Chapter Twenty-Four Benjadir
Captain Benjadir woke to the sour bite of wine clinging to his tongue and the throb of his own pulse echoing behind his eyes.
The tent around him was thick with the stale scent of last night – smoke, damp wool, and the half-empty jug he’d used to drown out the hours until exhaustion had mistaken itself for rest. Outside, the camp had already begun to stir, voices and hoofbeats threading through the thin canvas walls, but he lingered in the weight of that between-space – too awake to dream, too tired to rise.
The air felt close, as though the world itself pressed against him, waiting for him to admit what he already knew: another night lost, another morning without word.
He sat up slowly, dragging a hand through his dark, tangled hair, pushing it from his eyes with a muttered curse.
The movement set a dull ache through his shoulders, the familiar stiffness of a man who had spent too many days waiting and too many nights drinking.
It had been weeks since they realised the General had disappeared—weeks of dispatches sent and returned empty, of scouts combing roads that led nowhere, of the gnawing certainty that something had gone wrong and the refusal to speak it aloud.
He reached for the jug, thought better of it, and instead pulled on his coat, every motion measured, as though he could force steadiness into himself by pretending it was already there.
He had exhausted every lead worth chasing, and a few that weren’t.
Riders had scoured the roads between Harbour’s Bane and Irongate until the horses came back limping and hollow-eyed, their riders no better.
He’d sent his best scouts along the cliffs, through the marshlands, even into the outlaw trails west of Ferrowood, where the fog swallowed men whole.
Spies had been dispatched to the Twin Cities under false banners, their reports coming back weeks apart, each one thinner and more hopeless than the last. He’d bribed merchants, questioned deserters, shaken down smugglers who swore they’d seen her – all of them liars or fools or both.
Every trail bled into the next until there was nothing left to follow but smoke.
Now, the maps spread across his campaign table had become little more than a record of failure, inked over with crossed-out routes and faded names.
Each line he’d drawn in desperation had grown heavier with time, as though weight alone could drag her back to him.
Somewhere beyond those borders, she was lost – or worse, found by someone else first. He leaned on the edge of the table, palms pressed to the parchment, and felt the tension coil beneath his skin like a wound that refused to close.
“Captain?” The voice came from the tent’s entrance – a young sergeant, breath clouding in the morning chill. “The lieutenants are gathering. Another war council’s been called. They’re asking if the General or you will attend.”
Benni straightened slowly, rolling his shoulders to chase the ache from them.
“I’ll come,” he said, though his voice came out rougher than he meant it to.
The sergeant hesitated, as if expecting more – an order, perhaps, or reassurance – but Benni only gestured for him to go.
The flap fell closed, and the dimness settled again.
Only three people in the camp knew the full truth.
Astrid, Daen, and him. To everyone else, the General was merely delayed—caught in supply matters, tending to the Queen’s errands.
Lies wrapped in just enough truth to survive a soldier’s gossip.
If word reached Irongate, if Queen Mowgara learned her prized weapon had gone missing, she would raze half the continent just to make the point that nothing escaped her grasp.
Not to rescue Ara. Not for love or vengeance.
Only to prove she could. The image of it – fields burning, cities turned to cinders under the weight of her pride – sent a coldness crawling through him that no wine could dull.
He’d watched that same pride hollow out better men than himself and knew the ruin did not end with cities; it lived in those who served.
Loyalty, he thought, was a fine word until it began to taste like servitude, and by then, it was already too late to spit it out.
He splashed cold water over his face until the sting of it chased away the haze, then braced both hands against the basin and stayed there a moment, breathing through the dull churn of wine and worry in his gut.
The reflection staring back from the rippling surface was older than he remembered – eyes rimmed in red, beard a few days past respectable.
He straightened, tugged his collar into place, and stepped out into the pale light.
The camp stretched before him in ordered chaos: banners shifting in the wind, mess fires sputtering, the smell of boiled grain clinging to everything. By the time he reached the council pergola, the lieutenants were already gathered, hunched over maps, voices low and impatient.
