AMAIA

“WHAT'S GOING ON?” Rayla hissed, stepping forward. “You were supposed to wait at the port.”

“Wait—” the dwarf wheezed.

He looked more exhausted than the horse that had carried him, and the beast had done all the actual work. The dwarf clutched his chest like his heart might give out right then and there.

“Just... give me a moment.”

Amaia stared at him, stunned.

This wasn’t what dwarves were supposed to look like. Not the way the old songs told it. Proud, iron-built warriors with braided beards, silver-threaded cloaks, and voices like anvils ringing in mountain halls. Not the way her father had described them either. Filthy little gremlins with beady eyes, sticky fingers, and the morals of a sewer rat.

This one looked more like a collapsed puppet than a warrior or a thief. He moved like something broken inside, hunched, coughing, one hand pressed to his chest like he was trying to hold his ribs together. His armour didn’t match. One shoulder was covered in a rusted pauldron too big for him, the other in what looked suspiciously like a cooking pot hammered flat. His beard was a patchy mess, half singed, half stuck with crumbs, and his helmet sat askew on his head like it belonged to someone else entirely. The smell of damp leather and burnt oil clung to him like a second skin.

And yet… there was something almost adorable about him. Like a child dressed up for a festival, pretending to be fierce. The oversized belt, the crooked sword, even the way he blinked up at them from beneath his shaggy brows, it was all so small. So desperately theatrical.

Amaia could almost laugh, if the situation weren’t so dire.

“There’s movement gathering along the shore,” the dwarf said between gasps. “Mixed forces. Mostly Nordlings. With the Black Moon emblems. But there’s a lot of Svarts among them. Even few Sajanos. Someone’s pulling them together.”

“Who?” Rayla barked.

The dwarf shrugged weakly. “Don’t know. But they’re not waiting. If we don’t move now, we’ll be cut off. Even the sailors from the ships going to Lunareth seem to be rushing.”

Big Mike, who until now had been leaning against a tree with his usual lazy calm, straightened up suddenly.

“Do the Nordlings bother them?” he asked.

“Apparently not,” the dwarf replied. “You know, when you see Svarts and Nordling together, you might think they’ve united against the Faithful, but no. They just ignore them.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Rayla snapped. Her eyes were on Amaia, cold and calculating. “Get ready to move. We need to smuggle her somehow. Nemeth has to be there, at the port. He will be looking for her.”

She didn’t raise her weapon, but she didn’t have to. Her voice alone made Amaia’s blood run cold. She was so close.

Amaia could feel the firelight on her back and the edge of Rayla’s shadow falling over her. But hope was rising inside. Father was near. He will protect her.

He left you, an intrusive though appeared in her head. On the farm, he chose to run away. He could save you then, he won’t save you now.

They would be leaving soon. Another sleepless night. Another chance to disappear.

The dwarf coughed hard and spat.

“Captain won’t wait. He’s readying the ship. We need to reach the port before sunrise.”

Port. Amaia’s heart thudded. A port meant ships. Ships meant escape. With father or without.

“And if we don’t make it?” Big Mike muttered.

The dwarf glanced at him and shrugged.

“Then we will take one of those holy vessels,” Rayla said and everyone froze.

Amaia didn’t know what that meant, but Rayla seemed to be the only one who viewed this option as something worth pursuing.

“If we miss it,” Rayla repeated the idea, “we’ll take one of the ships heading for Lunareth.”

“You’d dare steal a god’s ship?” the dwarf whispered, as if afraid even the trees might hear.

Rayla turned on him, eyes burning with something ancient and furious.

“Not steal,” she said. “I will take it as if it was my own. There are no gods.”

And a moment, just one, was all she would need. One misstep from Rayla. One blink. And Amaia would run.

*

They rode in silence after that. Even Rayla kept her mouth shut, eyes fixed ahead like she was hunting something just beyond the horizon. The dwarf had vanished back the way he came, and with him went whatever shred of calm still clung to their group.

