Beyond it, the world dropped. The cliff fell away in a clean, brutal line, leaving nothing between us and the sea but air and height. Gulls circled overhead, their cries raw and ragged, tearing at the sky. Below, the waves smashed themselves against the rocks, relentless and unending.
I stared out over the grey, heaving water and thought – for the first time in a while – of Haedor. Of the heat still rising off the walls as I stood at the harbour, blood on my knuckles, smoke in my lungs, the sea dark and still beneath the moonlight. That night had tasted of iron and brimstone and something akin to triumph. Now all I could taste was salt.
I stepped out onto the stone and sank down slowly, letting my weight settle where the ledge widened just enough to sit. The rope tugged faintly at my wrists as I shifted, still tethered, but loose enough to grant the illusion of freedom. Mathias stayed by the door, his back turned politely, arms folded across his chest like he meant to guard the space, not invade it. I understood he was giving me what I had asked for – a moment of privacy to relieve myself and to breathe in air that had not sat in situ for months. And that was what I intended to do, my lungs clinging on to every breath like they had forgotten the feel of fresh air – but I also allowed my gaze to slowly take in my surroundings.
The ledge was narrower than I’d hoped. A few long steps, no more, with just enough width to sit without feeling the edge press too close. The stone pitched slightly outward, sharp in places; the drop below so sheer it felt like the sea was pulling at it – like it was only a matter of time before the rest of the cliff gave way and followed. I shifted until my boots found a stable patch, then let my eyes track the horizon. The town of Tirn’Vahl, if it was there, lay somewhere behind me, out of sight and reach. Just a scatter of rooftops glimpsed between the rocks on the way out, half-swallowed by distance.
I tilted my head back, scanning the sky for the flick of black wings against the pale. But there were no dark shapes circling high above, no flash of feathers moving with purpose. The Queen’s birds could cover leagues in a day, and if they had been sent, I should have seen them by now. I should have felt their gaze, cold and clever, carving paths through the clouds. Messengers and spies both, sharp-eyed and tireless, trained to find what men could not. But only gulls wheeled overhead, their cries sharp and aimless, unbothered by the prisoner on the ledge or the guard at the door.
For a moment, I told myself they were coming. That the birds would see me. That Benni and Astrid and Daen would already have pieced together what had happened. That someone, somewhere, had started looking. But as the wind scraped across the ledge and the gulls cried on, a heaviness settled in my chest. Maybe no one knew. Maybe I had vanished into the smoke like so many others – just another name swallowed by a campaign that no longer needed it. The thought sat behind my ribs, dull, slow, and spreading.
The next morning, I asked to be taken out again. And the morning after that. Mathias never asked why. He just gave that small nod of his – the kind that said he’d already expected the request – and fetched the rope without fuss. By the third day, he didn’t even pause. He tied the rope, fastened the tether, and led me through the narrow passage as if it were already part of the rhythm we shared – water, food, the ledge. I never stayed long. Just enough to breathe, to look, to hope the sky might hold something other than wings too white and cries too shrill. But the birds never came.
We didn’t speak much, Mathias and I, but now and then, the quiet gave way. One evening, as he passed me the bowl, I told him I didn’t like lentils – too soft, I said, too bland, like food meant for the toothless. He gave a low huff that might’ve been a laugh. “I’ll see what Maeve can spare,” he said, and the next day the bowl held something else. Barley,I thought, or oats—not much better than the lentils, but at least it was something different. Another time I asked for a clean shirt, not out of vanity but because the one I wore itched like straw. He didn’t comment, just handed it to me the following morning with a half-shrug, saying only, “She found one that looked passable.”
In the evenings, he stayed nearby when the old woman, Maeve, came. She didn’t knock or announce herself, just stepped through the arch with a rustle of skirts and a low cluck of her tongue, carrying a cloth and a shallow basin that steamed faintly in the cool air. Her hands were rough but careful as she checked the rope burns and the wound at my temple, muttering to herself all the while about infection and foolheaded boys. Then, one night, she sniffed sharply, declared me “a fleabag”, and poured what was left of the water over my hair. Her fingers worked quickly, combing through the tangles with more force than care – until they passed over the edge of the mark on my shoulder blade. The moment was small, incidental, but I felt it all the same, sharp and immediate, as if a nerve had been struck. Maeve didn’t flinch. She just wrung out the cloth and moved on. But I stayed still, jaw tight, like something had been noticed I hadn’t meant to reveal.
It was some nights later – after Maeve had come and gone enough times that even her muttering had taken on a rhythm of its own – when I asked for something else. Mathias had just settled near the far wall, leaving the same deliberate space between us as he had since the first night—not from fear, but from a sense of propriety I hadn’t yet decided whether to mock or respect. The fire had burned low, and the ruin had grown quiet again, save for the wind threading through the broken arches and the occasional scrape of shifting stone.
