CHAPTER 29
Smoke clung to Cian’s lungs like a second skin, thick and acrid, burning with every breath he forced in. The grove shook beneath his boots—roots trembling, branches shuddering, the Tree of Life humming with a power so old it made the air vibrate. But none of that mattered.
Damon was coming.
And Cian was done running.
He stepped forward, pushing past Faelith’s attempt to keep him by her side, sword raised, shoulders squared despite the ache in his ribs and Faelith’s blood drying on his arm. Tyr moved up beside him, jaw set, blue eyes sharp with the kind of fury only a Diwaller leader could wield.
Behind them, Faelith was slumped against the base of the tree, her breath shallow. Cian didn’t dare look back again— if he did, he would break.
He had already almost lost her once tonight.
He wouldn’t let it happen again.
Damon emerged through the fire like a creature born of it. His grin a cruel, triumphant curve that made Cian’s grip tighten around his sword.
Tyr spat. “You won’t touch her.”
Damon’s gaze flicked past them, toward Faelith. His smile widened.
“She’s already mine.”
Cian’s vision narrowed. His pulse hammered. Something cold and sharp slid through his chest—rage, fear, something darker, primal.
“You think you have the strength to kill me again?” Damon asked. “You, a drunk sellsword with a guilty conscience?”
Cian didn’t flinch. “I’ve killed worse.”
Damon’s fire surged in response, licking up the trunks, devouring leaves, turning the sacred grove into a battlefield of burning gold.
Cian felt the heat on his face, the sweat stinging the cut on his brow. He adjusted his grip, blocking himself and Tyr from the fire that raged around them, forcing his breath to steady.
He wasn’t fighting for coin. Not for pride. Not for redemption.
He was fighting for her.
Behind him, Faelith’s blood-slicked hand slipped against the Tree’s bark. Cian didn’t see it. He only felt the instinctive pull to turn toward her.
Hold on, just a bit more.
Instead, Cian raised his sword after Damon’s fire dissipated. Fire of his own curled around the steel. They would finish this.
Cian and Tyr rushed towards Damon.
The firelight warped the air between them, bending heat and shadow into something feral.
Cian tightened his grip on his sword, feeling the leather bite into his palm as he lunged.
Damon stepped forward, flames curling around him like obedient serpents, his smile carved from cruelty as he blocked Cian’s attack.
Steel met steel with a crack that echoed through the grove. Sparks burst between their blades as Cian drove forward, forcing Damon back a few steps. Damon’s grin didn’t falter; he twisted, redirecting the blow, and swung in a vicious arc that would’ve taken Cian’s head if Tyr hadn’t intercepted it.
Tyr’s blade locked against Damon’s, muscles straining, teeth clenched.
Damon shoved him back with a burst of flame, the heat slamming into both men like a physical force. Cian staggered but didn’t fall—he pushed through the burn, through the sting in his lungs, and struck again.
Their swords collided, ringing like a bell.
Damon moved with unnatural speed, fire trailing his blade. Cian ducked beneath a flaming strike, feeling the heat singe his hair, and countered with a slash aimed at Damon’s ribs. Damon twisted, avoiding it by inches, and retaliated with a brutal kick that sent Cian stumbling.
Tyr was already there, stepping into the opening.
He swung his blade in a low arc; the blade grazed his thigh, drawing Damon’s ire.
Damon’s fury ignited. Flames erupted around him, swirling into a vortex that forced Cian and Tyr back. The grove shuddered, roots recoiling from the heat.
Cian spat blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and charged again.
He would not let Damon win.
Cian’s blade met Damon’s in a flurry of strikes—fast, relentless, fueled by desperation. Damon parried each blow with infuriating ease, his movements fluid, almost elegant. He ducked under Tyr’s combined swing, spun, and slammed the hilt of his sword into Tyr’s ribs.
