I clasped his forearm. “The mountain held.”
“For now,” he said. But there was something like pride beneath it.
Later, after the fires were out and the wounded tended, I found Lina outside the infirmary. Cold air drifted through the vents, carrying the scent of rain on stone.
She was sitting on the steps, bandaged but steady. When she saw me, she stood.
“You came for me.”
“I did.”
Her hand found mine, fingers still trembling.
“Maybe peace isn’t about hiding,” she said. “Maybe it’s choosing what’s worth the fight.”
I looked at her—at the certainty she carried even now—and thought she might be right.
Chapter Nineteen
Captured Again
Lina
The colony smelled of smoke and disinfectant—metal cooled after battle, stone still holding echoes of fire. Everywhere I looked were reminders of what the mountain had endured: walls scorched black, pipes weeping steam, and people moving in silence as they repaired what the raiders had broken.
We’d won.
It didn’t feel like victory.
It felt like breathing after almost drowning.
Mara found me first. Her arm was bound in a sling, soot streaking her face, but her smile held. “You’re walking,” she said, like it mattered.
“Thanks to Rygnar.”
“I figured.” She squeezed my shoulder. “He’s in the council chamber. Veklan’s trying to make sense of what’s left of the outer defenses.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice yet. The sedative still lingered, softening the edges but not the memory. Every blink pulled me back to the corridor, the gun at my throat, Rygnar’s voice cutting through smoke, the way he looked at me afterward like he needed proof I was still there.
I sat on the infirmary steps and closed my eyes. For a few breaths, the mountain’s hum steadied me.
The council met through the night. I wasn’t summoned, but no one stopped me from standing outside the hall, listening.
Veklan’s voice carried: “…the southern gate collapsed, but the north approach holds. We’ll double the watch until we confirm no survivors.”
Rygnar answered, lower. “Some lived. I heard them retreating before the collapse. They’ll regroup.”
A pause.
“Then we prepare,” Veklan said. “We always do.”
I leaned against the stone archway, letting the words fade. The fear was still there, but smaller now—contained, like heat banked under ash. What stayed was the knowledge of what Rygnar had done.
The part of me that trusted no one didn’t know what to do with that.
The rest of me didn’t want to let it go.
When Rygnar finally stepped out, the hall lights had dimmed to rest hours.
