Gorvoth couldn't sleep.
It wasn't unusual for him—old soldiers rarely slept well, their minds too full of ghosts and instincts honed sharp by decades of survival. But tonight was different. Tonight, something gnawed at him with persistent unease, a feeling he'd learned long ago never to ignore.
The War had taught him many things, but the most valuable lesson was this: trust your instincts. They'd kept him alive when logic said he should be dead, guided him through situations where hesitation meant death.
And right now, every instinct he possessed was screaming that something was wrong.
He'd been concerned for days now. Jade had been confined to the clinic—"sick," Niamh had said, though her eyes had carried a weight that suggested the truth was more complicated. The boy had been absent from public view entirely, which was unusual enough. Jade was always visible, always working, always present.
For him to be completely hidden for days? That spoke of something serious.
Gorvoth had wanted to check on them earlier, but Niamh had been... evasive. Not rude, exactly, but firm in a way that brooked no argument. "He needs rest," she'd said. "No visitors. We're managing."
But tonight, that persistent unease had grown into something sharper. Something urgent.
He'd tried to dismiss it. Told himself he was being paranoid, that Niamh and Lio had everything under control. But the feeling wouldn't leave, wouldn't let him rest, wouldn't let him ignore it.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Gorvoth had pulled on his coat and left his small dwelling. The walk to the shop took less than ten minutes—he lived close by.
The streets were less noisy at this hour, most residents already asleep or too wary to be out after dark. Gorvoth moved through the shadows with the ease of someone who'd spent a lifetime in hostile territory, his senses alert, his hand never far from the blade at his hip.
He rounded the corner toward the shop and entered, the security lock recognizing him as familiar. The front door was locked but there was soft lighting inside the shop .
He didn't see anything unusual so he decided to patrol instead and perhaps clear his head and paranoia while at it.
....
'Walking around did seem to do the trick', he thought to himself while rounding the corner to the back to the main building leading to the residential area, then he froze.
The back entrance lock was shattered.
His blood went cold. The lock hadn't just been picked or forced—it had been 'destroyed', metal twisted and broken, hanging uselessly from the doorframe. Someone had broken in. Recently.
Every combat instinct Gorvoth possessed flared to life. His hand moved to his blade, drawing it in one smooth, silent motion as he approached the entrance.
The door was slightly ajar. No sound came from within—no voices, no movement, nothing. Just an oppressive, heavy silence that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Gorvoth pushed the door open slowly, his blade ready.
The workshop came into view, and his heart stopped.
Niamh lay crumpled near the storage shelves, her body limp and unmoving. Lio was a few feet away, collapsed beside a workbench, equally unconscious. A faint chemical smell lingered in the air—something acrid and wrong.
And further into the workshop, he heard it.
A voice. Male. Rough and unhinged, carrying notes of obsession and something that made Gorvoth's gut twist with instinctive revulsion.
"—moment of what I have planned for you. Every. Single. Moment. You're going to beg. You're going to—"
Gorvoth moved.
He didn't call out. Didn't announce himself. He simply moved with the silent efficiency of someone who'd killed before and wouldn't hesitate to kill again.
He rounded the corner, and the scene before him seared itself into his memory with horrifying clarity.
A gaunt man—barely human in appearance, hollow-eyed and broken—was crawling across the floor. His body was shattered, blood trailing behind him, but he moved with desperate obsession toward—
Jade.
The boy was on the ground, writhing. His silver hair was scattered across the ground in waves, his forehead dampened with sweat, his body trembling violently, his breathing rapid and shallow. But it was his eyes that made Gorvoth's chest tighten.
Those silver eyes—usually so controlled, so cold and calculating—were wide with terror. With helplessness. With desperate, pleading vulnerability.
Their gazes locked.
And in that single heartbeat, Gorvoth understood.
He couldn't sense pheromones, but he'd lived long enough to recognize what he was seeing. Jade's condition. The way his body limped despite the absolute horror written across his face.
The boy wasn't just sick.
The crawling man reached out with a trembling hand, his words continuing to pour out like poison. "Your body wants it. You can't fight what you—"
Gorvoth's blade took his head off mid-sentence.
The motion was clean and brutal. Steel cutting through flesh and bone with a sound that seemed too quiet for what it meant. The body collapsed forward, lifeless, and the head rolled across the workshop floor before coming to rest against a workbench.
Silence crashed down like a physical weight.
Gorvoth stood over the corpse, his blade dripping blood, his scarred face utterly expressionless. Then he looked at Jade.
The boy was still trembling, his eyes fixed on Gorvoth with desperate gratitude and absolute vulnerability. He tried to speak—his lips moved—but only a choked, broken sound emerged. His body wouldn't obey him. Couldn't obey him.
"Don't," Gorvoth said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of old wars and older secrets. "Save your strength."
