Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“I describe everything like an old soldier.”
She chuckled. It surprised me. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to hear it again.
After a moment, she added, “Do you think the gods see us out here?”
I paused briefly.
“If they are, they’re terrible at intervening.”
She gave a quiet snort of laughter.
The silence lingered, growing taut between us.
After a moment, I added, “Or maybe they have terrible aim.”
Wyn blinked. “Was that a joke?”
I didn’t answer.
She turned toward me fully in mock seriousness. “Erindor. Was that an actual joke? Have you been hiding a sense of humor this whole time?”
“I haven’t, Princess.”
“You have!”
“I’m being serious.”
“You’re not.”
“I—” I stopped, shook my head, and looked back at the sky.
She grinned beside me, eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. “I knew it.” She added smugly.
“I keep it small. Malnourished. Better kept in the dark.”
She gently nudged my elbow with hers. The contact was brief, feather-soft, yet it lingered like warmth from a fire. My chest ached for reasons I didn’t want to name.
She was too tired to notice what she did to me. Or I was too stubborn to let it show.
We stood together in silence.
Bran growled once in his sleep across the yard. Somewhere behind us, Gideon muttered in a dream. Alaric had settled near the rubble with his arms crossed.
Wyn shivered slightly. I could still tell she was more than exhausted.
The air offered no sound of their coming, but the ridge above suddenly exploded with light.
Torches bloomed across the ridgeline above us; dozens of them. Their glow spilled down the hills in broken flickers, weaving through the dark like serpents made of flame. My hand was already on my sword before the shouts began.
“Up!” I barked, loud enough to split the dark. “Get up! Now!”
Bran growled, teeth flashing, as Gideon rolled to his feet with a startled oath. Alaric was already up, sword drawn. Jasira grabbed Wyn’s arm and yanked her behind a stone post as arrows struck sparks against the ruins.
“Mercenaries!” I shouted. “They’re coming from the ridge!”
I caught one torchbearer rushing down the slope, a bulky shape in a rust-red cloak, and I hurled a dagger straight into his chest without hesitation. He dropped without a sound.
The next arrow whizzed within inches of my face, drawing a thin crimson line across Jasira’s shoulder before punching into the tower wall with a decisive thock.
Gideon rushed to Jasira’s side, blade in one hand, shield in the other. “Stay behind me,” he growled, none of the usual humor in his voice. “Touch her, and I’ll gut you,” he shouted at the mercenaries.
The first wave hit us like a landslide.
Over the crumbling wall they surged, three figures framed by firelight, their drawn blades reflecting the dancing flames. Underneath the grimy swaths of cloth that masked them, their faces hinted at a fierce, unseen intent.
Alaric was there in a blink. His sword cleaved downward in a brutal arc that split the first man’s collarbone with a crack like splitting wood.
Blood fountained, splattering Bran’s fur as the war hound lunged at the second attacker.
The man shrieked as teeth sank into his forearm, crunching down to the bone.
Alaric pivoted too slowly. The third mercenary’s blade swept low, carving a deep line across his thigh.
He stumbled, blood flowing down his boot, but he didn’t fall.
His blade sliced the attacker’s neck, ripping through muscle and windpipe in a sickening, gurgling spray.
A fourth mercenary—fast, lean, wielding twin curved blades, rushed toward me.
His first strike skimmed my ribs; I felt the heat of it, the hiss of torn fabric.
I ducked the second, drove upward with my knee, catching his gut.
As he doubled over, I slammed my elbow into the bridge of his nose with a wet crunch, then shoved my sword into his chest. He gagged on the steel, blood bubbling from his mouth before he dropped.
Another came screaming from my left, dagger raised. I caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted until it snapped, and shoved my knife straight into his throat. His blood hit my face, hot and bitter. He spasmed, twitching like a puppet with cut strings, and crumpled at my feet.
Gideon was roaring nearby, drenched in sweat and blood, swinging his axe with feral precision.
One mercenary charged him low, ramming a short blade into Gideon’s side.
He howled, twisted, and brought the axe down so hard it split the man’s shoulder and ribcage in half.
Flesh parted like overripe fruit, the spray hitting the stone.
Through the chaos, I saw her.
Wyn.
She was running to Jasira, herbs clutched tight in one hand like she didn’t know whether to heal or run. Her eyes were wide, stark, revealing the whites all around the iris, while a faint quiver worked its way through her jaw.
And then, heat. Sharp and sudden. The pendant in my pocket seared against my leg, hot enough to make me flinch. For a split second, it felt as though the fire came from inside my chest rather than from the metal. I didn’t have time to think about what it meant. Only that it meant her.
Another attacker spun toward her, a blur of motion with lethal intent
I was too far.
He raised a rusty hatchet, grinning.
Wyn grabbed the nearest thing—a blackened iron cooking pan. She swung wildly and struck him in the temple with a hollow crack. His knees buckled, and he dropped without a sound.
She gasped. “I’m sorry!”
Gods.
She had apologized to the man she had knocked unconscious.
“Wyn!” Jasira called, her voice sharp with pain.
