All These Broken Things Chapter 29
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Odrian woke with the dawn, clutching empty air and thoroughly resenting it.
Canvas roof.
Smoke in the air.
War camp.
He lay still for a moment, staring up at the sagging seam of the tent before sighing like a man personally betrayed by morning.
“Traitor,” he muttered toward the sun.
He swung his legs out of the bedroll and reached for his armor.
The leather was cold. He welcomed it. Cold was bracing, a reminder that he was, regrettably, awake and responsible.
Outside, the camp was already stirring. Fires were coaxed back to life, boots scraped earth. The indistinct murmur of men who would complain later and obey anyway.
He felt eyes on him the moment he stepped into the gray half-light.
Euryan, Odrian’s second in command, straightened abruptly from his lean against the supply crate, years of discipline snapping his spine into parade rest despite the early hour. His gaze flicked, from the healing tent’s canvas flap, to Odrian’s face, then carefully to the middle distance.
“Sir,” he said, the word clipped and regulation-perfect, though the roughness of their shared boyhood scratched beneath its surface. “Scouts from the eastern ridge. No movement overnight. Tharon banners remain two days out, assuming they haven’t changed pace.”
“They’ve changed pace,” Odrian said cheerfully. “They always do. And the supplies?”
“Stable.” Euryan hesitated before adding, “The thefts have stopped.”
Odrian blinked once. Slowly.
“What a mystery,” he said. “Do alert the bards. They’ll be devastated.”
Euryan paused, a telltale hesitation, the same instinct that had once kept them from sailing straight into a reef, the same voice that urged retreat when glory beckoned.
“The High King’s observers noted your visits to the medical tent,” Euryan continued, his eyes remaining fixed on the horizon like a good soldier. “Three times after midnight.” He cleared his throat. “Nomaros is asking if the Tharon asset requires such… close personal attention. Or if the Kings of Othara and Kareth have begun personally guarding the linens.”
He risked a glance sideways, sharp brown eyes meeting Odrian’s for just a heartbeat before dropping back to the dirt.
“With respect, sir, the men are watching. And the council whispers that you’ve forgotten she’s a prisoner, not a guest.”
Odrian adjusted his belt, fingers lingering on the empty loop where his signet used to rest.
“Nomaros has his observers compiling bedtime chronicles now?” He exhaled through his nose, sharp and controlled. “How terribly Nomaros of him. One would hope the High King might deploy his spies against Ellun rather than against my sleeping habits, but ambition takes many forms.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice to a murmur that cut sharper than a shout.
“Let them whisper, Eury. Let them count my footsteps and speculate over their ledgers. But you—” his hand found Euryan’s shoulder, grip tightening with the absolute, bruising certainty of command, “—are not their courier. You’re my shield-bearer. Act like it.”
He released him, turning his gaze toward the healing tent where the canvas rippled in the morning breeze.
“She delivered timber routes, a command seal, Walus’s harbor, and a prince’s secret. We paid for that intelligence in blood.” His jaw tightened, the only crack in his armor. “That makes her an investment. A rather expensive one, given the volume of honeycake Dionys is funneling into her child.”
His lips curved, sharp and fleeting.
“I won’t throw the investment away because the council enjoys gossip. Pass that to Nomaros. If he wants to discuss her status, he can do it in formal session while I explain precisely how many Tharon hulls his ‘prisoner’ has already cost the enemy.”
He turned fully, the lazy cadence of his voice belying the steel beneath.
“Now stand your post, old friend. Try not to look so scandalized. It wrinkles your brow.”
Euryan snapped to attention. “Yes, sir. The shield holds.”
Then, softer, the rough edge of their shared boyhood creeping past the soldier’s polish, “But shields buckle if they’re placed between too many blades. Nomaros isn’t the only council voice sharpening knives. Lauthen’s been asking about the Tharon woman—where she sleeps, who guards her, which kings visit after dark.” He met Odrian’s eyes, steady and grave. “You taught me to speak when I see the cliff before you do, Odi. I’m speaking. Watch your footing.”
He turned on his heel, facing the camp with his chin lifted. “My post is held. Sir.”
Odrian stood motionless for three heartbeats after Euryan turned away, the warning settling in his gut like a lead weight.
Lauthen.
The rooster-king whose soldiers had used an upward thrust on a starving woman because they saw prey where they should have seen desperation.
And now he was asking where she slept.
The healing tent was quiet when he reached it. He didn’t announce himself. He simply pushed through the flap and found Alessia awake, pale but vertical, with Stella arranging rocks in a defensive perimeter around her cot. Dionys’s dagger gleamed on the blanket like a promise.
Odrian looked at the raw, red marks on her ankle and thought of the questions Lauthen was asking. The way his men hunted weakness.
The way men like that always came back to finish what they’d started.
They would have to come through him first.
