I can sense her fear.
A group of male guards is herding a peasant woman from the marsh to the south towards the docks. There are a lot of them—five, no, six. They’re of varying heights and builds, but all of them are young. All of them are armed and wearing Nithyrian chainmail.
There are five of us, but only three of us are properly armed, and one of those people is barely mobile, still fighting off the effects of a sleep elixir.
I’ve seen Ronan take on this many people on his own, but most of those weren’t trained soldiers. Seth has had his legions on a punishing schedule of drills and maneuvers for months. Most of them haven’t seen battle yet and are itching for a fight.
The least risky thing for us to do would be nothing. We could leave the soldiers to it, waiting until they’re out of sight before making for the docks. Even if we can win this fight, the commotion could attract more soldiers. The patrols could arrive and severely outnumber us.
The entire camp could be alerted to our arrival.
But the woman. There’s just no way I can leave her to her fate. Even if I couldn’t feel her fear, even if I didn’t recognize it, remember feeling it myself, I couldn’t leave her.
I feel Ronan reach the same conclusion.
And then I grab Ronan’s arm as I notice one of the men is missing a hand.
It’s him. The brute who threatened me.
“Sylvie? What’s wrong?”
Ronan’s eyes snap to mine as he senses my feelings.
And then they darken.
“He hurt you,” he says, his voice strained.
“Not badly,” I whisper back, trying to soothe the anguish that threatens to consume him. “He tried. Seth stopped him. He took his hand—”
Ronan’s breath intakes sharply. “What was he trying to do to you?”
I don’t need to tell him. He can sense it in my feelings. He can sense it inherfeelings, the woman’s.
I have never seen a more venomous look on Ronan’s face. It’s pure loathing of a kind I barely thought him capable of. It’s unadulterated violence and danger, and it should be terrifying. On anyone else, it would be.
But when I see it in him, I’m not afraid.
I amproud.
This is the man I love. This is one of the things I love about him. It’s a dark part of him that I know frightens him, a part of him that is frightening him even now. I know he fears the pleasure he takes in vengeance; I know he worries that if he lets himself, he’ll fall back into the abyss that devoured him when his father died. When he let his desire to kill my father to avenge his own consume him. I can feel the strain that our time apart has put on him, how needing to save me has tested him and forced him to confront a part of himself he didn’t want to face again. A part he thought he’d buried or lost or forgotten.
But it’s still here, and it rises in righteous anger as the woman cries out.
“We can do this,” I tell him, taking a step closer to him and turning his face to mine. “Together. And when it’s done, I’ll help you find your way back to yourself.”
And then I’ll do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And as long as it takes until this war is won.
He nods, his face softening for just a moment at the sight of me before hardening again with fury.
“Ready?” he asks the others. Larus and Seth draw their swords. Taran draws the obsidian dagger.
I draw the knife.
And then I darken the shadows as we march forward, the woman’s fear clawing at my heart, but nothing but fight in my soul.
Chapter Fifteen
“What a night, am I right?” says Ronan loudly as he approaches first on his own, his voice not even disguised though he still wears a Nithyrian face. “What do you have there?”
