They’d ridden a long stretch without pushing the horses hard, and it showed. Onyx still looked like he could carry a carriage if someone asked nicely, but the others had that tired, glassy-eyed patience of animals who’d done their duty all day and would like their oats, please and thank you. The road had finally been found again. Real road. Traveled road. A road with other people on it who had looked at their bedraggled little escort and said, town’s a day ride that way, and kept walking like that information hadn’t just been a lifeline.
A day. Close enough to taste. Still far enough they still needed to be careful. They’d debated it for ten full minutes like it was a war council. Ride through the night and arrive half-dead, or sleep, set out early, arrive looking like people instead of ghosts. In the end, the horses had voted without speaking. Ears drooping. Heads lowering. Feet dragging just slightly at the last mile. There lower lips hanging just a little more.
So they’d turned off the road, far enough that any passing traveler wouldn’t spot their firelight, close enough that they wouldn’t lose the path in the morning. Kurt had picked the site with a careful eye, like he’d done it a hundred times and still treated it like the first. A shallow dip, a few trees to break wind, a scatter of rocks. Darius had checked the perimeter, Zen had complained about the perimeter, Kylar had watched everything without looking like he was watching anything at all.
Kairi rode with Kylar, back pressed to his chest more often than not, Onyx’s huge, steady gait making it feel like the world was rocking them instead of the other way around. Darius and Zen rode near Kurt. Kurt set the pace because he knew the roads, knew the horses, knew what exhaustion looked like before it became stupidity.
Now, with bedrolls spread and tack loosened and waterskins passed around, they sat in a loose ring around the fire, sharing what was left of their food like it was a feast.
It wasn’t. It was dry bread and hard cheese and whatever meat had survived their saddlebags without turning into a science experiment. Zen chewed like he was angry at it. This prompted him to go fishing.
“This will be the best tasting roasted fish I have ever had." Zen declared as he turned each stick. Kurt was leaned against a tree relaxing. "It smells delicious. I applause your diligence and ability to fish."
Darius huffed a laugh, tired enough it came out rough. “Are you promising a delicious meal?"
Zen didn’t even look up. “No promises.”
Kurt watched the fire quietly, shoulders slumped, hands cupped around his own tin cup as if warmth was something you could catch and keep. He looked like he’d been carved out of fatigue. Everyone did, in one way or another.
Zen, proudly, gathered the sticks and handed one to everyone. They ate and the silence of eating was answer of if the fish were delicious or not. As each were finished they tossed their stick in the fire and listened to the soft crackling and sounds of crickets.
Kylar shifted to adjust his position and the movement drew a hiss from between his teeth.
It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. Every head turned. Kairi’s gaze snapped to him like a tether going taut. She’d spent the day holding herself together with sheer will. She’d accepted bandages, accepted pain, accepted riding when she wanted to collapse. She’d been careful, controlled, even when her magic had flickered under her skin like a storm looking for permission.
But the moment Kylar’s face tightened, something in her broke loose.
“Let me heal it some more,” she said.
Not asked. Said. Kylar’s eyes found hers across the firelight. He looked at her for a long moment, like he was weighing ten different dangers and her stubbornness was somehow the heaviest of them. Finally, he nodded once. Reluctant. Resigned. A man stepping aside because the tide was coming through whether he stood there or not.
“All right,” he murmured.
Kairi scooted closer immediately, shawl slipping down one shoulder, hands already reaching for the edge of his bandage. She was gentle as she unwound it. She had taken care of a great deal of worst part of the wound, but she wanted it to be whole again. She didn't want him to hurt anymore.
Kurt watched her work, eyes fixed on her fingers as if they were performing something sacred. He hesitated. You could see the question build behind his eyes like someone standing at the edge of a cold river. Then he asked it, quietly. “…Does it hurt you? When you help others? Is that why Kylar is so hesitant to let you help him?”
Kairi paused with the bandage half-loosened and glanced up at him. Her expression softened, a little surprised by the gentleness of the question.
