Chapter 16 – First Blood on the Road
Eleven days left.
Dawn on the eleventh day was a blade of pale gold across the valley, turning every corpse from the last week's skirmishes into statues of frost and blood. The royal army had encamped in perfect formation: white tents in neat rows, siege towers like broken fingers against the sky, ice-drakes circling high above on tethered chains.
We rode out under a black stag banner and a white parley flag that snapped side by side.
Evelyn on her black gelding, cloak lined with silver wolf-fur, hair braided tight for battle, crimson eyes burning.
I rode at her left, one pace back, in blood-red leather reinforced with northern mail. My twin short swords were sheathed across my back; the silver stag scar on my left arm already itched like it knew what was coming.
No armour on our torsos. We wanted them to see exactly who dared to meet them.
Between the armies stretched two hundred yards of churned snow and frozen dead. Ravens hopped from corpse to corpse, black eyes bright.
Cedric waited in the exact centre.
He had come himself: white destrier, golden cloak, crown circlet glinting beneath his hood. Fifty Royal Blades in full plate formed a steel ring around him. At his right hand sat Saintess Lilia on a white palfrey, gown immaculate, blonde curls escaping her hood like spun sunlight. Her hands trembled on the reins.
We reined in ten paces away.
For a long moment no one spoke. Only the wind and the ravens.
Cedric broke first, voice carrying with practiced royal command.
"Lady Evelyn de Clermont. You have played your little rebellion long enough. End it now. Ride back with me to the capital. Swear fealty before the council. The north keeps its ancient rights. No more blood need be shed."
Lilia's voice followed, soft and pleading, exactly as the original novel always wrote her.
"Evelyn, please… so many have already died. This war can still stop."
Evelyn did not look at her.
She looked only at Cedric.
"You murdered my father," she said, every word clear enough to cut flesh. "You forged evidence to brand me traitor. You sent assassins to slaughter us on the exile road. You burned three villages that refused your winter tax. And now you speak to me of mercy?"
She drew her father's longsword in one smooth motion and laid it across her saddlebow, the blade catching the dawn like a shard of frozen fire.
"I offer you one chance, Cedric. One. Withdraw every soldier south of the Frostfang Pass by sunset tomorrow. Disband this army. Return to the capital and stand public trial for Duke Aldric's murder. Do this, and you keep your life."
Cedric's smile was thin and terrible.
"You think your frozen barbarians can stand against the kingdom's might?" His voice rose, ringing for his own army to hear. "You are a duke's daughter playing at war, Evelyn. Come home before you force me to drag you back in chains."
Evelyn tilted her head, the way a wolf does before it bites.
"I think," she said softly, "twenty thousand men can die screaming in this valley if you force my hand. Starting with you."
Cedric's hand dropped to his sword hilt.
My blades were already half-drawn.
Then Lilia did the thing the original novel always had her do in moments of high drama: she spurred her palfrey forward, hands outstretched, tears shining like diamonds on her cheeks.
"Evelyn, please—"
The Royal Blade directly behind Cedric (helm shadowed, visor down) loosed his crossbow.
Not at Evelyn.
At Lilia.
The bolt left the string with a sharp thwip.
The world slowed to a crawl.
I saw the fletching (black feathers, royal blue shaft).
I saw the trajectory (perfect, lethal, aimed for the soft hollow beneath her chin).
I saw the exact moment the story tried to correct itself.
If the saintess dies here, Cedric loses the one thing keeping half the kingdom on his side.
If the saintess dies here, Evelyn becomes the monster who slaughtered the "pure" heroine.
If the saintess dies here, the entire timeline snaps back to the original ending where Evelyn and I die on the exile road.
I cannot let the book win. Not when we've come this far. Not when I've finally tasted what it's like to have her look at me like I'm more than a shadow.
I moved.
I kicked my horse sideways so hard the gelding staggered. My body slammed into Lilia's palfrey chest-to-chest. The impact drove the air from my lungs.
The bolt took me high in the right shoulder, just below the collarbone.
Pain exploded (white, blinding, absolute).
