Chapter 3
Night came quietly.
Too quietly.
The Ebon Wing encampment lay under a thin veil of fog, campfires reduced to embers. Laughter had faded hours ago, replaced by the low murmur of sleepers and the distant groan of siege engines still gnawing at stone.
Zen lay awake.
He always did.
The tent smelled of leather, oil, and old blood—his blood, someone else's, it didn't matter. His ribs throbbed where Zaerphel had struck him. a honest hit
He welcomed it.
Footsteps.
Zen's fingers slid to the hilt of his sword.
The tent flap shifted.
Steel whispered.
Zen rolled as a blade stabbed into the ground where his throat had been.
The tent erupted.
Zen came up slashing. One man screamed as his arm parted from his body. Another lunged—Zen drove his shoulder forward, crushing the man's nose into bone fragments.
Three attackers.
No. Four.
A dagger bit into Zen's side. He ignored it, pivoted, and buried his blade under the attacker's jaw.
blood soaked his hands.
"Traitor," one of them spat.
Zen's answer was a kick that shattered the man's skull.
The fourth attacker backed away, shaking.
"You don't belong here," the man screamed.
Zen advanced.
Then—
A blur crossed the tent entrance.
Steel flashed.
The fourth man fell, throat opened cleanly.
Silence slammed down.
A woman stood there, sword still dripping with blood
Hana.
She sheathed her blade without ceremony and looked at Zen—not with concern, not with fear, but with assessment.
"You're bleeding," she said.
Zen glanced down. "Yes."
She nodded. "Good. Means they didn't do worse."
The bodies lay twisted around them.
"Corpus sent them," Zen said.
Hana's eyes darkened. "Of course he did."
Zen wiped his blade and turned away.
"Thank you," he said.
Hana shrugged. "Don't misunderstand. If you die, it'll be in battle—not stabbed in your sleep."
She left without another word.
Zen sat back down among the dead.
For the first time in years, someone had intervened on his behalf without wanting anything in return.
It unsettled him.
---
They rode before dawn.
The Ebon Wing moved like a single organism—tight formations, silent signals, discipline earned through blood. Zen rode near the front, his side bound, his expression unreadable.
Enemies struck from the treeline.
Arrows fell.
Zen's horse screamed as one punched through its neck.
The animal collapsed, throwing Zen hard into the mud.
Enemy soldiers surged.
Zen rolled to his feet, sword already free.
He killed the first man before the man realized Zen was standing.
Then another.
Then three more.
But numbers pressed.
A spear lunged—
Steel intercepted it.
Zaerphel.
Yami and Onimaru followed, blades flashing in coordinated arcs. The enemy line buckled, then broke.
Zen stood among the bodies, chest rising slowly.
Zaerphel turned to him. "You alive?"
"Yes."
Zaerphel smiled. "Good. I would've been annoyed."
Yami snorted. "That's concern, coming from him."
Later—after the pursuit, after the cleanup—after the last screams faded—
They celebrated.
Not loudly.
Not foolishly.
A quiet fire. Shared food. Shared silence.
Pippin dragged Zen toward the flames. "You're not brooding alone. That's illegal."
Zen resisted for half a second.
Then sat.
Rejig passed him bread. Yami poured him drink. No one asked questions. No one demanded stories.
Zen stared into the fire.
"You don't talk much," Pippin said.
"I talk when needed."
"Fair."
Zaerphel watched from across the fire.
Not possessively.
Not yet.
Thoughtfully.
Later, as the camp slept again, Zaerphel stood beside Zen, both of them staring into the dark.
"They tried to kill you," Zaerphel said.
"Yes."
"You killed them."
"Yes."
Zaerphel was quiet for a moment.
"They will keep trying," he said. "As long as I lead."
Zen looked at him. "Then they'll keep dying."
Zaerphel smiled faintly.
"You don't fear me," he said.
"I fear starvation," Zen replied. "And dying slowly."
Zaerphel laughed softly.
"You're honest," he said. "That's rare."
Zen met his gaze. "So are you. For now."
Zaerphel's smile didn't falter.
Above them, the clouds shifted.
Far away, Ulferath Zosferak stirred in his wounded lair.
And somewhere deeper still, unseen hands adjusted threads—
Not pulling.
Only watching.