Chapter 73 The Bodies
The Bodies
Iam still staring at the bodies when I realize my pulse has not spiked the way it should.
There is shock, yes, and the metallic scent of blood thick in the air, but no true fear of the man who has clearly been stalking me.
He killed his own for wanting to eat me.
Then tried to kill me himself. The forest feels smaller now, quieter, as if it has drawn inward around the dead and the living.
“You’re a Thren,” I say at last, my voice rough from the blood in my throat and the fight that preceded it, “and you just killed two of your own.”
Arven glances down at the corpses with mild interest, as though considering a spilled drink rather than two extinguished lives.
“Own is a generous word,” he replies. “I kill all kinds. Humans. Threns. Creatures that crawl out after midnight and believe themselves untouchable.” His eyes return to me, dark and unblinking.
“Naive girls with lightcraft they do not understand.”
The words slide under my skin. For a moment I study him in silence, taking in the maroon hair braided with gold, the calm that follows violence so easily it feels practiced. “Are you going to kill me?” I ask.
I expect the question to tremble. It does not.
I am not sure whether that is courage or exhaustion.
Perhaps I simply no longer care enough to flinch.
He angles his head slightly. “You,” he says slowly, “may be the only one I will not kill.” A pause.
“I have my reasons,” he adds, almost lazily. “Do not worry.”
The way he says it makes that impossible. “And to think,” I murmur, wiping blood from beneath my nose with the back of my hand, “I almost convinced myself you might be a good person.”
A soft laugh escapes him, low and genuinely entertained. “Oh no. No. Nope.” He steps closer, boots soundless against the forest floor. “I am not a person.”
He chuckles. “And there is no part of me that is good.” His eyes hold mine, depthless and unashamed. “If you remember nothing else about tonight, remember that.”
And yet, I do not step back.
He is the enemy. I know that. I have seen what his kind does. He saved me that night at the tavern. I do not know what to do with that, or what it makes me that I do not step away now.
The bodies lie cooling at our feet, the scent of blood thick in the damp air, and he stands over them as though nothing in the forest could possibly threaten him.
“You’re a Thren who kills your own,” I say, still trying to reconcile what I’ve just witnessed with the creature before me.
He arches a brow, faintly amused. “Arven,” he corrects gently. “You may call me that, if you intend to keep speaking.”
His smile deepens. “I kill what interests me.”
“I am not interesting enough to kill?” I ask.
“Not yet.” His eyes move over me in a way I can’t quite place. He steps closer. “You fight well,” he says. “For someone who pretends she does not know what she is.”
“I don’t pretend,” I snap. “I don’t know.”
A soft sound escapes him, almost indulgent. “You know enough to survive two of mine without a sword.”
“They weren’t yours,” I say.
“They were under my territory,” he replies. “It is enough.”
“This is a forest. I have been coming here since I was a child. When did it become your territory?”
He shrugs. “Just now, really. I liked the sound of it when I said it, so now it is mine.”
I roll my eyes. “This forest belongs to no one.”
“Belonged to no one,” he corrects. “It was unclaimed until moments ago. Now it has been claimed.” He gestures to the bodies on the ground. “Clearly I have made myself at home.”
“You realize that—”
“You rely too much on your hands,” he interjects. “On steel. On anger. You have something far more useful.”
“I don’t need a lecture,” I say.
“You need control,” he counters smoothly.
He circles me, just close enough that I can feel the subtle shift in air as he moves. “Close your eyes.”
“I’m not closing my eyes around you.”
He laughs softly. “Then do not. But breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Not like that.” His voice lowers, patient now. “Use your nose. Smell what is around you.”
I almost refuse out of spite, but something in the way he says it makes my body comply before my pride can stop it. I inhale deeply.
The forest rushes into me. Wet bark. Blood. Moss. The faint iron tang of the dead Threns at our feet. And then—
Pain presses into my chest, sudden and intense, like a bruise pressed too hard. I stagger back a half step, hand flying to my sternum.
“Don’t sniff too hard,” Arven says mildly.
“What was that?” I demand, my voice tight.
“You overdid it,” he replies, as though this is obvious. “You tried to swallow everything at once. Try again.”
I glare at him.
“Gently,” he adds.
I inhale again, slower this time, letting the air settle in my chest. The sensation returns, softer now, breaking into fragments that are not entirely mine.
What answers is a current moving through me in uneven waves.
Anger held in tight control. Rage that has not faded.
Devotion, deep and territorial. Beneath it, something darker, watchful, like a predator at rest. It feels like standing too close to deep water, something vast beneath the surface.
Each feeling presses against me with its own weight, leaving my pulse altered and my skin too tight.
When I open my eyes, Arven is watching me“Well?” he asks.
I swallow, hating that my throat feels dry. “I felt pieces,” I say carefully. “Anger. Something like loyalty. Something else I couldn’t name.”
“And?” His tone tightens slightly, as if he is already bored with half answers.
I force myself not to look away. “I did not feel murderous intent from you.”
His expression shifts, not into kindness but into something cool and assessing. “Good,” he says. “That only happened because I allowed it.”
“Do not ever go digging without consent,” he continues, and now there is no warmth at all, only warning. “If I had not opened that door, you would have felt nothing. Or worse.”
“Worse how?” I demand.
