Eryshae

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Vael

The Grove

Vael turned with the wind and the weight of blood on her shoulders. Sam was at her back, solid, bark-wrapped, furious. She could feel the earth pulsing beneath his feet. Could hear the thud of his fists cracking bone and armor. But it was her blades that sang now. The scent of iron, sweat, and torn moss curled in her nose like a forgotten memory. Three more soldiers rushed her.

Her legs were already moving, low, fast, fluid. She slipped between the first two like water through fingers. Her swords flashed out, steel meeting flesh with the kiss of finality. One blade caught the inside of a thigh, the other sliced upward in a diagonal arc, cutting from hip to ribs in a perfect, fatal line. The soldier screamed, staggered, fell. She pivoted before he hit the ground.

The second came at her, more cautious, shield high. She hated shields. Cowards' bones. She feinted left, then ducked right, rolling low and driving both blades up into his stomach as she passed beneath his guard. The sound was wet and deep, like a blade plunged into mud. He collapsed in her wake, bleeding from the mouth.

The third hesitated. Just a blink. But that was enough. Vael met his eyes, young, panicked, barely old enough to grow a proper beard. She felt the cold twist of regret. But she didn't stop. She moved in fast, faster than fear. Her boot came up, smashing into his knee. It crumpled sideways. Before he could scream, she twisted her wrist and drove one sword into his heart with a clean, merciful strike.

He fell with a gasp. A breath. A whisper of a life that might've been. She exhaled. For a moment, just a moment, she felt the weight of it all. Not just the blood. Not just the battle. But the why. They weren't just fighting to survive. They were fighting for memory. For dignity. For something Ruwan could never understand. At her back, she heard Sam bellow, raw, animal, beautiful. Vael stepped forward again, blades dripping, shoulders squared. Let them come.

Vael didn't pause to breathe. There wasn't time. The moment she stepped clear of the fallen soldier's corpse, another shadow charged at her from the left, a brute with chainmail layered over leather, face painted in war-mud, wielding a double-headed axe already mid-swing. She didn't try to block it. Instead, she pivoted, letting the blade whistle past her ribs. She felt the wind of it, sharp as a warning, but it never touched her skin. Too slow, she thought. Too heavy. The brute tried to recover, but Vael was already moving. She threw one blade. The left sword spun through the air with a silver gleam and struck the man square in the shoulder, the force of it sending him off balance. Not fatal. Not yet. She was already in a sprint. In a blink she closed the distance. He roared and tried to pull the blade out of his shoulder. A mistake.

She grabbed the hilt herself, twisted it downward with both hands, and as his knees buckled from the pain, she drove her right knee up into his chin with a crunch that silenced him mid-roar. His body crumpled. Her boot landed on his chest. With one final thrust, she pulled her lodged sword free, carving it downward through his collarbone in a jagged line that tore through muscle, mail, and rib alike. Blood soaked the moss. Vael didn't flinch. She stepped back, shoulders rising and falling, and whispered under her breath, "you chose the wrong god." She turned, and Sam was still there, fists wrapped in bark, surrounded by bodies. The Grove moaned, and more were coming.

Vael spun to meet her next attacker, only to find four of them closing in at once. Too many. Too close. Blades rose around her in a gleam of steel, and before she could react, a weighted net, slick with resin and reinforced with iron rings, was flung wide from the left. It tangled in midair like a predator, wrapped around her arms, shoulders, and swords. She dropped one blade as the net collapsed over her like a wave, cinching tight around her limbs. She hit the ground hard. A boot slammed against her side, rolling her onto her back. Chains clinked. Hands reached through the netting to clasp her wrists. One of the guards shouted,

"Take her alive!" Panic clawed at her ribs as the net began to drag her across the Grove's blood-soaked moss. Roots snapped beneath her. Her fingers reached for her remaining sword, but it was tangled beyond reach. They were trying to pull her out of the battlefield, into the trees. Away from Sam. "Sam!" she cried, her voice hoarse.

And then, A sound cracked across the Grove like thunder. A bellow. Deep. Raw. Primeval. Vael twisted her head, and saw him. Sam's body surged forward like a living avalanche, bark-armored fists slamming through anyone between him and her. Vines burst from his back like a second skeleton, whipping and tearing at the soldiers.

He saw the net.

He saw her inside it.

His eyes flared gold.

Two guards were hauling the net with hooked spears, laughing as they dragged her back like prey. That laughter died the moment Sam grabbed the net with both hands, and pulled. The motion ripped the spearmen off their feet, sent them sprawling. The net, already straining, snapped open like a broken snare, and Vael was yanked toward him, rolling into his arms. Sam caught her mid-motion. Held her. Just as the arrow hit him. It buried itself deep between his shoulder blades. His body jerked. Vael gasped, seeing the blood bloom across his bark-covered skin. "Sam!" He didn't speak. He reached over his shoulder, teeth clenched, and yanked the arrow out with a growl. The shaft cracked in his hand. The blood ran down his spine.

One of his sunflowers bloomed over his shoulder, a smaller blossom, pulsing with heat and fury. It locked onto the archer through the trees, and with a sudden burst of light, fired a narrow beam. The archer didn't even scream. The upper half of his body was already gone. Smoke curled in the silence. Vael stared, breathless in Sam's arms. His blood ran down her side. But his arms never loosened. "I've got you," he whispered. And all around them, the Grove growled in agreement.

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The Grove was a graveyard now. Breathless. Smeared with blood and sunfire. Broken helms littered the moss, raccoon mounts ran riderless into the trees, and only embers clung to the battlefield's edge. Sam stood tall, his bark-covered body steaming from the heat of battle. His arms were torn and bruised, golden sap leaking from his wounds. Vael leaned against him, breathing hard, eyes scanning the woods.

