The world narrowed to the crushing weight of Isen's body against hers and the deafening pound of her own heart in the chilling silence. For a single, frozen moment, Iris was twelve again, trapped in the chaos of a burning village, clinging to the only person who meant safety. But this was different. The roles were reversed. He was the one who was broken, and she was the only anchor in the storm.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to claw its way up her throat, but she swallowed it down. Years of solitude and survival in the unforgiving forests of Norvaria had forged a core of steel within her. She was a hunter. And a hunter did not freeze. A hunter assessed, acted, and endured.
Her first thought was the open door. A dark, gaping invitation into the fragile sanctuary she had just found. With immense effort that made her muscles burn, she shifted Isen's weight, letting him slump further against the wall near the table. His head lolled, his silver-white hair stark against the dark wood. He was unconscious, his breathing shallow and rattling in his chest. The metallic scent of his blood was a thick, suffocating fog in the air.
Moving with the silent urgency she used when stalking prey, Iris slipped to the front door and pushed it shut. The click of the latch was deafeningly loud, a final seal between their precarious bubble of existence and the world outside. She slid the old iron bolt across—a flimsy defense, but it was something. She was a hunter who knew her territory; leaving a trail open was the most foolish mistake one could make.
She returned to Isen's side, kneeling in the pool of his blood that was already beginning to congeal on the floorboards. Her fingers, stained and trembling slightly, peeled back the soaked fabric of his tunic. The wound was just as she'd feared—not a messy slash from a bandit's axe, but a deep, clean puncture to his abdomen. It was precise. Efficient. A swordsman's strike. It was a wound meant to kill. It was bleeding less now, but she knew the real danger was the damage unseen, deep within his body.
Her mind raced, sifting through options. She couldn't treat him here. It was too exposed, the first place anyone would look. Her gaze fell upon the worn rug in the center of the room, the one she straightened every week during her cleanings. The rug that concealed the basement hatch. The same hatch Isen had opened for her ten years ago, leading her into the dark, weapon-lined cellar that had saved her life.
"The basement," she whispered, the words a prayer of both memory and necessity.
Getting him there felt like an impossible task. He was solid muscle, made heavier by his state of unconsciousness. Gritting her teeth, Iris hooked her arms under his, planting her feet for leverage. She pulled. He didn't budge. Tears of frustration pricked her eyes. No. I will not fail him.
She repositioned herself, wrapping his limp arm over her shoulders and using her own body as a crutch. She dragged him, inch by agonizing inch, across the wooden floor. The floorboards groaned under the dead weight. The friction was immense, and the effort left her gasping, her muscles screaming in protest. Finally, she reached the hatch. With trembling fingers, she found the recessed iron ring and pulled. It groaned open, revealing the familiar descent into cold, earthy darkness.
Lowering him down the ladder was even harder. It was a controlled fall, a desperate battle against gravity. He was a dead weight, and more than once, she nearly lost her grip, her own smaller frame trembling with the strain. They landed in a heap on the cold, packed-dirt floor of the cellar, the thud of their landing swallowed by the subterranean silence.
The basement was just as she remembered: lined with shelves of Isen's secret armory. The cold steel of longswords, axes, and hunting knives gleamed faintly in the sliver of light from the open hatch above. It was a place built for violence, but now, it was their only refuge.
Iris worked quickly, her hunter's instincts taking over. She needed light, clean bandages, and water. After closing the hatch and plunging them into near-total darkness, she fumbled along a shelf she knew by heart, her fingers finding a familiar tinderbox and a few old lanterns. Soon, a steady, warm glow pushed back the oppressive shadows, illuminating the stark reality of their situation. From a worn wooden chest in the corner—one she had always assumed held spare parts for weapons—she pulled out not blades, but a mender's kit and a roll of clean, homespun cloth. Stored here, as if waiting for a day like this.
As she moved Isen into a more stable position, laying him carefully on a bed of old furs she'd found, something heavy slipped from beneath his cloak and fell to the floor with a soft thud. It was a worn leather satchel. The flap had come undone, and spilling from it were dozens of letters, all folded neatly, their edges softened with time. Her letters. The white envelope she had tucked into the mailbox just this morning was on top, still clean and crisp. He had taken them. All of them.
The sight struck her with more force than his collapse. For ten years, she had written into a void, a silent testament to a hope she barely dared to acknowledge. And here was the proof. He had come back for them. He had been listening. A sob escaped her, raw and sharp, but she choked it back, pressing a bloody hand to her mouth. This wasn't the time for tears. It was the time to fight. That simple satchel of paper was all the reason she needed.
With renewed resolve, she tended to his wound. Her hands, usually so steady with a bow, trembled as she cleaned the area with a damp cloth. She found a needle and strong thread in the mender's kit, sterilizing the tip in the lantern's flame until it glowed red. Stitching his flesh was a brutal, sickening task, nothing like mending a cloak. Every push of the needle through his pale, cold skin felt like a violation, but it was the only way. The scent of blood was overpowering, mingling with the damp earth of the cellar.
He stirred under her touch, his brow furrowed in pain even in his unconsciousness. His lips parted, and a single, raspy word escaped, so quiet she almost missed it.
"…Roza…"
The name meant nothing to Iris. But then he murmured something else, his voice a broken whisper lost in a fever dream, the words tumbling out in a fragmented nightmare.
"…the flower… crushed… the white rose…"
His body tensed, a shudder running through him. His voice grew fainter, more desperate.
"…the skull… not Aruria's men… the skull…"
A chill, entirely separate from the cellar's damp cold, traced its way down Iris's spine. A skull. It sparked a memory she had long suppressed—a vivid, terrifying image of the black, half-skull tattoo on the neck of the bandit who had murdered her parents. The men who had attacked him on the road, the men who hunted him now, were connected to the monsters from her past. This wasn't just a political betrayal from a distant kingdom. This was personal. This was a darkness that had haunted her family and now had come back for the only person she had left.
She finished the last stitch, her heart hammering against her ribs. She covered the crude handiwork with the cleanest cloth she had and gently wiped the sweat from his brow. He was alive. His breathing was still shallow, but it was steady. He was stabilized.
For now.
Exhausted, blood-smeared, and shaking, Iris sagged against the wall. The adrenaline that had fueled her began to fade, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness. The lantern flame cast long, dancing shadows on the walls, making the rows of silent weapons seem like patient sentinels. Her gaze drifted from Isen's still, pale face to the collection of blades that lined the shelves. Swords to behead, axes to cleave, knives to gut. Tools of death.
She understood now. Isen hadn't just come home. He had dragged the war with him, a war fought by phantoms with skull tattoos and commanded by a king who dreamt of crushed flowers.
Saving his life was only the beginning. The trail of blood leading to this house would not be ignored. The men who hunted him would not give up. The sanctuary of the basement was temporary, a mere pause in the coming storm.
Her eyes settled on a simple, well-balanced short sword resting on a nearby rack. Her hand, still stained with his blood, rose slowly and wrapped around its leather-bound hilt. The cold, solid weight of it felt strangely reassuring.
As the snow continued to fall silently on the world above, burying the bloody tracks and hiding them from the world, Iris Nerval, the hunter of Vollen, made a new vow. She would not just heal him. She would defend him. The girl who had waited for ten years was gone. In her place was a guardian. And she would turn this armory, this tomb of memories, into a fortress. She would become the predator, and anyone who came for him would be the prey.