Chapter Nine
Wynessa
We rode out of Greymere on the same horse, my back pressed lightly against Erindor’s chest, the rhythmic sway of the mare keeping us in an uneasy but constant closeness.
His arms bracketed me on either side as he held the reins, silent and steady.
Every time our knees bumped, or his breath brushed my hair, the warmth didn't just settle. It spread, a slow burn igniting something nameless and new inside me. The storm washed the sky above; the fog swallowed the village’s crooked rooftops behind us.
Silence pressed close as the forest swallowed us once more.
Not a peaceful hush, but something that waited, watched.
The boy we rescued in the Emberwood days before, Kellen, was not with us.
We had left him, safe and warm, in the innkeeper's care in Greymere, promising to return when we had a workable opportunity.
I thought of his quiet eyes and wondered if he was dreaming of forests now, or if he, too, still saw the shadows behind the trees.
I adjusted myself in the saddle and let my gaze drift to the underbrush. Brambles twisted beneath the trees like tangled fingers, and among them grew a line of pale-stemmed flowers, their silvery-blue thistles glinting faintly with dew.
“Lunethistle,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone else. “Used to make sleeping draughts.”
Erindor’s voice came from behind, low and wry. “You’re also acquainted with poisons?”
A tingling sensation spread across my cheek. “Only the sleepy kind.”
A pause. Then: “Good. I’d hate to find out you’ve been plotting my demise with flower petals.”
I smiled despite myself. “Well…not lately.”
I didn’t turn around, but I heard the breath he released, almost a laugh if he ever allowed himself one. The warmth lingered like the last glow of embers across my neck.
“This one’s fireleaf,” I explained gently, pointing beside us. “It only grows in scorched places. Some plants flower only post-fire.”
Erindor hummed in acknowledgment. Not stopping the tangent.
Then, in an instant, the woods shifted. The trees grew tighter, the air thinner. I couldn’t say when the change occurred, only that I felt it instantly. We were not alone.
Emerging into a clearing, a pale glade veined with moss and brittle leaves appeared, the sunlight filtering in through the branches above, thin and hollow.
And then came the whistle of arrows.
Erindor’s shout ripped through the stillness. “Down!”
Chaos erupted.
I barely had time to register the hiss of air before the first arrow buried itself in the tree beside me.
Horses screamed, rearing in panic. Hooves tore through the brittle leaves.
The soldiers drew blades, and steel rang.
I hit the ground hard; the impact knocking the breath from my lungs.
Dirt and bark gouged my palms as I stumbled.
The second arrow thudded into the ground, missing my shoulder by moments.
Then a third arrow flew past, this time close enough that I felt the wind of it brush my cheek.
From the treeline, five figures stormed into view.
Their clothes were a patchwork of hide and stolen cloth, their faces smeared with soot and painted with crude war symbols.
One wore a necklace of teeth. Another had scars carved into his arms like tally marks.
They bore mismatched swords, axes, and curved daggers. Marauders. Mercenaries. Killers.
One of them spotted me. He was tall, lean, his eyes hollow with desperation. He sprinted forward, dagger raised, a snarl ripping from his throat.
A leaden weight seemed to root me to the spot. My limbs were like waterlogged stone, impossibly heavy, refusing to obey.
And just as the man reached me, Erindor was suddenly there. Slamming into him with terrifying speed.
Their blades met in a clash of sparks. Erindor spun, fluid and precise, catching the man’s wrist and driving his sword deep into the space beneath his ribs. The man gasped once, then crumpled.
Erindor stood over him, breath tearing from his lungs in ragged gasps. “You don’t touch her,” he growled, the words forced past clenched teeth, a primal warning.
Another enemy tried to circle him. Erindor pivoted without hesitation, parrying high and driving his boot into the attacker’s chest. The man flew back into the underbrush with a choked wheeze.
He didn’t glance back at me.
He didn’t have to.
Alaric met another attacker head-on, his blade gleaming with clean precision. Bran, wild with fury, lunged for the man attempting to flank Gideon and sank his teeth into the raider’s thigh.
Gideon laughed mid-strike, his shield ringing as he blocked a blow.
Corren fought beside him with the grim calm of a veteran, his sword flashing in clean, efficient arcs as he cut down an attacker aiming for our flank.
Tyren moved like a ghost through the trees, intercepting a raider who had broken off toward Alaric and cutting him down with a single, silent stroke.