The force rocked me backward. Blood sprayed hot across Lilia's white gown.
She screamed (high, shocked, alive).
I stayed in the saddle through sheer, stupid will, right hand clamping the shaft. The head was buried deep; barbed. Blood poured between my fingers, soaking my crimson leather in seconds.
Cedric's face drained of every drop of colour.
"TRAITOR!" he roared at his own man, voice cracking like a boy's. "HOLD! HOLD, DAMN YOU!"
The Royal Blades froze, weapons half-raised, not knowing whose order to obey.
Lilia was sobbing, clutching her throat where the fletching had grazed her skin, staring at me with huge, horrified eyes.
I met Cedric's gaze across the snow and smiled with teeth red from the blood I'd bitten back.
"Still breathing, Your Highness," I called, loud enough for both armies to hear. "You'll have to try harder than that."
My voice did not shake.
Evelyn's sword was already levelled at Cedric's throat from twenty feet away, her horse dancing with fury.
"Withdraw south of the Frostfang by sunset tomorrow," she repeated, every word carved in ice. "Or next time the arrow finds the saintess you claim to love."
Cedric's hands shook on his reins. His mouth opened, closed. No sound came out.
Our war-horns sounded from the fortress (deep, rolling, inevitable).
The great gates opened.
Five thousand northern cavalry thundered out in perfect formation, lances lowered, black stag banners snapping like war drums.
We turned our horses without another word and rode back through our own lines while the valley shook with the roar of the north.
Behind us, Cedric sat frozen in the snow, staring at the arrow still dripping my blood onto the ground where his saintess had almost died.
Cedric's scream finally tore loose (raw, inhuman).
"NO! SHE WAS MINE! YOU CAN'T HAVE HER!"
He spurred his horse forward, sword half-drawn, tears of rage and terror cutting tracks through the grime on his face.
Two Royal Blades grabbed his reins, dragging him back.
"Your Highness, no! It's a trap!"
He fought them like a mad thing, golden cloak tearing, crown circlet falling into the snow.
Lilia was sobbing, reaching toward us as if she could still stop the moment.
But the northern cavalry closed ranks behind us, a wall of steel and fury.
The gates slammed shut.
Inside the courtyard, the moment the portcullis dropped, my vision tunnelled.
I slid from the saddle and hit the snow on my knees, blood pouring fresh from the jolt.
Evelyn was off her horse in a heartbeat, cloak abandoned, hands already tearing at the laces of my leather jerkin.
"RIN! Gods, Rin, stay with me—medics! NOW!"
Her voice cracked on the last word.
I tried to stand. The world spun.
She caught me as I swayed, arms around my waist, taking my weight.
"Why?" she demanded, voice shaking with terror and fury. "Why did you take the arrow meant for her? She is nothing to us! She is the reason—"
I cupped her cheek with my good hand, smearing blood across her pale skin.
"Because if she dies," I rasped, "the story wins. Cedric keeps his mask. The kingdom rallies behind the 'murdered saintess.' We become the villains again. I won't let that happen. Not to you."
It was the closest I could come to the truth without saying I know the book, I know how this ends if we follow the script.
Her eyes searched mine, crimson bright with tears she refused to let fall in front of the army.
"You stupid, impossible woman," she whispered. "You will never do that again."
Then she kissed me (hard, desperate, tasting of snow and my own blood), right there in the courtyard with five thousand soldiers watching.
When she pulled back, her forehead stayed against mine.
"I love you," she said, loud enough for the nearest ranks to hear. "And if you ever scare me like that again, I will chain you to the bed until the war is over."
A ripple of laughter and cheers rolled through the troops.
I managed a shaky grin. "Promise?"
She laughed once (wet, relieved) and kissed me again.
Medics swarmed. Someone cut the jerkin away. Someone else pressed a wad of cloth to the wound.
The last thing I heard before darkness took me was Evelyn's voice, fierce and steady:
"Get her to the circle. Now. I'm not losing her today."
Eleven days left.
And the story just learned that even destiny can bleed when you stand in its way.