Chương 229: 39. Scorched Earth 1

When I ran back toward the harbor district, there was nothing remotely heroic going on in my head. No grand declarations of I have to save someone. No noble oaths of this life, offered up for the kingdom. Just a loud, messy tangle of thoroughly undignified thoughts— Have I completely lost my mind. What exactly am I supposed to accomplish by going back there. If she doesn't even need me, running back like this is just an extremely dedicated way to embarrass myself. And, most importantly— Damn it, Cedric.

You can't even manage a decent escape. The harbor's night had rotted through completely. With Drake Tower gone, whatever skeleton had still been holding the district's order together had been yanked out from the middle. All that remained was fire, smoke, broken stone, and shapes scrambling in every direction. Steel clashed somewhere in the distance. Burning wood cracked and popped. Screams surfaced and faded at random.

Overturned carts, scattered crates, half-burned canvas, trampled cargo, bodies lying in spreading pools of blood — all of it jumbled together, as if some notoriously bad-tempered god had gotten drunk and decided to take it out on an entire harbor. I ran, ducking under a burning crossbeam that snapped and fell from somewhere above, and nearly got bowled over by some bastard sprinting past with two silver platters clutched to his chest.

"Watch where you're going!" I yelled after him. He shot back a glare that said, as clearly as words could, if you still have the bandwidth for manners right now, that tower must have landed on your head first. I didn't have time to argue. I kept running toward the harbor's core. Half a street later, on a stretch of stone steps bathed red by the surrounding fires, I finally saw her. Ignicia. Just standing there. Behind her, the ruins of Drake Tower still smoldered.

Before her stretched a harbor that was already coming apart, though not yet fully surrendered to the enemy. Wind off the sea carried the mixed reek of gunpowder, charred wood, blood, and salt, snapping the hem of her cloak sharply in the air. She stood alone, back perfectly straight, like the last nail in the entire harbor that still refused to bow down. She must have heard my boots on the stone steps. The instant she turned and saw me, I watched her whole body go rigid. It wasn't simple surprise.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. It was more like a bowstring pulled to its absolute limit all night, suddenly flicked hard by a careless finger. She stared at me for a moment. Then her expression dropped all at once.

"... What are you doing back here?" Her voice wasn't loud. It wasn't even sharp. I would honestly have preferred she just breathed dragonfire straight into my face. Because whatever was pressed down beneath that tone was far more trouble than fire. I'd barely stopped moving, hadn't even caught my breath, when she was already closing the distance in long strides.

"Didn't I tell you to leave?" She kept coming, her eyes burning bright, those gold-red irises in the firelight like two flames she'd been barely holding contained all night.

"Cedric, are you—" She didn't finish the sentence. Her fist landed first. It wasn't actually that hard a blow. Or rather — for the Fire Dragon Princess, if that counted as hard, I wouldn't be standing here right now. I'd be embedded in the stone wall behind me as a monument for future generations to mourn over. Even so, when her fist connected with my chest, I stumbled half a step back on pure reflex, briefly convinced I hadn't jumped off that wagon to run all the way back — I'd run back specifically to get hit.

"Are you stupid?!" She hit me again.

"Are you idiot?!" The third blow landed in the same spot. This time I didn't bother dodging.

"Didn't I tell you to withdraw?!" Her teeth were gritted, and whatever she'd been holding down all night finally cracked open at the edges.

"You were already on the wagon! You were—" She stopped. Not because she'd run out of words. The rest of the sentence seemed to have lodged in her throat and refused to come out. I looked down at her. This was probably the first time I'd ever seen her come apart this close up. It wasn't battlefield fury. It wasn't the cold precision of command. It wasn't the kind of arrogant, sweeping gaze that could pin a man to the floor from across a room.

It was something far more troublesome — the look of someone who had desperately, meticulously arranged for every single person to leave, cut every tie clean, only to have one absolute idiot come running back anyway and tear a crack straight through that flawless, infuriatingly perfect mask she'd maintained all night. And then I saw it. Her eyes had gone red. Not much. Just a little. But harder to deal with than every fire in the harbor combined. Honestly, my own head went blank for a second.

I'd planned, on the way back, to have at least one halfway respectable excuse ready. Something like there was intelligence I forgot to hand over, or the delegation needs someone to coordinate the evacuation route, or, failing that, as the ambassador of Eckhaus, I can't very well tuck tail and run while an allied princess stays behind to the very end. But the moment I saw her eyes like that, every one of those carefully rehearsed excuses turned to garbage on the spot. So I could only tell the truth.

The worst, stupidest, least-like-me version of the truth I had.

"... I really was going to leave." She was still biting her lip, still glaring at me, like she was seriously considering a fourth punch. I dragged in a breath that tasted of ash and forced the rest of it out.

"But you sent everyone else away." She said nothing.

"Lei Lian — sent to the capital. The garrison — pulled back to the next line. The delegation, the wounded, the convoy — all of them, gone." I looked at her, fully aware I sounded like a man whose last working brain cell had finally sprung a leak.

"You found somewhere for every single person to go. Except yourself." Her lashes trembled once. My throat was bone-dry, dry enough that it felt like I'd swallowed a fistful of ash, but I pushed the last part out anyway.

"So..." I paused. Maybe it was embarrassment. Maybe it was knowing that once I said this, I could never again pretend I'd only come back to run errands.

"I just want to stay by your side." Wind slid through the space between us. Fire still burned somewhere in the distance. Enemy shouts still rose and fell. Some wooden structure collapsed with a heavy crash, somewhere further off. And yet, for that one instant, it felt like the entire harbor had gone completely quiet.