“It drains me,” she said. “It doesn’t… hurt. Not like a wound. It’s like…” She searched for the right words and found them in the way Rush explained things. “It’s like pulling water from a well. If you pull too fast, you hit the bottom and you’re left with mud and panic.”
Kurt nodded slowly, absorbing it.
Kairi looked back to Kylar’s shoulder, unwrapping the last layer until the injury was fully exposed to firelight. The skin around it was angry and bruised, the place where the bolt had torn through was better, but still a little ugly.
Kylar’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t pull away. He held still for her.
“Kylar doesn’t like me draining myself for him,” she added, quieter.
Kylar closed his eyes, and the firelight made his lashes look darker against his cheeks. “You shouldn’t have to,” he said softly. The words were simple. The weight behind them wasn’t.
Kairi’s throat tightened, but she didn’t let the emotion spill. She just set her palm over the wound like it belonged there. Like she’d done it a hundred times. Like her hand knew where to go without her mind’s permission. A faint shimmer of heat gathered beneath her skin. Not a visible blaze, not lightning, not spectacle. Something deeper. Something that hummed. Kylar’s shoulders eased as if someone had taken a blade out of his ribs. His breath went out, slow and helpless.
Darius watched with the sort of concentration he usually reserved for battlefield reports. His gaze flicked from Kairi’s steady hand to Kylar’s reaction, cataloging details. He spoke like he was trying to understand the rules of an unfamiliar weapon. “Is it like a muscle?” Darius asked. “The more you use it, the more you can do later?”
Kairi nodded, eyes still on Kylar’s shoulder. “Yes.”
Darius nodded back, satisfied with the logic. Then, because he was learning and concern was a practical thing to him, he offered the next step like it was an obvious solution. “Do you want to practice on us for… little things? To build up your… magic?”
Kairi shifted her palm slightly, as if she’d found a stubborn seam in the pain and was coaxing it apart. “You can call it magic, or a gift...or my ability. Any are fine.” she said.
She didn’t answer the rest at first. Her attention caught on Kylar’s face when he opened his eyes and looked at her, and for a heartbeat the rest of them were just background noise. Her gaze met his. Then she looked back to the wound, like if she stayed too long in his eyes she’d forget to breathe.
“If you all are okay with me healing you,” she said carefully, “I would… like that.”
It wasn’t just an offer. It was a request. A small, shy thing tucked inside the bluntness. Like she wanted permission to be useful. To be more than the girl everyone needed something from.
Kurt sat very still for a moment, as if the decision was a cliff edge.
Then he cleared his throat and began to untuck his shirt. Fingers fumbling at buttons with the stiff clumsiness of a man who hadn’t planned to do this in front of anyone. Darius and Zen both snapped their attention to him immediately.
“Kurt?” Zen said, sharp, like he thought Kurt had lost his mind and was about to start stripping for entertainment.
Kurt didn’t look at him. He kept unbuttoning, face flushed with discomfort, eyes locked stubbornly on his own hands.
“I think I cracked a rib when I fell off my horse and onto the bridge,” he said.
He peeled the shirt aside. The firelight painted the bruise in brutal honesty. Black and blue, spreading across his ribs like spilled ink. Deep enough that it made everyone’s stomach turn. There was swelling there too, a tender rise that suggested the impact had been worse than any of them had realized.
Zen blinked. Once. Twice. Then his mouth opened. “Holy hell, Kurt,” Zen breathed. “Why didn’t you say anything? I could have wrapped that!"
Kurt’s shoulders rose toward his ears, a reflexive flinch. He looked embarrassed, like being injured was a personal failure. He swallowed and said, quietly, as if it should be obvious. “They were bleeding and poisoned,” Kurt said, flicking a glance toward Kylar and Kairi. “That seemed… a little more important at the time.”
Zen stared at him like he couldn’t decide if this soldier was an idiot or not. Darius’s expression tightened, something protective sliding into place. “You can’t guard anyone if you’re folding in half every time you breathe.”
