CHAPTER 108: ASH IN THE WIND.

The world was noise.

Steel clanged like drums. Voices rose in a storm that battered the canvas walls of the tent until they shook like sails caught in a gale. My body was a furnace of fire and ice, veins pulsing with fever, every breath cutting like glass. The cot beneath me pitched and shuddered as though the ground itself wanted to cast me away.

Outside, the mob grew louder.

"He’s cursed!"

"Kill him before it spreads!"

"We bleed because of him!"

"Break the vessel!"

The words carried weight, heavy enough to crush bone. They pressed through the tent walls, pressed into my chest until my heart pounded to their rhythm.

Garron’s voice cut back against them, a growl sharpened to a blade.

"You’ll not touch him!"

The mob roared. The sound rattled my skull, thick as thunder, thick as surf against cliffs. Through the haze of fever, I saw flashes—the tent flap tugged open by the wind, firelight spilling over a sea of armored men, shields banging in rhythm, faces twisted with fear more than hatred.

The healers shrank back, bowls clattering to the ground, herbs scattering like leaves. They muttered prayers that stank of desperation, hands trembling as they traced wards over their chests. One fled. Another pressed flat to the ground, as if the earth might swallow him whole.

Garron stood unmoving.

He was a wall of iron at my side, blade drawn, shoulders squared, his shadow falling across me like a shield. His back was bent slightly, ready to spring, ready to kill if need came. His breath steamed in the air, ragged but steady.

"You swore to him," Garron bellowed, voice carrying over the mob. "You swore to the South. Break faith now and you are nothing but carrion eaters!"

But the mob howled louder.

"Faith is dead!"

"He is North’s rot!"

"He carries their commander in his blood!"

I flinched. The words struck deeper than blades. Because in the hollow behind my ribs, in the smoldering ash of my marrow, I knew they weren’t wrong.

"They see clearly," the commander’s voice whispered, curling like smoke through my skull. "You are mine. Their fear is wisdom."

"No." My lips barely formed the word. It scraped from my throat, dry as sand. My fingers clawed weakly at the sheets, as if I could drag myself out of fire with nothing but nails.

The commander laughed. "You think denial keeps you whole? I am within you. In every breath. In every drop of blood that runs. Look—"

The tent walls flickered. For a heartbeat, I saw through them—not canvas, but ash. The men outside were shapes of ember and cinder, their faces hollow, their eyes flames. Garron was a pillar of obsidian, glowing cracks splitting his skin.

"This is truth," the commander hissed. "The world already burns. You are the match that lit it."

I squeezed my eyes shut, but the images clung like tar.

The mob pressed closer. Shields hammered in rhythm, boots stamping, their voices rising into a single word chanted over and over, a war drum of hate and fear.

"Break. Break. Break."

The tent shook. Poles bent under the strain. Canvas tore at the seams.

Garron’s voice cut sharp. "One step closer and I spill blood!"

Silence crashed. A knife-edge silence. Breath held, blades half-lifted. In that silence, I heard it—the crack of leather as Garron shifted his grip on the hilt. The rasp of steel sliding against callused palm. The weight of a man who would kill his brothers before he let them touch me.

And in that silence, the commander’s voice filled the void.

"Even he knows. They will not follow you. You are a curse to them. A vessel already breaking. Let me guide you. Let me lead. Together, we are stronger than their faith."

"I am not you," I whispered, though the words fell flat in the heat of my fever, swallowed by the drum of blood in my ears.

But a part of me—a part I hated, a part that burned—asked the question anyway.

What if he was right?

I had seen their faces. Their eyes when they looked at me, even before the duel, even before I collapsed. Fear. Doubt. Not faith, not anymore.

"They will turn on you," the commander purred. "One day soon, Garron’s blade will pierce your chest, and he will say he did it for the South. Take me. Take my strength. Become the vessel that bends, not the vessel that breaks."

"No..."

The word rasped, but it grew teeth. "No."

I forced my hand upward, weak as it was, and pressed my palm against my own chest. Heat surged beneath it—fire coiled, embers writhing. My ribs ached, bones grinding. The fever spiked until it felt like my blood boiled.

"No!"

The shout ripped from me raw, a ragged cry that shattered the tent’s silence. My body convulsed, the cot groaning beneath me, bandages snapping against my skin. Fire burst from me—not flame, not light, but a pulse of raw heat that swept the tent in a rush of air.

The healers shrieked. One was thrown against the wall. Bowls toppled. The brazier fire guttered, then roared higher.

The tent flap burst wide. The mob recoiled, faces lit by sudden flame, eyes wide. Their chant died in their throats.

And I—

I dragged myself upright.

Every muscle screamed. My ribs felt as though knives were wedged between them, my legs trembled like reeds in storm winds. Sweat poured down my skin, mingling with blood, stinging every cut. But I stood.

One hand braced against the cot, the other clutching the edge of the bandages at my chest. My vision swam—faces blurring, torches streaking like falling stars—but I forced my gaze outward.

They froze. Hundreds of them.

Southerners, my men, men who had once called my name in triumph, now staring as though death itself had risen from the cot. Some gripped swords tighter. Some stepped back, boots dragging in the dirt.

The firelight caught their faces. Fear. Awe. Hatred. All of it.

"I..." My voice cracked, ragged as torn cloth. I forced it louder, though every word was pain. "I am not...broken."

The words fell heavy. The mob flinched as though struck. Garron lowered his blade slightly, his breath harsh but steady, eyes locked on me.

Silence stretched.

Then the commander’s whisper slithered again, soft enough that only I heard it.

"Not yet."

My knees buckled. My hand slipped from the cot. Garron caught me before I fell, his arm iron around my chest, holding me up. His voice was a rumble against my ear, meant for me alone.

"You stood," he said. "That’s enough."

But I heard the silence outside—the silence of men who did not cheer. The silence of men who still doubted, who still feared.

The silence of a vessel cracking, but not yet broken.