Echoes of Ice and Iron-Chapter 41: They Will Kill You at First Sight

The road fell away beneath them in a blur of dark earth and flying gravel.

They rode hard, faster than sense would advise, faster than comfort allowed—only easing when the bells of Ceadel thinned behind them, their voices swallowed by distance and night. Even then, no one spoke. Breath tore from lungs. Hooves struck in ragged rhythm. The wind carried the sharp, copper-sweet scent of blood.

Shin sagged in his saddle, kept upright by Bela on one side and Masa on the other. His breathing came shallow and uneven, each exhale a quiet, wet sound he did not have the strength to hide. Bela murmured to him under her breath—nonsense words, steady as a pulse—while Masa rode with his jaw clenched, one arm braced behind Shin’s back as if he could will the man to stay upright through sheer force.

Frost Fire moved without being told.

They spread, half ahead and half behind, riders fanning outward in practiced arcs even as they kept pace. No banners. No calls. Just shadows flowing along the road’s edges, blades close at hand, eyes never still. Discipline did not abandon them in flight—it sharpened.

Aya rode at the center.

Her reins were steady, her eyes clear.

Inside her, the power had not yet settled. And it hurt her. Like a thousand needles pricking her flesh. It hummed beneath her skin, too close, too raw, like a storm she had called and only barely pushed away. Her fingers ached with the memory of it—the pressure, the answering pull of blood and air and bone. She could still feel the hall: stone groaning, bodies collapsing, breath ripped from lungs not by blade but by her will alone.

And Maric.

His grin surfaced unbidden, unhinged and bright with something that had not been ambition but delight. Not strategy. Hunger.

You shouldn’t have come here.

The words replayed, twisted now by what followed—the bell, the order, the certainty with which he had raised his hand.

Then, quieter than the pounding of hooves but sharper than any cry, Elex’s voice returned to her.

They will kill you at first sight, sister.

Not accusation, but fact.

Aya swallowed and kept her eyes forward.

She had counted on King Therin. On the weight of an old crown and older rules. On a ruler who, whatever his sins, had understood the sanctity of a court and the restraint it demanded. She had believed that even a hostile welcome would still be governed by law, by appearances, by the thin but binding thread of custom.

She had not accounted for sons unmoored.

For heirs who wore madness like a mantle and mistook cruelty for strength. For men who had never learned to rule and now tore at what remained with both hands.

And beneath it all—rawer than she cared to name—there was the memory of her sister.

Emeryn’s face rose in her mind, as it does so often, like her Mother’s and her other siblings did when her world tilted. The memory of laughter once shared in sunlit halls. Of a marriage meant to bind peace, not shatter it. Of a death that still sat too close to the surface, a wound the battlefield had never managed to cauterize.

Aya had ridden into Ceadel carrying all of that.

Hope. Habit. Grief.

She had thought herself tempered enough to balance them.

The road stretched on, dark and unwelcoming, and Shin’s breathing hitched again. Aya tightened her grip on the reins, grounding herself in the simple, brutal truth of forward motion.

The West had not just rejected her.

It had confirmed everything she feared—and everything she had tried, too long, not to see.

***

They left the road only when the ground began to break beneath them.

Aya raised a hand, and Frost Fire peeled inward at once, guiding the party into a narrow ravine choked with scrub and leaning stone. The walls rose unevenly on either side—high enough to break sightlines, jagged enough to discourage pursuit. Roots clawed from the earth like grasping fingers. The moon barely reached them.

They halted for a much-needed assessment.

Horses were turned inward, muffled, and tended to. Two men took the high ground without being told. Another vanished downslope to watch the road. Frost Fire’s discipline folded seamlessly from motion into stillness.

Shin was eased down from his saddle with care.

The moment his weight left the horse, his knees buckled. Masa caught him under the arms while Bela dropped to the ground, already pulling her pack free. Shin’s face was pale now, lips tinged blue, but his eyes fluttered open as Aya knelt beside him.

"Hold on," she said at once.

Her voice was steady. Grounded. Nothing of the storm remained in it.

Aya pressed two fingers to Shin’s throat, counting, then moved to his side, moving cleanly through leather and cloth. Blood welled dark and slick beneath her touch. She did not flinch nor rush.

"Bela," Aya said quietly, fingers still pressed to Shin’s side. "The arrow wound is deep but clean, did not go through. No spine. It needs to be pulled out."

She lifted her gaze to Masa. "Hold him."

He moved instantly.

Masa dropped to one knee at Shin’s shoulders, one broad arm bracing his chest, the other pinning his good arm with practiced care. Not rough—but absolute. This was not their first battlefield extraction. It would not be their last.

Shin stirred, breath hitching as the reality reached him. His hand clawed weakly at the dirt.