Kurt opened his mouth, then shut it again. That was fair. Annoyingly fair.
Kairi’s hand stayed on Kylar’s shoulder for one more moment as she finished smoothing the last edge of pain away, then she lifted it slowly.
Kylar’s relief was visible. Not dramatic. Just… there. His posture steadier. His eyes closed relaxed. The line of tension at his mouth softened like someone had untied it.
Kairi looked at him, gauging. The wound looked like it had been healing for weeks now. The deep tissue had been knitted together and would need stretching and use.
“You feel better?" She asked pressing around the area feeling the muscle, double checking her work.
Kylar gave her a look that was both gratitude and warning. “I feel… less like I’m being stabbed from the inside.”
Zen made a face. “Romantic.”
Kylar’s lips twitched, almost a smile. Kairi finally turned her attention fully to Kurt. She patted the ground beside the fire, a clear invitation.
“Come here,” she said gently.
Kurt shuffled closer, shirt still open, trying very hard not to look like a man presenting himself for inspection. Zen leaned over toward Darius and whispered loudly enough for the fire to hear, “If Kurt passes out from modesty, do we catch him or let him hit the dirt so he learns a lesson?”
Darius didn’t look away from Kurt’s bruised ribs. “Catch him,” he muttered. “He already has the injury.”
Kurt shot Zen a helpless look. “Stop.”
Zen grinned like he’d just been handed a new hobby.
Kairi hovered her hand near Kurt’s ribs without touching at first, studying the bruising with a healer’s eye. “Does it hurt when you breathe?”
Kurt nodded. “Yes.”
“Does it hurt when you twist?” she asked as she looked how it curved along his side.
He nodded again. “Yes.”
“Does it hurt when Zen speaks?” she asked, deadpan.
Zen made an offended sound. “Excuse you.”
Kurt answered honestly. “Also yes.”
Darius and Kylar laughed a little. Kairi’s lips curved, but her focus stayed careful. She placed her palm lightly over the bruise. The firelight caught the faint shimmer of magic under her skin as she drew from that well she’d mentioned, measuring her strength the way a person measures water in a cup.
The air around her hand warmed. Not blazing. Just warm. Kurt sucked in a sharp breath as the sensation spread through his ribs like someone pouring heat into frozen bone.
Zen’s grin faded into something like awe despite himself. “That’s… actually really cool,” he murmured.
Kurt swallowed, eyes wide, watching her like she was a miracle he hadn’t known was possible.
“It’s not hurting,” Kurt whispered, like he was afraid saying it out loud would undo it.
Kairi kept her palm steady. “It will still bruise,” she said. “But it shouldn’t feel like you’re being punished for breathing. This is going to feel weird.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Kurt looked to her. "Feel weird?" Then she reset his rib. "Oh. oh that, it moved."
Kylar watched her with that quiet, fierce protectiveness. Watching her hands and then checking her eyes. Darius watched Kurt, watching for signs of dizziness, watching for the moment pride tried to make him stand too fast. And Kurt, still flushed, still shy, still trying to be normal about the fact that the Princess of Tearia was healing him by a campfire, let out a slow exhale that sounded like someone finally setting down a weight.
Kairi sat back and looked at his ribs and side and leaned forward once more and touched his side lightly. "This will be tender for a while"
Kurt sat there like a man who’d just watched the world rewrite itself and was now trying to decide if he was allowed to look directly at it. His ribs didn’t ache. His lungs didn’t punish him for being lungs. The bruise was still there, still ugly, but the pain had eased like someone had turned a cruel dial down. He stared at Kairi for a second too long, mouth opening once, closing again, as if his thoughts were trying to climb out and kept tripping over each other.
Zen, who lived for moments like this the way some men lived for sunlight, watched with bright, predatory anticipation.
Kurt swallowed. “…Can I hug you?”