Then, a shadow moved. Not forward. Away. Toward the trees. Sam's eyes narrowed as he recognized the gait. The cloak. The gauntlet.

Ruwan.

The bastard was slipping away, veiled in retreat like a thief fleeing his own war. Sam's breath hissed through his teeth. His chest ached, not just from the wounds, but from memory.

The spear.

The same one that had ended him.

The one that pierced his heart and silenced the Grove.

The one now bound to him, buried in his bark and blood, absorbed into the knots of his resurrection.

He reached behind him, fingers closing around air that shimmered, then solidified. The spear formed in his hand, born from root and revenge, blackened iron now laced with golden amber veins. It pulsed once, like it remembered the taste of his death. Sam stepped forward. Ruwan was just beyond the last tree, slipping down the ravine's edge. Sam didn't speak. He let the Grove guide his arm. Let the wrath coil through his shoulder. Let the pain drive the throw.

The spear sang through the trees. It didn't scream. It didn't roar. It whispered like judgment. And when it struck, Ruwan's scream cracked through the woods. The spear pierced clean through his thigh and into the earth behind him, nailing him in place. The force spun him onto the forest floor, his cloak twisting, his hands clawing at the shaft.

He was pinned. Crippled. Caught. Sam's voice followed, cold and clear across the ruin of the battlefield. "Run from this." The Grove fell silent. Only the rustle of dying leaves remained. And in that silence, Sam and Vael stood among the dead, victorious, bleeding, whole. But this wasn't the end. Not yet. Ruwan would answer for everything he did.

The battlefield was quiet now, quiet in the way a blood-soaked altar might be, steeped in heat and silence. Smoke drifted between the trees, coiling like ghosts. The Grove pulsed low and slow, no longer in combat but in mourning. Sam turned, bark-slicked and bleeding, breath like steam in the air. His eyes scanned the broken lines of the enemy, and then narrowed. There. A flicker of movement beyond the treeline. Ruwan, cloaked in ash and arrogance, limping away like a wounded jackal. His leg dragged behind him, pierced clean through by the very spear he once drove into Sam's chest. Sam's pulse thundered. He moved.

Roots snapped underfoot. Wind howled in his wake. Vael shouted something behind him, but Sam didn't hear, not over the roar in his blood. He crashed through the underbrush in seconds, closing the distance. Ruwan barely had time to look back. Sam gripped the embedded spear and ripped it from the man's thigh, not cleanly. The flesh tore with a wet sound. Ruwan screamed, collapsing into the dirt. Sam didn't stop. With a roar that shook the nearby trees, he reversed the weapon in his hand, the butt of the spear hitting the ground as the sharpened tip surged forward, straight toward Ruwan's eye.

A breath away.

A fraction of a heartbeat.

Ruwan flinched. Went still.

But the strike never landed.

Sam's arm shook, the tip trembling millimeters from the pupil that stared up, wide and wild with terror. "Dying in a ditch is what you deserve," Sam snarled, voice low and molten. Then, with swift precision, he turned the blade in his grip, angled it downward, and drove it into Ruwan's chest. Not deep enough to kill. But deep enough to make him scream. The spearhead slid between ribs and kissed Ruwan's heart, not breaching it, but burning. Ruwan's body arched, his scream guttural and raw. Sam leaned close, bark flaking from his skin, vines writhing with rage behind him. He yanked the spear free. Blood sprayed. "But scum like you…" Sam growled, voice like thunder cracking against old stone, "need to be shown as a lesson."

He dropped the spear. Ruwan collapsed fully into the mud, writhing, broken, and alive. The Grove rustled with approval. And Sam turned back toward Vael, his face grim, his heart still pounding, his vengeance satisfied but not complete. The last breath of battle faded into birdsong. Not peace, no, not yet, but the lull between storms.

Vael watched him, her twin swords dripping red at her sides, her body swaying with exhaustion. But she only saw him. Sam stood in a pool of flickering shadows and broken moonlight, blood across his chest, bark still blooming like armor down his arms. The spear clattered to the dirt. Ruwan lay gasping behind him, a man reduced to groveling breath and agony. And Sam… Sam looked broken.

Not in body.

In soul.

She moved before she even knew she had.

Crossing the clearing.

Crossing the distance between them that no blade had ever truly measured.

Not since the beginning.

He wavered, then slumped into her. Vael caught him, hard, arms curling around his body, drawing him down until he was kneeling before her, chest heaving, skin hot with blood and fury. She dropped to her knees with him. His head came to rest against her chest, his arms limp around her waist. She held him. Tighter than she meant to. As if he might fall through the world without her. His breath beat against her skin. Slow. Shaken. Human. Vael closed her eyes. He could have killed him. He should have. The man who'd tortured their people, tried to burn the soul out of the world itself.

And still, still Sam had stopped. Still Sam had chosen something higher than blood. He could've ended Ruwan's story in a single strike… and instead, he wrote a warning. Her hand stroked gently through his hair, damp with sweat and bark-dust. She swallowed a knot in her throat. What kind of man are you becoming, Sam Faeloc? The thought hit her like sunlight through old stone. Not the broken boy who first stumbled into her life, not the half-dead soul the Amber resurrected, not even the Druid the Grove crowned in roots.

But a man who chose mercy. A man worth following into fire. She leaned down, her lips brushing against his hair as he clung to her in silence. And then she whispered, barely louder than the wind, "I'm proud of you." His breath hitched. She held him closer. "You could've given into vengeance. You had every right. But you didn't. You chose justice. You chose to become more." The Grove pulsed once, low and green beneath their feet. Alive. Awake. And with every beat of it, she knew it more clearly: He wasn't just her protector anymore. He was her equal. He was hers.