79 lines
No EOL
4.6 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
No EOL
4.6 KiB
Markdown
Hours later the wind had softened, but the cold had only deepened.
|
||
|
||
They’d made camp beneath a bent pine, its boughs heavy with frost, shielding them from the worst of the weather. Snow still drifted in slow spirals, but the howling had stopped, as if the Mourning Peaks themselves were holding their breath. A ring of stones had been cleared, a fire coaxed from bitter roots and broken shields. It crackled low, casting long shadows over tired faces.
|
||
|
||
Captain Enric lay beneath two cloaks, pale and sweating. Blood had soaked through the bandage across his ribs and frozen at the edges. Each breath came sharp, rattling, like steel dragged across slate. He should have been dead already, but the man was stubborn.
|
||
|
||
So was Telaryn.
|
||
|
||
She knelt beside him, a flask of warmed snowmelt in her hands, the firelight flickering across her drawn features. The others had given her space. Even Alisha stood back, watching with red-rimmed eyes. No one spoke. Not yet.
|
||
|
||
Enric’s eyes cracked open. “Still here, then?”
|
||
|
||
Telaryn managed a ghost of a smile. “You never were good at letting go.”
|
||
|
||
He coughed, then laughed—a dry, broken sound. “And you... were always too proud to run. Glad that’s changing.”
|
||
|
||
She didn’t answer. Just held the flask to his lips. He drank, then winced.
|
||
|
||
After a long silence, he reached into the folds of his torn coat and pulled something out—clutched tight in a shaking hand.
|
||
|
||
A pendant. Worn leather, knotted around a flat stone etched with a sunburst—**her father’s signet**, carved from riverstone and polished by years of wear.
|
||
|
||
“He gave it to me,” Enric said, voice cracked and low. “Said if he fell, it was yours. Said... you’d know what to do with it.”
|
||
|
||
She stared at it for a long moment, then took it with both hands.
|
||
|
||
The weight of it was wrong—far too heavy for something so small. She bowed her head.
|
||
|
||
“He trusted you,” Enric rasped. “So do I. Don’t waste it mourning us. Don’t waste it trying to be the queen your mother was. Be the weapon we needed when we still had walls.”
|
||
|
||
“Enric...” Her throat tightened. “I’m not ready.”
|
||
|
||
“No one ever is,” he said. “But you’ve got fire, Ryn. You’ve got... more than blood in your veins. You’ve got the mountain in you. The city. Don’t forget it.”
|
||
|
||
His eyes began to dim. His grip loosened.
|
||
|
||
“I’d like to see the dawn,” he whispered. “But if I don’t... make it hurt, Telaryn. Make the bastards bleed.”
|
||
|
||
Then, like snow on stone, he was gone.
|
||
|
||
She sat there long after the fire had burned low, the pendant cold in her hand. At some point, Alisha came to her side. Said nothing. Just stayed.
|
||
|
||
As the light broke—grey and hollow—they built the cairn together. Stone by stone. No words were spoken. No rites recited. Only the sound of rock settling on stillness, and the memory of a voice that had once commanded a hundred blades.
|
||
|
||
When it was done, they stood in silence.
|
||
|
||
The cairn rose waist-high—rough, uneven stone darkened with frost and soot. No marker. No name. Just the weight of memory pressed into rock.
|
||
|
||
Telaryn stepped back, her breath curling like smoke into the pale morning air. Her hands were scraped raw from the work. Her knees ached. But she felt... quiet. Not at peace, not yet—but grounded, like the stone beneath her feet.
|
||
|
||
She turned slightly—and Alisha was there.
|
||
|
||
Wrapped in her threadbare cloak, snow in her hair, eyes red and shining.
|
||
|
||
For a moment, neither said anything. Then Alisha stepped forward. Slowly. Gently. She reached up and brushed a streak of ash from Telaryn’s cheek with the back of her fingers.
|
||
|
||
“You always carry it all,” Alisha murmured. “Like the mountain. Like stone.”
|
||
|
||
Ryn tried to smile. “If I drop it, it might crush me.”
|
||
|
||
Alisha’s fingers lingered at her jaw. “Then let me carry some.”
|
||
|
||
Ryn’s breath caught—just for a heartbeat.
|
||
|
||
She didn’t pull away.
|
||
|
||
The kiss was soft. Chaste. But it held something fierce beneath it—a promise unsaid, a thread drawn tight between them in a world fraying at the edges.
|
||
|
||
When they parted, Alisha rested her forehead to Ryn’s, eyes closed.
|
||
|
||
“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.
|
||
|
||
Ryn nodded, just once. The weight of the pendant still rested against her chest, but it no longer felt cold.
|
||
|
||
She stood before the cairn, breath misting in the dawn, and whispered one promise: “I will not stop. Not until the Empire knows our name again.”
|
||
|
||
They turned and the others were waiting. They had a long walk ahead—and a city in the mountains that still flew the old banners. She looked back to the cairn one last time. Winter’s Edge waited. The climb was not yet done.
|
||
|
||
But at last, her hands no longer trembled. |