CHAPTER 6 #2
Cian set the blade aside again, his fingers lingering on the steel as if it steadied him. “I drink to forget,” he said. “Not because it works. It never does. But for a few hours, the world blurs enough that I can pretend I am not carrying the weight of what I have done.”
The firelight flickered over his features, carving out the exhaustion etched there.
“I took a job for a man in Port Cultar,” he said.
“He claimed pirates were stealing from him. Wanted someone who could track them and deal with them quietly. I did the work. Followed the trail. And what I found…” He shook his head, a bitter sound rising in his throat.
“He was part was their operation. Taking coin to let slavers move through his docks. Selling people like cargo.”
Faelith felt her stomach twist, but she stayed silent.
“When I confronted him,” Cian said, “he raged. Told me I had seen too much. Told me I would get nothing for my trouble except a shallow grave if I didn't leave.”
His voice hardened. “So I left. Straight back to the tavern. I drank until the world stopped making sense. Drank until I couldn't remember why I was angry, only that I was.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring into the fire as though it replayed the memory for him.
“I was stumbling through the streets when I saw her. His wife. Walking alone, the Harbor Master’s prized trophy.
And I… I wanted revenge. Not justice. Revenge.
” His mouth twisted. “She didn’t hesitate.
She opened her door and her bed like she had been waiting for someone to give her a reason to betray him. ”
Faelith’s pulse quickened, but she did not interrupt.
“After,” Cian said, his voice low, “I took the coin he owed me. Every last piece. I thought it would feel like victory. It didn’t. It felt like drowning.”He dragged a hand through his hair.
“I should have left the port before it all went to shite. Should have kept running while I still had the sense to. But I was drunk. Stupid.”
“I made a wrong turn while running away and ran straight into a patrol. Once they realized what was happening, they yelled and tried to stop me. I managed to slip past them and kept running.”
His voice thinned, ragged at the edges.
“I thought I was in the clear, but my luck ran out. One of them ran into me. A boy. Barely grown. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. He was only trying to apprehend me. Nothing more. And I…”
Cian’s breath faltered.
“I turned. Reflex... or fear took over. The knife was in my hand before I even knew I had drawn it. And then…” He swallowed hard. “Then it was in his lungs.”
The fire popped sharply, as if punctuating the horror of it.
“He looked surprised. Scared,” Cian whispered. “Like he did not understand what had just happened. I could not either. I remember the sound of his breath, wet and struggling. I remember the way his fingers curled in the dirt. I remember thinking, Gods, what have I done.”
Faelith felt the ache of it settle deep in her chest.
“I did not mean to kill him,” Cian said. “But meaning does not matter. He is dead because of me. And I have been paying for it ever since, from the memory of that boy’s face to the knights who captured me.”
He looked at her then, eyes shadowed and unguarded in a way she had never seen.“So yes,” he said. “I am guilty.”
Faelith leaned closer, slow and deliberate, as though trying to reassure a wounded animal.
“You saved me,” she said softly. “Not because you’re flawless. Not because you’re trying to erase what happened. But because you couldn’t bear to let another innocent die.”
Cian’s breath shuddered.
“That doesn’t make me a good man.”
“No,” she said. “It makes you a man who is trying.”
He stared at her, something fragile glimmering behind the steel; hope, or the fear of it.
“Why are you not afraid of me?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Faelith held his gaze, steady and unflinching.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Her breath left her in a tremble, the firelight catching the faintest trace of something old and buried deep. She turned her gaze away from him and looked past the flames, into a place only she could see.
“You think you are the only one who has run from the past,” she murmured. “But I have been running since the night I understood what true fear was.”
Cian stilled, detecting the shift in her voice.
Faelith drew her knees closer and curled her fingers into the folds of her cloak as though she needed the fabric to anchor her.
“I was very young when the humans came. Too young to understand why the air smelled of smoke. Too young to understand why my mother shoved me down the cellar and told me not to make a sound.”
Her voice grew softer, more distant.
“I remember the heat first. The crackle of burning wood. The screams. And then the footsteps. Heavy. Purposeful. I ran until I found myself behind a hay cart, staring as my village burned around me and my people were being slaughtered.”
“A knight in full armor as dark as night, his sword already drawn.”
The fire popped, and she flinched. It was small, but it was there.
“He found me,” she whispered. “He dragged me out by my hair. I remember the dirt under my nails as I tried to claw free. I remember the way he looked at me, as if I was not a child. As if I was not anything at all.”
Cian’s jaw tightened, but he stayed silent.
Her breath caught around the lump rising in her throat.
“I tried to scream. Tried to run. Nothing happened. I was too scared. And then he threw me down. My head struck a rock in the dirt. Hard.”
“He raised his sword,” Faelith said, her voice thinning. “I saw it above me. I saw the flames glint on the blade. And I knew, truly knew, that I was going to die.”
Her fingers skimmed her temple as she tucked a long dark tress behind her pointed ear, remembering the ache that had faded years ago.
“The world went sideways. Everything blurred. I felt blood running down my face. And then nothing. Darkness. I fainted before the sword ever fell. The last sound I remember was a growl. Angry and terrifying.”
Cian leaned forward, caught up in her tale.
“When I woke,” Faelith said, “I was not in my village. I was not surrounded by fire or soldiers. I was lying on a bed, wrapped in bandages and soft blankets.”
Her eyes softened with something like awe.
“I was in Mist Haven, among the Diwaller. Rena sheltered me and cared for me as if I was her own.”
Her eyebrows knit with quiet sorrow.
“I remember asking for my mother. My father. My brothers. I remember the way they looked at one another before they answered.”
“They spoke in hushed voices. They skirted around the truth that my entire village had been massacred. They told me I was safe, that the forest protected me long enough for them to find me. That I alone had been spared.”
Her voice cracked.
“But I did not feel spared. I felt wrong, as if I had stolen a life that was not mine to keep. As if I had survived by accident while everyone else burned.”
“The guilt was unbearable at times. The guilt of surviving. The guilt of being too small, too weak, too terrified to save anyone, not even myself.”
She drew a slow, shaking breath. “I swore I would never be helpless again. Never be that child hiding behind a cart. Never let someone raise a sword against me or anyone I care about without fighting back.”
Cian’s expression shifted, something fierce and protective rising in his eyes.
“You are not that child anymore,” he said quietly.
She held his gaze, something fragile and fierce flickering in her expression. “And you are not the man you were that night in Port Cultar.”
The fire snapped. The night breathed around them. And for the first time since the changelings, the space between them felt less like a battlefield and more like the beginning of something new.
Faelith lay down near the fire and pulled her cloak tight around her. Her men were already asleep by the other fire, their breaths deep and even. The forest hummed softly around them.She closed her eyes.
But instead of sleep, she saw silver eyes in the dark. A shape shifting between man and wolf. A growl that was not human. A faded memory that did not make sense, like a painting thrown into a pond, the ink muddying the water.
She opened her eyes again, heart beating fast.
Across the clearing, Cian sat with his back against a tree, his blade resting across his knees. His gaze was on the forest, but she could tell he was not truly watching the trees.
He was listening.
Guarding.
For the first time since the ruins, she did not feel entirely alone.