Lark stumbled early, his blade knocked from his hand, but he rolled free and scrambled for a spare dagger, as Jasira threw one to him from across the field with deadly aim.
She landed beside me with a dagger already in hand and a curse on her lips. “Stay down, Wyn!”
But past the fray, one mercenary stumbled, gravely wounded.
Blood darkened his tunic, seeping through his fingers.
He crawled away from the fight, gasping, dragging himself through the leaves like a wounded animal seeking refuge, before finally hauling himself against a tree trunk, spent. He wouldn’t live without help.
My heart pounded. My satchel shifted against my hip.
I didn’t think. I moved.
Jasira cursed again, reaching for me, but I slipped through the fray, hands low, breath quick.
The man groaned as I knelt beside him, eyes fluttering open, blood coating his palms. He reached for a dagger, but it slipped from his fingers and landed near my knee.
I picked it up by the hilt—slick, stained, and still warm—and grimaced. The weight of it felt wrong and mean in my hand.
With a shudder, I flung it into the trees. It vanished into the underbrush with a satisfying thud.
“Absolutely not,” I muttered. “You don’t get that back.”
Pressing my hand to the wound, I hissed. “Stay still.”
His skin was cold beneath my touch, but I worked fast, my fingers trembling yet certain.
This kind of bleeding, this rhythm of life slipping away, was familiar to me. I smeared lunethistle paste along the wound to dull the pain, then packed it with moss and balsamroot, whispering half-formed prayers to any god who might still be listening.
He spat near my foot, but I didn’t flinch.
“You heal your enemies now?” he rasped, his voice rough and bitter. “What kind of fool are you?”
“The kind that doesn’t want another body in the dirt,” I whispered, pressing his hand over the dressing. “You’re still a person, and that matters to me.”
His breath shuddered. But he didn’t fight anymore.
And then, just like that, the battle was over.
The last two mercenaries had fled. Three lay dead among the brambles. The fifth, the one I had saved, remained against the tree, pale and sweaty, but alive.
They argued about what to do with him.
Alaric, arms crossed and eyes sharp, wanted to strip him of weapons and dignity, leave him bleeding in the dirt with a warning in his ear.
Tyren, still raw from the fight, offered to end it quickly. “He’d do the same to any of us,” he said flatly.
But I stepped between them.
“He won’t,” I said, more confidently than I really felt. “Not today.”
Alaric raised an eyebrow. “You think a little mercy will change a man like that?”
“No,” I replied. “But killing him won’t change us either.”
They hesitated. The silence stretched.
“If he can walk, he walks away,” I said, voice steady. “We don’t stoop to blood for blood. Not today.”
In the end, Corren left him with a waterskin and some rations. I watched as he crawled to the edge of the clearing, each strained movement a vivid portrait of his suffering. He didn’t thank us. And he didn’t look back.
I stood watching, breath shallow, hands sticky with blood and salve once again.
Then Erindor’s shadow fell over me.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
His voice was low, furious, not like the heat of battle, but colder, sharper, more personal. His eyes blazed down at me, and I turned slowly to face him.
“He was dying,” I insisted, lifting my chin. An act of defiance despite the tremor that rattled my voice. “He’s human.”
“So are you.” He stepped closer, tension drawn tight across his shoulders like a bowstring. His voice was low, roughened by restraint. “You could have died, Princess. And then—” He stopped.
There was more in his eyes than anger, frustration, and fear. Something unspoken. And then he said it.
“This isn’t some fairy tale. You show mercy like that again, and you’re going to get yourself killed and the kingdom with you.”
For a breath, I couldn’t speak. A gasp stole the breath, voice simply vanishing, trapped behind a sudden, solid wall of disbelief.
The words hit harder than the battle.
We stood there with the trees pressing in. I saw the regret in his eyes the instant after he said it and the way his shoulders tensed, how his mouth opened slightly, then shut.
But the damage had already been done.
Before I found my voice again, Alaric stepped between us. His posture was firm and protective.
“That’s enough,” he said to Erindor, his voice cool and even. “We’ve all had enough death for one morning.”
Erindor’s eyes flicked to him, unreadable, then back to me. Whatever storm had risen in him was now buried deep.
He turned without another word.
I watched as he trudged away, each step heavy, his figure growing smaller with every purposeful step.
…