Page 110 of Unravelled
He was battered and bleeding, scratches along his arms, his hair clinging to his sweat-dampened skin, his tunic torn, his nose split open at the bridge. And still, His eyes found hers.
He lay beside her. Eye to eye with her. Watching. Waiting.
His voice came low, steady, shaken. “Mira...”
Her throat burned, raw and tight. Her chest ached, hollow and splintering. Ren shifted closer, still lying beside her, still watching. Soft. Gentle.
“Let me hold you...” A plea, not a command.
Mira squeezed her eyes shut, her breath shuddering, hot tears slipping down her cheeks. Her fingers tightened in Torvyn’s tunic.
“I... ” her voice cracked. “I can’t leave him alone.” Ren exhaled, something soft and breaking inside him too.
“He’s not alone, we’ll be right here” His voice was so sure, so steady.
A sob tore through her. And another. Her body shook with each one. Ren didn’t move. Didn’t push. Didn’t tell her to stop. He just waited.
Mira exhaled a ragged breath, her chest heaving, her body trembling as she slowly turned shifted her gaze, looking at Torvyn’s pale face. Someone had closed his eyes. The finality of it clawed through her.
Her fingers trembled as she reached out, barely brushing his cheek. But he was so still. Unmoving. Gone.
Slowly, she crawled to Ren. He opened his arms without hesitation. And the moment she reached him, she collapsed into him. Ren held her tight. Mira clung to him, her body shaking, sobs tearing through her, relentless and raw. Breaking her apart.
He didn’t speak. Ren’s hand slid through her hair, slow and careful. His heartbeat thudded steady against her ear. Her grip on his tunic loosened. Her body gave in, slumping against him. Her breath deepened. The weight of sleep pulled her under.
???
The world returned in fragments. A dull ache in her limbs. The warmth of steady arms around her. The slow, rhythmic thud of a heartbeat against her ear. Mira stirred, her body reluctant, unwilling to return to waking. But the cold, the absence, dragged her awake.
Her eyelids fluttered open. The faint glow of lantern light. The heavy hush of the palace, thick with the echoes of battle. And Torvyn. The breath she had been holding left her in a silent shudder.
He lay where she had last seen him, his body still, his face a mask of unnatural peace. His skin had turned pale, the warmth long gone, stolen. Mira swallowed against the lump in her throat. It did nothing to ease the raw, splintering ache in her chest.
Ren stirred beneath her, his grip on her tightening as if he had felt the shift in her breathing. She inhaled sharply, blinking against the blur of unshed tears. She shifted slightly, enough to turn her face up to Ren's. She saw the exhaustion lining his features, the dried blood along his temple, the bruises forming beneath his skin.
Mira’s gaze drifted past him, back to Torvyn. She needed to look at him. Needed to see him, even though every second that passed made it harder to recognize the warmth, the life, the fire that had once burned so fiercely within him.
Her fingers trembled as she reached out. He was stiff, already drying with blood. His blood. Her lips parted, but the words barely came.
“I need to bury him.” her voice was barely a whisper.
The words sat heavy in the air, pressing down, suffocating. A finality she hadn’t spoken before, hadn’t dared to acknowledge. Ren hesitated. He sat up, pulling her with him, keeping his arms firm around her, as if he could shield her from the truth.
Another figure stepped forward. A shadow darkened the pool of candlelight near Torvyn’s body. Cleric Perrin. She wore robes of deep ivory, embroidered with silver thread, her veil drawn back to reveal her face carved with quiet sorrow. Her hands moved with intention, shaped by years of ceremony, of loss, of memory carried like a second skin.
She knelt beside Torvyn’s head, fingers resting briefly against his brow. “I will complete his rites personally.” she said gently.
Mira nodded, but the movement felt detached, as if her body was answering without her. Her brother, her only family, was being prepared for the rites of the Navigators.
The thought twisted something deep inside her, curling into an ache that felt like it would swallow her whole.
“I don’t want him to be alone.” Ren’s arms tightened around her.
“He won’t be,” he murmured, voice steady despite the storm breaking inside of him too.
We’re here. We’ll take care of him." His grip was an anchor, and yet she still felt adrift. Beyond the circle of candlelight, her eyes caught a glint of red across the floor, a dark river staining the marble beneath the dais.
Blood. A trail that led away, smeared and dragged. Brahn. Someone had pulled him from where he’d fallen. Mira didn’t know where he had been taken, or if he still breathed, but Navigators above, she hoped he was dead.
