Chapter 116 CHAPTER 116

Chapter 116 CHAPTER 116

Smoke hung heavy in the morning air, a choking shroud that blurred the line between friend and foe. The battlefield—once a road through humble fields—was littered with broken arrows, blood-soaked earth, and the husks of charred wagons. Horses trembled, their flanks slick with sweat, while soldiers staggered to regroup, faces pale and strained.

Seraphina wiped her hands on the scorched hem of her cloak, crimson smearing like ink across the fabric. She had tried to save the soldier who whispered Rhodon’s name, but the man’s breath had faltered before the words could finish. Now he lay among the fallen, his face strangely peaceful in death.

Lucien stood nearby, a towering figure against the ruin. His sword still dripped with the last remnants of battle, and his shield bore the splintered mark of the assassin’s arrow. Yet his gaze was fixed not on the dead but on the living—the shaken men and women who still looked to him, their enemy prince, for direction.

“Form ranks,” he commanded, his voice cutting through the din like steel. “Tend the wounded. We ride again within the hour.”

A murmur rippled through the soldiers—part obedience, part disbelief. The fire still smoldered, the ambushers could still linger in the woods, and yet Lucien spoke of marching forward.

Seraphina moved to his side, her cloak dragging in the mud. “Within the hour?” she whispered fiercely. “Look at them, Lucien. Half your men can barely stand. Your supply wagons are ash. We can’t press on as if nothing has happened.”

His dark eyes found hers, sharp and unyielding. “If we stop, they will strike again. They wanted to cripple us, force us to stall. I won’t give them the satisfaction.”

Seraphina’s heart pounded. She understood his logic—stalling made them prey—but exhaustion and fear gnawed at the retinue. If pushed too far, they might break from within before an enemy’s sword touched them.

“They’re not machines,” she murmured. “They’re men with limits. If you drive them past the edge, you’ll lose them before Rhodon ever has the chance.”

Lucien’s jaw clenched. He was a commander forged in blood and betrayal, his instinct to move, to strike back before the enemy could regroup. Yet here was Seraphina, her gaze steady despite the soot on her cheek, the blade at her side stained from her duel with the assassin. She spoke not only as a strategist but as someone who understood hearts—something his training never taught him.

He exhaled, sharp and slow. “Then what do you suggest?”

“Not retreat,” Seraphina said firmly, aware of the ears straining to overhear. “But pause. Enough to tend wounds, to rebuild morale, to remind them this was a battle survived, not a defeat endured. If you march them broken, they’ll remember the pain. If you march them healed, they’ll remember the victory.”

Her words settled like rain on parched earth. A few soldiers who had been lingering nearby exchanged glances, their shoulders easing minutely as though her defiance gave them permission to breathe.

Lucien studied her for a long moment, then gave a single sharp nod. “Half a day,” he conceded. “No longer.”

Seraphina inclined her head. It was not the full reprieve she wished, but it was enough. Sometimes victory came not in sweeping triumphs but in inches won in the mud.

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The hours that followed were a test of will. Soldiers stripped arrows from the dead, salvaging what weapons they could. A makeshift pyre was built from the wreckage of the wagons, flames consuming both broken wood and broken men. Seraphina stood beside Lucien as he gave the command to burn the fallen—an act both pragmatic and reverent.

“Better ashes than carrion for crows,” Lucien said quietly, watching the fire climb. His expression was carved from stone, but Seraphina saw the shadows in his eyes. Every soldier lost was another debt written into his ledger of vengeance.

She touched his arm lightly, a silent reminder that he was not alone in this. For a heartbeat he allowed the contact, his stance softening almost imperceptibly. Then duty reclaimed him, and he turned back to the men.

“Eat, drink, bind your wounds,” he ordered. “We march before nightfall. Let Rhodon learn his snares cannot hold us.”

The soldiers rallied at his words, though fatigue lingered in their eyes. Seraphina caught the flicker of doubt among some of them—the hesitation not born of cowardice but of uncertainty.

And then she saw it.

A figure at the edge of the encampment, head bent close to another’s ear, their voices hushed but their gestures sharp. When her gaze fell upon them, the pair stiffened and parted, slipping back into the duties of tending horses.

Her stomach tightened. Betrayal did not always wear the face of an assassin in the fog. Sometimes it wore the face of a comrade.

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That night, the mist thickened again, cloaking the camp in damp silence. Torches burned low, their light halos blurred in the wet air. Seraphina could not sleep. She paced the perimeter, her senses prickling.

Lucien found her near the eastern ridge, his cloak draped loosely, his sword at his side even in so-called rest.

“You expect another attack,” he said. It was not a question.

“I expect betrayal,” Seraphina replied, her voice low. She told him what she had seen—the whispers, the looks, the subtle shift in certain men’s stances.

Lucien’s hand tightened on his sword hilt. “Names.”

She shook her head. “Not yet. To accuse without proof would fracture us more than the ambush did. We must watch. Wait. And be ready when the hand moves.”

For once, Lucien did not argue. Instead, he stood beside her in the mist, two silhouettes against the shivering torchlight.

“Rhodon has already declared his hand,” he murmured. “But if he has snakes in my camp…” His gaze hardened. “I’ll cut them out by the root.”

Seraphina glanced at him, the fire of his vow reflecting in her own resolve. “Then we cut together.”

In the silence that followed, the bond between them felt sharper, heavier than any sword. They were no longer merely allies of convenience. They were bound by blood shed together, by snares survived.

And in that quiet, Seraphina knew with chilling certainty: the first snare had only been the beginning.