Then, slowly, his arms came up, hesitant, uncertain—like he wasn’t sure how to hold on. But he did. His fingers curled into the fabric of her shawl, gripping too tightly, as if the moment he let go, something in him might come apart completely.
“Be safe,” he whispered.
“You, too,” she murmured. “Try not to wallow too hard while I’m gone. Your handsome, brooding prince act at least needs an audience.”
Cedric huffed a soft laugh, shaking his head, but the shadows in his expression didn’t lift. Without another word, he turned and strode toward the barn, fingers already working at the buttons of his shirt.
Gwenna lingered in the doorway, watching as he disappeared inside. Then she waited. The first noise came—a muffled, bitten-off sound that barely slipped past the stable walls, but it made something in Gwenna flinch. Then the next: a sharp, broken inhale, the scrape of claws on straw, the unmistakable, awful sound of shifting bone.
Her stomach twisted. Gods, how did he bear it?
Twice a day, every day. Bones breaking and reshaping. Skin stretching, muscles twisting into something monstrous. She’d heard village women gossip before, laughing about how their husbands couldn’t function with a sniffle while they soldiered through fevers and monthlies without complaint.
If only they knew what Cedric endured.
There was no room for weakness, no luxury of rest. No one to tend to him, no one to ease the pain. He just bore it. Alone.
Moments later, a golden head emerged from the stable, Cedric’s slit-pupiled eyes fixing on her with a comfortingly annoyed look.
“Sorry,” Gwenna called, lifting a hand. “Wanted to make sure you were okay. I’m off now!” She waved, flashing a grin before turning toward the trees. She knew he hated when she overheard his transformation, but too bad. If he thought she was going to stop worrying about him just because he’d perfected the art of suffering in silence, he was sorely mistaken.
The forest was damp and quiet, dewdrops clinging to the edges of leaves and spiderwebs. The morning fog curled lazily through the trees, making the air thick and cool. Gwenna kept her pace light but purposeful, weaving through the underbrush with a route she had walked a hundred times. She never took a direct path. Habit, caution, and paranoia all dictated that she move like a shadow, slipping between the trees in a way that would be difficult to track if anyone ever bothered to try.
Which was stupid. No one was looking for them.
Or, at least, that had been true before.
She swallowed hard, shoving the thought down. It sat like a stone in her stomach anyway.
The cave entrance loomed ahead, a jagged mouth in the hillside, half-choked with creeping ivy and moss. The air grew cooler as Gwenna approached, damp with the breath of stone and shadow.
She stepped inside without hesitation.
The darkness swallowed her whole. Water dripped from unseen crevices, the steady plink, plink echoing against the cave walls. Beneath her boots, the ground sloped unevenly, slick with condensation. She moved with confidence. She had made this journey before.
The cave twisted and narrowed, then widened again, the faint gleam of daylight teasing ahead. She followed it, emerging on the other side to a world transformed—not by nature, but by death.
The bones remained where she had left them.
Mercenary knights, now nothing but brittle skeletons in rusted armor. Some still clutched weapons in their bony fingers—swords crusted with rust, bows snapped and tangled among the undergrowth.
They had come for her. For Cedric.
They had come believing themselves the hunters.
And now, they were the warning.
Gwenna stepped past them, unbothered, the same way she had every time since the first incursion. There was no guilt. Not anymore. Only the cold understanding that had settled in her bones these past few months.
If she hadn’t killed them, they would have taken her. Would have killed Cedric and carried his head back as a trophy.
She had simply corrected the mistake of their arrogance.
Their rusting armor, their rotting bones, their useless swords still clutched in skeletal hands—they were a message now. A silent promise to anyone else who thought they could come for them.
Gwenna did not look back. Let the dead rot where they fell.
The living had far bigger problems.
