Page 61 of The Monster You Made
He lunges before the rebels can react, faster than any man should be. Steel flashes. I meet him, blades locking, sparks scattering in the mist. His strength is monstrous, his strikes deliberate. He fights not to kill but to bind, to break me piece by piece. Every clash drags old chains tighter in my skull.
Elira roars, charging, her breaching axe cleaving toward him. Soldiers surge to block her. Rourke’s rifle cracks, rebels crash against rifles, chaos erupts. But all I see is him.
“You cannot lead them,” he hisses as our blades lock. “You are a weapon, nothing more. And weapons always return to the hand that forged them.”
I snarl, fury boiling, and break the lock. My blade slices his arm, blood spraying dark in the fog. For an instant, his eyesflash, pain, fury, surprise. But then he laughs. Low. Cold. “Yes. That is the Lucian I made.”
He vanishes into smoke again, his soldiers covering his retreat. The marsh explodes in battle, rifles crack, blades clash, men scream. We cut through them, driving them back, but Declan is gone. Again.
***
When silence falls, bodies sink into muck, blood staining stagnant pools. The rebels cheer faintly, weary, clinging to the fact that he bled once more.
Elira raises her breaching axe, roaring, “He bleeds! He runs! He is no god!”
The rebels echo, though doubt flickers behind their eyes.
I do not cheer. I stare into the fog where he vanished, my chest heaving, his laughter still coiled in my skull. He bled, yes. But he laughed. And I fear what it means.
***
That night, we camp on higher ground. Fires burn low, smoke trailing thin. Vera sits beside me, Marta’s satchel across her knees. Her hand brushes mine, grounding me. “You cut him again,” she whispers. “They saw. They believe.”
I nod, but my voice is hollow. “He wanted me to. He wanted them to see.”
She frowns, confusion shadowing her face. “Why?”
“Because belief cuts both ways.” I stare into the fire, its glow flickering in my eyes. “If they believe I can kill him, then when I fail, they break. And he knows it.”
Her silence is long. At last, she whispers, fierce, “Then don’t fail.”
I meet her gaze, sharp, steady. And I swear in that moment I will not. Not while breath burns in me. Not while chains still rattle in my bones.
***
But in the silence of night, when the camp sleeps, his voice curls again through my skull, cold and certain: You are mine.
And though I bury it beneath fury, beneath fire, I know the truth: This war will not end until one of us is ash.
Chapter 28 - Vera
The marsh clings to us even after we leave it. The stench of rot lingers in our clothes, the muck dries on our boots, and the fog feels etched into our lungs. Yet it is not the marsh that follows me most. It is his laughter. Declan’s, low and cold, echoing even as he bled. It coils in my skull at night, winding tighter until sleep itself feels like surrender.
But the rebels do not hear it. They hear only the cheer of survival, the roar that followed his retreat. They whisper that Lucian cut him again, that the wolf’s fangs sink deeper each time. They speak as though the end is near, as though chains already shatter. I wish I could believe as they do. But I know laughter is not weakness. It is a promise.
***
The camp grows larger each day. More freed prisoners stumble in, their eyes sunken but fierce. Farmers bring grain, blacksmiths bring blades hammered in secret. Songs swell louder, sharper, carried on every fire’s smoke. It should lift me. It should steady me. But the satchel on my lap feels heavier with each verse. Marta believed words could tear down kingdoms. And yet, here, only blood seems to move the world.
I spend nights by firelight poring over her papers, tracing lines, marking routes. Secrets still gleam between ink stains, whispers of corruption waiting to be revealed. If I could only gather them, spread them, perhaps truth would rise stronger than steel. Yet every attempt feels drowned in ash. Villages that once raised banners for us now hang in ruin. Truth spreads, yes. But so does fire. And fire consumes.
***
Lucian moves among the rebels like shadow forged into flesh. They look to him not as a man but as a symbol. He gives no speeches, no boasts. Only presence. A nod, a glance, a command spoken low but iron-bound. And they obey. Elira fuels it, her voice thunderous as she drills recruits, her breaching axe gleaming in the sun. Together, they turn belief into steel.
But belief is fragile. I see it in the way the rebels glance over their shoulders at night, in the way whispers hush when scouts return with news of another village burned. Hope burns bright, yes. But bright fires die fastest if not fed.
Rourke feels it too. He drinks more, though he still fights with savage joy. One night, his voice low, he tells me, “They’re building you up, lass. You and the Wolf. If you fall, so do they.”
