The courtyard smelled of damp stone and rot. Broken shutters hung loose from abandoned windows, banging faintly whenever the wind found them. We crouched in the shadow of a crumbling wall, the moss damp under my palms, the air heavy with the stink of old water and ash.

  Grabber’s breathing was ragged but steady, his eyes fixed on the narrow archway that led back toward the square. Beyond it, the shouts and steel had dwindled, though I could still hear the occasional clash echoing through the village. I strained for any sound of Riven or Thorne, something, anything, but the silence kept closing back in like a fist.

  “We can’t just sit here,” I whispered, my words sharp because my chest was tight.

  His hand shot up, palm out, silencing me instantly. His gaze didn’t move from the archway. Even now, crouched in the mud, a cut glistening dark across his temple, he radiated the kind of control that made me grind my teeth.

  After another beat of silence, he finally said, low and clipped, “Yes. We can.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “What if they need us? What if -”

  “What if you run out there and get an arrow through your skull?” He turned to look at me at last, and his eyes cut sharp in the dark. “They don’t need us. They need you alive. And right now, that means staying here.”

  I hated that he made sense. I hated even more that I wanted to believe him. My fingernails scraped against the stone at my side. “And what about you? You don’t even notice when you’re bleeding.”

  His brows flicked down, only then acknowledging the blood streaking from his temple, already half dried. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters.” Before he could stop me, I tore a strip from the edge of my sleeve. My fingers trembled, but I reached for him anyway.

  He caught my wrist halfway. His grip was firm, not cruel. “Don’t.”

  “Stop being stupid,” I hissed. “Just, let me.”

  For a heartbeat, I thought he’d shove me back. But then, slowly, he let go. His shoulders slumped against the wall, the faintest sigh slipping out of him as if he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.

  The strip of fabric came away crimson as I dabbed at the cut. Up this close, he felt less like the cold commander and more like a man, exhausted, older than the years on his face, eyes rimmed with shadows. His jaw flexed once, twice, but he said nothing.

  “You shouldn’t waste your pity on me,” he muttered eventually, voice low.

  “It’s not pity.” My hands stilled against his skin. “It’s… basic humanity.”

  That made his mouth twitch, though not in a smile. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  I frowned. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Most people in your position would’ve run by now. Or begged. Or bargained.” His gaze lingered on me in a way that made my throat dry. “You just keep fighting us. Fighting everything.”

  “Because you keep deciding my life without me.” The words shot out before I could temper them. Then softer, quieter: “And maybe because I don’t want to die.”

  The confession hung there, heavier than I meant.

  Something flickered in his eyes, something human, fleeting, almost fragile. He looked away first, back to the dark archway, his voice lower than before. “You won’t. Not while I breathe.”

  That silence that followed wasn’t sharp, wasn’t suffocating. It was strange, like the pause between lightning and thunder.

  I wanted to say something more, thank you, or shut up, or both, but the words stuck. So instead I sat there beside him, cloth pressed to his temple, my pulse racing too fast, waiting for the others to come back through the dark.

  · ─ ·?· ─ · ·

  The silence stretched. I kept waiting for shouts, for boots, for the clash of blades to swell back through the streets. But nothing came. Only the sigh of the wind through broken rafters, the creak of a half-fallen shutter.

  Soren shifted against the wall, broad shoulders hunched, one knee drawn up. His hand rested near the hilt of his sword but not gripping it, for once. I realized suddenly how big he looked in the ruined courtyard, like the stone itself had decided to take shape as a man.

  “You’re staring,” he said without looking at me.

  “I’m not,” I lied too quickly.

  His mouth tilted in a small, humorless curve. “You always are. At me. At Riven. At Thorne. Trying to read us like maps.”

  Heat flushed my cheeks. “Maybe because none of you bother telling me anything.”

  “That’s because you ask questions with daggers hidden inside them.” His gaze slid to me then, sharp and steady. “You don’t really want answers. You want weapons.”

  That stung, mostly because it wasn’t entirely wrong. My fingers twisted the bloody cloth, wringing it against my knee. “And what if I do? If you were me, wouldn’t you?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he tipped his head back against the wall, eyes closing briefly, the long line of his throat catching the dim light. “If I were you,” he said finally, “I’d be terrified.”

  I blinked. “That’s… not comforting.”

  “It’s the truth.” His eyes opened again, sharp blue pinning me. “But you don’t act like it. You throw your fear at us like it’s a stone. And maybe that’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”

  I didn’t know what to do with that. So I said, softer than I intended, “And you? Are you ever afraid?”

  His jaw worked. For a long moment, I thought he’d brush it off, retreat into silence the way he always did. But then he surprised me.

  “Yes.”

  The word was so quiet I almost thought I imagined it.

  “What of?”

  His gaze drifted past me, to the ruined archway, to the black shadows swallowing the street. His voice dropped low. “Failure. Losing what little I’ve managed to hold together. Watching everything I built fall because I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.”

  I swallowed. It was the most he had ever given me, and the weight of it pressed down, heavy and real.

