Eryshae

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Vael

Emberhold Estate

The flames of Emberhold flickered behind them, casting warped shadows against the stone walls of the estate as Vael sprinted beside Mira through the lower corridors. Their boots struck the flagstones like drumbeats of defiance, sharp and unrelenting.

They had it.

The Titan's Amber was tucked away, tightly wrapped in ash-cloth and hidden in Mira's satchel. It pulsed faintly, even through the layers, like something asleep but dreaming of power.

Vael's breath came fast and hard, her ribs aching with each draw. Her body still bore bruises from her time in chains, and her arms trembled from the earlier fights, but adrenaline burned through her veins like wildfire, lighting up every nerve.

They burst through the final gate at the back of the estate, barely pausing as two guards rounded the corner. Mira dispatched one before he could even raise a blade, her daggers a whisper in the night. Vael ducked the second, sweeping his feet from under him and cracking his skull on the courtyard stones.

They didn't stop to check if he lived. The raccoons waited, their reins held by a cloaked stable attendant Mira had bribed earlier in the day. One of them gave a short, impatient chirrup, pawing at the ground.

Mira vaulted onto hers in one smooth movement, the satchel slung across her back. Vael followed suit, wincing slightly as her muscles protested. "Hold on!" Mira hissed. And with a sharp whistle, they were off.

The raccoons galloped like thunder through the winding side roads, moving with eerie silence for beasts so large. Their claws found purchase even on stone, and their tails streamed behind them like banners in flight.

Wind rushed against Vael's face, whipping her hair free from its bindings. The scent of smoke and moss filled her lungs. Trees blurred past as they reached the outer edge of Emberhold's domain.

For the first time in hours, she allowed herself to exhale.

They had the Amber.

They were alive.

But her mind flashed back to Sam, his final moment, the way he reached for her before falling. The golden light in his chest. The silence that followed.

Vael grit her teeth.

This wasn't over.

Not by a long shot.

The wind sang through the trees as the raccoon-mounts darted through the forested trail beyond the estate, quick, agile, weaving through brush and bramble with ease. Then came the sound of paws. Steel. Shouts in pursuit. Mira cursed under her breath, twisting slightly in her saddle to glance behind them. "Six riders. And fast."

Vael hissed through her teeth. "We're not going to outrun them on open ground." The woods thinned ahead into a long stretch of scorched trail, an old fire path cleared during last year's wild burn. No cover. No turns. Just a direct line through charcoal trees and broken stumps.

"They'll have a clean shot," Mira muttered, already unslinging her throwing knives. "Unless we make some noise." Vael twisted around just enough to see them, black-helmed riders in the Eberflame livery, surging like wolves, their mounts foaming at the mouth. One of them raised a horn.

"Not yet," Vael said sharply. "If they alert the rest of the turncoats, " The horn blew. The high-pitched blare tore across the landscape like a flare, a signal rising over the treetops.

"Damn it," Mira snarled. Behind them, the riders drew bows. The first arrow struck the earth near Vael's mount, sending it into a half-skip, half-lurch that nearly threw her from the saddle. Another glanced off Mira's shoulder guard.

Vael turned forward and shouted, "The break path to the right, up ahead, there's a gulch!" Mira nodded grimly. "We'll lose speed, but we might lose them too." They took the turn hard. Roots tore beneath clawed feet. Twigs lashed against their cheeks. The gulch appeared like a wound in the forest floor, jagged, narrow, steep.

Vael didn't hesitate. Her mount leapt. Mira followed. They dropped into the gully in a spray of leaves and loose stone, raccoons landing with practiced instinct as the terrain funneled them into a winding path hidden from the sky.

The trees closed above them again. Darkness thickened. The shouts behind them faltered. Vael's pulse thundered in her throat. She turned to Mira, breath ragged. "Is the Amber still secure?" Mira touched the satchel lightly, reverently. "Still here."

"Good." Vael's eyes hardened. "Because they're going to burn half the forest trying to get it back." From above, torches began to appear again along the ridgeline, more riders. Trained. Organized. Ruwan wasn't leaving this to chance.

Mira tightened her grip on the reins. "Then let them come." Vael didn't respond right away. She simply turned forward again, eyes narrowed in the dark. They will not take him from me again.

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The gulch twisted through the forest like a scar, narrow and quick. Overhead, torchlight flickered, dancing between the skeletal branches as Ruwan's riders tracked them from above.

"We're close!" Mira shouted, eyes fixed ahead. "The Grove's not far, " Her raccoon suddenly snarled, stumbling mid-stride. A hidden stump, blackened from old fire, jutted just enough from the slope to catch a paw. The beast staggered. Mira grunted and held on tight, barely keeping her balance.

But it wasn't the worst of it. Snap. The strap holding the satchel across her chest gave way. The Titan's Amber tumbled from her side, wrapped tightly in its black linen shroud, spinning once in midair before hitting the ground with a thud and skidding across damp leaves.

Mira's curse was half-snarl, half-scream as she twisted in the saddle, trying to turn her mount. But Vael was already moving. She yanked her reins hard to the left, veering just wide of Mira, and reached down with one hand as she passed. Her fingers closed around the shrouded Amber just as her mount surged forward again.

She clutched it tight to her chest, the force of her grip turning her knuckles white, the weight of it alive with hidden pulse. With her free hand, she steered the mount, heart hammering, body crouched low over the fur. Mira stared at her for half a heartbeat, jaw clenched in frustration, but then gave a sharp nod and fell back into stride beside her.

"They're gaining!" Mira barked. "I've got it," Vael said, eyes locked forward. "Ride." And ride they did. Through bramble and root. Over moonlit creekbeds. Beneath trees older than kingdoms.

