‘Keir, it’s not that sort of fight!’ Adriana retorted, rising to her feet as well. ‘I was being metaphorical!’
‘You don’t even know what that means!’
Her eyes widened in theatrical offence. ‘What did you say? I’ll show you the meaning right now!’
Ash chuckled under his breath as Adriana took off after Keir, the two of them darting through the fields like unruly children, their shouts dissolving into laughter carried by the wind. Bryn settled at Ash’s side, dropping gracefully to the earth, his attention drifting again to the long sword lying between them, a silent invitation and unspoken question gleaming in his eyes.
‘I’ll teach you,’ Ash whispered, his voice barely louder than the sigh of wind through grass.
Bryn’s pale eyes widened, surprise softening his sharp features. ‘Truly?’
Ash inclined his head. ‘And your men, too.’
‘Thank ya.’
‘Don’t thank me yet.’
Their words fell into silence as the crunch of approaching footsteps drew their attention. A group passed by, their voices low, and among them walked Caldwell. The man’s cold blue eyes found theirs, narrowing with the calculated precision of a predator. He was everything the wolverian army revered—broad of shoulder, formidable in stance, his hair woven into intricate braids that marked both rank and heritage.
Ash’s gaze drifted to the earth, unable to hold the truth behind that icy stare. ‘You n-need to learn to defend yo-yourself,’ he said, his stammer threading through the quiet. ‘When your father d-dies… Caldwell will try to be rid of you.’
He felt Bryn stiffen at his side, the air between them tightening like a bowstring. ‘I know,’ Bryn muttered. ‘But if I die, I still have me siblings who’ll inherit da throne.’
Ash bit his lip, golden eyes fixed on the dirt beneath his boots. The silence pressed heavier, marked by Bryn’s deepeningfrown.
‘If I die, Wren will become queen,’ Bryn insisted, his voice almost pleading.
Ash stayed silent, his throat locking tight, unable to meet those searching eyes.
‘Right?’ Bryn pressed, his voice cracking under the weight of dawning fear.
Ash’s chest constricted, his fists curling until the nails bit skin. Against every instinct, against the truth gnawing at his conscience, he looked up into those wide blue eyes and lied.
‘Yes,’ he said softly, almost gently, as though the lie might hurt less if whispered. ‘If you die, Wren will be-become q-queen. But just in case, I’ll teach you h-how to fight.’
The tension eased from Bryn’s shoulders, his expression loosening with reluctant relief. And Ash cursed himself, cursed his weakness, cursed the words he hadn’t spoken.
That Wren Wynter no longer existed.
That most of Bryn’s kin were fated to die.
And that Commander Caldwell would seize that blood-soaked opportunity to rid himself of the last heir to the wolverian throne.
Their fate, Ash knew with bitter certainty, would be a cruel and wretched one.
…
Ash forced himself not to conjure the ghosts of faces long past as he stripped off his tunic and reached for his sword. Months had passed since he had last wielded it, yet the moment his fingers closed around the hilt, his body remembered. Muscles coiled, honed by countless years of relentless discipline, a lifetime spent forging strength in flesh because neither his tongue nor his mind had ever beenso easily tamed.
He could almost see Hagan across the courtyard, that familiar, disarming smile tugging at his lips. A smile that had always eased the weight on Ash’s shoulders, that had made the loneliness sting a little less. And if he turned, he knew Alina would be there, leaning with quiet grace against one of the marble arches, those warm brown eyes holding entire oceans of knowing, and ignorance too. Beside her, Adara, laughter spilling like sunlight, bright eyes sparkling with innocence untainted by the world’s cruelty.
They had been his world once.
And sometimes, only sometimes, Ash longed to return to those days, when the world had not yet rotted from within. When, for all its harshness, life had been simpler. Before curses and gods and the merciless future that demanded he hurt everyone he held dear.
Even her.
He wrenched his thoughts away from Mal. Thinking of her was a pain too jagged to touch. She was a goddess, beyond the threads of fate he could weave and read, and yet, fate was a curious cruelty. It allowed him glimpses of gods, fragments of their truths, shards of their pasts… but never their ends.