Zen exploded. Not a polite laugh. Not a chuckle. An actual burst that shot out of him like a cannon misfiring. He slapped a hand over his mouth and failed completely, shoulders shaking so hard he nearly toppled backward. “Oh, tears and teeth Kurt!” Zen wheezed, already stumbling away from the fire like distance could save him from the secondhand embarrassment. “Kurt. Kurt. Sweet merciful—” He couldn’t finish. He just waved a hand like I’m going to die and walked off into the dark a few paces, laughing so hard he had to brace himself against a tree.
Kylar’s head dipped, eyes closing briefly as if he were praying for patience. Darius dragged a hand down his face and sighed the weary sigh of a man who’d witnessed too much humanity in one evening.
Kairi, bless her, didn’t look offended. She looked delighted. A real laugh bubbled out of her, soft at first and then warmer, the kind of sound that made even the fire seem friendlier. “Kurt,” she said, like his name was a fond thing instead of a problem, “that’s fine.”
Kurt’s ears turned the color of embers. He nodded too fast, like if he didn’t do it immediately his courage would dissolve. He scooted forward, then hesitated at the last inch, suddenly aware of his own hands, his own height, the fact he was about to put his arms around a princess who could turn men into lightning-struck cautionary tales. He offered the most careful hug in existence. It was a tiny half-hug, all shoulder and the briefest squeeze, like he was hugging a saint’s statue in a temple and wasn’t sure if he’d get the wrath of a smite for enthusiasm. His arms touched her, barely. Then he released her like he’d been burned, scrambling back to his spot with the speed of a man escaping a crime scene.
Kairi was still smiling, eyes bright with amusement and something gentler beneath it. “You’re welcome,” she said, as if this was normal. As if she healed ribs and accepted awkward gratitude like it was part of her daily routine.
Kylar muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Darius to hear. “He’s going to apologize for breathing near her next.”
Darius’s mouth twitched. “Give it five minutes.”
From the tree line, Zen could still be heard wheezing and trying to breath.
Kurt made a strangled sound that might have been a protest, might have been his soul trying to leave his body. He didn’t look up. He poured every ounce of his remaining brainpower into the buttons of his shirt like those buttons were a battlefield and only he could win the war.
His fingers fumbled. Button. Miss. Button. Miss. He exhaled sharply, focused, shoulders tense, as if the whole camp’s survival depended on him getting fabric aligned properly.
Darius watched him for a moment, then glanced at Kairi. “You’re going to ruin him,” he said quietly.
Kairi’s grin widened, unabashed. “I didn’t do anything.”
Kylar gave her a look that said you know exactly what you’re doing.
She leaned back on her hands, still amused, eyes briefly lifting toward the dark where Zen was losing the fight with his own laughter. “It was a nice hug,” she said simply, as if she were reviewing a cup of tea.
Kurt finally got the last button done and sat up straighter, visibly relieved to have clothing back in its proper order.
Zen wandered back toward the fire wiping his eyes, still grinning. “All right,” he announced, dropping into his spot like a man returning from victory. “Next time, Kurt, ask to kiss her hand or something normal of a high lady. Not a hug."
Kurt stared into the flames, mortified, voice small. “I… panicked.”
Darius snorted. “You hugged a princess.”
Kurt nodded once, stiffly. “Yes.”
Kylar, mercifully, didn’t pile on. He just looked at Kairi, the firelight catching the softness in his expression, and said in that low, steady way that always anchored the room, “He’s not wrong to be grateful.”
Kairi’s smile gentled. She glanced at Kurt again, and this time there was more warmth than amusement in it. “You’re all right,” she told him. “It’s okay to be awkward.”
Zen clutched his chest dramatically. “She’s so kind. I’m going to ask for a hug too.”
Darius’s head snapped toward him. “Don’t.”
Zen held up both hands, laughing again. “Fine, fine. No hugging the Phoenix.”
Kurt’s shoulders finally loosened, just a fraction.
