Chapter 117: Rubin’s Man

Lyanna

“STOP!”

The word ripped through my throat hard enough that pain followed it immediately.

Both swords halted.

Elias had his blade raised between them, while Ridan stood half a step inside his reach with his own weapon angled toward Elias’s ribs. Neither man moved for the space of one breath.

Then my throat seized.

I coughed into my hand.

The first cough brought another, and the second bent me forward before I could stop it. Asha released my cloak and caught me around the waist instead.

“Slowly.”

I tried to breathe and only coughed harder.

Behind her shoulder, I saw Elias lower his sword.

His attention had left Ridan completely.

“Lyanna.”

I raised one hand toward him before he could come closer.

Stay.

He stopped.

Ridan looked from me to Elias.

I pressed my fist against my mouth until the coughing eased enough for me to straighten. My eyes watered, and swallowing sent another sharp scrape down my throat.

Asha put the water skin into my hand.

I drank carefully.

“Better?”

I nodded.

Ridan still had his sword raised.

I pointed at it and signed for him to lower it.

Put it away.

His brow furrowed.

Before I could repeat myself, his wrist dropped.

The movement came so quickly that for a moment I saw the soldier I remembered instead of the furious man who had attacked Elias. Rubin had used many of the same field signs. Every man under his command had been expected to understand them when voices would carry too far.

Ridan looked at my hands.

Then he looked at Elias.

Elias had already sheathed his sword.

Ridan's gaze sharpened.

“You understood that.”

Elias wiped a thin line of blood from the tear in his sleeve with his thumb.

“Yes.”

Ridan stared at him.

“How?”

I answered before Elias could.

“He learned.”

Ridan turned toward me.

I resisted the urge to cough again and continued with my hands instead.

Enough.

His eyes followed every movement.

“You taught him?”

Yes.

Something moved across his face that I could not read before he finally returned his sword to its scabbard.

Asha let go of my waist when she was satisfied I would remain upright.

Ridan looked at Elias once more.

“I need to speak to her.”

Elias's gaze came to me rather than him.

I nodded.

He picked up his sword belt where it had shifted against his hip and walked toward the horses without argument.

Ridan watched him go.

Asha lingered.

“I'll be there.”

She pointed toward the trees where Elias had stopped beside the animals.

I nodded again.

When she joined him, Ridan waited until they were far enough away that ordinary speech would not carry clearly.

Then he turned to me.

His face had changed since the fight. Anger still pulled tightly around his mouth, but his eyes moved over me with the concentration I remembered from years ago, when Rubin sent him into a room before everyone else because Ridan noticed exits, weapons and lies before he noticed furniture.

“Before anything else, I need you to answer me.”

I folded my arms.

His gaze dropped briefly to my hands.

“Out loud, if you can.”

I stared at him.

“I need to hear you say it.”

My throat still burned. I understood anyway. I waited. Ridan drew a breath.

“Has this Elias Veras ever forced himself on you?”

“No.”

The answer came without hesitation.

Ridan's jaw shifted.

“Has he ever touched you sexually when you did not want him to?”

“No.”

“Has any Drakovian?”

My fingers tightened against my sleeves.

The question landed differently.

Faces I had spent months teaching myself not to see rose too easily. The inspection room returned first, followed by hands at my jaw, fingers in my hair, guards discussing bodies as though we had not been standing inside them.

Ridan took one step toward me.

“Lyanna?”

“No.”

His shoulders lowered slightly.

I looked away.

“They did other things.”

His mouth tightened.

“What things?”

“I am not telling you about them beside a road.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“All right.”

He did not apologize for asking.

I was glad he did not.

“Is Veras threatening you?”

“No.”

“Does he decide where you go?”

“No.”

“Does he keep your money, food or anything else you would need to leave him?”

“No.”

“Has he ever threatened to abandon you if you refused him?”

“No.”

“Has he used the child to keep you with him?”

Anger finally cut through my patience.

“No.”

Ridan held my gaze.

I took a step closer.

“He got me out.”

“You said that.”

“You clearly did not hear me.”

“I heard you.”

“Then stop asking the same question in different shapes.”

His nostrils flared, but he did not answer immediately.

I forced myself to lower my voice.

“He has never forced me into his bed. He has never used my pregnancy against me. He has never kept me from leaving. I am travelling with him because I chose to travel with him.”

Ridan looked past me.

Elias stood near the horses with his back partly turned toward us. Asha had wrapped something around the cut on his arm, and although his head shifted once in our direction, he did not come closer.

Ridan looked at me again.

“If you told him now that you wanted to leave with me?”

The question made me pause.

Not because I doubted the answer.

Because I knew what it would cost him.

“He would let me.”

Ridan studied my face.

“You're certain?”

“Yes.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line.

Then he nodded.

The change was small, but his hand finally moved away from the sword at his hip.

“Fine.”

I almost laughed at the absurd inadequacy of the word, but my throat would not have thanked me for it.

Ridan rubbed both hands over his face.

“When did you discover the child?”

“After I was captured.”

“How long after?”

