37 lines
No EOL
2.9 KiB
Markdown
37 lines
No EOL
2.9 KiB
Markdown
The storm had passed. The corpses did not remain long.
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Where Ashmire had struck, there were no bodies to burn—only ragged outlines scorched into the snow, dark stains that steamed and then blew away. The few slain by blade or arrow were laid in a rough cairn, stones stacked hastily with what strength remained.
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They gathered at the foot of the Keep's shadow, the shattered remains of Verrin's force strewn across the slope behind them. Blood stained their sleeves, their cheeks, their breath. But they lived.
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Eris sat on a broken pillar, her arm wrapped in linen soaked with melted snow and balm-ash paste. She had not taken her eyes off Telaryn once. When she finally spoke, it was with a reverence that sounded like fear.
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“She walks with the shadow of the Queen,” Eris murmured, her voice low. “The Nameless One has returned through her.”
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Sari knelt nearby, her storm-gray eyes searching the bruises on Weylan’s chest as she stitched a shallow gash. Her movements were deft, practiced. But her gaze, too, flickered often to Telaryn—who stood apart from them all, gazing at the blood-fed blade resting now against her shoulder like a slumbering wolf.
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“The spirits are no longer afraid of her,” Sari said. “They listen. Even the wind holds its breath.”
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“She isn’t just like her,” Eris added. “She is her.”
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Halven sat farther off, scribbling with a trembling hand into a battered field book. His glasses were cracked, and dried blood caked one temple, but he hadn’t stopped writing since the battle ended. Maps, fragments of names, hastily scrawled spirit signs—trying to make sense of what they had seen.
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“She’s not what I thought we needed,” he said, voice dry and low. “Not a queen to inspire songs or gather councils. But...” He looked toward Telaryn. “She may be the only one the Empire will fear.”
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Telaryn said nothing. She was wiping Ashmire clean with a strip of cloth that sizzled and blackened in her hands.
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Weylan limped toward her, his tunic torn, one arm in a sling. He stopped a few paces away, unsure whether to kneel or bow or simply speak. When she turned to him, her eyes still dark with the blade’s hunger, he did not flinch.
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“My lady,” he said, voice hoarse but clear. “Let me serve you. As squire. As sword-arm. As whatever you need.”
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She studied him for a long moment, and something in her gaze softened—just barely.
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“Then serve,” she said. “And don’t falter.”
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He nodded, fierce and proud and breathless. “I won’t.”
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She turned from him then, cloak shifting like smoke. A streak of bone-white now marbled her dark hair, curling above her temple like a frostbite scar kissed by the stars.
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No one said anything more. Not about the dead. Not about what they had become. The wind rose again, cool and sharp, and the Keep loomed behind them—silent, sealed.
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But Telaryn stood taller than she had before. And none among them could look away. |