The fire crackled. She looked over to them all. "It was common for the devotees to ask for hugs. Or..even ask to touch my hands. So, I should get use to it again." She whispered.
Darius and Kylar took this as the warning it would become. The common folk could become as dangerous as any noble with devious intentions.
Kylar gestured toward the bedrolls. "Let's get some sleep. Tomorrow we sleep on real beds."
They set their watches and bedded down for the night.
Jayce had learned, over ten years of riding with princes and soldiers and men who thought they were unbreakable, that there were two kinds of silence.
The first kind was peace. The second was a blade held very still. This was the second kind.
They were a day out from the fort-town now, the road widening into something that almost deserved the name, packed hard by cartwheels and trade. Other travelers moved around them in cautious little clusters, giving the Royal convoy a wide berth the way people gave storms a respectful distance. The sun sat low, washing the world in a dusty gold that made even the broken things look temporary.
Jayce kept his horse at Rush’s shoulder and tried not to watch the way Rush’s reins never loosened in his hands.
He failed. Rush held them like he could strangle the road until it gave his sister back. And every time Jayce blinked, he saw the bridge again. Not as a clean memory. As fragments. As teeth. The gorge had been a throat of stone, dark and patient. The bridge had been old, solid, reassuring in the way old things pretended they couldn’t be hurt.
They’d been halfway across when the world decided to split. A crack like thunder trapped in rock. A jolt under the carriage wheels. Then the sound that had nothing human in it: a horse screaming as the stones beneath it vanished.
Jayce remembered Rush’s head snapping up. That split-second shift in his posture. Not fear. Calculation. Rage harnessed into strategy like a knife slid into its sheath. He remembered Damon’s hand shooting out, gripping the carriage frame so hard his knuckles turned pale. Fenway’s eyes on him, steady and sharp, already reading which way the panic wanted to run.
Jayce remembered Tessa moving before anyone else could speak, blades out, body angled like the road itself belonged to her and she’d take offense if someone tried to take it away.
And then the bridge had gone.
Not the whole thing. Not cleanly. It didn’t collapse like a story. It detonated like someone had punched a hole through the spine of the world. Stone and dust erupted upward. The air became grit. Lanterns swung wildly and then vanished behind a wall of debris. The carriage lurched, wheels skidding. Men shouted. Horses reared.
They were on the side of the bridge that went to Brindlecross and Jayce had one sickening moment where he could see the other side through the dust.
Kairi’s side. Dato’s side. Zen and Kurt and Darius, silhouettes turned frantic and sharp against the haze, and Kairi’s cloak whipping as she moved like she was trying to anchor the universe with her hands.
Arrows started flying. Not aimed. Not clean. Blind shots, the kind bandits fired when they didn’t care who they hit so long as something bled.
“Down!” Jayce had shouted, and didn’t remember hearing his own voice. He only remembered moving, shoving Damon toward the carriage, grabbing some of the guards by the collar and hauling them behind cover.
Rush hadn’t ducked. Rush had gone still. Not frozen. Focused. Like a dragon made human and asked, politely, to fit inside a road. Because the enemy wasn’t just on one side.
When the dust thinned enough to give the world back its edges, Jayce saw them. Cloaked shapes on the opposite slope, bows raised, faces hidden. More movement on the road ahead of them. On the side where the rest were.
It wasn’t a mugging. It wasn’t random. It was a net. And the net wanted the girl.
Rush’s gaze tracked the break in the bridge, then snapped to the wagons. Supplies. Luggage. Everything that needed to arrive intact if they wanted to keep moving, if they wanted to keep a route, if they wanted to keep any pretense of control.
Then he looked at the gap again. And Jayce understood with a cold drop in his stomach: Rush could not be in two places at once, but he could get close enough to cheating to make fate nervous. Rush’s hands came up, palms half-open, as if he were about to pray. Instead, flame bloomed. Not wild fire. Not showy. Controlled. The kind of heat that was meant to work, not dazzle.
