Jonothor POV
Jonothor ran.
He did not think. He did not breathe. He only ran, driven forward by a kind of terror he had never known before this night. The forest blurred around him, dark trunks twisting into towering shadows, branches reaching for him like claws. His chest felt as if it were filled with hot stones, each step a blow to his ribs, but he didn't dare slow.
He could still see her face.
Ritha.His wife of seven years. Soft-spoken, gentle-hearted, quick to smile even when the crops failed or when the winter bit a little too hard. She had laughed that very morning while tending to the garden behind their house, brushing a stray curl from her cheek as she teased him about forgetting to bring in the laundry again.
The memory felt like a knife inside him.
She was gone now. Taken from him in a storm of screams and smoke when the bandits came down from the hills. Their shouts, their boots on the floorboards, her cry, he could still hear it all behind him with every pounding heartbeat.
A whistling cut through the air.
He didn't register what it was until a burning pain tore across the side of his head. Jonothor cried out, stumbling, his hand flying to his ear. His fingers came away wet, warm, though he barely understood what he felt. He kept running, leaning forward, forcing his legs to obey him. If he stopped, he knew he would collapse, and then they would finish what they started.
"Keep going," he whispered to himself, voice breaking. "Keep going… please… please…"
Another hiss. A sharper sting.His right leg buckled beneath him, an arrow jutting from the back of his thigh. The pain shot upward like lightning, and Jonothor nearly fell, catching himself on a tree trunk. The bark scraped his palms raw, but he pushed off again, limping, dragging the injured leg as fast as it would move.
He wasn't going to survive. He knew it. But some rose inside him, some stubborn, primal spark, refused to give up.
He wanted to live.For Ritha.For the life they had worked for.For anything that still mattered in this awful moment.
The final arrow struck him without warning.
It hit his back with the force of a hammer, stealing every breath from his lungs. His arms flew forward, and he crashed into the earth face-first. His nose struck a rock hidden in the grass, and bright, dizzying pain shot across his skull. The world flickered white, then red, then dim.
He tried to push himself up. His arms trembled, barely lifting his chest an inch before collapsing again.
A shuddering breath left him. His cheek pressed against the cool soil. The grass smelled of dew and crushed leaves. He wondered if this would be the last scent he ever knew.
"Ritha," he whispered, or maybe he only thought he did. He couldn't tell anymore.
Bootsteps approached, heavy, deliberate, too slow to belong to any of the frantic bandits who had chased him. There was weight in them. A sort of cold certainty.
A hand seized his hair.
Jonothor gasped as his head was yanked upward. His vision swam. Tears, born from pain, fear, grief, everything, blurred the edges of the world. The leaves rustled overhead, the moonlight flickering.
And then he saw the man holding him.
No, not a man.
The figure loomed over him like a dark tower, encased head to toe in plate armor blackened by age or soot. Its shape was human, yes, but the presence radiating off it felt wrong, like stepping into an icy lake at night, or waking in a room where something unseen breathed beside your bed.
But it was the eyes that froze Jonothor's blood.
Two red points glowed from within the visor, steady and unnatural, as if lit by embers that never cooled. They weren't the eyes of a bandit. They weren't the eyes of any living creature Jonothor had ever known.
He tried to speak. To plead. To understand.
But his voice cracked into nothing.
The armored figure raised something, an arm, a blade, he couldn't tell, his vision quivered too much, his strength too far gone.
Jonothor's last thought was not of fear, nor even of the towering monster standing over him.
It was of Ritha sitting by the hearth on a quiet evening, humming that song she loved, the one about summer birds dancing on the wind.
The world slipped away.
And Jonothor knew no more.
Lyonel POV
The tenth day of travel weighed on Lyonel's shoulders, though not unpleasantly. He had grown used to long roads, quiet nights, and the steady rhythm of Thunder's hooves. Harvesthall felt far behind him now, its wheat fields and the calm voice of Lord Selmy fading into memory as he crossed through the patchwork of noble lands that marked the Stormlands.
Eight days ago, he had ridden out of Selmy territory.Three days ago, he had passed through Lord Staedmon's lands, their rivers thick with trout.Yesterday, he'd crossed into House Peasebury's domain.
And now he was riding through the Kingswood.
The trees here soared high as castle towers, their leaves rustling like whispered secrets. The forest felt ancient, older than any noble house, older than the Andals who brought the Faith of the Seven, perhaps older even than the First Men.
Thunder snorted as they moved along the dirt road snaking between the trunks.
Lyonel tilted his head back toward the sky. The moon hung full and pale above the canopy, framed by swaying branches. Its silver glow fell softly over the forest road, lighting Thunder's black mane and the gleam of Lyonel's breastplate.
He smiled despite the cold air stinging his cheeks.
"It is said," he murmured, lifting his hand toward the glowing orb, "that you are the personification of the love of the Mother, the beauty of the Maiden, and the light of the Crone." His breath misted before him. "You truly are…"
But his words trailed off.
Because he saw it, faint at first, barely visible between the trees. A curl of gray rising upward. Then another. Then more.
Smoke.
Lyonel straightened in the saddle, eyes narrowing.
"By the Seven… why is there such smoke in the Kingswood?" he whispered.
Thunder pawed the ground anxiously, sensing the shift in his rider's mood. Lyonel stroked his neck.
"Let's go, Thunder. I'm going to need you to be fast."