He sheathed his blade and crossed to Jade in three strides, kneeling beside him. The boy flinched slightly—instinct, not fear—but didn't pull away as Gorvoth carefully gathered him up.
Jade was lighter than he should be, his body burning with fever-heat that radiated through his clothes. He made a sound—half protest, half desperate relief—as Gorvoth lifted him with ease.
"Clinic," Gorvoth said, more to himself than to Jade. "You need—"
He didn't finish. Jade's head lolled against his shoulder, his consciousness flickering as his body struggled against the overwhelming heat. Small, desperate sounds escaped him—broken whimpers he couldn't suppress, sounds of someone fighting a losing battle against their own body.
Gorvoth moved quickly but carefully, carrying Jade through the workshop to the clinic room. He shouldered the door open and laid the boy on the narrow bed as gently as he could manage.
Jade immediately curled into himself, his hands clutching at the sheets, his breathing ragged. Sweat soaked through his clothes, and tremors wracked his frame in waves.
Gorvoth scanned the clinic shelves with practiced efficiency. His eyes landed on a section marked with blue labels—suppressants, various strengths. He grabbed the strongest one he could find, reading the label quickly to confirm dosage.
"Jade," he said, his voice firm but not harsh. "Look at me."
It took visible effort, but Jade's silver eyes focused on him, barely. They were glazed with fever and need, but some spark of awareness remained.
"You need to take this," Gorvoth said, uncapping the vial. "Can you sit up?"
Jade tried—he genuinely tried—but his body wouldn't cooperate. His arms shook uselessly, unable to support his weight.
Gorvoth slipped an arm behind his shoulders, supporting him as he brought the vial to Jade's lips. "Drink. All of it."
Jade's hands came up to grip the vial—trembling so badly he nearly dropped it—but Gorvoth steadied it, helping him tilt it back. The suppressant went down in desperate gulps, some of it spilling down his chin.
When the vial was empty, Gorvoth lowered him back to the bed. Jade's eyes were already closing, his body beginning to relax fractionally as the medication started to work. It wouldn't stop the heat totally, but it would dull the worst edges, make it survivable.
"Sleep if you can," Gorvoth said quietly. "You're safe now."
Jade's lips moved, forming words that didn't quite emerge. But Gorvoth understood anyway.
Thank you.
He pulled a thin blanket over Jade for the comfort of coverage and stepped back. The boy was already slipping into a fitful, fever-soaked sleep, his body still trembling but no longer writhing.
Gorvoth stood there for a moment longer, his expression unreadable. Then he turned and left the clinic, closing the door quietly behind him.
He'd taken perhaps five steps back into the workshop when he heard movement.
Niamh gasped—a desperate, ragged sound—and Gorvoth turned to see her pushing herself up from the floor. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, struggling against the lingering effects of whatever gas had been used on her.
"Jade—" she choked out, her voice raw with panic. "Where's—"
"Safe," Gorvoth said immediately, crossing to her. "He's in the clinic. The threat is eliminated."
Niamh's gaze swept the workshop wildly, landing on the headless corpse, the blood pooling across the floor, the shattered remains of what had been an intruder. Her hands were shaking as Gorvoth helped her to her feet.
"What—" She swayed, and he steadied her. "What happened?"
"Someone broke in. I arrived in time." Gorvoth said, his voice calm despite the carnage around them
Niamh's eyes locked onto his, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke. A thousand questions hung in the air between them—questions about what he'd seen, what he understood, what he would do with that knowledge.
"You saw," she whispered, and it wasn't a question.
Gorvoth met her gaze steadily. "I saw an intruder attacking a boy under my protection. I eliminated the threat. Nothing more."
Niamh stared at him, searching his scarred face for any hint of judgment or curiosity or threat. But his expression remained neutral, giving nothing away except steady resolve.
Her legs gave out, and she would have collapsed if Gorvoth hadn't caught her. Sobs broke from her throat—desperate, terrified sounds she'd been holding back. A lot of 'what ifs' running through her mind.
Gorvoth let her cry against his shoulder, his hand awkward but steady on her back. He wasn't good at comfort—the War had burned most of that out of him—but he could offer presence. Stability.
After a long moment, Niamh pulled back, wiping at her eyes roughly. "Lio," she said, her voice hoarse. "We need to—"
"I have something," Gorvoth said. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small vial. They moved to where Lio lay unconscious. Gorvoth uncapped the vial and waved it under Lio's nose, the acrid chemical smell sharp enough to make Niamh's eyes water.
The effect was immediate and violent.
Lio's eyes snapped open, and he jackknifed upright with a strangled gasp, his hands already moving into defensive positions before he was fully conscious. "What—where—"
"Easy!" Niamh grabbed his shoulders, trying to ground him. "Lio, it's me! You're safe!"
But Lio wasn't listening. His eyes were wild, sweeping the workshop, taking in the blood, the corpse, the shattered lock. "Intruder!" he gasped out, trying to stand and nearly falling. "There was... where's Jade?!"
