“I think it matters if you want them to listen,” I reply.
He doesn’t answer, but I don’t need him to.
Because we’re already there.
The river comes into full view first, wide and slow-moving, catching the fading light in broken flashes where the current shifts around rocks and fallen branches. The water is lower than it should be, the banks exposed in long stretches of damp, dark earth that glisten like something half-raw under the sky. Beyond it, the village spreads out in uneven clusters of buildings, familiar in shape but smaller than I remember, like distance has stripped something away.
Two men stand near the edge of the road, both armed, both tense in the way people get when they’ve been expectingsomething and finally see it coming. One of them leans forward slightly, squinting, and then his face shifts.
“Lyria?”
The word cracks.
I stop.
The soldiers behind me slow in a ripple, controlled but immediate.
“It’s me,” I say.
He takes a few steps forward, his grip tightening on his spear, his eyes moving over me like he’s checking for something that might not be there anymore. “You’re—” He stops, shaking his head once, like the words don’t quite fit. “You’re alive.”
“I am.”
The other man’s attention doesn’t stay on me. It moves past, scanning the line behind me, taking in the armor, the weapons, the stillness that comes from trained bodies waiting for instruction.
His stance shifts.
“Who are they?” he asks.
Verr steps just close enough behind me that his presence becomes part of the question.
“They’re with me,” I say.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one that matters right now,” I reply, my tone tightening.
The first man glances between us, uncertainty flickering across his face, but the second doesn’t let it go.
“They’re dark elves,” he says, quieter now, but heavier.
“Yes.”
“They’re the ones who?—”
“They’re not here for that,” I cut in, stepping forward before he can finish, forcing his attention back to me.
His jaw tightens.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I say, holding his gaze. “Because I’m standing here.”
The space between us holds for a second longer than it should, tension sitting there like something waiting to break.
“You trust them?” he asks.
I don’t look back.