“I want to see the stars,” I said, plainly, careful not to press. I didn’t look at him when I said it – I just kept my eyes on the rope at my wrists, the faint marks still etched along the skin. “I haven’t seen them since I woke up here, however long ago that is.” That part, at least, was true.The rest – the hope that the Queen’s birds might fly at night where they had failed to come by day, the chance to learn more of what lay beyond the temple walls – I kept to myself.
He studied me for a moment, one brow rising just slightly, as if to say he’d been waiting for me to ask. Then he pushed himself to his feet with a small grunt, brushing his hands against his coat.
“There’s a spot by the back wall,” he said, his hand gesturing the way. “Roof gave out seasons ago. You’ll get your stars if the clouds behave.”
Mathias didn’t wait for me to rise. He crossed to a narrow arch on the far side, where the roof had half-collapsed and the floor was littered with broken beams and damp leaves. I watched as he pulled a bramble-thick shutter out of the way, kicked aside a length of splintered wood, and shoved at the heap until there was enough space for someone to pass through. A few stones clattered down beyond the slope, lost to the dark. He shook off the dirt from his hands, wiped them across his mouth – where a small, persistent smile had begun to pull – and then came back for the rope.
When he knelt to fasten it, I saw the scrape across his knuckles, fresh and angry, a thin smear of red where the skin had split. His sleeve was torn at the edge, frayed where the brambles had fought back. He didn’t mention it; he just crouched there next to me, his fingers moving with that same quiet precision he brought to every task. But something in the pause, in how long it held, pulled my gaze upward.
And then he looked at me.
For a breath, neither of us moved. His eyes were green, I realised—not the sharp kind that glittered in anger, but a duskier shade, softened by flecks of brown near the centre, like leaves half-turned at the end of summer. There were lines beginning to form across his brow, but none at the corners of his eyes, as if he hadn’t laughed often enough to earn them. There was something tired in his face, but not worn down –like life had leaned on him but not broken him.
For a few breaths longer, he didn’t look away.
Then he blinked once, stood, and reached down to help me rise. His hand found my arm, light and sure, and there was something in the touch – careful, but no longer wary – as though he’d decided, without saying it, that harm wasn’t the only thing I might expect from the world.
The floor was uneven, roof half-missing, the sky gaping open above us in a sweep of cloudless dark. He guided me to where the stone flattened out, a narrow span between two crumbled pillars, and let the rope slacken just enough for me to sit. I did, legs drawn up, hands folded in my lap, the sea humming somewhere behind me and the stars stretched out above like scattered embers still glowing from some ancient fire.
Mathias stayed standing for a while, then sat beside me, his coat brushing the stone. I tilted my chin upward, scanning the sky not for beauty but for purpose – for the black-winged flicker of something trained and watching. But there was nothing above us but stars. Too many to count, and all of them still. After a long silence, I said, “I guess we’re really in Tirn’Vahl, then?”
He didn’t answer at once. Just leaned back on his hands, eyes on the constellations. “That one there,” he said after a beat, tipping his chin toward a crooked cluster just above the broken wall. “Only shows in full when you’re close to the coast.”
I followed the line of his gaze, tracing the stars with my eyes until I found the shape he meant – jagged, a little off-kilter, like a blade that had been bent and never quite hammered back into place.
He didn’t look at me when he said, “But you didn’t ask just to see the stars, did you?”
It wasn’t an accusation. Just a statement, left between us like an open gate neither of us had walked through yet.
“No,” I said then. “I didn’t.”
The waves beat their rhythm somewhere below, steady as a pulse, each crash folding into the next. He didn’t ask what I’d really wanted, and I didn’t offer. And somehow, that made it easier to stay in that moment – to breathe the cold air without bracing, to feel the slack rope between us and not see it as a threat. For the first time since waking in that ruin, I didn’t feel entirely like a prisoner. Just someone who was being allowed, if only for a moment, to look up at the stars.
Chapter Twenty: Mathias
Mathias had never thought of himself as a cruel man. And yet each morning, when he tied the rope around the General’s wrists and led her down the narrow passage toward the cliff, it felt like he was stepping into the shape of cruelty – wearing its silhouette just long enough to keep her tethered to something she might not yet recognise as kindness.
He knew why she asked to go outside. Knew it from the way her eyes flicked upward, too quick to be longing, too measured to be wonder. From the way she tilted her head back just a fraction too long, searching the sky for wings – dark, swift, and trained to find what armies could not. She hadn’t said as much; she hadn’t needed to – Mathias had learnt long ago how to listen beyond words. She was testing the wind for ravens. And he let her.
