The air reeks of iron.
I grip the reins tighter as my warhorse charges forward, hooves pounding over mud slick with blood. The world has shrunk to sound and movement—the clash of steel, the screams of dying men, the ragged rhythm of my breath beneath the weight of armor.
Smoke rises from the hills, thick and black. Arrows whistle through the air like shrieking ghosts. The ground trembles with every gallop. A torn banner snaps somewhere to my right; our silver gryphon, mud-dulled, still refuses to bow.
“Hold formation!” my left-hand captain bellows. “Shields high! Push through their flank—don’t let them scatter you!”
I spare him a heartbeat’s glance—his silver cuirass flares under the ashen sky—then lower my sword and drive in.
The enemy surges like a black tide. Faces blur together—some fearful, some wild with desperation. I swing, feel the jolt run up my arms as my blade meets another. Sparks spit. Steel bites steel. The enemy falls; another rises to take his place. The noise is a sea that will not end.
“On me!” I shout, and a knot of our riders knits closer, hooves grinding bones to chalk. To my right, a boy no older than fifteen stares wide-eyed over his shield. I catch his gaze, nod once. “Breathe. Stay with me.” He swallows, steadies. We move.
Even the heavens seem to mourn—clouds low and heavy, their silence like judgment.
A flash cuts across my vision. Before I can raise the shield, something slams into my chest with brutal force—an arrow.
The impact empties my lungs. The plate holds, but the blow turns the world. My stallion rears, screaming, and the saddle vanishes from beneath me.
I hit the ground hard. The shock rattles my teeth; air deserts me in a burst of white.
For a moment, I can’t breathe.
Instinct drags me back. I roll, come up on a knee, sword raised. A soldier rushes from behind, roaring in a foreign tongue. I parry, twist, drive my blade in. His breath leaves him with a surprised grunt. He falls, eyes fixed on a sky that does not care.
My shoulder throbs; my ribs burn with each inhale. But bone holds. Brenno’s voice, gravel and winter-cold, threads through the din: Again, Aldric. A prince bleeds last.
“Not today,” I mutter, standing.
Another clash. Another face. A mace smashes my pauldron; a spear glances off my greave. The battle narrows to the next breath, the next stroke, the next step I refuse to surrender. Somewhere a horn fails mid-note, a dying swan. Somewhere a drummer keeps a heartbeat that insists I am not done.
Then something moves beneath me.
A hand—bloody, shaking—clamps my ankle and jerks. The world lurches sideways. Mud takes me down. My sword skids away, a streak of dull light in the filth.
A shadow looms. The heavy blade falls. I twist; the edge screeches over my shoulder plate, sparks kissing my jaw. I roll, reaching for my weapon, but the knight is faster. His knee crashes into my chest, iron crushing breath. The second strike cleaves into my armor.
Pain detonates white-hot. The plate splits with a groan and a pop; I feel the kiss of steel through meat. The world narrows to red and noise.
And then—something else. A flicker. A whisper cutting through the thunder. Not from here.
I freeze even as pain eats through me. For an instant the field blurs, and another image sears the dark behind my eyes: a little girl, fevered and crying, a tremor in each breath.
Mira. The name arrives before thought. Her fear knifes through me: small, bright, real. The shock of knowing hits harder than any blade.
“Lara…” The prayer leaves me without permission.
Weakness leaves with it.
I trap the knight’s sword wrist before he can finish me. With my other hand I shove, hips twisting, legs driving. Something in my shoulder tears anew; the pain is a sun. I do not care.
He grunts, surprised, weight shifting. I drive my knee under his ribs. Something gives.
My fingers close on my sword’s hilt, slick with mud. I drag it up.
“For her,” I hiss, and thrust.
He gasps. His eyes go wide and very young. Then he sags, armor clanging, blood blooming into the mud like ink meeting water.
For a heartbeat, there is only breath and the clatter of distant iron. My vision swims. Edges soften. I taste copper and smoke. But my feet find the ground; my back finds its shape; my hand remembers the weight of a king’s blade.
“Prince!” someone calls, rough with fear. “They’re breaking left!”
I look—and see it: a ripple in the black tide, a seam splitting. My men falter, waiting on something I have not given them.
I raise the sword. Every muscle shakes. Fire bands my ribs. I force breath into a voice the field can hear.
“FORM ON ME!” The order tears the fog. Helmets turn. Backs straighten. “Drive the wedge! Now!”
We hit like a hammer. Shields lock. Hooves churn. The enemy line folds, stumbles, runs. A captain on the far ridge lifts his banner to rally—and I see, suddenly and absolutely, that one more charge won’t end this. One more charge will only salt the earth with boys I will have to bury.
I hear Brenno again, but the words are mine. Enough.
I heave the blade high, throat raw. “WAR IS OVER!”
The shout rips across the field, louder than steel, larger than me.
A knight of mine turns, stunned. “Your High—”
“THE WAR IS OVER!” I bellow, pointing the sword to earth. “LAY DOWN!”
For a breath, the world holds. Then weapons fall—first one, then many—thudding into mud like rain beginning. The enemy surrenders in ragged pockets; others throw their shields and run. My soldiers answer with a roar that shakes the smoke.
A girl with a dented helm is crying and laughing at once. The boy I steadied earlier sags to his knees, alive and shocked by it. On the ridge, the captain lowers his banner without being told. Somewhere a single crow complains at the silence we’re stealing back.
I let go.
The sword drops from my fingers, vanishing in the muck. My knees follow. The sky tilts, turning the world to slate. Hands catch at me—gauntlets, leather, the rough drag of fear.
“He’s bleeding!” someone shouts by my ear. “Get the prince off the field!”
“Hold pressure—gods, that plate’s split—”
Voices blur. Faces smear. The clouds lose their edges.
In the gray between beats, a child’s voice threads through, soft and insistent. Papa…
My heart stumbles and leaps. “Mira…” Air fails. “Lara…”
I reach for them into nothing. Darkness closes a careful hand.
The last thing I see is the ring of my own knights bending over me, their mouths moving in vows I cannot hear, as the world goes quiet and black at last.