There was no time to hesitate. Another guard had already turned, shouting for reinforcements, and four more surged into the hall. Three were men, and one a woman whose white-blonde hair caught the torchlight as insignia glinted on their armor. Ella had spent enough time in Dravaryn now to recognize the more intricate designs that marked them as higher rank than the previous guards.
Ella’s hand closed on her second blade. Longer and curved, it was better for tearing. She dropped low, momentum carrying her through a sweeping kick that took his feet out from under him and sent him crashing to the ground. She was already on him, blade slicing through the leather gap beneath his chin.
Hot blood gushed, steaming in the cold.
Ella turned just in time to catch the shaft of a spear across her ribs, and pain splintered through her torso. She staggered, then pivoted, grabbing the wooden shaft and twisting it hard. The soldier grunted as she slammed the blunt end into his temple: once, twice,crack, and he slumped to the floor.
The third man didn’t hesitate; his axe arced through the air in a brutal, two-handed swing. She dove backward, landed badly, something popping in her shoulder, but still rolled to her feet, panting and weaponless.
The axe came again as she side-stepped, kicked him square in the knee, and when he dropped an inch, she lunged, snatched up the fallen spear, and rammed it through his gut before yanking it sideways. His scream echoed off the stone, loud enough to summon more footsteps thundering from behind.
“Shit,” she muttered.
Two more. No…four. All armored, all bigger than her. One carried a sword the length of her leg, and another hefted a black-glass warhammer that was unmistakably Dravaryn-forged.
Ella was out of weapons, so she used the walls. She sprang off the stone and, using the narrow corridor for momentum, grabbed a hanging torch mid-jump. Pain carved through her shoulder as she hurled the torch at the nearest enemy. The flame caught on his leather, and he screamed, dropping his blade. She was already ducking beneath his flailing limbs to snatch his dagger, driving it into the thigh of the next man.
The woman with white-blonde hair stood at the edge of the fray, insignia gleaming sharper and higher than the rest. She didn’t rush in like the others. Instead she leaned against the stone archway, one boot propped lazily over the other, arms folded, watching the fight with a cocky smirk, as though Ella’s desperate clash for survival was little more than entertainment.
Ella cut down another guard, steel slicing through the narrow gap of his armor. The clang echoed in the corridor, blood pooling black in the torchlight. Still, the woman didn’t move, her gaze locked and assessing, piercing enough that Ella felt stripped bare beneath it.
“Savina! A little help over here?” one of the higher-ranked soldiers barked, straining to hold Ella back.
The woman finally pushed off the wall, rolling her shoulders with a predator’s ease. “Fine,” Savina drawled, her smirk widening. Then she lunged.
Steel clashed again, Ella twisting, parrying, gasping as pain seared through her injured shoulder and battered ribs. The woman’s strikes were brutal, faster than the men’s had been, as though she was the real test all along. And for a moment, Ella faltered. The woman snarled, grabbed Ella by the hair, yanked,and then the air around her flared as her hidden markthrummed beneath her collarbone, alive, desperate to break free.
The woman’s gaze flicked down, and for the barest heartbeat her smirk faltered, curiosity flashing in her eyes before they hardened again. That single hesitation was all Ella needed. She twisted and drove her blade across the woman’s stomach. Not as deep as she’d aimed, her exhausted body resisting, agony folding through her bones. Still, the blood pooled fast, and the warrior staggered, teeth bared, a snarl tearing from her throat as she crumpled to the ground.
A shout rang out, and the others rushed toward them. Breathing hard and coated in crimson, Ella pushed her body to straighten and willed her expression neutral instead of pained. She was not victorious, just alive. And barely that.
Her hand trembled against the wall, not from fear, but from surviving when she hadn’t expected to.
The silence returned, but it wasn’t empty anymore. It was watching her. Ella searched for the source of the silence that felt like it was screaming to her, but she could not see past the group of guards that had her surrounded and were closing in.
Fuck. There’s no way this is going to end well. I’ve failed.
The quiver that had begun with her hands had now spread to the rest of her body, shaking violently, likely from blood loss. Then the torchlight flickered, and a voice, deep and velvet-dark, echoed through the hall.
“Stand. Down.”
He didn’t need to shout. He was the kind of man who could break bones with a whisper.
He emerged from the shadows like smoke made flesh: massive, coiled, dominant, carved from stone with harsh lines and brutal grace. Muscles bulged beneath worn fabric that showcased his tattoos. Black ink, curling down from his neck to the veins of his hands, seemed to shimmer in the torchlight butnot with ancestral magic. Either war marks or a warning, likely both.
Razor-sharp jaw and lips too full for a man forged for killing. His dark eyes locked onto her like a predator studying a wounded animal he didn’t quite want to kill yet.
She froze as something primal moved between them.
Behind her, a soldier raised his blade.
The man didn’t blink. “I saidstand down.”
The sword lowered.
Ellandria swayed, and he took one step closer, towering, imposing, and yet eerily quiet.
His presence bent the air around him, and his gaze pinned her in place without lifting a single finger. He stared at her like he already knew why she was here, which was impossible.
