In the second year of the War of the Shattered Spears, eleven soldiers held a collapsed bridge crossing for four hours against a Varn force of two hundred while the allied column retreated. Seven of the eleven did not survive. The four who did were debriefed separately, as was standard procedure.
Three of the four gave identical accounts of the final hour: that a darkness had come from somewhere behind their line and moved forward into the Varn formation. That men had broken and run from it.
The fourth soldier said she had not seen anything unusual.
Her name was redacted from the official record. The other three accounts were filed under: phenomena, unclassified, and have not been retrieved since.
— The War of the Shattered Spears: A Military History. Compiled for the Cindorian Royal Archive.
“No! Don’t do it,” Veylith said the moment she saw Vaelra stepping out of the crowd and heading toward them. Kaelin and the others had gathered behind her, trying to see what was happening outside through the small viewing slit. The men checking the boats didn’t seem to have noticed her yet, but that wouldn’t last long.
Instead of moving diagonally toward their boat, Vaelra had turned directly toward the harbor and begun walking toward the first boat they were inspecting. As she approached the two officials who had taken the captain aside and were questioning him, she opened the front of her robe and moved her hands behind her back, toward her waist. By the time the officials realized she was approaching, they no longer had time to react. Just a step away from them, as the men who recognized her reached for the swords at their waists, Vaelra drew two short daggers and, in a single motion, slashed both of their throats. As the men collapsed to the ground, choking and writhing in pain, the captain’s terrified shout drew everyone’s attention. Vaelra turned toward the men rushing at her, the daggers in her hands still dripping with blood, and continued walking forward without hesitation, without the slightest trace of fear on her face. Behind her, the men she had cut down died where they lay.
By the time Tarr’en understood what had happened at the far end, his men were already running toward Vaelra. He had fallen behind—not as fast as they were—and trying to move through the panicking crowd was no different from swimming against a current.
Inside the boat, Kaelin and Ravah both moved for the hatch at the same time, but Veylith turned toward them and shouted, “No!” Kaelin, not understanding, looked at her, while Ravah shouted, “She can’t take them alone.”
“I know,” Veylith said in a lower voice. “She knows that too.”
“Then why are we just standing here?” Kaelin snapped, anger rising in a way none of them had expected from her.
“She’s doing it for us,” Tivver cut in. “So we can get away.”
Kaelin paused, her anger faltering for a moment, then looked at Tivver before turning back to Veylith. “So this is acceptable to you? That she sacrifices herself for us, and we just leave her behind like it doesn’t matter—”
“Don’t,” Veylith cut her off sharply. The others had never seen her this angry before. “Don’t start thinking you care about her more than I do. If you think you can join us for two days and start lecturing us about morality, think again. You can only imagine how many times I’ve trusted that woman with my life, or how much trouble I’ve gotten into for her. So don’t.”
Kaelin was caught off guard by the force of that reaction, her anger immediately subdued. She could see in Veylith’s eyes how much Vaelra meant to her. She didn’t answer in the same tone, but there was still something she couldn’t keep inside. “We can’t just leave her like this.”
“I know,” Veylith said, but there was defeat in her expression. “But even if we take down the men with her, there’s nowhere we can run. More support will come from the city, and even if we get on a boat and push out, we’ll be chased.”
“So what, we just watch from here?” Kaelin asked, her voice now lower, heavier.
No one answered. They all knew there was no way out of this.
Darian, who had said nothing this whole time, kept watching her through the slit. He looked crushed, as if betrayed, yet the tightness in his jaw showed there was anger there too. Finally, he stopped watching. Turning his back to the panel, he leaned against the hull of the boat, pressing one hand flat against the wood as if trying to feel its heartbeat. His eyes drifted into emptiness. The sounds from outside—shouting, the sharp clash of metal, the thud of something striking the dock—reached them muffled and distorted, like voices heard through a wall when you don’t want to understand what they’re saying.
When a particularly heavy impact sounded from outside, his hand pressed harder against the hull, but he didn’t turn around.
Ravah, still watching through the small slit, said nothing for a long time. Then, quietly, almost to herself, she murmured, “Still standing.”
It didn’t comfort anyone, but she still felt they needed to hear it. Tivver, standing beside her, exhaled sharply through his nose. “Of course she is,” he said, though his usual tone was gone.
