Chapter Thirty-Four #4
“What the fuck have you done to these people?” Ronyn snaps instead, body rigid and unmoving. “You’ve drugged them.”
He swallows thickly, and the tip of the blade pierces the delicate flesh of his skin. A single bead trails down the column of his neck.
But Calira pulls the blade away, wiping it on her military-issued pants like the blade is irrelevant. Like she doesn’t need it.
Ronyn has no doubt about that.
An almost imperceptible sound—the rustle of fabric, perhaps—pricks his ears from the left. But Ronyn doesn’t react. Pretends he doesn’t hear it, turning slightly toward Calira.
Commander Calira removes one leather glove finger by finger with measured precision before setting it beside her on a small table. Every movement is economical. Controlled. Nothing wasted. Even her brutality feels disciplined. Like cruelty is nothing more than procedure.
“Yes,” she says evenly. “Just enough to keep everyone alive.”
The answer sends heat crawling up Ronyn’s spine.
The commander moves through the volcanic cave with the same energy she carried through Vyrhal’s gates: not overt brutality, but something colder. Sharper. Every step deliberate. Every glance assessing. She watches intention instead of movement. Measures bodies instead of faces.
Holy fuck.
This is exactly what the Crown made from conscripted children.
And Ronyn knows this truth like a blade to the throat: no one survives the Royal Guard by remaining fully human.
The horrifying part isn’t that Calira seems monstrous.
It is that she seems functional. Efficient.
Stable. Controlled. Like the system has taken a terrified little girl and successfully carved every unnecessary softness out of her.
Not beaten out of her. Refined out of her.
Like cruelty has been trained into efficiency so the Crown can wear her like a weapon.
Ronyn’s seen it before—in every Bloodbond brute forcing their way into homes in the slums. Taking what they want, hurting who they want, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.
It is the legacy of Thalmyr’s Starborn Royal Guard.
“Fear makes people unpredictable,” she explains, as though unpredictability is the crime here.
Dread pools in Ronyn’s gut.
So he does what he always does: he reads her. Assesses her movements, behaviors, the way she breathes, thinks.
She still wears the helmet, but there is a lot one can tell about a person simply by the way their voice lifts at the wrong moment. The way their breath quickens when asked the wrong question. The way their movements shift when they’re avoiding truth.
So Ronyn questions her.
“And what do they have to fear from you, Calira?”
She doesn’t answer straight away—no rehearsed line prepared ahead of time.
“Fear doesn’t respond to reason,” she says evenly. “It responds to anticipation.”
The answer comes too cleanly.
“What are they anticipating?” he pushes.
But she ignores him.
The rustle of fabric stirs again, behind him now.
“Why are you here, Ronyn Holt?” Calira demands. “Who sent you? What do you want with the Melders?”
The Melders.
Shock floods Ronyn’s veins.
Tarrakai rumbles in recognition in his mind. My kin.
“The what?” Ronyn asks, needing clarification.
End her. Tarrakai growls.
There you go with the whole ‘eating people who annoy you’ thing again. Ronyn shoves him from his mind.
He drags his eyes around the room—the slumped bodies, the heavy-lidded haze, the lolling heads. These are not the Melders.
Calira doesn’t falter. At least, not outwardly. But she sucks in a breath, interrupts her usual rhythm, and Ronyn doesn’t miss it.
He raises his bow again, the motion beginning before conscious thought can intervene.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep, rich timber rumbles from behind him, the point of something sharp digging into the flesh between his shoulder blades.
“Lower the bow,” the voice instructs, clear and calm.
Ronyn lowers his bow, half-turning his face to take in a lean man with onyx hair pulled back into braided rows. His skin of rich brown glistens in the flickering firelight, but his brows are pinched together like he’s willing to release the string on his bow.
The tip of the arrow between his shoulders digs in harder—not enough to cut, just enough to warn.
Ronyn drops his bow, but his mind still reels.
The Melders.
“You have walked into something you do not understand,” Calira warns, voice lethal, fist clenched at her side.
“Sounds dangerous,” Ronyn quips, attempting to keep the tone light.
But Calira prowls toward him like she knows performance when she sees it. One hand is wrapped around a blade, and the other is balled into a fist.
“Danger was forced into me before I even knew what it was,” she says, voice cold.
“That’s a fairly concerning parenting philosophy, if I’m honest,” Ronyn quips casually.
Calira raises her fist, and Ronyn braces for the impact.
But her palm opens, revealing a violet powder pooled there. She blows into it, spreading a fine dusting of the powder over Ronyn’s face.
It smells of cinnamon and sugar.
And before he can recognize what’s happening, the world goes dark.