  “I thought you didn’t care about anything but control,” I said.

  “Control is just another word for survival,” he murmured.

  I shifted closer without meaning to, our knees almost brushing. My heart thudded, too loud in the quiet. “So what am I, then? Another piece of control?”

  His gaze flicked to me, sharp, assessing, then softened almost imperceptibly. “No. You’re… the variable.”

  “The what?”

  “The part of the equation I can’t solve. Not yet.”

  I stared at him, caught between outrage and something I couldn’t name. And then, maybe because the tension had built too high, maybe because I was exhausted, I let out a short laugh.

  “You’re impossible.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “And yet you’re still here.”

  We fell into silence again, but it wasn’t the suffocating kind anymore. It was heavy, yes, but threaded with something else, something that felt like the edges of trust, or at least recognition.

  I found myself whispering, almost without thinking, “I hope they come back soon.”

  His hand shifted on his knee, not quite reaching for me, but close. “They will.”

  The silence that followed our exchange should have been comforting. Instead, every breath felt borrowed, every creak of the ruin too loud.

  Then it came, the sound.

  A scrape against stone, faint but distinct. Then another, closer.

  I froze, my hands clenching in the cloth until the blood-stains smeared across my knuckles. Grabber’s head snapped toward the broken doorway, eyes narrowing, body coiled like a drawn bow.

  “Stay down,” he whispered.

  I dropped low against the rubble, heart hammering. My pulse was so loud I was sure whoever was outside could hear it.

  The sound came again, footsteps this time, deliberate, measured. Whoever it was wasn’t rushing. They were searching.

  Grabber rose to a crouch, blade sliding free with a sound that seemed deafening in the hush. The tension in him was palpable, a cord stretched to breaking. For all his talk of control, this was instinct, raw and dangerous.

  “Soren!” I croaked out, worried.

  The footsteps paused right outside the shattered wall. I bit my lip hard enough to taste copper, willing myself not to make a sound.

  A shadow shifted. Then another.

  I pressed my back into the stone, every muscle locked, a prayer half-formed in my throat. Not them. Please, not them.

  Grabber’s arm shot out suddenly, barring me with a grip like iron as he angled toward the gap. His eyes blazed, every inch of him a silent warning.

  Then, voices.

  Low. Familiar.

  I sagged back against the wall as the words filtered through.

  “Careful, you’re dragging half the street with you,” Riven hissed. His voice was sharp, but the rasp in it made my stomach drop.

  “Better half the street than her corpse,” Thorne shot back, his tone rougher than usual.

  Soren exhaled, the sound more relief than he probably meant to show, and stood fully. He stepped into the doorway just as the two figures staggered into view.

  Riven was supporting most of Thorne’s weight, his arm hooked under the man’s shoulders. Blood streaked down Thorne’s side, dark and thick, soaking through the once-fine fabric of his tunic. His grin was there still, but it was pale, stretched, a shadow of its usual sharpness.

  “Miss us?” Thorne rasped, though his lips barely curved.

  My breath caught. For a heartbeat I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, only stare at the sight of them battered and bloody but alive. Then my body moved before my brain did, I threw myself forward, crashing into them both, arms locking tight around their shoulders. Riven grunted at the force of it, Thorne gave a breathless laugh that dissolved quickly into a hiss of pain, but neither pulled away. For one wild second I clung to them like they were the only solid things in the world.

  “You’re idiots,” I choked, the words muffled against Riven’s chest. “Stupid, reckless idiots.”

  “And yet -” Thorne coughed, leaning more heavily into Riven as his grin flickered faintly, “ - irresistibly charming idiots.”

  I pulled back only when I felt the wet warmth of blood seep against my palms. The sight snapped me into motion. “Sit. Both of you, sit, now.”

  Thorne blinked at me like he might argue, but his legs buckled halfway to protest, and Riven lowered him onto a slab of stone without complaint. His own tunic was torn at the shoulder, blood streaking down his arm, but he ignored it, his eyes fixed on me as though making sure I was real, whole, still breathing.

  “I’m fine,” I snapped at the look, more harshly than I meant. My hands were already fumbling for the satchel Grabber had packed with supplies. “You’re not.”

  Grabber handed me the kit without a word, his gaze flicking between them with a mixture of calculation and, though faint, relief.

  I tore cloth into strips, fingers trembling, then pressed one hard against the gash in Thorne’s side. He hissed through his teeth, the sound sharp, but his hand came up, light, almost reassuring, to touch my wrist.

  “Gentler, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice frayed but still teasing. “You’ll scare the blood back into me.”

  “Shut up,” I said, though my voice cracked. “You’re bleeding too much to joke.”

  Riven crouched beside me, steadying Thorne with one hand as I bound the wound. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. Finally, he muttered, “He took the brunt of it.”

  “Worth it,” Thorne rasped, his grin flickering again despite his pallor. “Wouldn’t want to leave you babysitting her alone. You brood too much.”

  I swatted at him with the cloth, blinking fast against the sting in my eyes. “Stop talking like that. Both of you. Just, stop.”

