[Aldric’s POV]
Prepared the infants as bait. My children. I surged to my feet, voice rising before I could temper it.
“Form ranks!” I barked to the nearest guards. “Double the perimeter—shields high, archers concealed. No one leaves this ridge without my command.”
Soldiers snapped to attention instantly, scattering into motion. Orders cut through the air: sharpening blades, moving packs, securing mounts. The camp came alive in a moment.
But inside me, everything tightened. If Blackharrow had arranged this trap… if he dared use the children—
“Stop.” Rowan’s voice broke through the chaos. “Aldric—stop.”
I turned on him, eyes burning. “This is not the moment to restrain me.”
“It is exactly the moment,” he shot back. “You’re about to lead your soldiers straight into Blackharrow’s jaws.”
“I will not sit idle while he positions my children as bait—”
“You will have no children left to save if you charge blindly!” Rowan snapped.
Silence fell around us—soldiers freezing mid-step, glancing between us. Rowan and I stood chest to chest. I saw the challenge in his stance, the resolve burning behind his eyes. This wasn’t insubordination.
It was desperation. And I hated—truly hated—that he was right to be afraid.
Seraphine stepped forward then, slipping between us in a swift, decisive movement. Her presence cut through the tension like a blade through cloth.
“Both of you,” she said. “Enough.”
Her voice—steady, controlled—stilled the air more effectively than my shouting. I looked at her. Rowan did too.
She stood firm despite the tremor in her hands. “We cannot charge,” she said quietly. “And we cannot wait. We go in as planned. At night. Disguised.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she lifted a hand.
“Listen to me. Elowen knows your routines. She knows your patrol patterns, your signals, the way you breathe in a fight. If she’s helping them set the trap, then she’s also given us our way through it.”
Rowan blinked. “You want to angle the infiltration around the knowledge Elowen thinks she has.”
“Yes,” Seraphine said. “Use her familiarity against her. She expects you”—she looked at Aldric—“to rush in with force. She expects Rowan to slip in through shadows. She expects me to stay behind.”
She turned slightly, looking between us. “So, we do none of what she expects.”
I folded my arms. “You think we can outmaneuver a woman who’s been studying us for months?”
“I think we must,” she said.
The tremor in her voice wasn’t fear; it was fury: controlled, cold, and sharpened to a point.
“We infiltrate at night,” she repeated. “All three of us. Me disguised as a healer. Rowan as a guard escort, and you as a cloaked commander. No banners or armors to shine in moonlight. We move like ghosts.”
Rowan nodded slowly. “It… could work.”
“It will work,” Seraphine said. “Because we don’t have the luxury of failure.”
I wanted to protest. To say she couldn’t go. But the look on her face left no room for argument: This was a mother speaking. Fire and ice swirled painfully in my chest.
Rowan broke the silence. “We follow her plan.”
I shot him a look. “I do not take orders from you.”
“You take them from her,” Rowan said. “And she’s right.”
Seraphine’s gaze held mine—unwavering, unyielding. “Please,” she said quietly. “Let me do this.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and exhaled. “Fine. We infiltrate at night, under disguise. No deviations.”
Her shoulders sagged—but not with weakness. With determination.
***
Night dropped fast in the mountains, swallowing the sky in jagged streaks of charcoal. We waited in silence at the base of a cliff.
Snow crunched under the hooves of a tethered horse. Rowan adjusted his cloak and checked the hidden knives he always carried. Seraphine stood wrapped in a plain healer’s hood, herbs crushed in her palms to mask her scent.
Even like that—hooded, cloaked, disguised—she glowed in the moonlight like something forged from starlight and resolve. I could not tear my gaze away.
“Remember,” Rowan murmured, low enough that only we heard, “Elowen will be expecting movement from the south path. We go east, through the narrow switchback. Less guarded.”
I nodded. Seraphine took her place between us, head bowed, posture mimicking a servant. Rowan moved to her right; I took her left. We stepped together into the cold, toward the stone passage that would take us within the stronghold’s outer ring.
Every heartbeat thrummed with tension. Every crunch of snow felt too loud.
My hand tightened around the hilt of my concealed dagger. Seraphine breathed shallowly beneath her hood, her fingers trembling but steadying each time she brushed the herbal pouch at her belt.
We were close. Too close.
The stronghold loomed above, torches like watchful eyes. Voices drifted faintly—low, gruff, punctuated by laughter that grated across my nerves.
We reached a narrow ledge. Rowan motioned for silence, then pointed up the slope toward a carved-out recess—an entry point. I nodded.
Seraphine followed between us, gripping our arms as the terrain grew steeper. Once, her foot slipped; I steadied her instantly. She didn’t look up, but I felt her breath catch.
We rounded the final bend. I was about to signal the next step when Seraphine stiffened.
Her hand flew to my sleeve. “Aldric,” she whispered.
I froze. “What?”
She stared upward, past the rock formations, past the torches. “Listen.”
I strained my ears. For a moment there was nothing, but then a sound drifted down the mountainside, faint and thin as smoke.
A cry. A baby’s cry. My heart stopped.
Seraphine swayed. “That’s one of them,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I know it. I—”
The cry came again—weak, heart-wrenching, and unmistakable.
One of the twins. Alone and terrified. Seraphine’s hand clenched around my cloak so tightly she shook.
“They’re close,” she whispered. “Aldric—Rowan—they’re right there.” Her voice cracked into a sob she tried to strangle.
That cry—echoing through the cold, jagged night—ripped through every wall I had ever built. And in that very moment, nothing in the world mattered but reaching them before the sound stopped.