─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─
Askarion shoved past Odrian without ceremony, a fresh roll of linen clamped under one arm and a clay bowl reeking of willow bark in his free hand. He slammed both onto the crate beside Alessia’s cot hard enough to rattle the dagger Dionys had left there and make Stella’s rock formations wobble.
“Whatever crisis you’re about to manufacture with your dramatic looming,” he snapped, jerking his chin at Odrian, “it can wait. She is not walking today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after, unless you want to hear what catgut sounds like when it gives.”
He peeled back the dressing at her ankle with a rough, efficient tug, his scowl deepening at the sight of the raw, healing flesh. “The foot’s attached. Let’s not remedy that by marching it across a war camp before the skin decides to stay put.”
“Then she doesn’t walk,” Odrian said flatly, overriding whatever protest Askarion was preparing. “She’s carried.”
He let his gaze flick to the tent flap, then back to Alessia’s pale face. “Lauthen’s been asking where she sleeps. Which guards stand watch. His roosters didn’t finish their work at her shoulder, and I’d rather not offer them a second chance. My tent has walls I control, a door I bar, and guards who answer to me alone.”
A ghost of his usual smirk tugged at his mouth as he glanced at Stella’s rock formations. “Plenty of room for the Admiral’s battalion. Bring the rocks. Bring the yarn. Bring every honeycake in the camp. But she is not staying here where any man with a grudge and a spear can find her.”
Stella shot to her feet so fast Admiral Stonebelly toppled sideways into Lieutenant Pebble, and she put both hands on her hips as she stared up at Odrian with her best scary face.
“Your tent better be safe,” she announced, pointing at him with a sandy finger. “Really, really safe. ‘Cause this tent has Uncle Asky and Captain Sparkle guarding the door, and you don’t even have rocks.”
She stomped a foot for emphasis.
“I’m coming too. And Mama’s bandages. And the yarn. And all the rocks. Every single one. Admiral Stonebelly gets the watch post by the door, Lieutenant Pebble guards Mama’s pillow, and Captain Sparkle sleeps under the blanket to make sure nobody pinches her toes.”
Odrian gave a solemn nod.
Askarion straightened from the cot, wiping his hands on his apron with vicious strokes, and fixed Odrian with a glare that could strip paint off armor.
“Your quarters,” he repeated, his voice a gravel-rough sneer. “Of course. Because nothing says healing like hauling a woman with an open wound through a camp full of men who smell like goats.”
He stepped closer, jabbing a blood-stained finger Odrian’s chest.
“You want to move her? Fine. She’s your patient now, since you’ve decided to play physician-king. But you move her on a proper litter. Braced, bound, and slow enough that my catgut doesn’t notice the breeze.” His gaze sharpened. “You jolt her once. One jar of that foot. And I will personally ensure you require my services for injuries I’ll officially record as ‘falling repeatedly onto surgical instruments.’”
He turned back toward Alessia, muttering under his breath in Thasari, a string of syllables that sounded like a curse on quartermasters and kings alike. “And you. Don’t think this means you’re mended enough for strategy sessions and theatrical swordplay. You stay in bed. You keep the foot elevated. You don’t lift, carry, or use that new pig-sticker—” he jerked his chin at Dionys’s dagger, “—to open correspondence, food, or anyone’s throat for at least a week.”
Alessia let her head fall back against the pillows with a thump that sent stars dancing behind her eyelids, but she managed to scrape together enough breath for a wheezing laugh.
“Wonderful. Promoted from one prison to another. At least this one comes with better wine and fewer poppy lectures.”
She lifted her head just enough to fix Askarion with a look that was all stubborn edges and dark humor.
“I promise not to use the ‘pig-sticker’ on correspondence, food, or throats for at least a week. Though if Lauthen’s roosters come knocking, I reserve the right to reconsider the timeline.”
Askarion grunted, and then he glanced down at Stella, who was clutching Admiral Stonebelly with fierce, sandy protectiveness. His scowl softened by exactly half a degree.
“And you—keep the rocks.” He kicked at a stray pebble with his sandal, sending it skittering into the corner. “A few—”
“All of them,” Odrian interrupted.
“—uninterrupted,” he finished with a snarl, whipping around to fix Odrian with a glare hot enough to cauterize. “Do not finish my sentences, King, unless you’ve suddenly acquired twenty years of surgical training. I was going to say a few won’t kill her.”
“My tent is big enough,” Odrian said with a shrug.
Askarion threw his hands up, linen and bowl both abandoned on the crate with a ceramic clatter. “Fine. All the rocks. Move the entire Myrian shore into your tent if it pleases your royal vanity. But when someone—likely you— trips over Admiral Stonebelly at midnight and splits his thick Otharan skull open, don’t come groaning to my tent for stitches. I’ll be busy. Pretending not to hear you.”
He clattered his instruments into his kit with deliberate violence, the bone needles rattling like dice. “Patrian and I will check the wound daily. And if we find her condition has worsened because your ‘shield-bearers’ dropped her, I will demonstrate exactly how a battlefield physician handles kings.”
