Her bruised knees hit the cavern floor with the weight of another morning's training.
Chyrie swallowed roughly with each labored breath as she looked between the sweaty strands of her auburn hair. They framed her face in short, chopped threads that brushed over her brow and poked into her eyes.
They hadn't been trimmed back since her capture.
Beyond her sodden hair, Xiran's looming frame cast a faint shadow in the forgelight. He, too, fought to control his breathing. From the way he eyed her anvil — as if it would make the perfect brace to prop himself with and not a tool for hammering tools flat — she knew he felt the way she looked.
Chyrie frowned, noticing the tense look pulling at his face. He crossed his arms and skirted her collapsed frame, avoiding her gaze.
"What?" She rasped out.
"I cannot instill muscle memory in three days' time."
Xiran pressed his hands into the anvil and leaned over, dropping his head.
A disgruntled dragon puffed in the corner, Dailes flicking his tail in agreement.
"I've trained three generations of warriors, but never in less than a week," he murmured. Xiran exhaled sharply, stretching his neck to relieve a phantom tension. "It is impossible..."
Her hands shook, clenching around newly formed callouses. Chyrie felt the weight of his words, torn between his absence of faith and the truth bleeding out between them. She wasn't meant to train two months until her eighteenth year, nor slave away in the mines she loved to protect. Only pour over the scripts of scholars and shadow her mother through the halls of Emberlin's sweeping hallways and cavernous architecture.
The history of her people had become muddled with sweat and adrenaline, masked by an endless tunnel of fear.
Similar to the former Captain, she was sure.
"I only need to survive," Chyrie managed to say. "Anything further is a blessing."
Xiran hummed a distant response, standing upright only to lean himself against the thick slab of steel. His arms crossed over his chest.
"You'll need to do much more than survive if you intend to save your brother or your kingdom," he replied. Aquatic irises pinned her. "Even if each of you are paired with a different sentinel, even if your court is not as deprived and exhausted as you, you'll need strength to repair the damage."
"Anryth may have taken me from Emberlin, but he's bound by the same oath I am," she said. Chyrie sat and locked her legs beneath her, considering. "Do you think he'll fight as fair as he claims?"
"I've no reason to believe it, nor should you."
She bit her lip.
His tone chilled, only adding to the brutality of his words. So cold and true, she would consider believing them if not for the hesitation.
Xiran seldom spoke as they sparred, offering minor tips in the spare moments between matches. He preferred a more physical variety of communication, one that often left Chyrie breathless and confused.
She couldn't wrap her head around his charity or the kindness behind those intense strikes.
Dodging was her friend within these walls, but once Anryth came for her, she would need more than agility to beat him.
"Do you think I might win?"
No sooner had her tongue dried out than when Xiran's sealine gaze lifted from beneath dark hair, piercing focus and curiosity honing down on her knelt frame. His shifting movements allowed him to close the gap between them with fluid grace, where he observed.
"Do you want to?"
The words were a slip, nothing more than a lapse in judgment, but Chyrie felt herself recoil.
She opened her mouth to argue, to say anything.
Nothing came out.
"You'll need to know," Xiran said. He stooped down to eye level. "Because it doesn't matter how hard you train or what skills you know—if you don't want to win."
Chyrie's heart hammered, the throbbing radiating into her throat as she watched him search her eyes.
"My people need me."
"You'll save no one if you don't save yourself," he replied. "You're only one person, Chyrie. Emberlin doesn't need a heroine, they need a plan."
A thousand arguments pooled up against her lips but Xiran shook his head, lifting one finger.
"What Anryth wants is purely revenge. He's taken your capital with his men, despite Rymedor's own ruin. The last standing army he has and he's led them across the ocean instead of fighting to rebuild."
"That's madness."
"He is one person," Xiran continued, gesturing around them. "With the aid of Cathon, your court, and myself, you've found a team."
Dailes grumbled and puffed smoke at their feet.
"And Dailes."
"A drakeling who won't even look at me," Chyrie sighed.
Her soul bonded opened his eyes, golden irises masked by narrow lids.
"Let's go," Xiran said, snapping her attention.