After a moment, Ravah spoke again without taking her eyes off the scene. “I’ve seen her come out of worse.” But she sounded as if she were saying it more to herself than to anyone else. No one responded. They all knew that wasn’t the point.
The first man who reached Vaelra lunged at her with his sword, but she pivoted in place with a quick movement, evading the strike and, as she passed him, drove her dagger into his back. As the man dropped to his knees in pain, Vaelra’s expression didn’t change, and she kept walking. This time, two men attacked her at once—one with a spear, the other with a sword. She blocked the sword strike and managed to bring her dagger up to the man’s throat, but in doing so she took a deep cut along her arm, though she showed no sign of noticing it. Turning the man she held at knifepoint toward the direction of the other attacker, the spear thrust meant for her struck the captive instead. Using him as a shield, she threw the dagger in her other hand at the man with the spear, who had no protection beyond it, and struck him square in the chest. Then, with a swift motion, she slit the throat of the man she held and let him drop. Her face almost expressionless, she stepped toward the man writhing on the ground with her dagger embedded in his chest, pulled the blade free, flicked off the excess blood, and left him to die, releasing a breath as if she had been holding it for some time. Then she began walking again, calmly.
The younger of the fisherman’s children—a solid girl, perhaps thirteen—had been watching them since they came down. She hadn’t said a single word. Sitting on a coil of rope near the hatch, she stood there as if on watch, fortunately unaware of what was happening outside. It was clear she was curious about the sounds, but she didn’t leave her place. When her brother appeared at the hatch, the paleness of his face immediately caught her attention. He opened it and called down, “Father says—”
“I heard,” Veylith cut him off. “Untie the ropes. Now.”
The boy hesitated for a second, then closed the hatch and disappeared. Soon after, the sound of ropes dragging against wood could be heard, and the boat shifted beneath them. The others looked at her as if the same thought had crossed all their minds.
Within a few minutes, the small-framed woman had killed five Wardens with two short blades, and that alone was enough to slow the others approaching her. Even so, despite their hesitation, they knew they could bring her down with a coordinated attack, and Vaelra hadn’t fully frightened them. Not yet. The reason she hadn’t played her final card was that she was waiting for the right moment. One eye remained on the boat where the others were hiding, and at last she saw the movement she had been waiting for. With the young deckhands untying the ropes, and the attention of the men in the harbor scattered, the boat could now leave.
One last push, Vaelra thought, trying to drive herself forward, and this time she fixed the men who were beginning to surround her more cautiously with a deadly gaze. Then, in an instant, her eyes turned white and a dark shadow began to grow around her. The men who saw it immediately took a few steps back. Now she was certain—she had all of their attention. Nothing outside of her could hold their focus, at least not for a while. That had been the goal all along.
The shadow was not as terrifying as it was in the darkness of night; under daylight its effect was weaker. But it was still more than enough to become the most frightening thing in the harbor.
Tarr’en, who had been advancing toward her, could not help but hesitate at the sight. He had never seen a power like this before, and not knowing what it was capable of was one of the things that irritated him the most. Seeing his men hesitate in the face of it only turned it into a problem he would have to solve himself. After taking a deep breath, he muttered, “Let’s see what you’ve got,” and continued walking forward.
Vaelra knew she had to maintain their hesitation for as long as possible. That was why she wasn’t attacking or trying to expand the shadow further—she only needed to remain frightening. But suddenly she began to feel a pressure on her, as if something had taken hold of her and started to squeeze. The shadow flickered, her legs began to tremble, and it didn’t take her long to understand what was happening.
When Tarr’en appeared from behind the men, the people in front of him parting to give him way, he was emitting a faint gray light—not as intense as Vaelra’s, and not spreading across a wide area, but it stood like a natural counter, a rival force against the threat before them. Seeing him gave the men a measure of courage. As he approached, Vaelra could feel the pressure increasing, her ability to move gradually slipping away. What she felt was not exactly physical force but something that suppressed her movements. She wanted to move, to take a step, but it was as if she no longer knew how. She couldn’t send commands to her own body. Even when she did, the command seemed to vanish somewhere between her mind and the ground. Her own body felt like something foreign to her.
