Chapter 41 – Dain
DAIN
Istared at the armoire in Azaria’s bedroom. Specifically, at the now empty space where her leather uniform usually sat.
I hated those leathers.
Not because they weren’t practical. Not because they didn’t move with her like a second skin, sculpted and reinforced and enchanted to hells and back. But because of what they meant.
I stood in her house—no, not her house. Not anymore.
Not really. It had become a shell of what it used to be.
The fire hadn’t been lit in days. The blanket draped over the chair hadn’t moved.
That same mug sat on the low table by the couch, stained with old tea, the dregs of something half-finished and long cold.
A book lay facedown beside it, pages warped, spine bent, like she hadn’t even bothered to save her place.
It was as if she’d left without ever locking the door. And maybe she had. She was barely here. The place still smelled like her, lavender and citrus, but even that was fading. As if she was fading.
Two weeks since she’d started hunting. Two weeks since her laughter had disappeared, since the spark in her eyes had gone quiet.
Since her walls had snapped back into place with such brutal force, it was as if the last few months had never happened at all.
Like the warmth, the softness, the slow bloom of something close to joy, never existed.
She still trained. Still led the squad with precision. Still cracked the occasional dry remark that earned a laugh from Lyra or Zeph. But it wasn’t her. Not really.
She didn’t eat with us anymore. Didn’t sit in the mess hall, didn’t spar with Elias at dawn, didn’t stay up late watching the squad play that stupid card game with too many rules and not enough strategy.
She was present, but only just. And now she was back in her leathers.
Back out there, wearing the face of a killer.
I’d seen this pattern before. Right after she became captain, before the squad trusted her, before anyone did. She’d scraped and bled for every ounce of respect. Not because she had to, but because she refused to owe anyone. She refused help. Even mine.
I told her then, I’ll buy you whatever you need.
She said no. Every time.
So she’d gone out, taking commissions better suited for mercenaries and hunters. To fund her armor, her gear, her weapons. The artifacts she collected and layered like shields.
That’s how she got those leathers. Those cursed, beautiful things that hugged her frame like a death wish. Because every time she wore them, it wasn’t about strength. It wasn’t about readiness.
It was grief.
Armor stitched from pain. Laced with guilt. Every time she put them on, it felt like she was daring the world to take her. Like she wanted to see if this time, finally, it would be enough.
That was the part that gutted me.
She didn’t need the money. Not now. Not ever. I’d made enough in the years I spent as a shadow walker—assassin, thief, hunter, traitor—for ten lifetimes. If she needed equipment, I’d get it. If she needed an entire house on the cliffs, I’d build it with my own hands.
But it wasn’t about that. It was never about that.
She said the hunts grounded her. That the forest gave her silence.
That tracking something alone helped her breathe.
But I knew better. Because every time she left like this, she didn’t come back lighter.
She didn’t come back soothed. She came back worn, hollow-eyed, quieter than before. And now she was doing it again.
The squad hadn’t said it out loud, but they saw it too. Lyra looked at her like she might shatter. Zeph cracked more jokes than usual, each one a little too loud, a little too desperate. Elias watched her with that deep, quiet worry he never voiced.
And Quinton was trying, but even he knew—whatever part of her had unfurled when she let softness back in, it had curled back up like a wounded animal.
I’d let her do this. Let her run, hoping she’d burn it out of her system. That she’d come back tired but steady, like she used to.
But it had been two weeks.
And I’d had enough.
I walked through her living room, past the cold hearth, past the chair that hadn’t been sat in for days. The spare gear was gone. She was out again.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. But I was done waiting.
She didn’t have to speak. Didn’t have to cry. But I needed her to come back. Because the Azaria who’d been smiling in the garden after the ball—the one who let herself feel something real—was gone.
And I was terrified she wasn’t coming back.
I searched her house for anything—a lead, a trail, something to tell me where she’d gone. Two weeks in and seventeen corpses later, the Ghost and the Reaper were untouchable. The council’s investigations left long lists and dead ends; nothing tied the killings to a face.
Darann and Azaria were careful. You don’t become a killer without skill. Sure enough, there was nothing in the room that pointed to where she’d gone. No fresh fibers, no unfamiliar soot, no hidden notes. Everything was clean and clinical. It didn’t matter. There was another way.
I left without another glance. The streets were dark; the moonlight hidden behind a sheet of cloud.
