Soren’s focus was fixed on Ella with unsettling intensity. She met his gaze, and he didn’t look away. Instead of speaking, he gave the smallest tilt of his head and shifted his focus to Jakobav.
Shit, Jakobav.
They turned together.
Bryn had already pressed him back against the stone wall, hands moving quickly as he examined the wound. Blood streaked Bryn’s fingers to the wrist. Jakobav’s face had lost the color it wore when he was winning, and he seemed to be standing only by sheer refusal to do otherwise.
“Stop pretending you’re granite,” Bryn said flatly. “Granite bleeds less.”
“How bad?” Maeren asked.
“Cracked at least,” Bryn said without looking up. “Broken. The claws shredded through muscle but missed the lung, because fate has a twisted sense of humor. He needs rest, but please somebody, anybody, take his sword before he stabs me for suggesting it.”
“I’ll take it,” Thane said while reaching out, offering to hold the weapon, but Jakobav’s grip did not loosen on the hilt, seeming oblivious to the blood soaking his shirt or to Bryn’s hands pressing into his side.
His gaze swept the courtyard until it found Ella. His voice didn’t sound as furious as she’d expected. “Are you okay? What did you do?”
“Closed it,” she said, and only then did she feel what it had cost, exhaustion and pain coursing through her veins. Still, she was standing, breathing, and that would have to count.
His focus jumped to her collarbone, to where her Orchid mark was now faded, nearly gone, and his mouth drew into a hard, flat line. “This isn’t over. You disobeyed a direct order.”
“Technically, Thane was the one who protested,” she countered.
Shouts rose near the gate before he could answer. “Breach is gone!” a guard called, breathless. “Sealed completely.”
The courtyard relaxed, soldiers sagging in relief before straightening again, as if reminded that their Commander stillbled. Maeren shouted orders through the night. Torches swung high while one runner bolted toward the healers’ quarters, and another sprinted to ring the all clear.
Savina was already barking instructions at the gate captain. Maeren returned and slid beneath Jakobav’s arm without hesitation, bearing his weight as if it belonged to her alone. Thane fell in beside them, sack swinging over his shoulder, sword still in hand. Soren moved like a shadow wearing the shape of a man, sticking to the darkness along the wall. Somehow Jakobav kept moving.
Bryn walked backward to keep pace, voice brisk and relentless. “No more heroic lunges. No more frolicking in the gardens or tearing the sky open. Your injuries are questionable at best, so listen to me when I tell you, take shallow breaths and don’t even think about sneezing.”
Jakobav’s jaw flexed, looking irritated by the effort of restraint.
“That’s the spirit,” Bryn said, utterly unfazed. “Spite heals.”
“Spite is not a medical plan,” Maeren muttered, bracing him harder when he shifted too quickly.
Thane glanced over his shoulder with a grin. “I don’t know about that. Spite has worked for me.”
Savina snorted. “You’re too stubborn to die. That’s not the same thing.”
“But it’s effective,” Thane said cheerfully.
Jakobav didn’t respond to any of it, and his eyes stayed forward, every step measured, his weight balanced between Maeren’s shoulder and the stone wall. Ella kept close, ready to steady him, though she knew he’d rather bite her than lean on her.
His hand remained locked over that pocket like a man guarding the last secret he owned.
31
WAKE OF THE BLACK ROSE
Ella woke from a shallow, restless sleep to the sound of hurried footsteps rushing past the door. Solstice morning had arrived, and the palace moved with a purpose Ella felt in her bones. Not the quiet shuffle of servants setting about their daily tasks, but a tide of movement with urgency in every stride.
She turned her head and found Jakobav still lying beside her, stretched on his back with one arm cast over the sheet, the other resting protectively against his side where Bryn’s stitching had closed the worst of last night’s damage. His breathing was steady now, though she hadn’t stopped counting each rise and fall through the long hours of night.
Not after the Tracker had stepped from smoke and shadow with its eyes fixed on him in a hunger that haunted her sleep and still tightened her stomach at the memory.
At some point during the night, his hand had found hers. The rough heat of his palm folded over her knuckles like a clasp locking shut, and she hadn’t let go. It was the smallest of touches, nothing like the all-consuming lust of the garden, yet it was exquisite in its simplicity. She wasn't certain what they were to each other, but she knew this: Jakobav had carved himselfinto her life, and the thought of him stepping into the Claiming while injured left her hollow with worry.