A deep gash split her shoulder, spilling crimson in thick rivulets down her arm. Wyn dropped beside her, pressing a cloth hard to the wound, her fingers trembling, breath ragged.
Beyond the ridge wall, more torches flared in the dark. Six. Seven. Maybe more.
One charged me before the thought could fully register. His axe came down in a killing arc. I stepped inside the swing, driving my sword up beneath his ribs. The steel punched through, hot blood spilling over my gauntlet as he choked and collapsed.
Another came at my flank, screaming. I caught his wrist, twisted until the bones popped, and ripped the blade from his hand. I buried it in his gut and shoved him back, watching him fold over it before kicking him to the ground. He writhed once, then stilled.
A third lunged from the shadows, spear low. I parried, turned the point aside, and slammed my shoulder into his jaw. Bone crunched. He stumbled; I finished it with a sharp thrust to the throat. His eyes bulged as blood fountained over my boots.
The clearing reeked of iron and smoke. Steam hissed where blood struck the cold stone. Bodies sprawled in heaps, some twitching weakly, others already slack and pale.
We were holding them.
But barely.
“Behind you!” Gideon shouted.
I spun. Pendant burning hot in my pocket.
A mercenary lunged toward Wyn with a curved blade, raising it high.
I didn’t think.
I ran.
Too far to reach him in time. NO.
I threw my sword.
It whistled through the air like a scream, spinning once, twice, and then struck home with a meaty thunk. The blade punched through the mercenary’s ribs as he lunged for her, driving so deep the hilt slammed against his chest with a sickening crack.
He staggered once, blood already pouring from his mouth in thick ropes, eyes wide in surprise. Then he collapsed forward like a sack of butchered meat, the sword still buried to the hilt.
The pendant in my pocket cooled from its blistering heat, settling into a steady, lingering warmth, like an ember that refused to die.
Wyn stared.
I ran to her, yanked the blade free, and turned to cover her again.
“You all right?” I asked, voice harsher than I meant.
Wyn sat there.
Eyes wide. Mouth ajar.
Not in fear.
I watched the flush rise in her cheeks before she ducked her head for a moment, pretending to check Jasira’s bandages, like her hands weren’t shaking for an entirely additional reason.
Her gaze, a blend of startled relief and profound, wordless gratitude, held me captive long after the fallen man's final gasp.
Long enough for me to notice.
Gods, I noticed.
She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.
I didn’t leave her side. Not again.
Alaric shouted from the far wall, “They’re falling back!”
The mercenaries had retreated, slipping away into the rocks and ash, but not like routed soldiers. Like men who had done their job.
A warning. Not a victory.
I stepped toward the edge of the ridge, sword still slick in my grip.
Then I heard it.
Slow, deliberate clapping from above.
A shape moved out of the shadows near a cragged ledge overlooking the ruins. A man, cloaked in gray and black, with a hood thrown back and a glint of iron at his shoulder.
He moved like smoke.
Confident. Leisurely.
“You’re still good,” he said. His voice was quiet, but the night carried it clearly as steel.
He looked at me.
“But let’s see how you fare against me.”
Then he stepped forward into the torchlight.
And I saw his eyes. Gray as ash and cold as stone.
Riven.
My stomach turned to ice.
There was no mistaking him now. The torchlight flicked across his face, too harsh, too pale.
His cheekbones cut like blades beneath stretched skin.
A scar ran from the corner of his left eye down to his jaw, and though his hands hung at his sides, loose and unthreatening, he radiated danger like a coiled spring.
His presence permeated the space, chilling the air and stealing the warmth
“I expected more,” he murmured, his voice a silken thread of menace. “Frankly, I’m rather underwhelmed.”
He looked at me.
He wasn’t interested in the others. Just me.
“You’ve gotten better, though, boy,” he added. “Cleaner. Calmer.”
I didn’t answer. I clenched my fingers so tightly around the hilt of my sword that the metal bit into my palm.
He smirked slightly. “But you still hesitate when it counts.”
He lifted his right hand, palm open, casual.
The earth beneath the ledge trembled slightly in awareness. The suggestion of pressure.
My grip tightened.
“Why are you here?” I demanded.
Riven tilted his head. “Oh, you know. To observe. To evaluate.”
His eyes flicked past me.
To Wyn.
She stood a few paces behind, stiff with tension. Her cloak was still askew from the fight, cheeks pale, eyes locked on him like she couldn’t decide whether to run or burn him down where he stood.
The air near her shoulder shimmered faintly, not yet a flame. The echo of what lived within her.
Riven noticed.
But he didn’t speak to her.
“You don’t belong in this,” I said tightly.
“No,” he agreed. “But then again, neither do you.”
The remark pricked a nerve, a wound too fresh for acknowledgment.
He took a slow step forward. Not down, not closer, but enough to make the ledge creak. “You’re still trying to be a sword in a world that forgot how to forge one. Noble and pointless.”
I inched closer, blade angled low but ready.
“You will not reach her,” I said.
His smile sharpened. “Oh, but I will.”