Good. The darker the night, the better for what I needed.
I stepped into the alley between the old smithy and the lantern post and let the familiar chill of shadow walking lick at my ankles like fog. I breathed in. Held it, then slipped.
The Undercurrent took me, cradled me, folded me into itself. My footfalls died. My breath slowed until it matched the hush of stone and leaf. The world bled to gray, then black. I was nowhere and everywhere at once, a passage between light and night.
She was out there, somewhere between the trees and the grief she could not name. Tonight she would not walk that dark alone.
I pushed deeper and let the forest take shape.
The woods were quiet. Not in a peaceful way—in the wrong way.
I’d searched three different sites where Azaria’s signature lingered before I found the right one: half-collapsed ruins from an old watch post, a dying fire still hissing low nearby, and the stench of blood clinging to the air.
My boots crunched against the damp earth. The wind shifted. And then I saw her.
Those leathers.
She stood with her back to me, adjusting the cuffs of her jacket like she hadn’t just put a man through hells. Her braid was loose, strands stuck to her cheek with blood, most of it drying in ugly streaks along her jaw and neck.
The man lay slumped at the base of a tree, head lolled, one eye swollen shut, his tunic soaked red from the chest down.
Still breathing. Barely. A bounty contract, not a Ghost kill—separate from the seventeen already in the ground.
She was running both at once. Assassinations and mercenary work, burning herself from every angle.
Azaria wiped her blade with a piece of torn cloth and didn’t look up. “I’m fine, Dain. Don’t need a babysitter.”
Her voice was cool. Distant. Professional.
I stepped closer, scanning her frame for injuries anyway. “Is that your blood?”
“No,” she replied, unbothered. “His.”
“Did he deserve this much of a beating?”
“Yes.”
No explanation. No glint of guilt. Just fact, said like the sun would rise in the morning. She bent down to tie the man’s wrists, muscles moving like memory, methodical and precise. Her hands didn’t shake. Her breathing didn’t falter.
I’d seen this version of her before. The one that shuts down, goes cold. Follows routine like it’s religion because it keeps her from feeling anything. She dragged the bounty upright with one hand and began securing him to the trunk.
I took a breath. “Az…”
“Don’t.”
She still hadn’t looked at me. I stood there watching the most brilliant person I’d ever known fade into her own shadow.
“You haven’t eaten today,” I said.
That made her pause just long enough for her to tie the last knot a little too tight.
Then she stood, turning toward me. Her eyes met mine—empty and unreachable. “I’m fine,” she said again.
No, she wasn’t.
She turned away, brushing off her jacket, adjusting her weapons as if I hadn’t just crossed half the district to find her. Like I hadn’t sat in her empty house for days, waiting for her to come back to herself.
“You’re not walking away this time,” I said.
Her back tensed. “I didn’t ask you to come.”
“No, you didn’t.” I stepped closer. “But I came anyway. Because someone has to care when you won’t.”
Her jaw twitched. Barely. “Dain, I’m tired. Don’t?—“
“No.” I swept a hand at the scene around us—the blood, the wreckage, the man tied half-dead to a tree. “This. The silence, the leathers, the cold. I’ve seen it before. And it damn near broke you then.”
She turned, eyes flashing. “And yet here I am. Still standing.”
“Barely. You’re running yourself into the ground and calling it survival.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She hissed through her teeth.
“Az—“ My hand cut the air. “This isn’t who you are.”
That did it.
Her spine straightened, shoulders squared, voice sharp as steel. “Then who am I, Dain? Tell me.”
The heat in her words was flint, ready to spark. “Go on, Commander Virellan,” she snapped. “Tell me who I’m supposed to be. The perfect leader? The untouchable soldier? The woman who gives just enough to make you believe she’s fine?”
I stayed quiet. Let her spill what she’d buried.
She turned away again, rigid. Her leathers were slick with blood, her face unreadable, but I could feel it humming just under her skin: rage, grief, guilt.
“I gave everything,” she said, voice trembling through the steel. “To Tywin. To the council. To this district.”
I stepped closer. “And wrecking yourself out here—does that fill the void?”
She spun so fast I nearly stumbled. “So what should I do then?” Her voice cracked like a whip.
Azaria never raised her voice like that. “Tell me!” she shouted, raw. “Because I’m fucking done, Dain.”
She never swore. Not even bleeding out. Not even in battle.