Chapter Twenty-Three
Erindor
The trail thinned beneath our boots as morning broke over the lower ridges.
A gray veil clung to the rocks, stirred by the wind like breath over cooling embers.
The trees here grew sparse, bark dark as charcoal, limbs like reaching fingers.
We had been climbing for hours, the slope gentle but steady.
The kind of terrain that crept into your legs and made them ache without you realizing it.
Alaric walked ahead, humming absently under his breath.
His lute was lazily slung over his shoulder, despite the incline, and Bran padded faithfully at his side.
Jasira and Gideon followed closely behind, whispering to each other about the rock formations, some of which resembled half-melted pillars or ancient statues overtaken by stone.
Wynessa walked beside me, quiet. She had pulled her hood low, wisps of her hair escaped in the breeze, her hands clutching the leather strap of her satchel.
Every so often, her eyes would lift; not to the path, but to the ridges, searching.
Perhaps it was the dream still clinging to her.
As ever since her fire tore a path through the thorn maze, she had spoken very little.
She kept her distance this morning. I tried not to notice, but failed miserably.
“So,” Gideon called out, loud enough to break the hush, “we’re heading toward the place locals call the ‘mouth of the mountain,’ yeah?”
Alaric snorted. “Only if you want to get swallowed.”
Jasira glanced over her shoulder. “There’s an old collapsed temple near here, isn’t there? One records don’t name?”
“There’s always a temple the records don’t name,” Alaric replied.
“Sounds like a perfect place to poke around,” Gideon muttered. “Significant history, maybe a deadly trap or two.”
“I’d bet on both,” I said.
A crooked grin touched Wyn's lips, and the glimpse, barely caught, was enshrined in a quiet chamber.
A few more minutes of careful descent brought the structure into view: half-buried beneath a rockslide, its once-grand columns snapped like bones, its frieze worn bare by time.
The stone bore the markings of a temple once dedicated to the gods.
A familiar crescent pattern across its broken lintel suggested it had honored Tharn before it fell.
But something was wrong.
“It doesn’t look like this collapsed naturally,” I said, stepping closer. My voice lowered on instinct. “See the clean edges? It’s like someone shaped the rock.”
Wyn stooped down, brushing moss from one of the fallen columns. Her fingers lingered. “These symbols are unique. Not decorative. They’re functional. Protective runes, maybe?”
The wind shifted. Gideon turned in a slow circle. “What delights have been encountered now?”
Bran barked once, low and uncertain.
That’s when we saw the sigil.
Painted in dark ink, not old nor ancient, smeared fresh on a nearby stone: a jagged mountain over a broken chain. My breath hitched.
Blackreach.
I stepped in front of Wyn without thinking.
Alaric drew his sword halfway. “That’s not just old mercenary work.”
“No,” I whispered. “That’s something worse.”
The silence thickened.
Then, from deeper in the ruins, came the unmistakable sound of boots scuffing stone.
We weren’t alone.
The air snapped. A sharp gust, followed by the barest scrape of leather against stone.
“Incoming!” Alaric barked.
An arrow screamed through the air and shattered on the stone floor where Wyn had been standing a heartbeat before. Shards skittered past her boots as she dove behind a fallen column.
They descended like carrion birds through the ruined arches, shadows in rusted iron and piecemeal mail, cloth wrapped tightly around their faces.
Four of them, or more, moving like trained predators.
There was no shouting or flourish, only the low rustle of boots on moss and the sound of drawn steel.
“Mercenaries!” Gideon roared, blade clearing his back with a snarl of metal.
The clash happened quickly, without warning.
Gideon slammed into the first one like a battering ram, blade raised high.
His sword met flesh with a wet crunch, the bone splitting.
The man screamed, clutching the ruin of his shoulder, before Gideon twisted the blade free and drove it into his throat.
Blood sprayed in a hot arc across the stones.
Alaric was already mid-duel with a second.
His movements were sharper, more elegant, with years of drills behind each of his swings.
He feinted, then spun low, his blade slicing through the back of the man’s knee.
The mercenary collapsed with a shriek, and Alaric’s sword punched through his spine with a sound like breaking bark. He did not scream again.
A knife whipped past my ear.
I turned to see Jasira clutching her forearm, blood leaking through her fingers.
“Get back!” I growled, stepping in front as another figure rushed toward her.
Wyn was already moving. She dragged Jasira behind a crumbling altar and tossed a pouch from her satchel.
