Eyes Across the Fire

Chapter 5: Eyes Across the Fire

"Move!"

Theron's shout broke whatever had frozen between them, and Wren dropped low on instinct a half second before his blade passed over her shoulder and into the throat of the rider closing fast from behind her. 

The man fell without a sound. Wren didn't have time to thank him for it.

"You're supposed to be dead," Theron said, breathless, already turning to meet the next threat. "Or gone. My father's men searched for years and found nothing, how are you here? in a village I nearly rode past without a second glance?"

"Because staying alive meant staying somewhere your father's men would never think to look twice," Wren shot back, shifting to block a strike aimed at his exposed flank.

 "It's not a coincidence you found me tonight, Theron. It's Vaelith's men who found me first."

"Vaelith." His jaw tightened around the name like it explained too much and not nearly enough. "They're not supposed to know the border village"

"They've had eyes here for weeks. Your captain only found out tonight, same as you're finding out now, which tells you exactly how much either of you actually knows about what's happening in your own kingdom."

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Wren drove her attacker back with a snarl half buried in her throat, wolf and woman blurred together in the heat of it. 

"You get to ride in eight years too late and act surprised that the world kept moving without you in it."

"I didn't choose eight years, Wren."

"You chose the first one. That was enough."

The words landed harder than either blade had all night, and for one dangerous heartbeat Theron's guard dropped along with his composure, long enough that Serel had to shout a warning and physically shove him sideways to keep a Vaelith blade from opening his ribs.

"Save it," Serel snapped, breathless, blocking the follow up strike himself. 

"Whatever this is, it can wait until we're not actively dying."

"He's right," Wren said, forcing herself back into the rhythm of the fight, though her voice hadn't fully steadied. "Later. If there is one."

"There will be," Theron said, low, certain in a way that had nothing to do with the battle around them.

"You don't get to promise me that."

"I'm not asking permission."

"You never did," Wren said. "Not for the rejection, not for showing up tonight. Some things about you haven't changed at all."

"Some things had to change," Theron said, cutting down another man without breaking stride. 

"I'm not the same person who let you walk out of that hall eight years ago. I've spent every night since trying to remember why I did it, and I can't, Wren, there are pieces missing, whole years I can't account for, and every time I get close to the answer it slips out of reach like it was taken from me on purpose."

"Taken." Wren's eyes narrowed even as she fought. "What do you mean, taken?"

"I don't know yet. But I intend to find out."

"You'll have to survive the next few minutes first."

Before either of them could push the argument further, Callum's voice cut across the green, sharp with something that silenced every other sound in Wren's ears.

"Theron” how many did your scouts report on the eastern road?"

"Six, maybe eight," Theron called back, cutting down another attacker without looking away from the tree line.

 "Why?"

"Because I'm counting torches on the western ridge that don't belong to any party we accounted for," Callum said, "and there are considerably more than eight."

Wren's stomach dropped. She turned, following his line of sight past the burning green, past the scattered bodies in Vaelith colors, to the dark rise of the ridge road where the trees thinned enough to show what had been hidden until now.

Torchlight. Dozens of points of it, strung out along the ridge in a formation too disciplined to be anything but a second full company, moving with the patient certainty of men who knew exactly how this night was supposed to end.

"That's not a raiding party anymore," Callum said, voice gone flat with the weight of the miscalculation. "That's an army."

"Lord Vaelith wouldn't commit that many men to a border village, Theron said, though even as he said it, doubt was already creeping into his voice.

"He would," Wren said quietly, "if he already knew exactly what was worth losing that many men to take."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Theron demanded.

"Meaning this was never about a stray Omega hiding in a border village, Theron. Vaelith doesn't spend an army on a rumor. He spends it on a certainty.". 

"How could he possibly be certain?"

"That," Wren said, "is a question you should be asking your own court, not me.

Theron's head turned toward her, question forming,and behind them both, from the direction of her ruined house, Elowen's voice rose sharp and clear over the chaos, calling for her mother in a tone that made every remaining argument between them irrelevant in an instant.

"Mom! Mom, they're coming from the east road too, Ashe saw them from the cellar window, there's more of them, they're already past the well"

Wren didn't wait to hear the rest. She was already moving, and behind her, for the first time in eight years, so was Theron, matching her stride without a word, both roads to Hollow Pine now closing at once around everyone with her.