The world had already hurt him.
Ronyn refused to become the kind of man who passed that hurt on to everyone else. But he never missed the truth. It forced itself down his throat every night. Memories of his parents, strung up and blue. Memories of an infant brother ripped from the arms of his arrested mother. Memories of a humble but real home, warmed by a modest hearth. He used to visit it from time to time on the way to a raid, watched the next family make a life in it.
There is no denying that pain and grief exist right down to the core of him. But he’d be damned if he’d let it define him.
The world had already taken enough from him.
It didn’t get to take the rest of his life too.
Jax wears her pain like armor—every snarl, every needless jab, every fight she starts just to make sure no one gets close enough to see the wound underneath.
He sees it—and gods help him, he still wants her.
All of her. Wants to hold her until she remembers touch doesn’t have to hurt. Wants to please her until she believes not everyone is out to take. Wants to give her something she’s forgotten how to accept.
But she won’t let him.
Won’t even let him close enough to try.
So he hasn’t gone looking for her.
Hasn’t gone to the tavern.
Hasn’t gone to the inn.
Hasn’t gone anywhere except the forge and the cot in the corner of Orrin’s humble lodgings.
The sun rises over Vyrhal the same way it always does—slow and red through the haze of ash that hangs permanently over the valley. Ronyn is already working when it does, sweat running down his back as he drags the whetstone across a blade.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Like he can grind away the heaviness in his chest.
Steel sings beneath the stone, the sound sharp and steady.
It’s the same rhythm Revryn taught him years ago. The rhythm that lives in every good weapon.
Work the edge.
Test the balance.
Feel the blade.
Ronyn channels every ounce of rage and grief and rejection into the metal in his hands. Into the hammer strikes. Into the long hours bent over the forge beside Orrin.
Orrin, unfortunately, talks.
A lot.
Ronyn loves to flap his gums as much as the next man, but Orrin? He has no idea when to shut the fuck up.
Which makes him the perfect mark for Ronyn.
“Big day today, boy,” the old smith says for the fifth time that morning, wiping soot across his brow with the back of a meaty forearm.
