carried across 89

89 Burn To Ash 

Sera 

We didn’t take the main stairs. Yvara led us down a narrow, dark servant’s stairwell that bypassed the Great Hall and the main barracks entirely. The stone walls were freezing. We moved in complete silence. Fenris carried the dead weight effortlessly, his boots making almost no sound on the stairs. 

We reached the heavy iron door at the base of the keep. Yvara pushed it open. 

We stepped out into the deep, frozen woods behind the fortress. 

The wind howled aggressively, biting directly into my exposed skin. The snow was knee-deep. The darkness under the thick pine trees was absolute. We walked for two miles, moving far beyond the perimeter of the regular hunting patrols. The cold seeped directly into my bones, but I kept my pace steady. I matched Fenris’s long strides. 

We reached a deep, natural ravine hidden between two sheer rock walls. 

Fenris dropped the canvas-wrapped body into the snow. It hit the ground with a heavy, muffled thud. 

Yvara didn’t waste time. She started gathering dead, dry pine branches from under the thick canopy. Fenris walked to a massive, fallen deadwood tree. He didn’t use an axe. He drove his heavy boot directly into the center of the rotting trunk, shattering the wood into massive, splintered chunks. 

We piled the wood high in the center of the ravine. Fenris lifted the body and threw it directly onto the top of the pile. 

Yvara pulled a small flask of highly flammable pine oil from her belt. She poured it over the canvas and the dry wood. She struck a piece of flint against her steel dagger. 

The spark caught instantly. The fire roared to life. 

J 

The flames chewed rapidly through the dry wood and the oil-soaked canvas. The heat pushed the freezing wind back. Within minutes, the pyre was a towering inferno. The smell of burning pine violently mixed with the sickening, sweet stench of roasting meat and singed hair. 

I stood ten feet away from the blaze. The intense heat flushed my face, thawing the ice on my eyelashes. 

I looked across the fire. 

Fenris stood on the exact opposite side of the pyre. The massive, roaring flames completely illuminated his face. The orange light cast deep, harsh shadows across his scarred skin. 

He wasn’t looking at the burning body. He was looking directly at me. 

His pale grey eyes cut straight through the smoke and the fire. The sheer intensity of his stare anchored me to the frozen dirt. I didn’t look away. I held his gaze through the flames. 

There were no words. The crackling of the burning bones filled the silence. 

1/2 

8 Bum Te Ash 

+25 Bonus 

He knew exactly what I was. I wasn’t a soft, compliant southern princess waiting to be rescued. I was the woman who looked at his political enemy and orchestrated a brutal, flawless execution to keep him on his throne. I had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. 

The shared complicity hung heavy in the smoke between us. It was a dark, violent secret that bound us together tighter than any treaty my father ever drafted. It was deeper than the mate bond. It was absolute, mutual survival. 

Fenris held my gaze. Slowly, deliberately, he gave me a single, heavy nod. 

I nodded back. 

We stood in the snow and watched the elder burn to ash. 

+25 Bonus