Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
I rolled, hand clawing toward my sword, which lay only inches away.
Riven stepped on it. He didn’t even glance at me. He knew.
A brutal kick slammed into my ribs, the same side he’d hit before. Something cracked. I folded, the dirt rushing up to meet me again. My back arched, mouth open in a soundless gasp, pain flooding every corner of my vision. White. Sharp. Endless.
Above me, Riven exhaled softly, like a child bored with his toys.
He raised his blade.
And then—
Her voice.
“Don’t touch him!”
It cracked through the air like lightning.
Wyn.
The instant she stepped into the open, the pendant in my pocket flared. White-hot against my thigh, as if it knew before I did she was in danger.
Riven’s head turned toward her.
“No…” The word scraped out of my throat, ragged and useless. “Please…”
She barreled toward him, dagger drawn.
He didn’t move.
She swung wildly, and he slipped aside like smoke.
She came again, clumsy and desperate, and he caught her wrist, twisting hard before flinging her down.
She hit the ground with a sickening crack, skidding across scorched stone.
“Princess,” he said, almost pitying. “What are you trying to prove?”
She stood, blood streaking from her temple, dazed but upright. Her chest rose and fell too fast; her arms trembled.
“That I’m not afraid of you,” she said with a shaky voice.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t rise.
But I saw her.
I saw the shimmer in her eyes.
A pulse of gold curled faintly over her skin, like embers breathing.
Riven hadn’t noticed.
He raised his sword.
But then something changed on her face. Determination.
Wynessa
I couldn’t feel my legs.
The dirt clung to my skin, and my heartbeat drowned out everything else. My temple throbbed from where I had struck the ground. Blood ran down my cheek in a steady line, warm and pulsing with each terrified beat of my heart.
Erindor lay behind Riven, still bruised, and his chest barely moving.
Gideon wasn’t getting up. Alaric had fallen. Jasira was somewhere out of reach, and I didn’t know if she was alive or bleeding out in the dark. I wanted to call out. I wanted to cry.
Instead, I stood.
I didn’t remember how.
Even when my whole body screamed at me to run.
My hands trembled so violently that I nearly dropped the little belt knife Erindor had shown me how to hold, how to use. It felt useless now, like a twig trying to stand against a storm.
My bones begged me to flee.
But I couldn’t. Not with my friends lying there.
Not with them bleeding because they had tried to protect me.
He was going to kill them all. Unless I stood up. Unless I tried.
Even if I died doing it.
Tears blurred the edges of my sight, but I blinked them back. My chest was shaking. My ribs screamed from where I’d hit the ground, but I didn’t move. I stood holding my ground.
Riven's presence felt like a cold breath on the back of my neck as his eyes bore into mine.
He cocked his head, almost amused. His sword, long and blackened and stained with fresh blood, hung loose in his grip. The smaller dagger twitched like a flickering flame in his left hand, fast, elegant, precise.
He looked at me like I was an insect that had forgotten its place.
I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. But I forced my legs to steady. My fingers wrapped tighter around the hilt of the dagger until the edge bit into my palm.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I managed to whisper, the words catching in my throat, suddenly dry as dust.
But my hands, clammy and trembling, gave away the stark lie.
But it didn’t matter. I loved them more, and I would fight for them. No matter what.
He laughed wickedly. “You should be.”
Then he lunged.
I tried to move. Dodged left, but I was too slow. The flat of his sword slammed into my ribs, and I flew sideways. I hit the ground with a wet thud; the wind driven from my lungs. My side burned, and I gasped for breath.
He didn’t stop.
A hand fisted in my hair and hauled me up like I weighed nothing.
“Cute,” he muttered in my ear. “But you’re not a soldier. You’re a symbol.”
Then he threw me against a broken pillar, stone catching my shoulder and spine. My scream cracked through the ruins. I collapsed, and my face pressed to cold ash and blood.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t—
“Stay down,” he said, already turning his back.
And that…that was what lit the fuse.
I remembered my mother’s voice.
“Softness is a liability. A crown doesn’t cry.”
I remembered the screaming in the maze. The whisper in the canyon. The light that had bloomed from my chest.
I remembered Erindor’s blood on the ground.
“No,” I croaked, barely audible.
My knees shook as I pushed myself upright again. I could taste blood. I could feel tears slipping down my face. My vision blurred and split. The dagger shook in my hand as if it didn’t want to be held anymore.
But I stood.
