Page 57 of Savage Devotion
RESSA
The canyon floor is littered with bodies.
Three of my recruits didn't make it out of the vine-beast attack. Young faces, barely past their first campaigns, now staring sightlessly at the ash-dark sky. I kneel beside Sean first, nineteen, eager to prove himself worthy of Vaelmark colors. A vine crushed his windpipe before Kaelgor and I even reached the canyon floor.
This is my fault.
He closes his eyes, my fingers tremble against cooling skin. If I hadn't been so distracted by the spy reports, by the growing tension between duty and desire, maybe I would have seen the signs. The scratches on the canyon walls showed where the creatures had been feeding. The unnatural silence that should have screamed danger.
Instead, I'd been thinking about Kaelgor's hands on my shoulders during training. About the way his eyes tracked my movements with an intensity that made my pulse quicken. About the moment in the firelight when everything shifted between us.
Selfish. Reckless. Exactly what Heldrik always said I'd become if I let emotion cloud judgment.
Taren lies a few feet away, his crossbow still clutched in dead fingers. Twenty-two, with a sister back in the southern territories who sent him letters every week. I'd read them sometimes when he asked, news of harvest festivals and village gossip, the ordinary life he fought to protect.
Now she'll get a different letter. The kind that starts withWe regret to inform youand ends with meaningless words about honor and sacrifice.
The third body belongs to Senna, barely eighteen and the best tracker in my company. She'd volunteered for this mission specifically, proud to be chosen for reconnaissance work. The vine-beasts caught her first, dragging her up the canyon wall before we even realized what was happening. By the time Kaelgor and I fought our way to her position, she was already gone.
I touch her forehead, whispering the traveler's blessing my mother taught me.May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back.
Empty words for empty comfort.
"Ressa."
Kaelgor's voice comes from behind me, rough with exhaustion and something deeper. Pain, maybe. Or guilt that mirrors my own.
I don't turn around. I can't face whatever expression he's wearing while I kneel among the consequences of my failures.
"Give me a moment."
"We need to move. The creatures' death-scent will draw scavengers, and we're too exposed here."
He's right, of course. Tactical thinking over emotional processing. The lesson every commander learns or dies trying.
But knowing he's right doesn't make it easier to stand. It doesn't make it easier to abandon these young faces to whatever carrion-feeders inhabit these ruins.
"Ressa." Closer now, his boots crunching on loose stone. "Look at me."
I finally turn, and immediately wish I hadn't.
Kaelgor stands swaying slightly, one hand pressed against his ribs where vine thorns tore through his armor. Blood seeps between his fingers, bright against the burnished leather. But it's his eyes that steal my breath, raw and haunted.
He's blaming himself too.
"You're hurt." I rise quickly, military training overriding grief. "How bad?"
"Flesh wounds. Nothing that won't heal."
But when I step closer, I can see the lie in the tight lines around his mouth. The way he favors his left side, the shallow breathing that suggests rib damage. He's hurt worse than he's admitting, and we both know it.
"Let me see."
"The bodies?—"
"Can wait another five minutes." My voice carries command authority, the tone that brooks no argument. "Armor off. Now."
For a moment, I think he'll refuse. Kaelgor isn't used to taking orders, especially from someone outside his clan structure. But something in my expression must convince him, because he nods and begins working at the leather straps.
