. And still, when the horns sound in the distance, my pulse stutters—because I know exactly who they’re coming for.
I wake to screaming.
Not the controlled shouts of soldiers drilling in the courtyard. Not the rough banter that drifts up from the barracks at dawn.
Terror.
Raw. Ragged. The sound of men dying.
I'm out of bed before I'm fully conscious, my bare feet hitting cold stone, heart already racing. The pre-dawn light filtering through the window is wrong—too orange, too thick.
Smoke.
I stumble to the window and the world drops out from under me.
The courtyard is a battlefield.
Vorak's soldiers are fighting in tight defensive formations, shields locked, blades flashing. But they're being pushed back by a wave of men in black and silver—the Crown's colors. There must be fifty of them, maybe more, pouring through the main gate like ants through a breach.
Steel rings against steel. Someone screams. A body falls and doesn't get up.
The fortress is under attack.
My hands shake as I grab my dress from where it's draped over a chair. I yank it on, fingers clumsy with panic, not bothering with the laces. I need to get to the infirmary. People will be wounded. Bleeding. I can help, I can—
The door slams open hard enough to crack against the wall.
I spin, and Matron Eska is there, her face set in grim lines. She's carrying a loaded crossbow.
"You," she says, pointing at me. "Stay here. Lock the door. Don't open it for anyone but Lord Vorak or Captain Rurik. Understand?"
"What's happening?"
"Crown forces." She crosses to the window, glances down, curses under her breath. "A full garrison by the look of it. They came through the east wall—someone sabotaged the ward stones."
Sabotaged. Which means someone inside the fortress helped them.
My stomach drops. "They're here for me."
It's not a question.
Eska's silence is answer enough.
"They're calling you the bloodkey," she says quietly, still watching the courtyard. "The bloodline. I don't know how, but they know what you are, girl. They know what you can do."
Ice floods my veins.
They know.
The magic. The golden light. The way I'd pulled Vorak back from the curse's edge.
Someone saw. Someone told.
And now men are dying because the Crown wants me back.
"Stay here," Eska repeats, already moving toward the door. "Lock it. Bar it. Don't be a hero."
She's gone before I can respond, the door slamming behind her.
I stand frozen for three heartbeats.
Four.
Then I grab the iron candlestick from the bedside table—heavy enough to brain someone if it comes to that—and follow her out.
I'm not hiding in a room while people die for me.
The corridor is chaos.
Soldiers running. Servants fleeing with armfuls of supplies. Someone shouting orders I can't make out over the clash of steel and the screams.
I press myself against the wall, trying to stay out of the way, trying to think.
The infirmary. That's where I need to be. That's where I can actually help.
I make it halfway down the main stairs before I see the fighting spill into the entrance hall.
Three Crown soldiers. Two of Vorak's men.
I freeze, candlestick raised, as one of the Crown soldiers goes down with a blade through his ribs. The other two press the attack, and I can see Vorak's men are flagging, one already bleeding heavily from a gash across his shoulder.
I should run.
I should absolutely run.
Instead, I dart forward and swing the candlestick at the nearest Crown soldier's head.
It connects with a sickening crack.
He drops.
The other Crown soldier spins toward me, eyes widening when he sees me.
"The witch," he breathes.
Then Vorak's man puts a sword through his back.
The soldier I hit is groaning, trying to get up. The man with the shoulder wound—I recognize him now, one of Garrett's squad—steps forward and kicks the Crown soldier's weapon away.
"Get to the infirmary, miss," he says, breathing hard. "We'll handle this."
I nod mutely and run.
The infirmary is already full.
Matron Eska is working on a man with an arrow through his thigh, her hands steady despite the blood. Two other women I recognize from the kitchens are tearing bandages, faces pale but focused.
"You," Eska snaps when she sees me. "Pressure on this. Don't let him bleed out."
I drop to my knees beside the injured man and press both hands to the wound in his side. He gasps, teeth gritted.
"It's all right," I tell him, though I have no idea if that's true. "You're all right."
I fall into the rhythm of it—pressure, bandages, stitching when I can, comfort when I can't. My hands work automatically while my mind races.
How many Crown soldiers are there? How did they get through the wards? Where is Vorak?
The last question sends a spike of fear through my chest.
"Eska," I say as I tie off a bandage. "Where's Lord Vorak?"
"Courtyard. Last I saw." Her face is tight. "Leading the defense."
I nod and reach for the next patient.
Time blurs.
More wounded stagger in. More blood soaks into the stone floor. I stitch and bandage and hold pressure and once, just once, I feel that golden warmth stir under my skin when I touch a man who's barely breathing.
His eyes flutter open. The bleeding slows.
I pull my hand back quickly, before anyone notices.
Then Garrett bursts through the door, and the look on his face makes my blood run cold.
"It's Lord Vorak," he says. "The curse—it's taken him. Completely."
Eska's hands still. "How bad?"
"He's going to kill everyone in that courtyard if we don't stop him. Friend or foe, doesn't matter." Garrett's face is white. "Captain Rurik is trying to get the men clear, but—"
He doesn't finish.
He doesn't have to.
I'm already moving.
"Annora, no—" Eska starts.
I don't stop.
I run.
The courtyard is a slaughterhouse.
Bodies everywhere. Crown soldiers and Vorak's men both. The smoke is thicker here, acrid and choking, making it hard to see more than a few feet ahead.
But I can hear him.
Snarling. Roaring. The sound of something that stopped being human.
I push through the smoke, candlestick still clutched in one hand though I know it's useless now.
And then I see him.
Vorak is in the center of the carnage, and he is terrifying.
He moves like a storm given form—all violence and precision and inhuman grace. Every strike kills. Every movement flows into the next with the efficiency of something that's been hunting for a thousand years.
His horns gleam red in the firelight. His claws are slick with blood.
And his runes—
Oh gods, his runes.
They're not just glowing. They're blazing, so bright they cast shadows, so hot I can see the air shimmering around his arms.
But it's his eyes that stop my heart.
Empty.
Feral.
Gold, yes, but wrong. Animal. No recognition in them at all.
As I watch, frozen in horror, he turns on one of his own men.
Captain Rurik barely gets his shield up in time to block the blow that would have taken his head off. The impact sends him stumbling back, and Vorak follows, relentless.
"My lord, it's me!" Rurik shouts. "Rurik! Your captain!"
Vorak doesn't hear him.
Doesn't see him.
There's only the curse and the blood and the endless, mindless need to kill.
"Get back!" someone screams at me. Garrett, I think. "Run! Get inside!"
I should run.
Every instinct I have, every lesson I learned in six years of slavery about when to fight and when to flee, is screaming at me to run.
But if I run, Vorak will kill everyone here.
He'll drown in the blood and the madness, and when it's over—if he survives, if the curse doesn't burn him out completely—he'll have to live with what he's done.
He'll never forgive himself.
My hands are shaking so hard the candlestick rattles.
I drop it.
And I walk toward him.
"Annora, don't!" Rurik's voice is distant. Unimportant.
There's only Vorak. Only the beast wearing his face. Only the man who held me last night and whispered mine like a prayer.
He's drowning.
And I'm going to pull him back.
"Vorak." My voice shakes, but it's steady enough. "Vorak, look at me."
He doesn't.