He gave the same excuse he always did – the General detained by matters of the crown, her orders to proceed as planned – and took his seat.
Their nods were curt, respectful enough not to challenge him yet cautious enough to betray doubt.
The meeting dragged on, a tangle of logistics and hollow bravado that filled the air but settled nowhere.
His gaze kept drifting to the open side of the pergola, where sunlight caught on movement beyond the tents – riders dismounting, voices carrying on the wind.
Then he saw them: Astrid’s copper hair glinting like a spark beside Daen’s broader frame.
Before another tedious question could find him, Benni was already pushing back his chair, rising with the quiet relief of a man who’d finally been given a reason to move.
“I’ll take these to the General,” he said, gathering the maps before anyone could object. “She’ll want the full report before midday.”
A few muttered acknowledgements followed, but he was already moving, stride brisk but not hurried, nodding to familiar faces, clapping shoulders as he passed – the kind of gestures that spoke of long roads shared and trust hard-earned.
To them, he was their Captain, steady and certain, the one who held the line when everything else gave way.
Astrid spotted him first, swinging down from her saddle before the horse had fully stopped, a flash of irritation already written across her face.
“There you are,” she called, before Benni could get a word in.
“We searched north, west, the marsh crossings – nothing. But then Daen found this one skulking near the ferry.” She jerked her chin toward the pair of soldiers approaching behind her, hauling a narrow-shouldered figure between them, wrists bound, face grey with fear and river mud.
“Another deserter,” Astrid said, her voice rough. “From Haedor. Says he saw something.”
The boy stumbled as they brought him forward, his knees hitting the ground and coaxing a pained groan from him.
His captors shoved him towards the Captain, and the boy looked up, shaking, mumbling about a woman on horseback, then a lonely soldier, then nothing at all, as if his memory had gone blank through sheer terror.
Benni crouched before him, forcing his tone to stay even.
“You saw someone near the river?” he asked. “Who?”
The boy’s eyes darted, his answers unravelling into contradictions, fear thickening each word until they barely made sense. Benni’s patience held, until it didn’t. He grabbed the front of the boy’s tunic and hauled him upright, the tremor in his own hand betraying how close he was to breaking.
“You remember enough to run,” he said, his voice like thunder, “so try again – what did you see?”
The boy’s feet slipped in the mud as Benni shoved him back, the impact sending a hollow crack through the air when his shoulders hit a waggon’s wheel.
“What did you see?” Benni demanded again, the words scraped raw by sleepless nights and too many dead ends. The boy’s breath came in sharp, panicked bursts; a trickle of blood slid from the corner of his mouth.
“N-nothing,” he stammered, voice thin. “Only – only the Queen’s dogs, same as you.”
The insult landed like a strike. Something inside Benni lurched, a dark reflex rising before thought could catch it.
His hand tightened in the boy’s collar, ready to haul him up again, but the motion faltered halfway.
Around them, the soldiers had gone still – a frozen ring of onlookers, waiting for what would come next.
Then Astrid’s hand closed around his wrist, firm and cool.
“He’s not the one you’re fighting,” she said softly. The words cut through the red haze, steadying him where reason had failed. For a long moment, Benni stayed there – breath ragged, knuckles white – before he finally let go. The boy sagged against the wheel, shivering, and the world exhaled again.
The silence that followed pressed heavy against his ears – no outrage, no murmurs, just the uncomfortable scrape of boots on gravel as the soldiers found reasons to look elsewhere.
He wiped his hand on his coat, though there was nothing to clean, turned toward the nearest of his men and said, flatly, “Let him go.” The words hung there, strange in the air, but the soldiers obeyed.
The boy stumbled to his feet and ran, a thin smear of mud marking his flight until he vanished between the tents.
Benni walked the other way, past the ring of staring faces and into the sharp bite of the open field.
The cold met him like penance. Each breath stung, cutting deep.
He could feel his father’s shadow then – Falkar’s iron hand gripping a sword hilt, that same unflinching discipline that had once commanded his respect and his terror in equal measure. The echo of it made his stomach twist.