The night had teeth.

Not the kind that bit cleanly, but jagged, lingering, gnawing at every nerve until sleep was a memory and rest nothing more than a cruel idea. I could feel it all around me as I lay in the healer's tent, the world outside restless, bristling with unease.

Men whispered beyond the canvas walls, their voices fractured and sharp like stones scraping together. Every so often came the crackle of firewood, the hiss of sparks breaking into the dark, or the hard rhythm of boots on earth. No one in this camp trusted the night anymore. Not after what they had seen. Not after the circle where one man rose and another fell but didn't quite stay gone.

And I—I trusted it least of all.

My body was a battlefield of its own. Broken ribs, torn muscle, wounds wrapped in linen so tight it felt as though the healers hoped to keep me stitched together through sheer force of strangulation. Every breath was a knife. Every shift was fire. My throat was raw from screaming, from swallowing ash and blood, from refusing to yield even when the world itself demanded it.

But the wounds of flesh were nothing compared to the weight pressing down from within.

The commander's fire still smoldered in me. I felt it with every heartbeat—an ember lodged in my chest, not mine, never mine, yet burning as though it had always belonged. The System had been silent since I woke two nights ago, but silence was not mercy. Silence was worse. Silence meant it was watching, waiting for the cracks to widen.

Ash does not die. That much, I had learned. Ash lingers. Ash remembers. Ash builds itself into something new.

I turned my head, slow and careful, the effort stealing my breath. Shadows bent and wavered in the lamplight. Herbs dangled from the ridgepole, their scent thick and bitter, filling the tent with the illusion of healing. Bowls of steaming water smoked on the floor. And beside the entrance, unmoving as a sentinel carved from stone, stood Garron.

He hadn't left me since I woke.

His arms were crossed now, his broad frame blocking half the tent flap. His eyes—gray, hard—flicked between the world outside and the broken man on the cot. I wondered if he was measuring me even now, if he was weighing not just my strength but what it meant for the army.

I closed my eyes, but sleep would not come. Every time I drifted, the commander returned. His molten gaze. His laughter, low and guttural. His words hissing through the ash: "You fight not me, but what you carry of me."

The wounds on my body would heal. The wound he had left inside me would not.

"Ryon."

The sound of my name dragged me from the spiral. Garron's voice, steady, unyielding.

I opened my eyes. He was closer now, his shadow stretching across the canvas walls. His jaw was tight, his eyes searching.

"You're awake again," he said.

I rasped out something like a laugh, though it came broken and hollow. "You never sleep."

He shrugged, but the motion was tense. "Sleep's a luxury for men who don't lead. For men who don't bleed." His gaze sharpened. "The camp's restless. Some whisper you'll rise stronger than before. Others fear you broke with him in that circle."

The words pierced deeper than my wounds. Fear. Already the cracks spread.

I forced the question out, my voice hoarse. "And you? What do you believe?"

He did not hesitate. "That you're alive, and that's enough. For now."

For now. A blade wrapped in silk.

I tried to push myself up, to look him in the eye, but my body betrayed me. Pain flared bright as lightning, and I collapsed back against the bedding. Garron moved as though to steady me, but I raised a trembling hand. No. I would not be propped up like a child.

My breath tore ragged from my chest. "The North… they'll come again."

"Yes," Garron said simply. "But not today. Their commander lies cold. Their fire dimmed. They stagger as much as we do. That buys us time."

Time. I hated the word. Time was never enough. Time was only the space between one wound and the next.

The silence between us thickened, heavy with the weight of things unsaid. Finally, Garron leaned closer, lowering his voice so that even the healers in the shadows could not hear.

"Tell me the truth, Ryon. What happened in that circle?" His eyes narrowed, unflinching. "I saw your face. The others saw it too. You weren't just fighting him. Not at the end."

The air turned colder.

I froze.

My hands clenched weakly in the sheets. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to unburden the fire that wasn't mine, the ash that clung like a second skin. I wanted to say that the commander lived still, not in flesh but in me, in the marrow of my bones, in the weight of every breath. That the duel had not ended when he fell. That it would never end.

But if I said it, if the men heard it, what would they see when they looked at me? Their warlock? Their vessel? Or their enemy wearing another's skin?

The words lodged in my throat, heavy as stone.

"I fought him," I said finally, my voice flat, stripped bare. "And I killed him. That's all that matters."

Garron studied me for a long, long moment. His gaze was sharp enough to cut, but he said nothing. At last, he nodded once.

"Very well. Keep your secrets. But remember, Ryon—secrets grow heavier than steel. And when they break, they break loudly."

He turned away, his shadow stretching as he moved back toward the tent's entrance.

His words echoed long after.

Secrets heavier than steel. He was right. But what choice did I have? If I carried this alone, it would break me. If I shared it, it might break us all.

I lay back, staring at the canvas roof as the fire inside me pulsed with every heartbeat. The commander's sneer haunted me still, the ash whispering that I was not whole, that I was not mine anymore.

I drew a breath, shallow and broken, and whispered into the silence:

"I will not falter."

But even as the words left my mouth, I felt the cracks widen.