  The silence that followed was weighted, broken only by the sounds of cloth binding wounds, their uneven breathing, and my own ragged exhales.

  When I finally looked up, all three of them were watching me, Riven’s eyes dark and unreadable, Thorne’s bright even through pain, and Grabber’s sharp but softened at the edges.

  “You’re both going to be fine,” I said fiercely, as if saying it could make it true.

  Thorne tilted his head, lips twitching. “Hear that, Riv? Doctor’s orders.”

  For the first time since they’d stumbled in, Riven’s mouth curved, small, fleeting, but there.

  · ─ ·?· ─ · ·

  I finished the last knot in Thorne’s bandage and pressed a shaky hand to his chest, more for my reassurance than his. “Stay still. Don’t move. Don’t even think about moving.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, reclining against the stone like a man basking on a sun-drenched terrace instead of one bleeding in the dark.

  I swore under my breath and turned to Riven. He’d been waiting silently, his arm braced against his knee, blood darkening the torn fabric of his sleeve. It wasn’t as deep as Thorne’s injury, but the sheer amount of red made my stomach twist.

  “Your turn,” I said, sharper than intended.

  “I can -”

  “Don’t you dare say you can do it yourself,” I cut him off, fumbling with fresh cloth. My hands shook, betraying how close I’d been to breaking entirely. “Sit. Or I’ll make you.”

  One dark brow arched, but he lowered himself beside Thorne without argument. His eyes never left me as I worked, steady, unflinching, even when I peeled back the ruined sleeve and pressed the cloth to the wound.

  He didn’t make a sound. Not even a hiss of pain.

  “Riven,” I muttered, glancing up. “You’re allowed to feel things, you know.”

  “Not useful things,” he replied quietly.

  I paused, needle poised above his skin, then forced myself to keep moving. The silence between us grew heavy, only broken when Thorne snorted softly.

  “She’s got you pegged, Riv. You scowl so hard the pain doesn’t dare come close.”

  “Shut up,” Riven said, though without heat. His gaze remained locked on me, the faintest crease between his brows as though I were the wound in need of binding.

  I stitched in quick, neat passes, my breath uneven. Every brush of his skin beneath my fingers, every flicker of muscle when the thread tugged, made my chest tighten.

  Finally I tied off the last stitch, smoothing the bandage flat with trembling hands. “There. You’ll live. Both of you. Somehow.”

  Thorne let out a low chuckle. “Told you we were hard to get rid of.”

  “Don’t joke,” I whispered, my throat too tight. “Don’t, don’t you ever joke like that again. You scared me.”

  The words cracked on the last note, and I hated how raw they sounded, how unguarded.

  Thorne reached across, fingers brushing my wrist again, gentler this time. “Then I’ll have to make it up to you. Survive better next time.”

  Riven’s jaw worked, but he only said, “We’ll need to move soon. This place isn’t safe.”

  Grabber, who had been watching with his arms crossed and expression unreadable, finally spoke. “He’s right. They knew enough to ambush us at the market. They’ll know enough to try again.” His gaze flicked to me, sharp. “And she’s still the prize.”

  My stomach knotted at the reminder. The prize. Always the prize.

  “What do we do now, then?” I asked softly.

  For a moment none of them spoke. The silence was worse than the fight had been.

  Then Thorne, voice uncharacteristically sober, said, “We keep her alive. At any cost.”

  Thorne’s words hung between us like smoke, thick and choking.

  “We need to mark her.” Riven’s voice followed, quieter, heavier, like a verdict.

  The mark.

  The word landed like a stone in my gut, dragging every half-heard whisper and sharp glance back to the surface. I’d thought I could shove it aside after the witch, pretend it wasn’t circling me like a hawk. But hearing it now, spoken so plainly, so deliberately,

  My breath stuttered. My gaze darted from face to face, searching for denial, for a laugh, for someone to say not yet, not now.

  None of them did.

  Instead, Thorne’s grin faltered, his eyes softening. Grabber’s eyes narrowed, assessing, calculating, as though already weighing the decision. And Riven… Riven didn’t look away. He just watched me, unflinching, like he expected me to bolt.

  I pressed back against the wall, fingers curling into fists. “No,” I said, too quickly. Too sharp. “Not that. Don’t, you can’t -” My voice caught, breath shuddering. “Not after everything. Not when I don’t even…”

  The words tangled, choking me, but the thought blared clear in my mind: permanent. Bound. Owned.

  Grabber unfolded his arms, voice steady but flat. “You don’t understand, Liora. If they keep tracking you, if they keep finding ways to pierce whatever shield we throw up -”

  “I said no!” The words tore out of me, ragged, too loud in the small stone space.

  Thorne raised both hands, palms out. “Easy. Easy, little flame. No one’s doing anything. Not tonight.”

  But the damage was already done. The word still pulsed in the air between us, heavier than the scent of blood. The mark. The one thing they’d promised, in careful ways and crooked smiles, but never outright said.

  Now they had.

  And it terrified me more than the attackers ever had.

  Authors note

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