Aya caught his wrist and held it firmly. "Easy," she said. "Stay with me."

The arrow jutted from his side at a cruel angle, fletching dark with blood.

Seth stepped forward, already unwrapping a strip of cloth from his arm. "I’ll do it," he said simply.

Aya met his eyes. A fraction of a second passed. "Do it clean," she said.

Seth knelt, grip steady as he tested the shaft, feeling for resistance. "On my count," he murmured, more for Shin than anyone else. "Three breaths."

Shin let out a shaky laugh that broke halfway through. "Always hated... this part."

Masa tightened his hold. Bela braced herself at Shin’s side, ready to seal the wound the instant the arrow came free.

Seth inhaled once. "One."

Shin’s chest rose, sharp and uneven.

"Two." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

His fingers dug into the earth. His jaw clenched hard enough to creak.

Before Seth could say three, Aya leaned down.

She brought her mouth close to Shin’s ear, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of his head, steady and unyielding.

"I’m sorry, brother," she whispered. Her voice dropped lower, softer—dangerously gentle. "I know this will hurt."

Seth pulled in one swift motion. The arrow tore free in a slick rush of blood.

Shin screamed.

Aya pressed her palm over his mouth, not to silence him completely—just enough to keep the sound from carrying. She pressed her forehead onto his, holding him through the violence of it, anchoring him as his body convulsed.

Bela was already moving, packing the wound, binding it tight with swift, brutal efficiency. Seth dropped the arrow aside and immediately pressed cloth to the bleeding.

Shin’s scream broke into ragged gasps, then into shaking breaths. His head sagged forward, forehead pressing briefly to Aya’s shoulder.

Masa loosened his grip just enough to let him breathe easier.

Aya did not move until Shin’s breathing steadied again.

Only then did she ease back, bloodied hand curling slowly at her side.

"Good," she said softly. "You did good."

And for just a moment—only a moment—she bowed her head, letting the weight of it pass through her. She watched as Bela packed the wound and bound it tight. Masa hovered close, jaw clenched, as if daring Shin to die despite them.

Shin managed a breathless sound that might have been a laugh. "Still... standing orders?" he rasped.

Aya allowed herself the ghost of a smile. "You don’t get to die without clearing it with me first."

His eyes slid shut again, but his breathing evened, just enough.

Only then did Aya rise.

She rolled her shoulders once, as if settling a weight that had finally decided where to sit. When she turned, Seth was watching her from a few paces away, arms loose at his sides, expression unreadable.

"Lady Aya," he surveyed her form. "Are you wounded at all?"

"No," she shook her head. "I’m fine."

Seth nodded and stepped closer, wanting to keep the conversation just between them.

"You came close," he said after a moment. "What you did back there."

Aya inclined her head. "I know."

Seth studied her a beat longer, then asked the question he had clearly been holding back. "I heard your powers were sealed. How come you can still use them?"

Aya did not deflect.

"My summoning was sealed," she said. "Not everything I am."

She glanced toward Shin—still breathing, still here—then back to Seth. "What I used in that hall... that wasn’t summoning."

Seth’s brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Aya exhaled slowly, as if choosing which truths could safely be spoken aloud.

"In House Svedana," she said, "not all women become Summoners. But we do have other things we can do."

Her fingers curled once at her side, remembering the pressure, the pull, the way the hall had buckled around her will.

She met his eyes steadily. "My mother had powers long before she ever became a Summoner. So did my sisters. Sight. Pressure. Command. The shaping of space, of breath, of fear." A pause. "Most of us have something."

Seth said nothing. He was listening now—not as a guard, not as a swordsman, but as someone standing very close to a thing that could not be unlearned.

"What I used in Ceadel was innate," Aya continued. "It’s tied to my body, my will. It’s weaker now than it had been before my powers were sealed." Her jaw tightened, and she rubbed her arm, which was starting to tingle again.

Her gaze dropped briefly, then lifted again—harder this time.

"If and when those abilities are fed by summoning—when blood answers a blood pull—" She shook her head once. "That’s when it becomes something else. Something no one in that hall would have survived. Not Shin. Maybe not even you."

Understanding flickered across Seth’s face, sharp and uneasy.

She looked past him, toward the dark where Ceadel lay far behind them.

"Maric was right," she said, voice flat. "When he called me a blood-witch."

A faint, humorless curve touched her mouth. Then Aya straightened, the weight of command settling cleanly back onto her shoulders.

"We move once everyone had a chance to rest," she said. "Quietly."

Frost Fire shifted at once, readying without question.

Aya cast one last glance at Shin, then to the dark road beyond the ravine.

Leadership, she knew now, was not just surviving the storm.

It was knowing exactly how close you came to becoming one—and choosing, every time, to stop short.