Rakhal was awake, as she knew he would be. He sat at the edge of the clearing, bare-armed, the faint light catching on the lines of his shoulders. Shadows twisted beneath his skin, faint as breath, like ink beneath thin paper. He looked less haunted now—more contained. Whatever Azfar had done the day before had steadied him, given him a stillness that was no longer brittle but deliberate.
She should have looked away. Instead, she watched him. The strength in his movements. The quiet he carried. The way the shadows no longer fought him but followed.
When she stepped out, the ground was damp under her boots, and the air smelled of moss and iron. Shazi passed her with a nod, heading toward the outer watch, her expression unreadable. The orc woman had stopped looking at her like an intruder and started treating her like someone to protect. That, in its way, was progress.
At the edge of camp, Eliza paused. Through the trees, she could just make out the distant shimmer of the plains beyond—the faintest haze of smoke rising where the Ketheri armies camped, waiting. Beyond that, her city. Her home.
She drew her cloak tighter. The thought of Maidan—the city she had once ruled—felt heavy now. Her cousin sitting on her throne, Thalorin whispering poison in his ear, her people starving and hunted. The orcs fracturing under Kardoc’s rage, turning their blades against one another. Every faction bleeding itself dry while the Ketheri waited to claim the ruins.
It was madness.
“If this war continues,” she murmured, “there won’t be anything left to save.”
“You didn’t sleep.”
She turned. Rakhal was behind her, silent as always. He held a tin cup of water, the rim cold when he pressed it into her hand. Their fingers brushed—barely—and heat jolted up her arm, as startling as lightning.
“Enough to dream,” she said.
His mouth curved faintly. “Dreams are rarely merciful.”
She sipped, letting the metallic taste ground her. “You’ve heard from your scouts?”
He nodded once. “The clans are restless. Some rally to Kardoc’s war cries. Others hide. None trust what they can’t name.”
“They fear you.”
He gave a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh. “They should.”
She met his gaze, unflinching. “They fear me too.”
He studied her face for a long moment. “You sound almost proud.”
“I’m realistic,” she said. “Fear is a kind of respect. Sometimes it’s the only kind you get.”
That made him smile—a small, reluctant thing that made her chest tighten. “You speak like a commander.”
“I was a queen.”
He looked toward the horizon. “And now?”
She followed his gaze. “Now I’m something else.”
They walked together down to the stream that wound past the camp, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and pine. He crouched beside the water, rinsing his hands, and she saw the faint shimmer of light dance along his skin where shadow and blood magic intertwined. It was terrible and beautiful both—the way corruption could look like creation when you forgot to be afraid.
He splashed his face, and when he looked up, the light caught the curve of his jaw, the line of his throat, the faint scar that ran just beneath his collarbone. Her heart betrayed her.
He saw it. Of course he saw it. His gaze held hers, steady, unreadable.
“You’d stand beside me,” he said quietly. “After everything your kind has done.”
“My kind,” she echoed. “You mean humans.”
He nodded.
She straightened. “I’d stand beside whoever stops this war before it devours both our worlds.”
“You think peace is possible?”
