“Instructor Ky?” the man repeated, his voice suddenly full of a respect that bordered on reverence. “Gods above. It is you. We’d heard you were teaching.” He shook his head as if clearing it of a ghost. “Of course. At once. Open the gates!”
They were ushered inside. The moment the heavy gates boomed shut behind them, a medic with grim, capable hands was summoned. As they transferred the prospector to a sturdy stretcher, the injured man grabbed Gessa’s arm, his eyes feverish but lucid.
“Thank you,” he rasped, his gaze shifting to Ky. “Both of you.”
“Rest now,” Gessa said softly. “You’re safe.”
Ky gave only a curt nod, his focus already on the commander’s longhouse at the center of the yard. As they walked, work seemed to stop. Men paused, their eyes turning to Ky with a mixture of shock, reverence, and morbid curiosity.They were looking at a living legend, a ghost from their stories, broken but undeniably real.
Ky’s jaw tightened. His face shut down. He hated this, she realized. He hated being a legend.
The commander’s office was a spartan room dominated by a massive, scarred wooden desk. The man behind it was of middling height but built like a boulder. He was looking down at a report, but glanced up as they entered.
His eyes found Ky’s, and he froze. The pen in his hand stopped moving. Two sleek wolverines emerged from the shadows beneath the desk, their movements restless, sensing the abrupt shift in their master. Night met their hostile stare for a heartbeat before letting out a soft, bored chuff of air and turning his gaze away with supreme indifference.
The man behind the desk slowly placed his pen down. His face was a complicated landscape of shock, what looked like anger and a flicker of old pain.
“Master Taen,” Ky said, his voice formal, his posture rigid.
“Ky,” Taen said, his voice a low gravel. His eyes swept over him. “The last I heard, you were hiding behind a desk, teaching children to hold a map. Now you’re in my yard, looking like you’ve wrestled a Ley beast.” He gestured to a chair. “Do you have a report?”
Ky remained standing. But instead of launching into his own story, he nodded toward the slate tablet on Taen’s desk. “You first. What do your patrols say?”
Taen’s eyes narrowed, surprised by the command in Ky’s tone. After a tense moment, he pushed the slate across the desk. “Something’s not right in the foothills,” he conceded. “Bandits, more organized than they should be. Bolder.
“We found a prospector’s camp, looked like he was taken. Found a strange sigil carved on a tree nearby. It all feels connected, but the pieces don’t fit.” He leaned back, hisexpression grim. “I was about to send this brief out. I could use a fresh set of eyes. They always said you could see the whole board, Ky, not just the next move.”
Ky picked up the slate, his expression hardened as he read. When he looked up, his eyes were like chips of ice.
“Your report is missing the most important pieces, Taen,” Ky said, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of grim, firsthand knowledge.
He told him everything. He spoke of the overheard conversation, the name ‘Malak,’ and the Serpent’s Coil sigil. Then, he leaned over the map, his finger tracing the supply line from the south.
“And the cold iron,” Ky added, his voice dropping. “It wasn’t scavenged. It was freshly minted Western Iron. Cairsul markings.”
Taen frowned. “Cairsul? That’s thousands of miles away. Who has the coin to move that much iron this far north without us seeing it?”
Ky met his gaze. “A Lord of Cairsul. Recruit Gessa... she has intimate knowledge of House Volanus. She identified the ideology. Lord Polan has been vocal about breaking the Spurs’ monopoly. He has the mines, the money, and the motive.”
Taen let out a low whistle. “Polan? Accusing a High Lord of treason based on a recruit’s hunch is dangerous ground, Ky.”
“It fits the pattern,” Ky insisted. “Malak provides the bodies. Polan provides the iron and the strategy. It explains the discipline in the camps. It explains the poisoning tactic—only an expert in iron geology would know how to do that.”
Taen stood, the old anger on his face replaced by a new, cold fury. “Nordan!” he bellowed. Moments later, a lean, hawkish man entered the room. “The message to High Command has changed,” Taen commanded, his voice ringing with urgency. “Top priority. We have confirmation...”
They stood like two commanders now, the quiet animosity she’d sensed between them vanished, replaced by the grim focus of a shared, overwhelming threat. The man who had kissed her was gone. In his place stood the Spur. He was a world away from her again, and the distance felt like a chasm.
The aide directed them to separate quarters. Her heart gave a small, panicked lurch. Night, who was about to follow Ky, stopped. He turned his great head and looked directly at her. Then, with a deliberate slowness, he padded the few steps to her side and brushed his massive, furry flank against her outstretched hand. It was a brief, solid pressure, an unspoken assurance that was as clear as any word—a promise. Then he turned, his duty done, and followed his master.
Gessa was shown to a small, clean room. A guard closed the wooden door behind her, the sound of the bolt sliding home echoing in the sudden silence. It was the first time she had been truly alone in weeks. She walked to the small mirror on the wall. The woman staring back was different. The haunted look was gone, replaced by a quiet, steady resolve. She was safe. But the silence of the room felt vast and empty.
A short while later, a soft knock came at her door. She opened it to find Ky standing there, holding one of the thick, woolen blankets from the cache.
“The nights are cold in the mountains,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Even with stone walls.”
He held it out to her. As she reached to take it, his gaze fixed on a single, dark strand of hair that had escaped her braid. The hard mask of the officer softened, replaced by the quiet tenderness she had seen in the cave. He reached out, his hand moving with a slow, deliberate care that gave her ample time to pull away. His fingertips brushed her temple—a ghost of a touch—and tucked the stray strand behind her ear.
Heat flooded her skin. It was a touch that asked for nothing, a quiet act of care that cut through all the formality and fear of the last few hours.
