Chapter Seventy-Seven
One Night’s Peace
There is no undoing what has been done.
The Midnight stood watch over Fyreglade, the wind whispering low through the trees.
He bowed his head, grief hollowing his chest.
His voice spilled like supplication into the dark:
“Please. Let him have this night. Let him gather strength. Send storm to blind the scouts, wind to turn them aside. There is nothing left he can undo.”
The silence gave no answer.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
And He Was Gone
To love him was to trust he’d come back. Even from ashes. Even from war.
Amerei awoke to silence.
The wrong kind of silence.
The bedsheets were crumpled on his side. His belt splayed open on the mattress. Knives glinted in the moonlight.
She pulled the blankets to her chest and sat upright.
“Viktor?”
He stood at the window. Boots in hand. Hair already tied back. Eyes fixed on the world below.
“Something’s wrong,” he said, dread roughening his voice.
Amerei threw aside the blanket and climbed out of bed. He didn’t look at her. Just opened an arm to hold her close, as though bracing her for the blow.
Gathered on the stone path below were three scouts.
All pacing. All gasping for air. One—was he weeping?
“Stay here,” Viktor ordered, voice low but commanding, already dragging on his boots.
Amerei reached behind him for her robe on the wall.
“I’m coming with you.”
“It could be dangerous, Amerei,” he said, buckling his belt with hands that moved fast but deliberate—protective instinct in every motion.
She tied her sash, then caught his arm.
“Then I won’t leave your side.”
He hesitated. His brows furrowed tight, eyes shadowed with a fear he tried to bury.
“Don’t,” he said, voice raw, “leave my side.”
She squeezed his hand.
