Sunna slipped in at dawn with fresh bandages and a bowl of stew. She took one look at the crack in the floor and raised an eyebrow. "You two break the bed yet or just the keep?"
"Floor," I said. "And not on purpose."
She sat on the other side of the bed and started changing the dressing on Gunnar's chest. The black veins had faded overnight, but the burn still looked angry. "Matthías is already yelling at the scouts. Elders are moving slower than we thought. They lost too many. We've got maybe four or five days before they regroup and try again."
Four or five days. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
I looked at Gunnar's sleeping face, then at the cracked floor, then at my own scaled hands.
The power inside me stirred again, restless and waiting.
I closed my fist and pushed it down. Not gone. Just held.
For now.
But the next time the Black Council showed up at our gates, I wouldn't be the girl dragging an injured king to safety.
I'd be the one standing on the walls with the ground ready to open under anyone who tried to take what was mine.
Even if it meant the monster they all feared was exactly what this war needed.
Gunnar's breathing deepened beside me. The bond hummed steady.
I stayed right there, hand in his, watching the crack in the floor like it might split wider any second.
The keep was already stirring for another day of repairs and burials and war plans.
And somewhere out there Jakob and the elders were licking their wounds and planning their next move.
Let them plan.
I had five days to figure out how to control the storm inside me.
Five days before I stopped being the hunted.
And started being the one who hunted back.
*******************
Three days later the keep still smelled like smoke and fresh blood. The burials on the north hill were done. The walls were patched with rough timber and iron bands. And Gunnar was awake, but he wasn't moving much.
I sat on the edge of his bed that morning, spooning thin broth into his mouth while he cursed me under his breath. The black lightning scar on his chest had faded to an angry red handprint, but the veins underneath were still there, faint and ugly. He could sit up now without wincing every time, but walking more than ten steps left him sweating and pissed off.
"You're hovering," he growled, pushing the spoon away after the fourth bite. His voice was still rough, like gravel dragged over stone.
I set the bowl down hard enough to slosh. "You almost died. I get to hover."
His silver eyes met mine. The bond between us hummed steady now, warm and solid, but it felt different since the valley. Sharper. Like it knew I'd almost lost him and wasn't planning on letting that happen again. "You need to train. Not sit here feeding me like some invalid."
"I am training," I said. "Every time I touch you I'm testing how much power I can push through the bond without cracking another floor."
He caught my wrist, thumb tracing the silver scales that now covered both my arms to the elbows and half my collarbone. "That's not training. That's stalling. Go. Hit something that fights back. I'll still be here when you're done bleeding on the dummies."
I wanted to argue. The thought of leaving him alone in this room made my stomach twist. But he was right. The elders weren't going to wait for him to heal. Sunna had said four or five days total. Three had already slipped by while I sat here watching him breathe.
I leaned down and kissed him hard, tasting the broth and the faint copper of blood still on his lip. "Don't you dare slip away while I'm gone."
His hand tightened on my wrist. "Not planning on it."
I left before I could change my mind.
The training yard was empty except for a couple of older warriors sharpening blades on the far side. They gave me a wide berth when I walked in. Word had spread about the valley. Twelve of our own dead. A crevice that still hadn't been fully filled. They looked at the scales on my arms like they might bite.
I stripped off the loose tunic, leaving just the thin undershirt and my pants. The morning air hit the silver scales and they warmed fast under the sun. I picked the heaviest wooden post in the yard: the one reinforced with iron bands and started with fists. No claws at first. Just raw knuckles against solid wood.
Each hit sent shock up my arms. The scales took most of it, but my skin still split after the twentieth punch. Blood smeared the post. I kept going.
Roots. I wanted roots on command, small and controlled, not the valley-splitting shit that almost buried our own men. I dropped to one knee, slapped my palm to the dirt, and reached for the power the way Gunnar had shown me. Slow. Through the bond even though he wasn't here.
A thin black root pushed up beside the post. One. Maybe as thick as my wrist. I grinned for half a second.
Then it whipped sideways and smashed into the next dummy so hard the wood exploded.
"Fuck," I muttered.
I tried again. And again. Each time the root came faster, thicker, meaner. By the tenth try I had three of them twisting in the air like angry snakes. I sent them at the reinforced post. They wrapped it clean, squeezed, and snapped the iron bands with a metallic ping. The post cracked down the middle and toppled.
My chest heaved. Sweat ran down my back and mixed with the blood on my hands. The power felt good; too good like it wanted me to keep pushing until the whole yard was torn up.
I didn't stop.
I moved to the next exercise Gunnar had drilled into me before the last battle: controlled crevices. Small ones. Just enough to trip a wolf, not swallow half the battlefield. I focused on a circle of dirt ten feet away, pictured the bond as an anchor, and pushed.
The ground split open in a neat five-foot trench.
I laughed once, sharp and breathless. "Finally."
Then the trench kept going. It raced across the yard like a living thing, swallowing two more posts and cracking the stone path that led to the armory. Dust billowed up. One of the older warriors shouted and jumped back.
I yanked my hand away. The crevice stopped but the damage was done. My heart slammed against my ribs. The power inside me wasn't satisfied. It wanted more. It wanted the whole keep if I let it.
"Elva!"
Sunna's voice cut across the yard. She and Nina were jogging toward me, both of them armed like they'd expected a fight.
I wiped blood off my knuckles with the hem of my shirt. "I'm fine. Just practicing."
Nina stopped at the edge of the new trench and whistled low. "Practicing or trying to bury the keep? That's the third crack this week."
Sunna grabbed my elbow. Her grip was tight. "You've been out here since dawn. Again. Gunnar's awake. He can feel this through the bond and he's cursing loud enough to shake the rafters. You need to stop."
I pulled free. "I can't stop. The Council's coming back in two days. Maybe less. If I rely on Gunnar every time the power flares, what happens when he's down again? Or when they hit us with something worse than that Bound thing?"
Nina crossed her arms. "Then you train smart, not until you drop. You're shaking, Elva. Your scales are spreading again. Look at your neck."
I touched my throat. Sure enough, cool silver had crept up under my jaw. I hadn't even felt it.
Sunna's voice softened. "Merja told me this power doesn't play nice when you're scared. You're scared of becoming the monster Jakob called you. So you're punishing yourself out here. It's not helping."
I wanted to tell her to fuck off. Instead I looked at the wrecked yard, the splintered posts, the fresh trench, the blood on my hands and felt the exhaustion hit all at once. My legs wobbled. The bond tugged at me, faint but insistent, pulling me back toward Gunnar's room like a leash.
"Fine," I muttered. "Ten more minutes."
Nina laughed once, short and mean. "Like hell." She hooked one arm through mine. Sunna took the other. They started dragging me toward the hall whether I liked it or not.
I dug my heels in for half a step, then let them pull me. My body felt heavy, the kind of tired that goes bone-deep. The power inside me grumbled but settled when I pictured Gunnar's hand on my wrist.
They marched me straight to the bathing chamber off the main hall. Hot water steamed in the big stone tub. Someone had already laid out clean clothes and a plate of meat and bread. Sunna pushed me toward the tub.
"Wash the blood off. Eat. Then you can sit with Gunnar and glare at the walls together like the pair of stubborn asses you are."