22. Chapter 22
AMARIA
The ridge dropped away into a shallow bowl of scrubland and standing stones.
We found cover behind a cluster of boulders near the lip, bellies braced against cold rock, breath misting in the air. The wind had died. Everything felt too still, too quiet, like the world was holding its breath.
I saw the soldiers first. A squad of them—eight, maybe ten—moving through the bowl in standard patrol formation. Royal colors. Elite insignia on their armor. The King's best, sent to hunt the fae who'd broken his Veil.
Wonderful.
Eryndor's hand found my arm. Squeezed once. Wait.
I waited.
The soldiers stopped near a standing stone at the center of the bowl. Regrouping. Checking a map, maybe, or waiting for orders.
Then I saw him.
He emerged from the shadows between two boulders like a storm materialized into steel.
The hairs on my arms rose and my Griefweaver started pulsing, reaching for him.
He felt wrong. Like a machine wrapped in flesh with oblivion for a soul. The soldiers around him wore the traditional royal armor, polished steel, and ceremonial cloaks.
He looked like a weapon someone had forgotten to put away.
Metal covered him head to toe. It looked more like scales than armour. Spikes jutted from his shoulders, his elbows, knees and his spine. They caught no light. Reflected nothing. As if the metal itself refused to acknowledge the world around it.
The mask was the worst part.
Smooth. Featureless. No eye holes. No mouth slit. Nothing to suggest a living thing existed underneath. Just a blank, curved surface where a face should be.
Like someone had taken a person and erased them.
The tracks, I thought. The stone ground to powder. The days of pacing without rest, without fire, without food.
This is what made them.
This is what had been hunting us since the Dead Zone.
Then its head turned.
Past Eryndor. Past Dreadscale.
Toward me.
The blank metal mask fixed on my face with a precision that stopped my breath. It didn't scan, didn't assess, didn't do any of the things a hunter should do when facing multiple threats.
It faced only me.
Then he was moving straight toward me like an arrow let loose on a long desired target. I jumped back instinctively even though he was still at least one hundred paces from me.
One of the soldiers stepped forward. An officer, judging by the gold at his collar.
“We wait for backup.”The officer’s voice cut the stillness. “King’s orders. The target is close—we don’t engage until the rest of the unit arrives.”
The Hunter stopped.
No acknowledgment. No compliance.The blank metal face angled toward the officer. Spiked gauntlets hung loose at his sides. At rest.
“Did you hear me?” the officer snapped. “Stand down. We wait.”
A sound came from behind the mask.
It sounded more like a vibration than speech. Like breath dragged across gravel.
“She is present.”
The words were flat and uninflected.
“She is close.”
A pause.
“Range narrowing.”
The Hunter took another step.
“I must proceed.”
“The King gave orders—” The officer stepped in front of him, blocking his gear. The others followed in formation, creating a wall between him and us. I held my breath, the air thrumming with tension.
The Hunter answered without pause.
“Original orders supersede yours. Retrieve directive active.”
The Hunter stepped forward.
The officer lunged, grabbing his arm. “I said hold—”
The Hunter moved.
The officer was still gripping his arm. Then he was on the ground, throat opened, hand still frozen in the shape of holding on.
I hadn't seen the blade leave its sheath.
The Hunter did not look at him again.
“Obstruction removed,” he said, already turning. “Hunt state maintained.”
What happened next took less than three seconds.
I couldn't track all of it. Nobody could.
Without pause, he moved through the rest of the squad like wind through wheat—a spike through one soldier's eye, a backhand that caved in a helmet, a kick that sent a body flying ten feet to crack against a standing stone.
They tried to fight back. Drew weapons. Shouted commands.
It didn't matter.
He was faster than anything I'd ever seen. Faster than possible. Each movement flowed into the next without hesitation, without need to plan and calculate.
Ten soldiers.
Dead in three seconds.
Silence.
The Hunter stood in the center of the bowl, surrounded by bodies. Blood dripped from his spikes, pooled in the cracks between stones, then steamed faintly in the cold air.
He wasn't breathing hard. He didn’t seem to be breathing at all, as far as I could tell.
He killed his own allies.
They weren't enemies. They were just... in the way.
Beside me, Serenya was shaking. Maxx had gone pale. Even Dreadscale looked unsettled—and I'd never seen anything unsettle Dreadscale.
Eryndor's hand was still on my arm. His grip had tightened to the point of pain.
I couldn't look away from the Hunter.
Then his head snapped up.
The blank face aligned with the rocks.
With us.
With me.
"Run."
