Every step sends pain through my wounded thigh, but I don't stop. Behind me, steel clashes — Venna holding the line, buying seconds with blood.
"I see you coming. Keep moving, don't slow down."
"Your wing — can you fly at all?" I talk to Aspis as I can’t leave my dragon in this condition.
"The membrane is torn, not destroyed. Short distances only, enough to get airborne or clear the immediate danger."
"What about escaping this position?"
"Enough to survive. Stop asking questions and keep running."
Fifteen yards, then ten. Aspis heaves upright, her damaged wing dragging against the stone.
"The bone holds intact. I can lift us both if you mount quickly."
"How high? How far before the wing fails?"
"Twenty feet, perhaps thirty, short bursts. It will hurt, but I can manage the pain long enough to get us clear."
"And after that?" I don’t even want to think about us losing.
"I do not know. We will learn together when the moment comes."
I grab the ridge of scales along her neck. My arms shake, and my wounded leg nearly buckles, but I pull myself onto her back.
"Hold tight. This will hurt us both, and I cannot catch you if you fall."
"Do it now before I lose my nerve."
"You are lying about being ready, but we have no time for honesty. Flying now."
Aspis lurches upward with a scream of effort. Her damaged wing beats once, twice — each stroke painful, the torn membrane straining. We rise.
"I cannot maintain this altitude for long. The wing is failing."
"Hold it as long as you can."
I look down. Venna is still at the gap — the natural chokepoint between two boulders that only admits one attacker at a time. She's positioned herself at a gate, holding it with everything she has left.
Two elite guards rush her position. Her blade catches the first across the throat, and she pivots into the second with a shield bash that sends him staggering. The return stroke opens his chest before he can recover.
She's slower now: movements deliberate rather than instinctive. A warrior who knows her body is failing and is choosing each action with terrible precision. The wound in her side is catastrophic — dark blood spreading across her leathers, dripping onto stone.
"We have to help her. Aspis, we have to go back—"
"I cannot do what you are asking. The wing will not sustain another landing and launch. If I go down now, I stay down."
"So we just hover here and watch her die?"
Aspis says nothing. There is nothing to say indeed.
Below, Venna cuts down another attacker. Her blade work is still precise, but the strength is fading. I can see it in the way she plants her feet: wider now, compensating for legs that want to buckle.
She hated me. She spent months trying to destroy everything I built. Why would she die for me?
Three fresh fighters move toward her position. They recognize what she's doing: holding the gap, preventing pursuit. They're willing to spend lives to break through.
The first one dies with her blade through his eye. The second locks swords with her, and while she's engaged, his partner drives a sword into her thigh. She staggers, and my breath catches.
But she doesn't fall. Her return stroke takes the partner's head clean off, and she shoves the locked blade aside with raw fury, opening the second man's belly.
Blood pools beneath her boots. Too much blood… The wound in her side has spread: her entire left flank is dark and wet now. Minutes at most, perhaps less.
I can't watch this, but I force myself to, because it's the least I can do.
Venna is framed against the rocky ground, a single figure in bloodstained leathers, holding a gap that should have required a dozen warriors. She's not fighting to win anymore, and she is not trying to survive. She's simply trying to stand long enough for her death to matter.
For us to escape, and for the gate to serve its purpose.
One more attacker rushes her. Her blade rises — slower now, so much slower — and catches him across the chest. Another follows. Block, strike, block. The movements are automatic, muscle memory carrying her through what conscious thought no longer can.
A Mintian blade finds her chest, and yet — she doesn't fall.
She steps back, braces her shoulders against the stone. The blade is still in her chest — I can see the hilt protruding, dark against her leathers. Venna looks down at it, then back up at the enemies before her.
She raises her sword.
The elite guard pushes forward, expecting her to collapse. But Venna doesn't give them the satisfaction. She stands against the stone with steel in her chest, and when the first attacker tries to push past her, she cuts him down.
How is she still standing? I suppose, it’s her will alone.
The body has failed her completely. She's holding the gate with nothing but stubbornness and fury — the same stubbornness and fury she aimed at me for months. Now it's pointed at the enemy, and it's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.
Another attacker. Another cut from her failing arm. Her sword moves slower with each exchange, but she holds the gap.
Smoke thickens around us: catapult fire spreading flames, wind carrying ash across the battlefield. My eyes water.
"Aspis, I can't see her through the smoke—"
"I cannot maintain this altitude much longer."
"Just a few more seconds, try, please."
The smoke shifts. For a single heartbeat, the gap is visible again.
Venna is still standing. Her sword is lowered now, tip resting against the ground, but she's braced against the stone, facing the enemy, blocking the gap with her body alone. The guard has stopped attacking. They're waiting for her body to fail.
She's not falling. Even now, she refuses to fall. Then the smoke closes again, and she's gone from my sight.
"Evelyn, we must go now. She died well, as well as any warrior could hope to die."
We find her afterward, when the battle ends and the smoke clears. We go back to the gap. Venna is still there — propped against the stone, hand on her sword, face turned toward the enemy she never let pass. The blade is still in her chest, and her eyes are open.
She died on her feet, exactly as she lived.
Dorian carries her body back. He doesn't speak, none of us do.
They tell me later that she said something before the end. A warrior from Torren's unit saw it from the ridge — Venna, braced against the stone, lips moving as the last of her strength faded.
Four words, spoken to no one and everyone: "I held the gate."