Chapter 82 – On Memories of the Past
Blake walked through the corridor—each step stirring dust from stone that hadn't felt movement in ages. The air was dry, heavy with the scent of time.
At the end of the hall stood a door carved from the same pale rock as the walls, its surface etched with faint, half-erased runes. Blake stopped in front of it, heart giving a slow, uncertain beat.
Something about it felt… familiar.
He stood in front of it, twin poison blades sheathed across his back, staring at the words inscribed in pale, shifting script.
ON MEMORIES OF THE PAST
The letters seemed to breathe with the stone, fading, brightening, like a pulse.
He frowned. "Yeah, that's not ominous at all."
The pyramid's corridor behind him was still—too still. Sand-swallowed silence, faint hum of buried runes, the echo of his own breathing. Lysa was gone. The mummy, the fight, the teleport disc—he'd been alone when the wall behind him had shifted and this door had appeared.
He rolled his shoulders, forcing the tension out.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let's see what you've got."
Blake put his hand on the door.
The stone was cool.
For a fraction of a second, something tugged at his mind—the sense of falling without moving, of someone peeling back the skin of the world and pushing him through.
Then the floor slammed back under his feet.
Heat hit him in the face, hot and dry.
Wind moved.
Sunlight burned.
Boots thundered in a rhythm he knew better than his own heartbeat.
"Move it!" he shouted—without thinking, without deciding to speak, voice already hoarse from use. "Last kilometer, don't slack now!"
The squad laughed and groaned behind him.
Blake ran.
Red dirt kicked up under his boots, the baked earth cracking in long lines across the training field. The sky overhead was a bright, endless blue, the kind that belonged only to open plains, not enclosed tombs. The banners snapping on the walls to his left were deep crimson, stitched with a sigil he recognized down to the last curve.
The crest of the Kingdom of Rina.
The regiment's fortress rose ahead—dark stone, high walls, pennants bearing Rina's rearing lion. In the distance, he could see the faint shimmer of the capital's silver towers, half-obscured by heat haze.
Home.
Of course this was home.
Why had he thought of anything else?
"Pick it up, you slugs!" he called over his shoulder, matching pace to the steady drum of his squad's boots. "If you're not dying, you're not trying!"
Groans answered him.
"I hate you, lieutenant!" someone wheezed.
"You love me," Blake shot back.
Laughter broke through the exhaustion.
They were eight in all, his squad—his people. Faces he knew as well as his own reflection. Sun-browned skin, scarred arms, sweaty grins. The smell of leather, metal, and exertion wrapped around them like an old cloak.
Two of them were brighter threads in the fabric.
Jake ran at his left, matching his stride with lazy ease. Black hair tied back, eyes sharp and amused even as sweat ran down his jaw. He bumped shoulders with Blake as they jogged.
"Could've let them walk the last stretch, you know," Jake said. "You already proved you're a sadist an hour ago."
"Training's not over until someone vomits," Blake replied.
"Yeah," Jake said dryly. "Usually you."
Blake snorted, but the laugh lodged somewhere in his chest.
Behind them, keeping pace without strain, ran Ashley.
He didn't need to look to know exactly where she was. He felt her like another heartbeat—one half-step behind, a little to the right. If he glanced back, he knew exactly what he'd see: light armor, tighter and more refined than the others; hair the color of warm wheat, pulled into a high tail that swung with each stride; eyes that glinted pale gold when the sun caught them.
He looked anyway.
Ashley's cheeks were flushed, lips parted, breath steady. When she noticed him glancing back, she didn't flush the way she used to during their first training cycles. She only lifted a brow with that familiar, infuriating, perfect smirk that said.
Eyes forward, lieutenant.
He mouthed, Shut up.
Her grin widened.
Heat rose under his ribs that had nothing to do with the run. They had been stuck in this dance for years—glances, almost-touches, brush of hands in the dark between tents. But that had been before. Before the last year. Before he'd finally stopped being a coward and let the truth stand between them.
Now there was no almost about it.
Ashley was his.
And he was hers.
The thought hit him with the solid weight of fact. Right. That was how it had always been.
So why did something inside him twitch at the edges of the memory, as if he'd forgotten… someone?
A name tugged at the back of his mind like a hook.
John—
He stumbled for half a step.
Then Jake slapped his shoulder and the moment snapped. "Don't tell me the great lieutenant Blake Keir is going to eat sand on his own drill."