Without increasing his pace, Tarr’en continued advancing, feeling his power grow more effective the closer he got. After a few more steps, he was certain she would no longer be able to move. But then he hesitated, because the woman, strained as she was, took a step toward him—and lifted her foot again for another. Tarr’en had never encountered anyone who could resist his power at this distance. Each time he reapplied his pressure, she would falter, but then, within moments, she would begin moving again. How can you remember something you’ve forgotten? he thought, the confusion clearly reflected in his expression.
Continuing to renew his power again and again, he closed the distance between them. When he was only a few steps away, he managed to force her down onto one knee, but he couldn’t go any further. At this range, he could normally crush a person’s breath and suffocate them, yet this woman kept resisting him. If he lost focus, she might even strike him, he realized. Kneeling on one knee, Vaelra still looked up at him with her glowing white eyes and that terrifying shadow, and she knew she could still unsettle him.
“Grab her!” Tarr’en suddenly shouted at the men watching, his anger sharp and unexpected.
The men moved at once, and two of them approached her cautiously, pulling out strange-looking restraints. They were metal shackles—two smaller ones and a wider one—connected with chains and locks, but what stood out most were the symbols carved into them. Vaelra recognized them immediately as one of the script-based tools used by the Ledger; she had seen them before.
“Quick!” Tarr’en shouted again, sweat beginning to form.
One of the men locked the smaller shackles around her wrists while the other fastened the larger one around her neck. The moment they secured the chains, Vaelra’s eyes returned to normal and the shadow shrank and disappeared. Tarr’en felt the resistance vanish and finally relaxed, gradually lowering and cutting off his power. Vaelra became aware again of the dock beneath her knee, of the blood running down her wounded arm—something she had stopped feeling minutes ago—and of the men closing in on her from every side.
Grabbing her roughly, Tarr’en demanded, “Where is the girl?” His eyes held both anger and unease at once, and that was enough for Vaelra to understand just how dangerous he could be. But she also knew how to use that against him.
“Right here, darling,” Vaelra replied, her tone almost flirtatious, and then blew him a kiss with a knowing look.
“Where are they? Talk!” he shouted again, this time grabbing the collar around her neck and pulling her toward him hard enough to choke her.
Seeing his anger rising, Vaelra understood she could play with him, at least a little. And she knew very well that the best way to distract someone or force them into a mistake was exactly this—to get under their skin, to press every nerve.
“Oh yes, keep going,” she said, though she was struggling to breathe. “You know I’m a bad girl. Maybe a spanking would work. What do you think?”
“You fucking bitch!” Tarr’en snarled, shoving her away by the collar and throwing her toward the men. “Get her out of my sight!”
As the men dragged her away by the arms, Vaelra laughed, behaving like someone completely unhinged. “What about a whip? I’m sure then we’d both get what we want, darling—what do you say?” she called out, still pressing every one of his nerves.
Tarr’en, his composure slipping, turned sharply to his men. “No one leaves! Search every boat—shut down the harbor if you have to!”
Hearing that, Vaelra let out one final shout. “Too late, sweetheart.”
In that brief moment after she spoke, Tarr’en turned to look at the boats that had already begun to leave the harbor, struggling to accept what had just happened, while Vaelra—who knew exactly where to look—watched their boat pulling away. Beneath her mask, a faint smile slipped through, proud but bitter.
I hope you don’t do something stupid and waste all of this, she thought, as if speaking to them.
Forgive me.
…
Above them, boots struck the dock planks in quick, urgent rhythms. Through the gaps in the wood, broken light fell across the water in thin strips.
“You do realize this is completely stupid, right?” Tivver said to the others.
“Of course,” Veylith replied on behalf of all of them. “Do you have something to add?”
“No. Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.”
Kaelin looked at him and smiled. Along with the others, she was holding onto the dock posts in the shallow water. The cold seeped into their clothes as they kept watching the boat from there until it became nothing more than a silhouette, then a sail, and finally nothing at all.
Veylith’s jaw was tense, as if she were carrying the weight of choosing the wrong thing between what she did and what she should have done. Ravah, with a body that didn’t need effort to stay above water, was helping Tivver and Darian keep themselves afloat. Kaelin looked at all of them and remembered the rule she had heard the night before. She held onto the wood and said nothing. While they watched the boat leaving without them, she watched them. Standing still, letting the water strike her body, she felt as if she were inside a quiet moment between two storms.
No sorry. No thank you.