The Grove called to them now. And somewhere ahead, beneath layers of vine and healing moss, the half-tree man slept in stasis, his chest hollow, his future unsure. But Vael held the key now. Clutched against her ribs. Radiating warmth even through the cloth. We're coming, Sam, she thought. Hold on.

Mira's raccoon limped. The hidden stump hadn't just knocked the Amber loose, it had gashed the creature's leg. Now it huffed and bucked beneath her, its gait uneven, blood darkening the fur near its front paw. Each step was slower. Labored.

Vael cast a glance back. Mira was falling behind. And behind her,

Torchlight.

Paws.

Steel.

Ruwan's riders had entered the ravine. Black-cloaked. Helmets masked. Sabers out. Five. No, six of them. Fanned in a loose arrow formation, bounding down the slope with cruel efficiency. They'd follow the trail of blood and broken brush. They were trained for this. "Faster!" Vael shouted over her shoulder. "I can't!" Mira growled, urging her mount forward. "He's hurt. I need to dismount, "

"You won't make it on foot." Vael yanked hard on her reins, her raccoon skidding into a spray of loam as she pulled alongside Mira. More torchlight. Closer now. They had mere moments.

"Get on with me," Vael ordered. Mira's jaw clenched, the old instinct to argue flaring in her eyes, but she saw the truth. Saw it in the way her raccoon's legs trembled. The way blood dripped onto leaves.

Without a word, Mira vaulted from her saddle as Vael steadied her mount. She landed hard behind her, gripping tight around Vael's waist as they took off again. The wounded raccoon limped sideways, then collapsed into the underbrush, breathing hard.

The pursuers surged closer. "They've got crossbows!" Mira hissed. "I know," Vael said, her voice ice. A bolt thunked into a tree just ahead of them. Another whizzed past Mira's shoulder.

They ducked low, branches clawing at their cloaks. Vael's knuckles tightened around the reins. The Amber was still tucked in the crook of her arm, cradled like a newborn. "They can't hit the Amber," Mira muttered behind her. "If it cracks, "

"I won't let it." Another bolt came, a whistle, then a scream as it struck a tree trunk and burst into splinters. The Grove was close. Vael felt it. The roots had started whispering beneath the soil. Familiar. Sacred. Waiting. But the riders would be on them in seconds. And they couldn't outrun bolts forever.

The bolt missed by inches. Vael ducked low as another screamed past, shredding a branch above her head. Behind her, Mira cursed, then twisted sharply in the saddle, scanning the trees with cold, calculating eyes.

They were too close. They wouldn't make it together. Not like this. "Mira, "

"No time!" Mira barked. "Go!" She didn't wait for argument. She swung one leg over and leapt from the back of the mount in one fluid motion, landing hard in the underbrush. In the same instant, she smacked the raccoon's flank, hard. "Run!" Mira shouted, eyes locked with Vael's. "Save him."

The raccoon squealed and surged forward, nearly throwing Vael. She gripped the reins with one hand, the Amber cradled tightly in her other arm as the world became a blur of wind, branches, and pounding earth. Behind her, Steel rang. Mira's twin blades flashed, a deadly whisper against torchlight and breath.

A cry of pain. A body fell.

Then another.

But they kept coming.

Vael twisted in her saddle, just once, catching a glimpse of Mira standing tall amid the trees, blades dripping light and fury. She moved like a shadow taught violence, each motion brutal, precise. Her cloak flared like blood in the dark.

Six men. Now five. And Mira was all fury and flame. "Hold on," Vael whispered to the Amber. To herself. To Sam. The Grove loomed ahead, trees parting like an old memory welcoming her home.

The Grove parted before her like a wound being re-opened. Her mount barreled through the spiraling trees, its flanks foaming with sweat, claws ripping the earth. The forest shimmered with dusklight, fractured and pale, as if the sun itself dared not look too closely at what was about to unfold.

Vael's eyes burned from wind and desperation. She barely registered the way garlands lay trampled underfoot, the ceremonial lanterns long snuffed by blood and chaos. There, beneath the Guardian's arching limbs, near the stone dais, stood Myrtle.

Her cloak was heavy with dew and grief, her hands outstretched over Sam's body, still held within the humming web of stasis vines. Time throbbed slow around him. But the barrier flickered. Failing.

"Myrtle!" Vael leapt from the saddle before her mount even stopped, hitting the ground hard. "I got it!" She tore open the satchel. The Titan's Amber gleamed like the frozen core of a fallen star, veins of gold and black pulsing gently, steadily. It was warm in her palm. Hungry.

Myrtle turned sharply, eyes wide. "Are you certain it's going to work?"

"Yes!" Vael ran to the stasis ring. Sam's half-man, half-tree body lay still within it, curled slightly where he had collapsed. His chest was caved inward now, ribs split, the wooden heart pulped and rotting. The bark of his limbs had dulled, spiderwebbed with cracks. One sunflower drooped, its eye gone dim.

Myrtle reached forward and with a whispered command, unknotted the stasis weave. The field dropped. And with it came the stench of death. Sam's form began to wither at once, vines shriveling, bark sloughing off like dead skin. His veins, once lit with sunfire, now looked empty. Hollow.

Vael didn't hesitate. She dropped to her knees beside him. Cradling the Amber with both hands, she lowered it to his broken chest. Where his heart had been. Where nothing now remained. "Please," she whispered, eyes shining. "Come back." She pressed the Amber inward. It resisted.

Then, gave way. A crack split the air like thunder as ribs snapped beneath her palms. Splinters of bark broke and scattered. The Amber sank deeper, embedding itself into the cavity, locking against the splintered ruin of his wooden form.