“HELP ME.” Rodvek's voice, not the creature's. Small and broken underneath the grinding metal. “KOVREN. HELP.”
“I'm here.” I'm on my knees in the great hall where we took our oaths, and my brother is screaming, and the berserker is trying to take me, and I hold. I hold because she is behind me and the bond is warm and I will not go under. Not tonight. “I'm here, brother. I'm not leaving.”
He raises his fists again.
Maren walks past me.
I feel her move before I see her. The bond shifts, her pulse moving from behind me to beside me, and then she's between us. Between me and Rodvek. Small and straight in my cloak, her hands at her sides.
“Maren. No.”
She doesn't stop.
Rodvek's fists freeze in the air. The burning gold eyes fix on her. A sound comes from behind the metal mask, confused, not rage. Recognition of something he doesn't understand.
“You're hurt,” Maren says. Her voice is calm and clear in the ruined hall. “You've been hurt for a long time. I see it.”
The creature makes a sound. Low, keening. Pain, not fury.
“I'm a healer.” She stops three feet from him. He towers over her. She doesn't look up. She looks at his chest, at the place where the armor has fused to his skin, at the wound underneath. “I'm going to put my hands on you now. And you're going to let me.”
She reaches out and presses both palms flat against his chest.
The bond surges.
I feel it. Not in my body but in the space between us. Maren touches Rodvek and the anchor effect extends through her, and I feel it reach into him, find the rage, push against it. Maren gasps. Her face goes white and I see her stagger and I'm on my feet, moving toward her, but she shakes her head.
“Stay there.” Her voice is thin. Strained. “Hold the edge. Don't come to me.”
“Maren.”
“Trust me.”
I hold the edge. The berserker pounds against the door and I hold it shut with everything I have, with the bond, with her pulse under my own, with the discipline that taught me how to stand at the line between myself and the fury without crossing it.
Maren's hands press harder. I can see the toll it's taking. Her shoulders are shaking. Her color is wrong, too pale, and I remember Mother Sanque's warning. Fatigue. Disorientation. Cold. Don't push past your limits.
“Rodvek.” Her voice is quiet now, addressed to the creature in front of her, not to me. “The children you saved. They escaped. All of them. Your oath was fulfilled long ago. You just didn't know.”
The creature shudders. The metal plates on his skin grind against each other, and the keening sound grows louder, higher.
“You held the line,” she says. “They got out. Every single one of them. You did what you swore to do.”
“LIES.” The grinding voice. But weaker. The gold in his eyes is flickering.
“Not lies.” Maren's voice doesn't waver. “Your brother has been looking for you for all this time. Not to kill you. To tell you this. To tell you it's done. Your oath is paid.”
The creature's hands come up. Not to strike. To grip. His massive fingers close around Maren's forearms and I'm moving, I'm halfway across the hall before I see her face hasn't changed. She's not in pain. She's holding still, letting him grip her, letting the anchor push through her hands and into him.
“Let it go,” she says. “The oath is done. The rage doesn't have anything to hold onto. Let it go, Rodvek.”
He screams again. But the sound is different this time. Not rage. Grief. A howl that fills the ruined hall and shakes the Oath Brothers statue and breaks something in me that has been locked tight since that night.
The gold in his eyes sputters. Flickers. And underneath it, amber.
Maren's hands are white where she grips him. She's shaking hard now, her legs unsteady, and I can feel through the bond what it's costing her. The anchor is pulling from her, draining warmth and strength, and she is not letting go.
“Maren.” My voice cracks. “That's enough.”