Cian roared and attacked, forcing Damon to turn his attention back. Their swords clashed again, the impact jarring Cian’s arm to the elbow. Damon pushed forward, overpowering him, flames licking up Cian’s blade.
“You’re outmatched,” Damon snarled. “Both of you.”
Cian gritted his teeth. “Doesn’t matter.”
He shoved back with everything he had.
He thrust his hand forward, fingers curling as heat surged up his arm. Fire erupted from his palm in a violent arc—raw, unrefined, fueled by desperation rather than discipline. Damon’s eyes widened a fraction before the blast hit him square in the chest, forcing him back a step.
Cian didn’t stop.
He launched another burst—then another—each one brighter, hotter, more reckless than the last. Flames roared through the grove, clashing with Damon’s own fire in a storm of heat and sparks.
Tyr saw the opening.
He moved like lightning.
While Damon braced against Cian’s barrage, Tyr darted in from the side, blade flashing. He struck Damon’s back, forcing Damon to defend two angles at once.
Damon staggered under the combined assault, his cloak burning at the edges, his armor glowing hot. For the first time, he looked less like a conqueror and more like a man fighting to stay upright.
Tyr pushed too hard.
He rushed in with his blade, aiming for Damon’s chest—an all-or-nothing strike meant to end the fight in one blow.
Damon’s eyes snapped toward him.
With all his strength, Damon swung his sword in a brutal, flaming arc.
The blade slammed into Tyr’s armored side with bone-shattering force.
The impact lifted Tyr off his feet, sending him flying across the ground.
He crashed into a cluster of rocks, the breath knocked from his lungs, his body crumpling in a motionless heap.
“Tyr!” Cian shouted.
No sound came from where his body lay.
Cian tightened his grip on his sword. His strength was waning—he felt it in the tremor of his hands, in the heaviness of his limbs, in the way each breath scraped like broken glass. But he stepped forward anyway.
He would fight until his last remaining breath.
He launched himself at Damon with a roar, swinging his blade in a wide arc. Damon met the strike easily, redirecting it.
“You’re tiring,” Damon taunted, twisting his blade to lock Cian’s. “You’ve become weak, stagnant while in self-exile.”
Cian shoved him off with a burst of physical energy. Damon was already bringing down his sword towards Cian’s head, the tip missing him except for the last bit of his chin.
Cian’s lungs burned. His arms shook. His vision blurred at the edges. None of it mattered.
He couldn’t stop.
He kept going.
Damon countered with a brutal strike that sent Cian stumbling backward. Cian caught himself on a root, breath ragged, sweat and soot streaking his face. Damon advanced.
“You’re fighting a losing battle,” Damon said, voice low, almost pitying. “You can’t win.”
Cian spat blood onto the ground.
He raised his sword again, breath shaking, body screaming in protest. A mirthless grin spread across his own face.
“I don’t need to win; I just have to kill you.”
Damon lifted his flaming blade as he advanced for the next strike.
Cian gathered every last shred of strength left in his body, every ounce of fury, fear, and stubborn will for this final attack.
He started to rise when an arrow soared past him.
It cut through the smoke and ash in a perfect, silent arc.
Damon’s eyes widened in stunned silence.
The arrow punched through flesh and muscle, embedding deep within his throat. Damon staggered, choking, fire dying out around him as his hands flew to his neck. Blood poured between his fingers, dark and hot, steaming in the hot air.
Cian froze mid-stride, chest heaving, sword trembling in his grip as he dropped his guard.
The battle around them died down as Damon dropped to one knee, gasping, clawing at the shaft protruding from his throat.
He fell to his side, blood bubbling around the arrow, fingers slick with his own lifeblood as he tried—and failed—to pull it free.
His eyes, once blazing with cruel triumph, flickered with disbelief.
Cian didn’t look away. He didn’t dare.
Damon’s gaze lifted, toward Cian, toward the Tree, toward something only he could see. His lips parted, then his body sagged.