“You would have drowned in yourself,” he replies. “Mistaken your fear for mine. Your hatred for my hunger. Then reacted to the wrong thing.”
The forest holds still around us, as if even the leaves understand the shift. “You think this is lightcraft,” he goes on, voice flat with disdain. “It is not. It is perception. It is intrusion. You do not swing at the air and hope something bleeds.”
“And you intend to teach me?” I ask.
He gives a short, humorless huff. “I intend nothing so noble. You are chaos with no discipline. That offends me.”
“You’re offended by me?”
“I’m offended by wasted potential,” he corrects. “You are unfinished. Sloppy. And far too emotional for someone who claims to want control.”
There is no teasing in it. Only irritation.
“Try again,” he says. “Not the forest. Me.”
I draw in another breath despite myself, letting his scent fill my lungs. Wine. Blood. Night air. And beneath it, something vast and tightly restrained, something that does not leak outward unless he allows it. It presses against my senses like a wall I cannot scale.
This time I do not push. When I let the air out, my pulse is uneven. “You’re holding something back,” I say.
His eyes darken, not pleased but satisfied that I have at least noticed. “Of course I am,” Arven replies. “You are not strong enough to see the rest.”
There is no comfort in the statement.
“Good,” he adds after a moment. “Now you are finally paying attention.”
“Now use that same power,” Arven says, stepping back into the shadows of the trees as if he means to disappear entirely. “Sense when I come toward you.”
He does not give me time to argue. The forest swallows him within seconds. Night presses close and I can smell the faint iron scent of blood in the leaves. I close my eyes and steady my breathing the way he showed me, letting my awareness stretch outward.
At first there is only the forest, small movements, the hum of insects, branches brushing together. Then a pressure gathers beneath it, something that does not belong. I turn toward it.
I am a second too slow. He hits me from the side, controlled and fast, driving me to the ground. The air leaves my lungs as my back meets earth. He is on me before I can react, one hand braced beside my head, the other pinning my wrist into the dirt.
His face hovers inches from mine, breath warm against my cheek, noses nearly touching. “You hesitated,” he says quietly.
“I felt you,” I snap back, though my pulse is racing hard enough to betray me.
“You felt something,” he corrects. “That is not the same.” His weight is not crushing, but it is undeniable, held with a control that makes it clear he could press harder but chooses not to.
For a brief, humiliating moment, my stomach growls. The sound is loud in the stillness between us. Arven goes still, then leans back just enough to look at me properly, one brow lifting.
“Hungry?” he asks, not kindly.
I shove at his shoulder. “Get off me.”
He releases me without resistance and rises in one smooth motion, brushing dirt from his palms as if I were a minor inconvenience. For a moment I think he will mock me further, but instead he turns and vanishes into the trees again.
I push myself upright, anger and embarrassment warring inside me.
He returns a minute later dragging something limp by one ankle. He drops a freshly killed rabbit in front of me.
“Cook it yourself,” he says. “And I suggest you do not wander too far into the forest while you do. There are Threns aplenty deeper in. As you can see, they think you’d be delicious.”
“Why does a Thren know lightcraft?”
He laughs as though I am stupid. “Lightcraft is mostly practiced in Alarna. Alarna and the Thren used to be allies.”
“What happened?”
“You should find an archivist or a library. I am neither.”
Rude.
“Well, why are there so many of you in Veynar?”
His face changes slightly, something colder threading through it. “Because we are at war.”
I look down at the animal, then back up at him. “Well, thank you for the rabbit,” I say stiffly. I realize I have not told him my name. “I’m Princess Ashar—”
“I don’t care,” he cuts in flatly. “Titles do nothing for me. They tell me what other people decided to call you. I’m not impressed by that.”
I glare at him.
“The only names that interest me,” he continues, pacing slowly around the small clearing, “are the ones people choose for themselves. Whores are excellent at that. Isn’t it fascinating how they rename themselves? A Rosa who calls herself Swallow. What does that say about her?”
“You’re disgusting,” I say.
“And you’re na?ve,” he replies without missing a beat. “Strange that you find my honesty offensive after everything you’ve endured.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “You kill your own kind. You insult strangers. You tackle women into the dirt.”
“And you probe minds without permission and wander into forests with a pocket knife,” he counters. “We all have flaws, Ashen.”
He nods toward the rabbit at my feet. “Eat. You’ll fight better if you’re not lightheaded. And I would prefer you conscious the next time something tries to tear out your throat.”
“Why do you care?” I demand.
He looks at me then, something unreadable passing behind his eyes before it disappears again.
He shakes his head as if I have disappointed him in some small, predictable way.
A low sound escapes him, almost a laugh, though there is no warmth in it.
“You assume too much.” He glances down, brushing dirt from his hands.
“I do not care what becomes of you, Ashen.”
“It’s Asharin,” I correct automatically, irritation cutting through everything else. “Not Ashen.”
He watches me for a long moment as if deciding whether I am worth answering.
“Maybe it is,” he says finally. “But Ashen is the color you were when I pulled you out of that wagon half-dead, so that is what I will call you. You were too rude to properly introduce yourself that night.” He brushes a leaf off his jacket. “Ashen was appropriate then.”
“Rude? I was dying.”
He ignores me. “And it certainly is appropriate now.”
“Fuck you,” I say tightly.
“Play nice, I’m way better at killing than you.”
I cannot argue with that truth.