He paused at the tent flap, yanking it back to reveal the grey morning light.
“She goes now. Before Lauthen drains his morning wine and decides to take a stroll through the wounded.” He paused. “I’ll be expecting a full cask of decent wine in payment for the inconvenience. And not that sour piss you lot call drink.”
─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─
Outside, Dionys sat sharpening a blade, whetstone scraping slow and rhythmic against bronze. His own rounds were already completed. Dawn watch checked, perimeter walked, the eastern guard rotation noted and memorized. He didn’t look up when Odrian’s shadow fell across the sand in front of him.
“You moved her,” Dionys said. Not a question.
Odrian dropped into a crouch across from him, elbows on his knees, close enough that the whetstone’s spray dusted his boots. He didn’t reach for a blade of his own. He just watched the rhythm of Dionys’s hands.
“Had to,” Odrian said, voice scraped raw by salt and wind. “Lauthen’s asking where she sleeps. Which guards stand watch.”
The whetstone stopped mid-stroke. Dionys turned the blade over, inspecting the edge in the grey morning light, then set it across his knees with deliberate care.
“Lauthen asks questions,“ he said, voice rough and low, “because Nomaros lets him. Because to them, she’s still a Tharon asset that bleeds useful intelligence. A stray dog that fetched a seal and pointed out three hulls.”
He finally looked up, slate-grey eyes catching Odrian’s with an intensity that belied his stillness.
“She’s not a stray anymore.”
Dionys ran his thumb along the blade’s edge, testing, feeling the bite of fresh bronze against his callus. Then he resumed scraping.
Odrian followed Dionys’s gaze to the tent where Alessia’s shadow moved, sharp and limned in the morning light. The sound of Stella’s laughter cut through the camp noise.
“No,” he agreed, his voice stripped of theater, reduced to bare gravel. “She’s not.”
He ran his thumb across the empty leather loop on his belt where his signet used to rest.
“I moved her because Lauthen’s hunting. Because his roosters didn’t finish their work.” The whetstone scraped, rhythmic and steady. “But I’d have moved her anyway. Sooner or later. She’s not a stray, not an asset I’m keeping close because she points well. She’s…”
He trailed off, searching for the right word.
He almost laughed, shaking his head, the sound bitter and wondering. “Nomaros will call it weakness. Sentiment. Let him. I’ve spent half my life turning loyalty into leverage.”
Odrian’s jaw tightened, his gaze fixed on the tent where Alessia sat, free of bronze, surrounded by rocks, arguing with a physician about her own confinement.
“We take the bronze to the smith. Watch it burn into something new. And then…” He paused. “Then we figure out the rest.”
The words hung between them.
Dionys didn’t answer. The whetstone kept singing. Bronze caught the morning light, brighter with every pass.
Odrian knew he should stop talking. Every instinct he had honed since childhood told him to shutter up, to deflect, to jest his way back to solid ground.
But his mouth kept moving, traitorous and desperate.
“I gave her my seal, Dio. Do you understand what that means? I’ve never—not with Elenai, not with anyone—I’ve never handed over something that could unmake me.” He laughed, and it sounded broken, ridiculous. “And I pressed it into her palm like it was a pebble. Like it was nothing. Just… collateral. To keep her from running.”
The whetstone paused. Dionys looked up at him, eyes flat and unreadable.
“And if she gives it back?”
Odrian dragged a hand through his hair, yanking at the knots, feeling the salt and grit bite under his nails.
“I don’t know if I want it back,” he admitted, the words tumbling out faster than he could catch them. “She’s not a stray. She’s…”
He glanced toward the tent, where Stella’s voice rose in indignant command, ordering rocks into formation.
“And Stella. Gods, Dionys. Stella calls me Uncle Odi. She threatened to feed me to Admiral Snip.”
He was pacing. Three tight steps in the sand, then back. His hands were shaking.
He forced them still.
“I keep waiting for the strategy to surface.” He stopped, dropping back to his knees across from Dionys, close enough to smell the oil on the blade. “But it’s not. And I want to wake up tomorrow and find Alessia sorting poison in my tent and Stella demanding honeycake at dawn, and I want it to be mine.”
He stopped.
“Home.”
The word emerged raw, untested, and he flinched at it.
Dionys set the whetstone down. He turned the dagger over in his hands, bronze catching the sun, and for a long moment he just looked at the edge.
“So build it,” he said simply.
Odrian stared at him.
“I don’t know how,” he whispered.
Dionys held the blade up, inspecting it against the light. Then, with a grunt, he set it across his lap and met Odrian’s eyes.
“You already are,” he said. “You gave her the ring.” His lip twitched, not quite a smile. “That’s not strategy, Odi.”
Dionys stood.
“Come on.”
Odrian nodded, standing and dusting sand from his knees.
Together they walked toward the forge.
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