Thunder neighed sharply, as if he understood, and Lyonel urged him forward. The stallion surged ahead, hooves thundering down the forest road. Branches whipped past; leaves burst underfoot. The smell hit them within moments, burnt wood, charred bark, and something else beneath it he refused to name.
Lyonel leaned low in the saddle."Faster!"
Thunder responded with strength, galloping harder.
The smoke thickened as they approached a bend. It curled low across the road, obscuring the path ahead. Lyonel coughed once, putting his hand over his mouth.
They rounded the turn—
And the world changed.
A village lay ahead, small and isolated, more a cluster of cottages and barns than a true settlement. Or had been. Now it was halfway consumed by flame. Thatched roofs had collapsed inward, sending sparks skyward like fireflies. Walls crackled and crumbled. Livestock screamed somewhere in the chaos.
And bodies, too many, lay strewn across the ground.
Lyonel's heart clenched sharply.Not again. Not another place left to burn while men of honor looked the other way.
His hand went to his sword immediately.
Thunder stamped, enraged, sensing Lyonel's fury.
"Easy," Lyonel whispered, though his own breath shook. He pulled Adder's Fang free—no, not yet. He drew his ordinary steel blade first, wanting to save the Valyrian steel for a true threat.
But then he heard shouting.
From behind the nearest burning barn, a group of men stepped into view. Their armor mismatched, some wearing boiled leather, others bits of rusting mail, but all carried weapons slick with smoke and soot.
And among them… Lyonel's breath stopped.
Women on the ground.Pinned. Struggling. Crying out.
Lyonel did not think.He did not breathe.He kicked Thunder into a charge.
"For the Seven!" he roared, drawing every eye in the burning square.
The bandits jerked around, startled, but one, larger than the rest, stepped forward with a grin twisted across his soot-stained face. He hefted a great warhammer, iron head darkened by smoke.
Thunder was ten paces away, Lyonel ready to strike—
When the warhammer was thrown.
The brute hurled it like a catapult stone. Lyonel barely had time to block. The impact hit him square in the chest with a deafening clang that rang through his bones. The force ripped him from the saddle and sent him spinning through the air.
He slammed into the dirt on his back, breath punched from his lungs. His sword flew from his hand and landed somewhere behind him with a dull thud.
Thunder screamed and reared.
Lyonel rolled, just in time.
The warhammer crashed into the ground where his head had been, spraying dirt and broken stone. The brute laughed, stepping forward, ripping the weapon free.
Lyonel's chest burned. His ribs felt bruised, maybe cracked. His breath came ragged. But he pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet. He staggered once before catching his balance.
His blade was gone.
So he drew the one weapon he knew would strike true.
Adder's Fang.
Valyrian steel caught the firelight and shimmered, dark and rippling like smoke trapped in metal.
The bandits hesitated.
The brute did not.
He swung the warhammer in a brutal arc. Lyonel ducked low, the wind of the hammer's passage whipping over his head. Lyonel lunged forward, slicing for the man's knee. The brute jerked back, armor deflecting most of the blow, sparks flying.
Another bandit rushed Lyonel from the side, swinging an axe.
Lyonel twisted, parrying with Adder's Fang. Valyrian steel cut through the axe handle like it was butter. The bandit stumbled forward in shock, and Lyonel struck with the blade, cutting the man in half.
The brute roared, charging again with the warhammer raised.
Lyonel stepped back, barely avoiding a crushing blow that cracked a crater in the ground. Dirt sprayed into his face. He blinked it away.
Three more bandits surrounded him.
Steel clashed. Lyonel blocked a sword, slid under another strike, and kicked a man backward. His arm ached with each parry. Someone grabbed him from behind, Lyonel spun and slashed, freeing himself.
But he was tiring.
The brute advanced, each step shaking the ground.
"I'll mount your head on a spike!" the brute snarled.
"You'll try," Lyonel spat back between breaths.
Their weapons met, hammer head against Valyrian steel, sending a shockwave through Lyonel's arms. He retreated a step, then another.
A smaller bandit lunged low, trying to hamstring him. Lyonel leapt aside, but the move left him open.
The brute swung.
Lyonel barely twisted in time. The hammer grazed his shoulder, spinning him sideways. Pain flared as he stumbled, dropping to one knee.
The brute grinned and stepped forward, hammer rising for the killing blow.
Thunder screamed.
The stallion charged from the left, eyes wild, hooves pounding the dirt. He hit the brute full-force, knocking the massive man off-balance. Lyonel used the moment; he rolled, scrambled to his feet, and staggered toward Thunder.
"Go!" Lyonel gasped.
He grabbed Thunder's reins and hauled himself sideways into the saddle. His foot slipped. A bandit grabbed his boot. Lyonel kicked out, and Thunder bucked, knocking the man away.
The brute lumbered forward again, howling with rage.
"Thunder, run!"
The stallion needed no encouragement.
With a powerful leap, Thunder bolted away from the burning village, Lyonel clinging to the saddle with one arm and holding Adder's Fang with the other. Branches whipped past as they disappeared into the dark woods, the shouts of bandits fading behind them.
Lyonel didn't look back.
He just held on, breathing hard, bruised, exhausted, and alive by inches.
Thunder slowed only once the forest swallowed the smoke behind them.
Lyonel exhaled shakily.
"Good… boy…" he murmured, stroking the horse's neck, even as his arm trembled.
The Kingswood was silent again.Silent and far too dark.
Whatever evil had descended upon that village… it wasn't finished.
And Lyonel knew he couldn't run forever.