It hit the ground and burst with a sharp crack, golden powder erupting like fireflies.
The mercenary staggered, eyes seared blind.
Wyn didn’t hesitate. She slashed upward with her dagger, catching the man across the arm.
I lunged forward, intercepting another man mid-swing.
His axe whistled inches from my ribs. I dropped low and drove my blade into his thigh.
He screamed, and I twisted. Blood poured down his leg, gushing onto my boots.
He stumbled, still howling, so I rammed my hilt into his jaw.
His teeth cracked audibly. He dropped with a choke.
A blur to my right; young, fast, reckless.
I turned too late. His short sword raked across my arm. The pain flared hot, but I welcomed it.
I gritted my teeth, slammed my boot into his gut, and grabbed his arm before he could recover.
I pulled hard and drove my elbow into his nose; it crunched inward with a fountain of blood.
His scream never came; I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the hard stone before him. Then twice over, and he went limp.
The ruin echoed with shouts, heaving breathing, and the wet clang of steel finding bodies.
Alaric let out a sharp breath, his blade now slick to the hilt. Bran had one of them pinned, jaws buried in his side, tearing. Flesh gave up with a sickening rip. The mercenary shrieked, gurgled, then was silent.
Three bodies lay motionless across the broken floor. Blood pooled thickly around the base of the altar, already soaking into the moss.
Only one remained.
He backed toward a broken column, panting, his eyes wide above the blood-smeared wrap on his face. His sword hung loosely, blood dripping from a shallow cut along his thigh.
“Don’t move,” I snarled, stepping over a dead mercenary.
The man raised his hands, trembling. He turned as if he was about to run.
But I was faster.
I slammed him into the pillar, blade pressed to his throat. His head cracked hard against the stone.
“Erindor—” Wyn’s voice behind me was shaky, pleading.
“Alive,” I snapped. “I need him alive.”
The mercenary stared up at me, eyes wide, lips bloody. And then, recognition flickered.
He knew me.
And I knew now without a doubt, this wasn’t simply a hired ambush.
This was the beginning of something worse.
Alaric muttered a curse and tossed me a coil of rope.
I personally took charge of the captured mercenary and tied the rope across his hands myself.
My fingers weren't steady, and that was how I knew I was angry. It wasn't the shouting kind of anger or the kind that quickly passed. It was the kind that simmered and boiled.
The kind I learned in blood-soaked camps long before anyone called me a protector.
The others gathered slowly, remaining silent. Even Gideon said nothing. Jasira clutched her arm. Wyn, a silent figure a step behind, gave nothing away with her expression, but her eyes burned into mine.
The only sounds were Bran’s low growl and the drip of blood from the temple stones.
The man I had caught was young, barely out of boyhood. His breathing was hard, and blood soaked his ribs. But he was smirking.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He spat at my feet.
I struck him with a closed-fist strike to the side of his face. His head snapped back against the stone. A tooth flung across the floor.
He grinned through broken teeth, red leaking from his mouth.
Wyn flinched from behind me.
“You’re not a mercenary,” I said, voice flat. “You’re a maggot. A leftover from a place that fed boys to blades and called it training.”
He sneered, lips split. “You’re one to talk.”
I slowly crouched in front of him, deliberately, drawing my smaller knife.
“I was never in Blackreach,” I said softly. “But I trained with people who belonged there.”
I pressed the knife into the soft meat beneath his knee. “One chance. Who sent you?”
He smiled.
“The one who’s coming.”
I pressed down. Skin split. He hissed through his teeth but didn’t cry out.
“Name.” The word cut through the air like a sliver of ice.
“Riven,” he whispered.
The name hammered into me, a blaze erupting where the sound landed. My lungs seized, and the edges of sight blurred to a void.
Stone walls. Firelight. Chains rattling. A boy on his knees with a knife in his hand and a voice in his ear:
“Earn it.”
I had. Gods, I had.
Inside, something gave, the soundless shatter of bone under unbearable weight.
I dragged the knife down into his thigh.
The man howled. Blood poured.
“Erindor!” someone barked. Alaric, maybe.
I didn’t stop.
Not yet.
“You’re one of his,” I hissed. “He trained you like he trained me. Bleed out the weakness. Stitch in the rage.”
The man smiled through broken teeth. “You were always his favorite. He said if anyone could be worse than him, it’d be you.”
I grabbed the merc’s tunic and yanked him up enough to meet my eyes.