Eryndor's voice. Barely a whisper.
My body locked. My mind went white. The Griefweaver mark seared through my chest—a thread pulling taut between my heart and that metal monster climbing toward us.
"Amaria."
It took another step. Faster now. His fingers flexing once, twice—mechanical, rhythmic.
"RUN."
Eryndor yanked me to my feet and I finally broke free from the terror trapping my mind.
We ran.
The path narrowed as we ascended—rocky walls rising on either side, funneling us into a pass barely wide enough for two abreast. It was bad terrain with no escape routes and no cover.
I didn't care. I just needed distance.
Maxx and Serenya were ahead, Dreadscale at their backs, silent, relentless, driving them uphill like sheep from a wolf. Eryndor ran beside me, matching my pace, his breathing steady despite the slope.
I risked a glance back.
The Hunter was walking. We were running. Somehow, he was gaining.
Then his mask lifted.
Angled to his right.
He accelerated suddenly, bursting into a sprint parallel to us and disappearing out of sight behind the rock.
"What is he—"
The mountain answered before I could finish.
The sound came first. A crack like thunder, followed by a grinding roar that vibrated through my teeth.
Then the rocks came tumbling down directly onto the path in front of us.
I was yanked backward—Eryndor's arm around my waist, his body curling over mine as we hit the ground and rolled. Boulders slammed into stone around us, dust choking the air, the roar of the mountain drowning everything else.
We tumbled to a stop against a rocky outcrop. His weight pressed me into the dirt, one arm still locked around me, the other braced above my head.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
Then he was pulling back, hauling me upright, hands running over my arms and shoulders—checking for damage.
"Get off." I was already twisting to look behind us. "The others—"
A wall of rubble filled the pass where they'd been. Ten feet high. Twenty. Boulders the size of horses, stacked and wedged together like a giant had built a dam.
"SERENYA!” I scrambled toward the barrier. "MAXX!"
Muffled shouting. Dreadscale's voice, I thought, but I couldn't make out the words.
"They're alive." Eryndor was beside me, bleeding from a cut above his eye. "They're on the other side. We need to—"
He stopped and we turned to face the open path below.
The Hunter stood at the mouth of the pass behind us.
He'd dropped from the ridge. Silent. Patient. Blocking our only exit. We were trapped. Cut off from help. Exactly where he wanted us.
I drew my short swords.
The Hunter tilted his head—insectile, considering—and took a step forward.
My Griefweaver Mark detonated.
Agony. Grief. Rage. It hit all at once at full volume until I couldn't tell where I ended and the pain began. And underneath it, drowning in all that noise, something that made no sense—
Protective fury. I know this fury.
My knees hit stone. My swords clattered from numb fingers.
I was vaguely aware of screaming. It might have been me.
"AMARIA!"
The Crownforged's voice. Far away.
I tried to answer. Tried to stand. My body wouldn't cooperate. The Mark was burning—heat searing through my chest like a brand.
Get up. Get up. GET UP.
I couldn't. Then I heard the clang of swords.
Through the haze of pain, I watched them fight.
Eryndor was holding. Somehow. Meeting that impossible speed with everything the Crown had beaten into him—every brutal drill, every punishing repetition.
It wasn't enough. He was still being driven back. One inch. Then another.
I lurched for the vambrace and pried two stars free. They flew shaking and off-line, struck the Hunter’s back, and pinged harmlessly off the metal before snapping back to the band on my forearm. He didn’t even turn.
The Hunter was faster. Stronger. His blade moved in blurs that left afterimages, each strike driving Eryndor back another step. Impressive that he wasn't dead. Terrifying that he was losing anyway.
Eryndor parried a thrust aimed at his throat. The Hunter pressed the advantage, driving in close, and for a moment they were locked together—blade against blade, face to face.
Eryndor's expression changed.
His eyes dropped to the Hunter's chest, where the metal armor was steaming. Something underneath was burning through it—a symbol burned so bright it seared through the metal itself, visible even from where I knelt.
The King’s Command-rune. Pulsing with sickly light.
Eryndor's face went pale. The Hunter shoved him back. Spun. And in one fluid motion, broke past Eryndor's guard entirely.
His blade rose.
Aimed at me, while I knelt in the dirt like a lamb waiting to be gutted.
I watched it come down. He was too fast. The Mark was still tearing through me, turning my muscles to water, my thoughts incoherent.
The blade swung—
And went wide.
Like something had grabbed his arm and yanked it off course. The metal screamed past my ear and shattered the rock beside my head, showering me with fragments.
The Hunter stopped.