Shade, who had been lounging like a shadow made solid, went alert in a heartbeat. He shifted closer without being told, eyes scanning the slopes like he was counting how many men he’d have to carve through if Rush fell. Shade looked to Rush and he simply nodded to Shade. He placed a hand on Shade and he vanished. Soon enough there were screams and cries on the ridge near them as bodies fell into the gap.
Jayce remembered shouting something. He didn’t remember what. Maybe Rush’s name. Maybe a warning. Maybe a curse.
Rush looked to Jayce and then the other side. He went to Jayce. "We need to secure the wagons and get over there." He looked between Jayce and the handful of guards here. He grabbed two by the shirt. " Breath" He ordered and they vanished.
Jayce looked across the gap and could see Rush pointing to the wagon and the guards he took heading that way. And then he stepped into the space where the bridge used to be, as if the air itself owed him a path. The dragon’s magic hit like a punch to the senses. Jayce felt it in his teeth. In the roots of his hair. A pressure change, like the world holding its breath.
Rush was beside him again. "Shade is finishing up who is on our side, we need to get over." Tessa came over wiping her blades clean on her cloak and sheathed one and signed quick.
Before Jayce could argue, Rush took Tessa's hand and they vanished. And reappeared on the other side. Tessa securing panicked horses and tending to the wounded.
Jayce gathered and got everyone he could in the carriage. Damon stared at him. " He is what?" Jayce gritted his teeth. " Teleporting the carriage." Jayce closed the door and turned to face Rush. Rush had a look, and he didn't like that look at all. Rush nudged him away and looked over to Fenway. " The horses are going to hate this." He stated. Fenway nodded and gripped the reins tighter. Rush placed both his hands on the carriage and closed his eyes.
It all vanished. Jayce felt a pang of fear hit him and then heard the cries of horses and panic across the gap. The relief he felt seeing the carriage on the other side was not something he could express right then. But he noticed how each jump cost him. Jayce could see it even across the dust and distance. Rush’s shoulders stiffening. The way his hands shook for a fraction of a second when he landed. The way fire licked too hot up his wrists and he didn’t flinch, because flinching was a luxury.
He burned himself down to keep moving. He burned himself down to keep the convoy from becoming two corpses and a story told by bandits.
Jayce grabbed some of the horses and Slate holding them steady as Rush appeared again. Shade came out of the brush, blood splattered across his face.
"Majesty" He began and Rush just glared at him. " Just talk Shade." He barked.
Shade nodded. " Ridge is cleared, there weren't many on our side, and it looks like the majority of the ones on the other side are dead or chased the Princess."
Jayce looked between them. "Rush, those guards are good, they are excellent shadowguard. They will die protecting her. Dato, will die protecting her."
Rush snapped his gaze to Jayce. " I know that idiot will die protecting her." He snapped. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. "I'm worried she'll die protecting him." He muttered and grabbed Shade's wrist and a handful of the front of Jayce's shirt. "The horses will spook" Rush whispered.
Jayce could see the sweat drip from his hair line and the ache of exhaustion on him. "Rush...you'll burn yourself out if you keep jumping." He stated simply.
Rush only laughed. "Then throw me in the carriage and get us to that town." Rush looked to Shade. "Follow their trail once we are over...Jayce can watch over my unconscious body."
Shade simply nodded and grabbed a rein of one of the horses. Jayce tensed and then they were falling, twisting and then suddenly on solid ground again. Jayce let go of the horses and immediately wrapped his arms around Rush as he swayed.
It wasn't long after that, they reestablished their convoy and started forward again. Shade found where they went off the trail and followed it. Rush laid in the carriage with Damon. Damon was quiet and just watched Rush sleep.
But they moved forward. After a day of sleeping, Rush woke and now he was here riding, focused.
To the fort-town first, because it had walls and soldiers and a stable and men who could ride messages fast. Because Rush could slam his fists on a map and make the world start moving again. They’d sent word. They’d sent scouts.
