Chapter 37 – Dain
DAIN
Ihad to leave.
The moment Reyna and Kael spoke of the silver band, the air in the room turned to ice in my lungs.
Eris’s smile, Azaria’s face bright with the kind of joy she’d buried so deep it felt like another lifetime—I couldn’t sit there another breath.
So I walked out, shut the office door behind me, and let the silence close in.
The others didn’t know half of it. They thought they did, with their stories and scraps of memory. The sparring, the jokes, the way Eris carried her when she was hurt. All of it was true. All real. But not the whole of it.
They didn’t know Eris was the first to see through her hatred of Quinton Thornvale. That he told me, quiet and certain, the boy wasn’t the monster she thought he was. That given time, she’d see it too.
And they didn’t know he was the first to suspect what she carried.
That beneath all her denials, all her careful control, Azaria had magic in her veins.
Eris figured it out before anyone else. I doubted him.
Told him he was wrong, that I’d checked myself more than once.
That he was only reading too much into her.
I was a fool.
And when the ambush came, when the abyssal rot had already eaten through him and all we could do was watch her break—when he whispered her name like it was the last truth in the world—I swore I’d never let her get that close to destruction again.
But here we are. Four years later. And she’s spiraling all the same.
The office was dark except for the low flame of a single lamp. Reports sat untouched, ink drying on the tip of the pen I hadn’t lifted in hours. My elbows rested on the desk, hands clasped.
Eris’s face wouldn’t leave me—the way he’d looked at Azaria like she was the only thing that mattered. I could almost hear his laugh again, feel the thump of his hand against my shoulder when we talked and drank whisky late into the night.
I’d thought burying it was the only way forward. But tonight, seeing his memory dragged into the open, I felt like I was back on that road again, standing over what was left of him, listening to Azaria scream.
The knock was soft.
“Come in,” I said. My voice was hoarse.
The door opened. Quinton stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and stood there for a moment, reading the room. Then he crossed and dropped into the chair across from me.
Silence stretched.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Quinton said quietly. “The one she couldn’t talk about. Eris.”
I exhaled long and slow. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“I don’t need half. Just enough.”
For a long time, I let the silence sit, staring past him at the shadows on the shelves. But something in his voice—the rawness, the refusal to look away even when it hurt—shifted something in me.
“He was my friend,” I said at last. The words came rough, unused.
“A real one. Not just a comrade I bled beside. Not someone who wanted anything from me. He came to my house more times than I can count. Sometimes with Azaria, sometimes alone. He’d sit at my table, drink my ale, argue about code work and other nonsense until dawn.
” I paused. “He filled a space I didn’t realize was empty until he was gone. ”
Quinton’s jaw worked, but he stayed still.
“What Reyna and Kael told you—they loved him like a brother. He held us all together in ways none of us understood at the time. When he died, it broke more than just her.”
“It destroyed you too,” Quinton said.
The words hit harder than I expected. I looked at him then, really looked, and for once there was no defiance in his face. No edge. Just truth.
“Yeah,” I said. “It did.” My gaze drifted to the lamp.
“The ambush wasn’t quick. The abyssal rot had already spread through him by the time we found him.
He was still fighting to breathe, still holding on, but there was nothing left for us to do.
Nothing except watch her break while we lost him inch by inch.
” My hands clenched against the desk. “Her scream—it still echoes sometimes. It wasn’t just grief.
It was everything—her life, her love, her future—ripped out of her in one breath.
” I forced myself to steady my voice. “I’ve seen her bleed, Quinton.
Seen her close to death. But that moment was the closest I’ve ever come to losing her.
Because when he went, part of her went too. ”
Silence held. Then Quinton spoke, voice rough. “No wonder she’s so afraid to let anyone close again.”
“Now you understand.”
He shifted forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Tell me about them. What they were.”
I almost didn’t. But the lamp was low, and the office was dark, and the ghosts were already in the room.
“Eris was calm,” I said. “Collected in a way that balanced her fire. The moment he stepped into this wing, I knew. There was something in his gaze when he looked at her. More than respect. He fell first. I think he was already falling before he realized it.” A faint huff escaped me.
“They circled each other for a good month. Sparring every morning, bantering every night, neither of them admitting what the rest of us could see. It was painful to watch.”