Riven turned. His face was blank now, almost disappointed or annoyed.
He stalked toward me, each step deliberate, a predator closing the distance.
Then, he exploded into a strike.
This time, it was the back of his hand across my face, hard enough to split my lip wide open. I fell sideways again; the blade flying from my hand.
“Stop trying to be brave,” he said, his voice flat. “You don’t know how.”
He lunged down, his fist clenching in the front of my cloak, and ripped me upward.
I dangled there, my toes scraping the dirt.
“You’re not a threat.” He scoffed, the words dripping with contempt. “You’re bait. Nothing more.”
The world spun. My ears rang.
And yet—
Something deep in my chest stirred.
It wasn’t rage or power but love.
All fierce, terrible, and bright.
A need to protect them. Even if it broke me.
Even if it killed me.
Even if no one ever knew I’d done it.
And something inside me opened.
The air grew warm, and light started in my chest.
Like a pulse, a flicker, or a vow.
Golden-white flame blasted from my palm, a scorching brilliance that didn't burn but shredded the mist and sent the shadows recoiling from the stones. The air cracked with a deep, ringing thunder that rolled through the clearing.
The ground bucked beneath us. The same cracks Riven had torn into the earth earlier lit up with gold, searing down into the stone like molten veins.
Riven staggered, teeth bared in a snarl. The shockwave caught him full in the chest, slamming him back into a half-collapsed pillar. Dust drifted down in pale clouds.
Before he could rise, the lingering force of my magic pressed him there, an unseen weight pinning him just enough to keep his blade from lifting clean. He fought against it, boots grinding into the glowing fissures, the muscles in his arms straining.
I launched forward, no time for hesitation. My lungs ignited with the effort.
He swung at me in a sudden blur, his blade clipping my forearm hard enough to send pain flaring up to my shoulder. A tremor ran through my grip, threatening to give way, but I wrestled it back, jaw tight enough to ache.
I slammed my dagger against his sword arm, knocking it wide, and drove in close until the point pressed to the hollow of his throat.
His eyes snapped to mine, blazing with fury—raw, unmasked, and lethal. His lip curled back over his teeth like a cornered predator, every muscle in his body screaming to break free and tear me apart. The golden light crawling over the stones painted his rage in molten fire, but I didn’t flinch.
I stood there, hand shaking, fire still blooming from my skin in slow curls.
His eyes blazed against the glow.
“Go on,” he said, breathless but amused. “Do it. Let’s see what your peace is made of.”
I stared at him.
The light brightened again, and then it showed me.
His eyes met mine. And the world flickered.
In the blink of an eye, I saw it:
Stone hands held down a boy no older than eight.
The echo of screams. A girl with silver hair, dragged from his side, her body limp.
They seared a brand onto his shoulder as he choked on charcoal.
A voice whispering: Kindness is death.
I gasped, and my dagger slumped in my grasp.
Riven inhale aborted, a stark mirror of the sudden relief, or perhaps, the lingering dread.
“No,” I whispered. “That’s not who I am.”
The words seemed to pull the heat out of the air. The golden cracks in the earth dimmed, the hum of power fading until it was only the sound of our breathing. My hand loosened. The dagger slipped from my fingers and clattered softly against the stone.
I took a slow step back.
Freed from the weight of my magic, Riven sagged slightly against the cracked pillar, one shoulder braced against it as if testing his own balance.
His chest rose and fell in deep, deliberate breaths.
For the first time, the defiance in his eyes gave way to something else, something unguarded, almost human.
His gaze swept over me, lingering for a moment too long. The faintest tremor passed through his jaw, as if he were holding back a thousand unsaid words.
And then, in one fluid motion, he pushed off the pillar. He didn’t raise his blade again. Instead, he turned and disappeared into the smoke, his figure dissolving into the haze until there was nothing left but the fading scent of iron and ash.
I stayed in place, gulping air until my lungs burned, forcing the tears back until they stung behind my eyes. Then, with a sharp breath, I snapped out of it and turned, stumbling, toward where Erindor lay.
I knelt beside him. His eyes opened barely.
“Wyn…” he rasped.
“Don’t move,” I whispered, leaning over him. “I’m here.”
My hand pressed against the side of his face. His blood was still wet on his cheek. My cloak was torn.
I held onto him tightly, as if that was the only thing tethering me to the world.
The silence after the battle was worse than the chaos.
The sound of wind sweeping over the broken outpost, rustling ash across the stone like a shroud.