The road east of Caelhold was a spine of dust and dried blood. Riven walked it alone, his boots leaving no prints, not because he was careful, but because the land had stopped noticing footsteps long ago.
Rebel fires had burned through the region days earlier, and now, the outpost on the ridge stood half-collapsed. Black smoke curled weakly from the ashes, and the air stank of scorched leather and piss. Buzzards circled lazily above.
Riven didn't pause. Not until he saw the bodies.
They were strung up on wooden frames — six of them. Guards, from the look of their armor. Their limbs dangled like broken marionettes. And below them, half-buried in shadow, someone was still alive.
A girl.
She was slumped against the post, wrists tied, blood crusted to her lip. Someone had tried to hang her, but the rope hadn't held. Her feet touched the ground — barely.
The scavengers around her didn't touch her. Too afraid, maybe. Or maybe they thought she was cursed.
Riven stepped forward. The crowd parted. No one said his name, but they recognized the blade — Ashwake.
He crouched beside the girl. Her eyes fluttered open, slow and suspicious. Brown, rimmed red. Her breath came shallow.
"You gonna kill me too?" she rasped.
"Not yet."
She laughed, or maybe coughed. It came out like both.
Riven cut the rope with a flick of his blade. She collapsed sideways, gasping. He shoved a flask into her hands.
"Drink. Or don't. Doesn't matter."
She drank.
-
They walked in silence. Or rather, she limped behind him, refusing to stay down.
"I'm not your damn nurse," Riven said after the third time she stumbled.
"Good. I hate needles."
He stopped. Turned. "You're going to die if you keep following me."
She met his eyes. No fear. Just empty, steady defiance.
"If you're killing kings, then I've nowhere better to be."
Riven didn't respond. He turned and kept walking.
That night, they camped beneath broken stone arches — a ruin from a time older than memory. Riven lit a fire. She didn't ask. Just sat.
When he rolled up his sleeve to clean a cut on his arm, she reached over, grabbed the cloth from his hand, and started cleaning it herself.
"Touch me again without asking, I'll break your fingers," he muttered.
"You said you weren't my nurse," she replied. "That doesn't mean I'm not yours."
Flashback:
The scream came from the east wing. His sister.
He was twelve. Running barefoot through the smoke, slipping in blood. His mother had shouted something. A guard grabbed him by the hair, dragged him back. He kicked, bit, screamed.
He saw them drag her by her wrists. She was screaming his name.
Then silence.
He woke beside the fire, breath ragged. The girl — Nyra, she had said her name was — was already awake. Sitting. Watching the flames.
"You scream in your sleep," she said. "Names, mostly."
He didn't reply.
"You're not the only one with ghosts."
He glanced at her.
"I buried mine," he said. "Now I'm digging them back up."
She looked at the fire. "Then let's start shoveling."
Riven didn't tell her she could stay.
But he didn't tell her to leave either.