The camp stretched before him in ordered chaos: banners shifting in the wind, mess fires sputtering, the smell of boiled grain clinging to everything. By the time he reached the council pergola, the lieutenants were already gathered, hunched over maps, voices low and impatient.
He gave the same excuse he always did – the General detained by matters of the crown, her orders to proceed as planned – and took his seat. Their nods were curt, respectful enough not to challenge him yet cautious enough to betray doubt. The meeting dragged on, a tangle oflogistics and hollow bravado that filled the air but settled nowhere.
His gaze kept drifting to the open side of the pergola, where sunlight caught on movement beyond the tents – riders dismounting, voices carrying on the wind. Then he saw them: Astrid’s copper hair glinting like a spark beside Daen’s broader frame. Before another tedious question could find him, Benni was already pushing back his chair, rising with the quiet relief of a man who’d finally been given a reason to move.
“I’ll take these to the General,” he said, gathering the maps before anyone could object. “She’ll want the full report before midday.”
A few muttered acknowledgements followed, but he was already moving, stride brisk but not hurried, nodding to familiar faces, clapping shoulders as he passed – the kind of gestures that spoke of long roads shared and trust hard-earned. To them, he was their Captain, steady and certain, the one who held the line when everything else gave way.
Astrid spotted him first, swinging down from her saddle before the horse had fully stopped, a flash of irritation already written across her face.
“There you are,” she called, before Benni could get a word in. “We searched north, west, the marsh crossings – nothing. But then Daen found this one skulking near the ferry.” She jerked her chin toward the pair of soldiers approaching behind her, hauling a narrow-shouldered figure between them, wrists bound, face grey with fear and river mud.
“Another deserter,” Astrid said, her voice rough. “From Haedor. Says he saw something.”
The boy stumbled as they brought him forward, his knees hitting the ground and coaxing a pained groan from him. His captors shoved him towards the Captain, and the boy looked up, shaking, mumbling about a woman on horseback, then a lonely soldier, then nothing at all, as if his memory had gone blank through sheer terror. Benni crouchedbefore him, forcing his tone to stay even.
“You saw someone near the river?” he asked. “Who?”
The boy’s eyes darted, his answers unravelling into contradictions, fear thickening each word until they barely made sense. Benni’s patience held, until it didn’t. He grabbed the front of the boy’s tunic and hauled him upright, the tremor in his own hand betraying how close he was to breaking.
“You remember enough to run,” he said, his voice like thunder, “so try again – what did you see?”
The boy’s feet slipped in the mud as Benni shoved him back, the impact sending a hollow crack through the air when his shoulders hit a waggon’s wheel.
“What did you see?” Benni demanded again, the words scraped raw by sleepless nights and too many dead ends. The boy’s breath came in sharp, panicked bursts; a trickle of blood slid from the corner of his mouth.
“N-nothing,” he stammered, voice thin. “Only – only the Queen’s dogs, same as you.”
The insult landed like a strike. Something inside Benni lurched, a dark reflex rising before thought could catch it. His hand tightened in the boy’s collar, ready to haul him up again, but the motion faltered halfway. Around them, the soldiers had gone still – a frozen ring of onlookers, waiting for what would come next. Then Astrid’s hand closed around his wrist, firm and cool.
“He’s not the one you’re fighting,” she said softly. The words cut through the red haze, steadying him where reason had failed. For a long moment, Benni stayed there – breath ragged, knuckles white – before he finally let go. The boy sagged against the wheel, shivering, and the world exhaled again.
The silence that followed pressed heavy against his ears – no outrage, no murmurs, just the uncomfortable scrape of boots on gravel as thesoldiers found reasons to look elsewhere. He wiped his hand on his coat, though there was nothing to clean, turned toward the nearest of his men and said, flatly, “Let him go.” The words hung there, strange in the air, but the soldiers obeyed. The boy stumbled to his feet and ran, a thin smear of mud marking his flight until he vanished between the tents.
Benni walked the other way, past the ring of staring faces and into the sharp bite of the open field. The cold met him like penance. Each breath stung, cutting deep. He could feel his father’s shadow then – Falkar’s iron hand gripping a sword hilt, that same unflinching discipline that had once commanded his respect and his terror in equal measure. The echo of it made his stomach twist.
He told himself the boy had deserved it, that fear could loosen tongues when mercy could not, but the thought curdled even as he formed it. The taste of it was iron and guilt. He’d spent his life swearing he would never become the man who had raised him, but power, he was learning, had its own inheritance. Whether held in a crown or in the palm of a soldier’s hand, it always demanded something terrible in return.
He didn’t hear them approach until Astrid’s voice broke through the wind.
“You’re freezing your arse off for nothing,” she said, no softness in the words but something close to care beneath them. Daen was a silent shadow beside her, his gaze steady, unreadable. Between the two of them, Benni found himself guided – almost pushed – back toward the tent, the manoeuvres as inevitable as the tide. Inside, Astrid thrust a bowl into his hands before he could refuse it.
“Eat,” she said. “You’re no use to her dead on your feet.”
He took the bowl without protest. The stew was half-cold, all salt and fat, but it grounded him. Daen sat near the entrance, sharpening his sword in measured strokes, each scrape a punctuation in the heavyquiet.
“How long can we keep this up?” Astrid asked finally, low enough that the wind might steal it. “Before the Queen starts asking where her favourite butcher’s gone?”
Benni didn’t answer at first. The truth was a stone lodged behind his ribs.
Astrid huffed, shaking her head. “The waiting’s worse than any battle.”
He looked down at the bowl, forcing another mouthful past his throat because she was watching, because arguing would mean admitting she was right. And Astrid was insufferable when she was right.
Later, when darkness fell, he left the tent and walked toward the shoreline, drawn by the sound of waves gnawing at the rocks. The sea was a restless thing – constant, unforgiving, yet somehow simpler than the noise inside his head. He stood with his arms crossed tight against the cold, the wind threading through his hair, carrying the faint tang of salt and smoke. Out here, away from the watchful eyes of his soldiers and the weight of command, he could almost believe he was someone else. Someone untouched by oaths and blood.
His thoughts slid backward, unbidden, to another lifetime – to nights spent in waystations between campaigns, where laughter had come easier and the world had not yet carved its mark on them. He could still recall the warmth of her skin beneath the coarse blankets, the way her breath caught when she was trying not to smile, the fragile illusion that they could steal a life from the years the Queen had not yet claimed. Even after Ara pulled away—even when the faint spark of courtship had faded and companionship, friendship and loyalty had taken its place—he’d believed they were still the same two fools daring to love in the shadow of a crown. He wanted to believe it still. But watching the waves break and retreat again and again, he wasn’t sure what had been lost to the tide – or whether it had ever truly beentheirs to keep.
