Her blades flash in the dim light, one catching the silver-haired woman’s sword arm, the other driving toward her throat. The woman blocks—barely—and the two of them spin apart, circling each other in the blood-soaked ravine while I pull the bolt from my shoulder and feel the forest begin to heal me.
“Crowe.” The silver-haired woman spits the name like a curse. “I should have known you’d betray us.”
“I didn’t betray anyone.” Xela doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t give her opponent time to recover. “The contract was for one orc. Not for suicide against an entire forest.”
“The contract was to open the way. Your job was to find the weak points, identify the defenses, lead us to the heart.” The woman blocks another strike, counterattacks with a thrust that Xela sidesteps easily. “Instead, you’re fighting beside the target. Protecting the very thing we came to claim.”
“Plans change.”
They clash in a ring of steel that echoes off the ravine walls. The silver-haired woman is skilled—trained, disciplined, dangerous. But Xela is different. Feral and focused and utterly without mercy.
She fights like she’s been waiting her whole life for this moment. Like every contract, every hunt, every kill has been practice for the violence she’s unleashing now.
Xela kills the woman and stands over the corpse, breathing hard, her blades dripping. In the dim light filtering through the canopy, she looks like a figure out of legend—a warrior-goddess painted in crimson, beautiful and terrible and utterly devastating.
Want.
I want her. Want in a way I haven’t wanted anything since before the binding. Want that makes the King’s whispers seem quiet by comparison.
She looks up at me, and whatever she sees in my expression makes her go still.
We standin the ravine surrounded by bodies.
The dead lie scattered across the killing ground—hunters who came to claim a power beyond their understanding, silenced before they could carry their knowledge back to their masters. The blood is everywhere—soaking into the soil, dripping from the vines, pooling in the hollows between exposed roots. The forest drinks it greedily, and I can feel the power flowing through the binding.
But the King isn’t my focus right now. Can’t be.
Xela is.
She hasn’t moved from her position over the silver-haired woman’s body. The wound on her arm is bleeding freely, crimson running down her sleeve and dripping from her fingers to join the blood already saturating the ground. She’s breathing hard, her hair has come loose from its practical cut, and her eyes are locked on mine.
“You fight well.” The words come out rough, inadequate for what I actually want to say.
“You sound surprised.” She doesn’t look away. Doesn’t wipe the blood from her blades. Just stands there, watching me with an intensity that makes my skin feel too tight.
“I’m surprised you fight at my side.” I move closer, stepping over bodies without looking down. “The contract still stands. You could have let them weaken me. Finished the job yourself.”
“I could have.” No denial. No justification. Just honest acknowledgment of a path not taken. “Maybe I still will.”
We’re near enough now that I can smell her beneath the blood and sweat—her scent, vital and fierce, cutting through the death-stench of the ravine. I can see her pulse beating rapid in her throat.
“You won’t.” I don’t know why I’m so certain. Don’t know why the words come out like a statement of fact rather than wishful thinking.
“Confident.”
“Observant.” I reach out, my hand hovering near her wounded arm without quite touching. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.” Her gaze flicks to my shoulder, where the bolt wound is still knitting closed. “The forest healing you?”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.” She doesn’t step back. Doesn’t break eye contact. “Does it hurt?”
“Everything hurts.” The admission slips out before I can stop it. “The binding, the containment, the constant pressure of theKing trying to break free. Pain stopped being notable a long time ago.”
“That’s an evasion.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