"Jade is safe," Gorvoth said, his voice cutting through Lio's panic with calm authority. "The intruder is dead. You were gassed. It's over."
"No—" Lio shook his head violently, his hands trembling. "I have to—I need to check on him—"
"He's resting," Niamh said firmly, her hands still on his shoulders. "He's in the clinic. He's safe, Lio."
Lio stared at her, his breathing ragged, his entire body shaking. "I couldn't—" The words came out broken. "I tried to fight but I couldn't—"
"You were unconscious," Niamh said. "There was nothing we could have done."
But Lio wasn't hearing her. His gaze had fixed on the headless corpse across the workshop, and something was crumbling behind his eyes. "I was supposed to protect him," he whispered.
"Lio—"
"I failed." The words were flat, empty. "He needed me, and I failed."
Niamh's expression cracked with helpless pain. "That's not—"
"I need to see him," Lio said, trying to stand again. "I need to make sure he's—"
"No." Gorvoth's voice was gentle but absolute. "He needs rest. Privacy. You can see him when he's better."
Lio looked like he wanted to argue, but something in Gorvoth's expression stopped him. Instead, he just slumped back down, his hands covering his face, his shoulders shaking.
Niamh knelt beside him, wrapping her arms around him, but he remained rigid. Unresponsive. Lost in whatever dark spiral was beginning to form in his mind.
Gorvoth watched them for a moment, then looked around the workshop. The corpse. The blood. The evidence of violence that couldn't be explained away.
"We need to clean this up," he said quietly.
Niamh looked up at him, her face streaked with tears.
"I'll take care of it." Gorvoth said.
Niamh nodded, gently extracting herself from Lio—who remained hunched over, his face still hidden—and stood. "What do you need?"
"Help me move the body first," Gorvoth said. "Then we scrub every trace."
They worked in grim silence, Lio sitting motionless in the corner, staring at nothing. Gorvoth made a brief communication through a handheld device—cryptic words that Niamh didn't fully understand but trusted meant the body would be handled.
As they cleaned, the reality of what had almost happened settled over them like a suffocating weight. The blood came up slowly, requiring multiple passes with harsh chemicals. The chemical smell of the gas lingered stubbornly in the air despite their attempts to ventilate.
And from behind the clinic door, occasionally, they could hear Jade—soft sounds of distress, of struggling, of fighting a battle they couldn't help him with.
Each sound made Niamh flinch. Made Lio's shoulders tighten further.
By the time they'd finished the initial cleanup, Niamh was exhausted, her hands shaking from adrenaline crash and residual fear. She moved to the kitchen area, needing something—anything—to do with her hands, Gorvoth following slightly behind.
Suddenly , Niamh grabbed the wooden spoon laying on the table.
Gorvoth was examining the broken lock, his back to her, when she approached. She cleared her throat, and he turned.
Niamh pointed the spoon at him with absolute seriousness.
"If you ever," she said, her voice deadly calm despite the way her hands trembled, "mention what happened here tonight to anyone—if you even think about discussing what you saw, what you suspect, or what you understand—I will find you. And this spoon will be the last thing you see before I beat you to death with it. Are we clear?"
Gorvoth stared at the spoon. Then at Niamh's utterly serious expression. Then back at the spoon.
For the first time since arriving, his face cracked—just slightly—into something that might have been a smile.
"Crystal clear," he said. "What situation? I saw nothing but an intruder who needed to be eliminated."
Niamh held his gaze for another long moment, the spoon still pointed at him like a weapon. Then, satisfied, she lowered it.
"Good," she said, her voice cracking slightly on the word. "Thank you. For—for everything. For..."
She couldn't finish. The tears threatened to come back, and she turned away quickly, setting the spoon down on the counter with trembling hands.
Gorvoth watched her for a moment, then looked toward the clinic door. "He'll need someone with him," he said quietly.
"I know," Niamh whispered. "I'll stay with him."
"And him?" Gorvoth gestured toward Lio, still sitting motionless in the corner.
Niamh's expression twisted with pain. "He'll need time. But he'll be okay..."
"I'll check in tomorrow," Gorvoth said. "Make sure there are no complications. From the cleanup."
Niamh nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Gorvoth moved toward the door, then paused at the threshold. "Niamh."
She looked at him, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted.
"The spoon threat still stands?" he asked, and there was the barest hint of warmth in his gravelly voice.
Despite everything, Niamh's lips twitched. "Absolutely."
"Understood."
And then he was gone, disappearing into the pre-dawn darkness like a ghost.
Niamh stood alone in the workshop for a moment, listening to the soft sounds of Jade's struggle from behind the clinic door, looking at Lio's broken posture across the room.
They'd survived. But the cost was written across all of them in ways that would take time to heal.
She moved to put a kettle on for tea, her hands still shaking. It was going to be a very long few days.
.....