They’d listened to every traveler that came in from the gorge like their lives depended on the shape of a rumor.
And now, a day out from the fort-town, the rumor they’d been starving for finally drifted toward them on a merchant’s breath:
Guards in Naberian uniform. A girl. Alive.
Jayce had almost laughed when he heard it. Not because it was funny. Because his body didn’t know what else to do with relief that sharp.
Now, riding beside Rush in the late sun, he tried to feed that relief to the silence like you fed a starving animal.
Damon rode ahead with Fenway, a little apart from the rest. Damon’s shoulders were set. His head was up. His face wore the calm charm-mask he wore for crowds. But Jayce had watched him when no one else was looking. Watched his eyes keep cutting, again and again, to the road behind them. Like he expected to see Dato riding there any second. Fenway had tried to talk to him earlier. Jayce had heard pieces. Soft words. Practical ones. The sort Fenway always used when he wanted to tether someone to reality. Damon had answered a few times, then gone quiet again. And Fenway, wise man, had let him. Some thoughts had to burn down on their own.
Rush’s horse kept pace with Jayce’s, steady and relentless. Rush hadn’t stopped scanning the road, the treeline, the ridges. His gaze was a weapon that never sheathed.
Jayce took a slow breath, chose his moment, and finally spoke into the blade-silence.
“Rush,” he said carefully, like you addressed a storm you didn’t want to anger. “I’m sure Shade caught up to them by now.”
Rush’s head turned a fraction, not fully looking at him, just acknowledging the sound.
“And they weren’t alone,” Jayce continued, voice steady on purpose. “Dato had Zen and Kurt. Darius was with her. That’s… that’s more steel than most towns ever see.”
Rush nodded once. Just once. Jayce pressed anyway, because someone had to. Because if no one did, Rush would keep staring at the horizon until his eyes bled.
“She’s fine,” Jayce said. “They were seen. Multiple travelers confirmed it. She made it off the gorge road. She’s alive.”
Rush’s jaw flexed. The muscles in his throat moved as he swallowed something that wanted to be anger.
“I know,” Rush said at last, flat and raw. “I’m still eager to see her.”
Jayce could have let it end there.
But he’d talked and planned with Rush long enough to recognize when a man said the safe sentence because the dangerous one was lodged behind his teeth.
So he risked it. “Eager,” Jayce echoed, letting a touch of dry humor try to soften the edge. “That’s a very polite word for what you’re doing right now.”
Rush’s eyes flicked to him, sharp as a blade tip.
Jayce lifted his brows. “You’ve been gripping those reins like you plan to strangle the road. I’m just saying, if the road could feel fear, we’d already be there.”
For a heartbeat, Rush looked like he might actually smile. It didn’t arrive. But something in his face eased, just a sliver. Like the dragon in him heard the joke and decided not to incinerate Jayce for it. Jayce took the win and kept talking before the silence could reclaim its throne.
“You did the right thing at the bridge,” he said, quieter now, more honest. “Getting the carriage through. Getting people to the fort. Thank you for that.”
Rush’s gaze went forward again. “We didn't save them all Jayce."
“No,” Jayce agreed. “We didn’t. But, you made a good impression on the Naberian guardsmen here.”
Rush’s hands tightened around the leather. Then Rush spoke, voice low.
“If she’s hurt,” he said, and the air around the words went colder, “I’ll…”
Jayce didn’t let him finish. Because the things Rush would do were not safe to name out loud.
So Jayce cut in softly, “When we see her, you’ll get to be her brother again. Not the dragon. Not the prince. Just… you.”
Rush’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if he didn’t trust the idea.
Jayce smirked. "Then you can spar with Dato and vent your stress and frustration out on him, because he will take it to stay in your good graces."
Rush looked to him. "Future brother-in-law" He corrected.
Jayce slowly looked to Rush. "So...you decided on the alter instead of murder. That's an improvement." He looked forward again.
At least he was talking now. Soon they would get to see them.