The wind grew colder as they climbed. The trail narrowed, edged with loose stones and brittle shrubs that snapped under the hooves. The horses snorted and shifted uneasily, as if they too felt the pressure building in the air.

Amaia’s legs ached. Her spine burned. But she kept her head down and followed, pulse steady, mind running faster than the path beneath them.

Her hands were bound, tied to the horn of the saddle and Big Mike rode in front of her, leading her horse by the reigns.

She wasn’t thinking about the gods. Or her father, or the army. Or even the chance of dying. She was thinking about when. When the next mistake would happen. When someone would look away.

It didn’t take long.

Rayla pulled up her horse first. One by one, the others followed suit.

And then Amaia saw it.

They reached the cliff just as the first colours of morning bruised the sky.

Amaia pulled her horse to a stop, heart pounding. Not from the ride, but from what she saw below.

So much for escape.

A whole army. Rows upon rows of movement, banners flapping in the salt-thick wind. Soldiers clustered around fires, sharpening blades, breaking bread, praying to gods that no longer listened. She could see tents like anthills, cannons half-assembled, war beasts being fed raw meat straight from the hook. Even from here, it looked endless.

Amaia’s gut twisted. This wasn’t just a border skirmish. This was a war being born. And they were riding straight into its lungs.

Even if her father was there, amongst these troops, maybe even commanding them, how could she get to him? Without falling pray to those men.

Rayla was already scanning the terrain, calculating.

“Damn it,” she barked. Her voice was all muscle, no patience. “They will see us if ride down from here. We’ll take the lower trail around the ridge. Single file. No stops.”

And so they rode single file along the cliffs, with the sea yawning beneath them like a hungry god. The army they’d seen from the hilltop stretched like a tide along the coast, tents, banners, firelight blinking in the fog.

Amaia let herself sag in the saddle, pressing a hand to her side.

“Mike,” Rayla called back, “Something’s moving in the treeline.”

That was her opening.

Amaia hissed through her teeth and slumped farther. Just enough to draw attention. Just enough to look real.

“You okay?” Big Mike asked.

“I—I don’t know. It’s tight. My ribs feel—” She let her voice break, added a cough for good measure.

“Mike, I need you,” Rayla didn’t even look back.

“Handle it, Yanick,” Big Mike said and rushed to the front of the column. “Just don’t slow us down. If you have to just carry her on your back.”

Yanick dismounted quickly, reaching for Amaia’s reins with one hand, the other already moving toward her arm to help her down.

She did not say a word to him since that night on the farm, and she was determined not to say anything to him ever again. She convinced herself that fate just put him now in front of her. To take the revenge. For Ademund.

“Here,” Yanick said. “You need to stretch it. Just breathe through it. I’ll help—”

His belt knife was right there, tucked at his hip, forgotten in the shuffle. A small thing. Easy to miss. She didn’t miss.

But there was Big Mike’s bedtime story. What if it was true. What if Yanick actually had the guts to to the same thing his father had done.

Her fingers closed around the hilt. In one breathless motion, she pulled it free and drove it into the meat of his side, not deep, not deadly, but enough to buckle his knees. She took her revenge, but not fully.

He cried and grabbed her wrist.

They struggled. Horses reared. Stones crumbled underfoot.

Amaia shoved with everything she had, catching him off-balance, off-guard. The edge of the cliff loomed. Gravity did the rest.

First a stagger. Then a slip. Then they were tumbling.

The others where shouting something but the wind tore the sound away as branches cracked, brambles ripped at her clothes, and Yanick’s weight slammed into her side again and again.

They were rolling down and the voices of Rayla and her band were fading away. There was only Amaia’s voice now, her scream and fast, twisting through thorns and shadow, down toward unknown.

And through the blur of it all, blood, wind, pain, Amaia smiled.

Because it wasn’t a perfect plan.