Page 110 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Garric waited at the edge of camp with a rigid Isander beside him. Duncan pressed his lips together, the urge to reach for him rising and falling in the same moment. He let the distance remain. This was not the time.

They walked in silence through the marshland, boots sinking as the soft ground yielded underfoot. The night carried the scent of damp earth and the low whispers of the swamp: reeds stirring, frogs calling, an owl hooting somewhere unseen.

The Ardenna River, a natural border between Lemierre and Kryovarre, was a broad sheet of black glass broken by wind and the shifting light of the moons through ragged clouds overhead. A small boat waited at the bank, tied to a crooked post. Its wood groaned as they boarded.

Garric pushed them off, and they were drawn into the current’s slow pull. No one spoke. The sense of danger lay around them, close as the night sky. Even the sound of oars seemed too loud in the quiet.

“Expect a search,” Garric said only when the crooked outline of Kalgorod emerged through the mist. “They will take our weapons. Don’t argue. Or it ends before it begins.”

Duncan’s jaw tightened at the thought of strange hands on Kora. He forced himself to think of Merrick instead—once only a boy beside him in mock battles behind Emberglade’s forges. The anticipation of the reunion ahead cut two ways: hope for recognition, and dread for the man time might have made of him.

Chapter 52

Koraleise

As their boat glided toward shore, Kora’s thoughts strayed where she had not meant them to. Firelight across the broad lines of Duncan’s shoulders, and the roped strength in his arms. The taut ridges of his stomach, each hard pane earned through years of sword and saddle.

The image refused to leave her.

When he offered his hand to help her from the boat and his fingers closed around hers, a startling pulse ran through her. She turned away quickly and hurried ahead to join Isander and Garric, heat rising in her cheeks.

It was a foolish drift of thought, and she knew it. Duncan loved another. Whatever gentleness he showed her belonged to duty, not desire. To lean into anything more was a step toward a ledge and fall from which she could not recover.

So deep in that reckoning was she that when his hand brushed lightly at the small of her back to guide her over a rise, she flinched away. The motion was reflex, not refusal.

A flicker of hurt crossed his features before he smoothed it away. He inclined his head and kept his distance the rest of the walk. Kora, with effort, avoided him as well.

The safehouse crouched on the outskirts of the city, a building intent on being overlooked. From the road it passed for a derelict warehouse: a roof slumped with age, shutters warped and split, the odor of tar and fish oil sunk deeply into the walls. No lantern marked the entrance.

A handful of men in dark leather waited outside. Not soldiers, but hard, capable men shaped by risk and instinct. Calluses marked their hands. Knives hung from their belts. Their stances carried loose vigilance.

The one who stepped forward was tall and spare, a scar cutting through his brow. Beside him stood a broader man with a crooked nose and faded ink winding up his neck, his hand drifting toward the axe at his hip. Two more lingered behind them: one narrow and restless with straw between his teeth, the other older, grey threaded through his beard, fingers near a dagger.

“Hold,” said the scar-browed man. His gaze passed over Duncan, Garric, and Isander with professional caution. When it reached Kora, it slowed. She felt the man’s attention along her spine. “Weapons,” he added, nodding to the man with the inked neck.

The men unbuckled their swords.

“And the hidden ones,” the older man called lazily, glancing instinctively toward Garric.

Garric scowled and produced two knives from his boots. Duncan did the same.

At a flick of the leader’s fingers, the others moved in. Kora stilled as the narrow one stepped before her, hands skimming her sides, pressing lightly through the folds of her cloak.

“That’s enough,” Duncan said from behind her. A heartbeat later, he caught the man’s wrist, eyes promising violence. “She carries no weapon.”

The Ashfell men perked into alertness. Hands drifted toward steel.

Garric tensed, reaching for a knife still hidden in his sleeve, ready to answer.

Strain mounted with each passing breath.

Isander, unexpectedly, laid a firm hand on Duncan’s arm. “Merrick spooks easily,” he reminded, both warning and sorrow threaded through it.

Duncan eased his hold, but not his glare.

The narrow man twisted free from his grip with a short laugh. “Easy, Your Grace. The boss wouldn’t stand for any of us offending a lady.”

The tension loosened. Only slightly.