"Shut up," Blake said automatically.
He ran them hard for the last stretch. By the time they crossed the chalk line marking the end of the field, most of the squad doubled over, sucking in air, hands on knees.
"Cool down jog," he ordered. "Then combat drills."
Groans. A few half-hearted curses.
Ashley walked past him, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Sunlight struck her bare forearms, picking out the faint lines of old training scars.
"You're enjoying this," she said.
"Obviously," Blake replied.
She stopped close enough that he could see every fleck of color in her eyes. "You're pushing us harder than usual."
"New mission might be coming," he said. "Colonel's been tense."
Her expression sobered. "You think it'll be bad?"
He thought of the maps he'd glimpsed in the strategy tent. The way Cory's jaw had set. "I think we don't know yet. So I'd rather you're tired and alive than comfortable and dead."
Her gaze searched his face. "You always carry it like that," she said softly. "Like the whole squad's life is a stone on your shoulders."
"It is."
Ashley's lips parted exactly as they always did right before she said something that would make it harder to breathe.
A whistle cut through the air. One of the squad called, "Oi! Lovebirds! You two going to stare at each other all day or run us through the drills?"
Ashley rolled her eyes, but her hand brushed his as she stepped back—a small, deliberate touch, fingers sliding against his knuckles.
He caught them.
Just for a second.
Then he let her go.
"Form up!" Blake shouted.
They obeyed.
He put them through combat patterns until the sun slid down and the training field turned the color of dried blood. Sand rose under boots and blades. Poison aura hung faintly in the air as he summoned the thin, emerald-hued light into his twin swords, demonstrating a slicing pattern, the toxin threading along the steel like smoke.
They watched him with trust. With respect. Some with laughter, some with envy.
Jake with pride.
Ashley with something that made his throat tight.
By the time he called halt, the sky was bruised purple. Lanterns along the walls flickered to life, their flame-light painting the fortress of Rina in warm orange. The banners above caught the evening wind, lions rearing high against the sky.
"Enough for today," Blake said at last.
"What about you?" Jake asked, wiping sweat from his jaw. "Finally going to stop torturing us and relax?"
"Maybe."
"Lie." Ashley's voice floated from behind him. "He's incapable."
Blake turned. She stood a little way off, arms folded loosely, expression expectant.
He jerked his chin toward the side path. "Walk?"
Jake grinned. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"That doesn't limit much," Blake said.
"Exactly."
They left the field together.
The fortress of Rina was a mix of stone and sand, the architecture practical and hard. Barracks. Training rings. Wells. Ward-towers humming with defensive runes. But beyond the outer walls, the desert softened—small scrub trees, thorny bushes, and, further out, a rocky ledge that overlooked a dry riverbed.
Blake and Ashley had claimed that ledge years ago.
When they reached it now, nothing had changed and everything had.
The sky stretched above, a dome of darkening violet freckled with the first shy stars. The wind was cooler here, carrying the faint scent of distant water. The desert rolled away on all sides, an ocean of shadow.
They sat close, shoulders almost touching. The beats between their breaths matched without trying.
"You ever wonder what we'd be doing if we weren't soldiers?" Ashley asked quietly.
"Nope," Blake said.
She snorted. "You're impossible."
"It's true," he added. "If I hadn't enlisted, I'd probably be drunk in some alley in the lower city."
"You'd be running something in the lower city," she corrected. "Drunk and in charge."
He shrugged. "What about you?"
"I'd be bored," she said simply. "There's nothing for me outside of this. Outside of you."
The words sank in slowly.
He turned his head. In the fading light, she was almost unreal—profile cut sharp against the horizon, eyes reflecting the first star-pricks of light in the sky.
You look at her and forget yourself, he thought.
He had. Many times.
Ashley faced him fully. "You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Staring like I'm going to vanish."
His throat worked. "You might."
She reached out, fingers finding his cheek. Her touch was calloused but gentle. "I'm right here."
Heat rolled through him. Not just desire—though that was there, raw and simple—but something heavier. Older. The solid, terrifying knowledge that he would burn the world before he let it take her.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"I'm thinking Jake's going to complain if we're late to dinner," he said.
"Liar."
He leaned in without deciding to.
She met him halfway.