Again.
They were going to spar again.
Chyrie managed a deep breath before pulling herself upward.
A wave of nausea flushed through her stomach and sent her reeling back against the cavern walls, her fingers slipping against the sharp shale as she grappled for purchase.
The captain frowned, clearly noting her weakened state and the steadily dwindling food lined behind him. Slowly scraping his ax off the floor and strapping it to his thigh, Xiran slipped out of the prison bars and double checked the lock.
"Where are you going?" she called after him.
"Hunting."
Chyrie's brows furrowed.
"You'll need food to keep up strength," he answered, preparing to stalk off. "Unless you'd like another taste of burnout."
The faint humor startled her as he disappeared into the forest.
His abrupt actions continued to jar her, but she was starting to adjust. If he thought she'd light herself on fire again, Xiran's haste made sense.
Carefully lowering herself onto the bedroll, Chyrie shook off the warmth crowding the room. Her body ached, fighting with each minor motion and forcing her to move slowly.
Forging required a similar discipline to these newfound fights. Her father had been going easy on her all these years and she thought she might suffer for his patience.
The idea of fresh roast made her mouth water.
Chyrie couldn't remember when her eyes fell shut, but when footsteps approached the cave mouth she reached out for her dagger.
Through blurry vision, she spotted a shadow of green walking through the forge, the silhouette of a tunic alerting her to Anryth's presence. Immediately scanning for Dailes, Chyrie launched into a crouch, baring her teeth.
Red-rimmed eyes flickered back to her, lined with a brittle emotion she couldn't recognize.
"Chyrivelle," he greeted her, his voice a sultry poison. "You've been busy, I see."
Anryth's eyes slid over to the cooling rack where her newest sword sat hooked onto two prongs. His fascination dwindled as he turned to address the room.
She prayed he wouldn't note Xiran's backpack tucked in the corner or her other weaponry behind the hearth.
Aim for the kidneys, Xiran's words whispered through her head.
He'd only just shown her where they were and how to puncture them.
With or without a blade.
Chyrie swallowed the growl rumbling in her throat and released the blade at her side.
"Of course, your highness."
Anryth's smile turned feral.
His focus had snapped toward the pile of flowers in the corner, eyes hardening with rage.
"What is that?"
Chyrie didn't answer.
She marked how far away her dagger was and waited to see his next move.
Perhaps Xiran and Dailes would make it out alive if she bought them enough time, or even ended the elven assassin once and for all.
Her muscles barked at her as she shifted.
"What is this!"
Anryth grabbed one of the flowers and threw it down at her feet.
The silver-tipped petals weren't easily mistaken.
Chyrie's worst nightmare played out before her.
Pale hands ripped through the empty bags from her supplies, yanking her out of the way as he investigated her bedroll.
Anryth chucked her other scrap of a blade across the floor, turning to the forge.
"What are you doing?" Chyrie snapped. "There is nothing–"
"Silverbane, Chyrivelle? Silverbane?"
She froze, frozen fear washing through her limbs.
"What else are you hiding?"
Chyrie's gut dropped as the elf peered around Niukka's forge, kicking at the dirt until the sharp tang of metal rent the air.
She was dead.
Anryth peeled two of the finished weapons out from under their leather-wrapped graves and hissed.
Stabbing the broadsword into the dirt, he glared at the saber now deftly balanced in the palm of his hand.
Chyrie felt her body turn leaden as he approached her, those wild emotions swirling in his eyes nothing more than endless madness as Anryth curved the blade around her neck and gripped her hair firmly.
Paralyzed.
Her body rebelled as he yanked her onto numb feet and ushered her forward.
"Just like your father," Anryth snarled in her ear. "You Vespurn's love to break the rules."
Chyrie stared in horror, the blade pressed to the base of her neck as they approached the forge.
"Justice, as poetic as it might be, will live and die with this forge."
As the heat coiled over her skin and reminded her of those wretched burns, a tether snapped. Her mind went utterly still.
Golden embers flickered against the charred stones, their steps slow and forced.
She couldn't take any more.
As white filled her vision, Chyrie unleashed herself on the king of Rymedor.