“They finally got together a couple of months after he joined,” I said.
“And it was the purest, truest form of love I’ve ever seen.
No hesitation. Just inevitable.” I let the silence stretch.
“She let him in like she’s never let anyone in since.
He didn’t try to carry her walls. He just stood there until she realized she didn’t need them anymore. ”
“And people noticed him,” I added, softer now. “Not just us. Kids, older ladies. Anywhere he went, people trusted him right away. He had that kind of presence, solid and kind. Like if you stood near him, you were safe.”
Quinton’s throat worked. “So she really let him in. All the way.”
“She did. And he adored her for it. From day one.”
Quinton’s voice came quietly. “That’s the kind of love she deserves.”
I nodded. “It was. And it nearly destroyed her when it was ripped away.”
The silence held for a long time. Just two men sitting in the half-light with ghosts thick in the air.
Then Quinton spoke, so quietly I almost missed it. “I love her, Dain.”
I huffed a laugh, not unkindly. “Yeah. I know.”
That startled a flicker of a smile. “Am I that obvious?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head, breath somewhere between relief and frustration.
“When Kael and Reyna talked about Eris, about what he meant to her, it was like something tearing through me. Jealousy, grief, anger. Things I don’t have names for.
And maybe I don’t have the right to feel any of it.
Not after the years I left her while I—“ He broke off, jaw clenched.
I stayed quiet.
He exhaled. “But hearing it, I finally understood the size of what she had lost. And it made me feel like no matter what I do, I’ll never measure up to what he was to her.”
“That’s not the point, Quinton. It’s not about measuring up. It will never be. Eris was Eris. You’re you. She doesn’t need another Eris.”
He looked at me, almost desperately.
“She needs someone willing to stay, no matter what.” I said simply.
Something shifted in his face.
“I want to,” he said. “Not just to fight beside her, not just to bleed for her. I want her to laugh again. I’ve seen it, the way her smile lights up a room when she lets it slip.
I want her to have that every day. I want her to wake up without the weight crushing her.
I want her to know she’s not alone.” His voice cracked.
“I don’t care if she never loves me the way she loved Eris.
I don’t care if all I ever get is the chance to be at her side.
I just want her happy. I want her safe. That’s all. ”
The room went quiet; the lamp flickered low. And for the first time since he’d stepped into this wing, I truly believed him.
I leaned back. “Careful what you promise. I’ll hold you to it.”
He huffed a laugh, but his eyes stayed steady.
“Thanks, Quinton.”
He smirked faintly. “Don’t thank me yet. Elias plans to talk to Azaria. Let’s see if he walks out alive.”
I almost smiled at that. Almost.
Then the silence settled again, and I hadn’t planned to say more. Should’ve left it there. But the words came, quiet and rough.
“He was right about you.”
Quinton’s head snapped up. “Who?”
“Eris.”
Confusion flashed across his face. “What do you mean?”
I leaned forward again, the lamp’s glow catching on the edge of Eris’s old knife still tucked on the shelf behind me. “You were a difficult man for her to let go of. Did you know she followed your every move in Dravareth?”
Shock cut through him. “She—she did what?”
“Korr’s network,” I said. “His men kept an eye on you all those years. Fed her everything. I knew about it, of course.”
His laugh was bitter and short. “Of course.”
“So did Eris.”
That made him still. His gaze steadied, meeting mine.
“From the beginning, he had doubts about you,” I said. “He believed her accounts, but he knew her version was clouded by everything she felt for you. Her anger. Her grief. Her loss.”
Quinton’s voice was low. “What are you trying to say?”
I exhaled slowly. “Eris believed from the start that you weren’t the monster Azaria thought you were. And he was right, Quinton. All this time, he was right about you.”
Quinton didn’t move. The air between us hummed, thick with the weight of a dead man’s faith in a living one.
“He told me once,” I said, quieter now, “that if you ever came back, she’d need you. Not the way she needed him, but just as much.”
The lamp guttered. Shadows shifted. Quinton’s hands were clenched on his knees, knuckles white. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “I won’t waste it.”
I held his gaze. Measured the truth in it. “See that you don’t.”
The flame bent low, and the silence between us held—not the old tension, not the careful distance. Something else. Something that felt, for the first time, like trust.