The kiss wasn't new. Wasn't the first. They'd had those already—tent-flap shadows, quick brushes behind walls, stolen seconds on long nights. But this one felt… deeper. Less rushed. The world fell away in layers until all that remained was the warmth of her mouth, the taste of salt and heat, her hand in his hair and his on her waist.
He broke away only when breath became a necessity.
He rested his forehead against hers. "I don't deserve you," he murmured.
"Correct," she said softly. "But you're stuck with me anyway."
He huffed a laugh that felt too close to a sob.
Footsteps scraped on stone behind them.
"Lieutenant Blake."
The voice was clipped, formal. A messenger, not a friend.
Blake drew back, jaw tightening. Ashley's hand slipped from his cheek, fingers lingering for a heartbeat before falling.
The messenger—a young cultivator in regiment colors—stood at attention near the edge of the ledge. "Sir. Colonel Cory requests your presence in the command tent."
Blake's spine straightened automatically. "Now?"
"Immediately."
Ashley squeezed his hand once, quick. "Go," she said. "I'll make sure the others don't eat without you."
"Tell Jake if he touches my portion, I'll poison his boots."
She smiled. "You know he will anyway."
He wanted to kiss her again.
Instead, he rose.
"Don't go dying on me," she said lightly.
"You first," he replied.
He followed the messenger back through the fortress, the sounds of evening fading into the steady thud of his boots on stone. Somewhere, someone laughed. Somewhere else, a drill sergeant yelled at late recruits.
He pushed open the flap to the command tent.
Inside, the air was cooler, shaded. Lamps burned on iron stands, casting steady light over a large central table. Maps sprawled across it—topographic charts of the surrounding region, red and black markers pinning down key points. Thin lines traced patrol routes, trade roads, and supply lines.
Colonel Cory stood behind the table.
He was taller than Blake by a head, broad-shouldered, uniform immaculate despite the dust of the desert. His hair was dark with threads of silver at the temples, his jaw clean-shaven, his eyes sharp as drawn blades. Power coiled under his skin, restrained but unmistakable—a man balanced on the edge of D-Rank, maybe beyond.
"Lieutenant," Cory said. His voice carried the weight of command without effort. "At ease."
Blake saluted, then stepped closer. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
"I did." Cory gestured to the maps. "You and your squad have been performing well. Discipline. Efficiency. Loyalty. I've been watching."
Something in Blake steadied at the words. Praise from the colonel was not given lightly.
Cory tapped a mark on the map—a small dot representing a town to the north-east, near one of the lesser-known oases of Rina. "This settlement—Harven Reach—went silent three days ago. No traders. No signal flares. Scouts sent to check the routes haven't returned."
Corruption, Blake thought immediately. Cultists. Or beasts.
"We have reason to suspect outside interference," Cory continued. "There have been whispers of a group moving through the region. Symbolism we don't recognize. Ritual markings."
Blake's jaw clenched. "Orders, sir?"
"I want your squad to go there," Cory said. "You're to move quietly. No flashy displays. No unnecessary engagement. Observe first. Identify any threat. If you can handle it, you handle it. If not, you return and report."
"Timeline?"
"Tonight," Cory said. "You leave within the hour. I want first report before dawn tomorrow. If we need to mobilize more forces, I'd rather know before half the regiment is asleep."
Blake nodded. "Understood."
Cory's gaze sharpened. "This is not a glory mission, Lieutenant. It's a test. Of judgment as much as strength. You have people who trust you. Make sure they have a reason to keep doing so."
Blake met his eyes. "I won't fail them."
"I've seen what happens when you do," Cory said quietly. For a heartbeat, something like old grief flickered over his face, then vanished. "Dismissed."
Blake saluted again and turned to leave.
The night outside had deepened. Stars crowded the sky, bright and cold over the dark sweep of Rina's desert. The fortress torches burned in small clusters of light, constellations of flame on the ground.
He could already see the training field from here, dim silhouettes moving—his squad packing gear, laughing, complaining, getting ready, because if the lieutenant said move, they moved.
Jake.
Ashley.
The names felt like anchors.
He took a breath that tasted of dust and steel and something like hope.
"Well," he muttered to himself. "Let's go save a town."
He didn't remember the pyramid.
Didn't remember Lysa or the coffin or the way stone had closed over him.
For now, there was only the desert of Rina, his squad, the woman he loved—
—and a mission that waited like a loaded blade in the dark.