A gentle tug at my hair roused me from my sleep. I blinked awake. Gal twirled a lock around his finger, my head still on his shoulder.

  “You slept peacefully.”

  “As you did,” I replied, noticing his still-sleepy eyes.

  I didn’t move. The coat had kept the cold out through the night. It still held the warmth of both of us, covering our intertwined fingers. Below, the marketplace was waking. Somewhere bread. Neither of us spoke, in no hurry to break this peacefulness.

  He turned his head slowly.

  For a moment I thought he was going to say something. His hand shifted in my hair. Not pulling away, just adjusting, the way you do when you’ve decided not to say something. Then he said it anyway.

  “Lyan—” He stopped. “Would you follow me?” he asked, after a short break.

  I didn’t answer, torn between uncertainty and duty.

  “You don’t need to answer now. Take the time to consider it.” He put a finger on my lips. “Regardless of your choice, I will stay until it is over. Yesterday’s fights were just a warm-up.”

  “Still sleeping?” Mherlk appeared from behind us. He stared at me, not saying a word.

  “Are we under attack?” I replied, reluctant to move. From here we could see everything. Near the fountain, Caimis conversed with a group of officers—I could make out fragments even through the noise.

  “Not yet,” Mherlk said. “But refugees keep arriving, relating attacks from humans and creatures both.”

  “And did Caimis ask for me?”

  “He didn’t,” he replied, grumpier for it.

  “Then I will wait. Remember what they still see me as. Most of them wouldn’t heed my advice even if their lives depended on it.”

  He didn’t reply, and for the first time I felt him judging me.

  “It’s not that I hate your company,” Gal said, shuffling a meager purse, “but I should check on my sister. Left alone since yesterday, when she gets bored, she tends to eat—a lot.” He stood. “I’ll be back soon.”

  We watched him walk away. I started talking when he disappeared.

  “We came here to defend them. Until everyone arrives, it’s just you and me against whatever comes our way.”

  “You, me. And him?” Mherlk sat beside me. “You seem rather friendly, despite his threats last night.”

  “You mean when he feigned attacking me?”

  “I am just saying seeing you truly smiling is a good thing.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Gal had offered me a fleeting sense of peace. One I craved for decades. But Mherlk was right, I had to pull myself together until it was over.

  I got up. “Let’s look around.” The guards had kept Mherlk busy through the night. He told me most of it on the way.

  “Wait!” I turned. Gal was already closing the distance, Saki a few steps behind him.

  Next to the gate, people of the city welcomed those arriving from outside, offering food and supplies to people who had lost everything. Near them, Caimis counted coins before sending his people between the stalls. The smell of baked bread reached us before the stalls did.

  “Gal,” I pulled his sleeve.

  “One!” I said, pointing the brioche before he could answer.

  I followed him, already eating. We talked as we walked, letting the market pull us where it wanted. Mherlk and Saki drifted behind us, far enough to give us room. The market had swelled with the morning—vendors from everywhere, stalls stretching further than the square could comfortably hold. A spice merchant from three provinces over. A weaver whose cloth we had last seen fifty years ago in Sirni. Many engaged with me eagerly, even some I recognised from Melkna. A few had come from outside the walls, carrying stories with them.

  Most had lived through the last few days and weren’t pretending otherwise, though many seemed to be trying, keeping their hands busy, their voices a little too loud.

  Distraction as survival.

  Merchants more interested in the company than the coin. I had seen it before. It was never a good sign.

  Leaning against the ramparts, I savoured a freshly bought apple, still thinking about what Gal had asked.

  “The breeze feels refreshing!” Mherlk remarked.

  It was. I didn’t answer. Last night I had remembered what it felt like to want something for myself. Wandering the market this morning had only sharpened the feeling.

  Beside us, Gal and Saki watched the fields, unsettled by the calm. A normal day when it shouldn’t have been.

  I took another bite of the apple and turned to Mherlk. If I allowed myself to hesitate now, I might never choose at all.

  “Do you understand why I never designated you as my successor?” I asked.

  Mherlk’s gaze met mine. He knew. Despite his affirmations, once we voiced it, everything would change. Accepting this after all those years was hard.

  “I want you to say it,” I prompted.

  “You wanted me to earn it. So that I would surpass you—not be handed it in front of everyone who doesn’t respect you.”

  The simplicity of it humbled me. My reasons had seemed far more complicated than that. Below, the distant voice of a merchant cheerfully arguing with a customer about the price of something. The world entirely indifferent to what was being decided up here.

  “You won’t be rid of me that easily,” I chuckled.

  He was not my rightful successor but my master’s. The one who would restore Melkna’s lost glory. Something I had impeded for forty years without meaning to.

  “All that’s left is the announcement.” The words sat heavier than the decision had.

  “I’ll handle it,” Mherlk replied. “And I’ll start with a few adjustments.”

  “What—?”

  He blinked, eyes dropping to the apple still in my hand. I took a bite, wondering what he would say.

  Gal’s hand on my shoulder pulled me back.

  “In one night, you have managed to steal my commander,” Mherlk said.

  Gal looked between us.

  I turned keeping his hand. “I’ll join you two once everything here is settled.”

  His hand left my shoulder. Then the world lurched. I hit Mherlk hard. He caught me before I hit the ground, but my head found the ledge anyway.

  “Behind me.” I struggled upright, Mherlk steadying me. The world still tilted. Dust rose around us. His hand had done this. The same hand that had stayed warm next to me through the night. I didn’t understand why. A silhouette emerged from the dust. I fell again before I could react, still dizzy.

  “Get up!” Gal yelled, extending his hand. He was crouched at the edge of what remained of the ledge, gasping.

  His eyes were on the wall, not on me. I grasped his hand before I understood why.

  “Your head? I’m sorry. The wall—” he gestured to the missing piece where we had stood. “I didn’t have time to—”

  My gaze traced beyond. Where the fountain had been, the wall had come down. The market cut in half. Blood and bodies across the stones.

  Below, the arguing merchant was screaming.