“Several weeks.”

“And you truly had no idea before?”

“No.”

His gaze fell toward my stomach.

“Rubin didn't know.”

The anger had disappeared from his voice.

“No.”

Ridan turned his head.

For several moments, he stared toward the trees.

“I kept thinking he might have made it out.”

I said nothing.

“He had done worse before.”

His mouth pulled briefly at one corner, but whatever memory had caused it faded almost at once.

“He wasn't supposed to cross into Drakovia himself.”

“I know.”

Ridan looked at me.

“You knew?”

“I knew he came after me.”

“Not how.”

I shook my head.

He walked toward a fallen tree and rested one hand against its trunk.

“When they took you, Rubin wanted men across the border before nightfall. Someone talked him out of it, although I don't remember who anymore. Half the commanders were shouting over each other by then.”

I could picture it too easily.

Rubin standing over a map with fury making him quieter rather than louder.

Ridan dragged his thumb across the damp bark.

“We had reports that the Drakovians were moving captured omegas between camps. If we sent soldiers across in force and they realized we were coming for you, they could have moved all of you somewhere we couldn't reach. Rubin knew that.”

“So he went quietly.”

“With eight men.”

My chest tightened.

Ridan nodded.

“We stopped wearing Aelorian colours before we crossed. We split into smaller groups and used traders' roads. Rubin questioned anyone who had seen prisoner wagons. He paid smugglers. He bribed two Drakovian guards and threatened a third badly enough that I thought the man would piss himself.”

My eyes burned.

Ridan looked down at his hands.

“We found one of the camps empty. They had moved everyone two days before we arrived.”

I swallowed carefully.

“What happened to you?”

“We were separated outside Merrow Ford. A patrol found us before dawn, and Rubin took three men east while I went south with two others. We were supposed to meet again after four days.”

“You didn't.”

“No.”

The word came quietly.

“I found one of the others six weeks later. He hadn't seen Rubin either.”

His breathing changed.

“I heard rumours. A dead Aelorian officer here, prisoners transferred there, a man matching Rubin's description seen near another camp. Every time I thought I had found his trail, it disappeared.”

He looked at me.

“I told myself that meant he was still moving.”

My hand settled over the curve of my stomach.

Ridan saw it.

His face tightened again.

“He was searching for you while you were carrying his child.”

I lowered my eyes.

“Yes.”

“He never knew.”

“No.”

Ridan turned away.

This time he remained standing, but his shoulders bowed.

I waited until he faced me again.

His gaze went to my stomach.

“Is the baby well?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Asha is a healer. She examined me yesterday.”

His eyes flicked toward Asha.

“She says the baby is strong.”

Ridan swallowed.

“Can I?”

His hand had lifted slightly before he caught himself.

I looked at it.

Then I nodded.

He approached slowly.

When his palm touched my stomach, the pressure was so careful that I could barely feel it through my clothes.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Ridan's mouth tightened.

Then the baby moved.

His hand jerked.

I covered it before he could pull away.

Another movement rolled beneath his palm.

Ridan stared down.

His lips parted.

“Oh.”

The word barely carried.

The baby kicked again.

Ridan's eyes filled so quickly that he blinked hard and looked away.

I could not.

Rubin would have done this.

The thought came with such force that my fingers tightened over Ridan's hand.

I saw Rubin crouching beside our bed in Aeloria, impatiently waiting for movement. I saw the grin he would have failed to hide. I heard him telling me that his child already had excellent judgment whenever the baby kicked for him and terrible judgment whenever it did not.

None of it had happened.

Ridan bowed his head.

“He would have been unbearable.”

A sound escaped me that hurt too much to become a laugh.

“Yes.”

Ridan pressed his lips together.

“He would have told everyone.”

“He would have told strangers.”

“He would have told enemy scouts if they stood still long enough.”

My eyes closed.

For a while, his hand remained beneath mine as Rubin's child moved between us.

When Ridan finally stepped back, he wiped his face with the heel of his palm.

His gaze shifted beyond me.

I followed it.

Elias stood far enough away that I could no longer distinguish the expression on his face.

He had not approached once.

Ridan looked at him for several seconds before turning back to me.

Then he lowered himself onto one knee.

My breath caught.

“Ridan.”

His head bowed.

The posture belonged to another life.

I had seen him do it in our courtyard before leaving with Rubin on campaign. I had watched soldiers kneel before their commander and then incline their heads to me because I was the woman waiting for him to return.

Now Rubin was dead, and Ridan knelt on a mountain road before the widow he had found in enemy territory carrying a child his commander had never known existed.

“My lady.”

I stared down at him.

“Get up.”

He lifted his head.

“Rubin trusted me with your safety before. I failed him.”

“You did not.”

“I lost him.”

“You did not kill him.”

“I lost both of you.”

“You were fighting a war.”

“So was he.”

My throat tightened.

Ridan rose, but the old formality remained in the way he faced me.

His hand rested over his heart.

“Then I will see you home.”

I looked at him.

My hand, which had begun to rise toward a reply, stopped halfway between us.