Silence rippled through the grove.
His knees nearly buckled with the sudden weight of exhaustion, relief, and a sickening realization that Faelith still lay wounded behind him.
Slowly—mechanically—he turned.
Faelith stood at the foot of the Tree of Life.
Her bow was still raised, though her arm trembled violently. Blood soaked the back of her armor and tunic where the arrow had been ripped free, the wound raw and dark. Her fingers were white around the bow’s grip; knuckles strained with effort.
Her eyes met Cian’s—dazed, unfocused, shimmering with pain and something deeper, something tender and relieved.
For a heartbeat, she stood tall.
Then her eyes rolled back.
The bow slipped from her grasp.
Her body crumpled, collapsing against the glowing roots of the Tree as consciousness fled.
“Faelith!” Cian’s voice cracked as he lunged toward her, the world narrowing to the sight of her falling form.
Cian dropped to his knees beside her small, fragile frame. Her bow lay forgotten at her feet, her hair tangled, her skin pale beneath the soot and blood of battle.
“Faelith...” His voice broke.
He gathered her into his arms, pulling her gently but urgently against his chest. Her head lolled against his shoulder, breath shallow, eyelids fluttering but not opening. Warm blood seeped through his fingers as he pressed his hand to her back, trying, failing, to staunch the flow.
“Stay with me,” he whispered, voice trembling. “Please… stay.”
His hand slipped; the blood was too much. It coated his palm, his wrist, dripping between his fingers. He pressed harder, desperate, terrified, but the wound kept bleeding, soaking through her tunic, staining the roots beneath them.
“Come on,” he begged, breath shaking. “Don’t do this. Don’t...”
Her body was limp in his arms.
The grove groaned around them—roots slowly creeping towards them, the Tree of Life pulsing with soft light—but Cian heard none of it. His world had shrunk to the faint rise and fall of her chest, the warmth of her blood, the way her fingers twitched weakly against his arm.
He brushed her cheek with trembling fingers. “You saved me,” he whispered, voice cracking. “You foolish, brave girl… You saved me.”
Her head slumped forward.
“No.” His voice broke entirely. “No, no, no... Faelith, look at me.”
He shook her gently, panic clawing up his throat. Her eyelids didn’t lift. Her breathing hitched once, then steadied into a shallow, fragile rhythm that terrified him more than silence.
He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes squeezing shut as his chest tightened painfully.
“I can’t lose you,” he whispered. “Not you. I just got you back…”
His breath shuddered.
He had lost too much already. Too many faces haunted him. Too many nights spent drowning memories in ale. Too many mistakes. Too many ghosts.
He couldn’t add her to them.
He pulled her closer, cradling her small frame against him, as though he alone could stop all of this from happening; the pain, the blood soaking through his hands,
A thick root curled around Faelith’s hip, gentle but firm. Another slid beneath her legs, lifting her slightly from his lap. Cian jerked back, startled—but he didn’t let go. His arms tightened around her instinctively.
“What...? No...stop!” His voice cracked. “She needs help, not...”
The Tree didn’t listen.
Smaller roots rose, weaving around them both.
One wrapped around Cian’s waist, another around his legs, anchoring him in place.
He tried to pull free, but the roots held him in place, not constricting or painful.
Only his torso and head remained free, his arms still cradling Faelith against his chest.
Cian was afraid the tree meant to bury them here and now.
The roots continued their slow, deliberate ascent.
They curled around Faelith’s arms, her legs, her torso—gentle, protective, almost reverent.
Cian struggled, trying to free them both. If he didn’t get Faelith to a physician, she would die.
“Please,” he whispered, pleading to the tree. “Please don’t take her.”
The Tree pulsed again—deep, resonant.
The roots began to glow; magic surrounded them.
"You're alright, a chuisle mo chroí. You're going to be alright."
He pressed his cheek to her hair, tears slipping down his soot-streaked face, refusing to let her go.