Dawn comes grey and slow through the broken roof.
I must have sleep briefly without meaning to, because I come back to awareness with my cheek against the stone floor and my arms aching from the angle. Two of Malrec's men are awake near the doorway. The other two are somewhere behind me.
Then I hear it.
Outside — a sound that doesn't belong to the morning. A guard going quiet too fast. Then another sound, closer, the scrape of boots on stone moving with purpose rather than patrol rhythm.
The men near the doorway stand up.
A fight erupts from the direction they're facing — fast, violent, the crack of impact and someone going down hard. The two men behind me move forward, and for a moment I'm alone in my corner of the ruin, and I get to my knees.
Malrec comes out of the shadows.
He grabs the back of my collar and hauls me upright before I'm fully balanced, his arm locking across my chest from behind.I feel the cold edge of a blade at my throat — thin, steady, held with a controlled grip.
He pulls me backward, toward the far wall, away from the fight sounds.
Then he raises his voice.
"Nyrius."
40
NYRIUS
Malrec's voice carries through the ruin.
I step over the last of his men — Cyran's work, efficient and final — and come through the broken doorway into the main chamber.
He has her against the far wall. Arm across her chest, blade at her throat, standing half in shadow with a posture that says he’s thought of everything. Edria is upright, chin level, her bound wrists pulling her arms behind her at an uncomfortable angle. Her eyes find me immediately.
"Put it down," I say.
"You'll let me leave." His voice is still, remarkably, pleasant. "You and your captain, both. You'll let me walk out of this region with a head start, and you'll spend the next week explaining to the court why you didn't stop me. In exchange, she lives." He presses the blade slightly closer. "And the child."
Cyran is at my left, three paces back. Two of Malrec's remaining men are somewhere in the ruin behind me — I heard them a moment ago, which means they heard us. I track the acoustics of the space and don't move my eyes from Malrec's face.
"You came back for this," I say. "After everything. You had a chance to run and you came back."
"I came back to finish what should have been finished at the sentencing." His composure finally cracks, just at the edges. "You ruined all of my careful work because you couldn't stay away from a blacksmith. Everything I built, every arrangement, every alliance — gone. Because of her." He tips his head toward Edria. "It seemed fair that she pay for it."
I keep his eyes. "You're right that I won't let you leave."
"Then she?—"
"Edria."
She moves.
Her heel comes down on his foot with every pound of force she has, and Malrec's grip breaks for one involuntary second as he lurches sideways. She drops her weight and twists away from the blade, and he stumbles, and I cross the distance between us in three strides.
He brings the knife up. I catch his wrist and we go down hard together onto the stone floor, the impact jarring up through my shoulder. He's stronger than he looks — desperation does that — and he drives his elbow into my ribs before I get control of the arm.
Behind me I hear Cyran engaging the remaining two men. In front of me I have Malrec's blade hand and his free hand clawing at my face and the cold stone floor and my own heartbeat loud in my ears.
I get his wrist against the floor and lean my weight on it. He bucks. The blade skitters loose. I reach for it and he gets one hand free and grabs my collar, using the leverage to flip our positions, and for a moment I'm underneath him with his full weight on my chest.
He pulls something from his boot. A second blade, shorter, already moving.
