I become war.
I rip. I roar. I crush.
Until the moon starts to slip.
Until the edge wears off.
Until my body cracks again—and I fall.
Not like a tree, but like a cliff collapsing.
I hit the earth on my knees. My breath is fire. My bones grind like millstones. The world tilts.
Then she’s there.
River.
Her hands are on my face. My chest. My skin is mine again—sweat and blood and stone—but her hands don’t flinch.
She presses her forehead to mine, fingers trembling.
Neither of us speaks.
We just breathe.
And bleed.
And I feel her hand settle over my heart like it’s always belonged there.
27
RIVER
Smoke still hangs in the air like a ghost that won’t move on. It clings to my skin, my hair, settles into every crease of my uniform like it wants to become part of me. I’ve washed twice. Doesn’t matter. You don’t scrub off war. You carry it.
The battlefield’s quiet now—what’s left of it. Just bones, blood-stained mud, shattered war machines, and that haunting stillness that always comes after too much screaming. There’s a new sun clawing its way up the eastern sky, and it’s too bright, too clean. Doesn’t feel like it belongs here.
Neither do I.
The council gathers in what’s left of the Grand Rotunda in Kyrdonis, the domed ceiling now more bird’s nest than marble. Laertiez’s banners are gone—burned or pissed on, depending who got to them first. In their place: blank stone and smoke-smudged windows that catch the morning light just enough to make everything look more sacred than it deserves.
Skeela sits at the head of the table now, taller than I remembered, spine like a sword. Her new robe still smells like fire. She’s got elf nobles on her left, human officers on her right,and the look on her face says she’d rather be anywhere else but stuck between them.
And then there’s me.
I’m not in uniform. I wore leathers and kept my gun slung low on my hip, half on purpose, half out of habit. I sit by the wall, back to the stone, eyes on every exit. Always ready.
Rizzo’s there, of course—looking like someone’s carved a war memorial out of guilt and cigar smoke. His beard’s singed at the ends. His coat’s too big now, hanging off him like he lost more than weight in this fight. His eyes still have that gleam though—the one that burns like ambition and regret fucked and made a baby.
Someone says my name.
I blink and realize they’re looking at me. All of them. Even Skeela.
“We’d like you to join the new council,” she says. Her voice is calm, formal. Like this is a job interview and not the tail end of a bloodbath. “A liaison between humans and dark elves. A commander, if needed. You’d have full say in military?—”
“No,” I say.
It’s not loud. Doesn’t have to be.
