The Ashes Behind Her

The village of Rellis nestled deep in a forest glade, far from the reach of kingdoms and coin. It was small, peaceful, simple. Thatched roofs, cobbled paths, a central well where the children laughed as they chased chickens through muddy puddles. Selena remembered the smell of fresh bread from her mother's oven, the sound of her father's hammer ringing as he repaired tools for neighbors. They were poor, yes, but rich in the things that truly mattered.

Until the night the riders, Bandits came.

She had been in bed, curled beneath her woven blanket, when the first scream tore through the air. It wasn't the usual call of drunkards or wolves in the woods. It was a scream of pain, raw and final.

She sat up, heart pounding. Then came the sound of galloping hooves, of wood splintering, of metal on flesh.

Her door slammed open.

Selena! Her mother rushed in, pulling her from the bed with trembling arms.

Selena Mother: Get to the root cellar. Now!

Selena: I don't understand...what's happening?!

Selena Mother: Go!

But it was already too late.

The door burst inward with a crash, and a figure filled the frame, tall, wrapped in black leather, a helmet shaped like a jackal's maw hiding his face. Behind him, more shadows swarmed. They were not soldiers. They were raiders, Bandits.

The man struck her mother first.

Selena screamed as her mother crumpled beside her, eyes wide with the shock of it, her blood seeping into the straw floor.

Selena ran.

She made it halfway to the cellar when someone grabbed her hair and yanked her back, her cry cut off by the boot that drove into her ribs.

The next days blurred into pain.

She remembered being tied with a dozen other children in the back of a covered cart. The men who took them laughed, drinking from flasks and tossing coins to see who'd get "first pick" once they reached the trading post.

When she cried, they mocked her.

When she screamed, they gagged her.

They arrived at a place of stone and smoke, Silverhaven, though she didn't know the name back then. The traders brought them down dark steps into cells. She saw others, some older, some younger. None looked at her. None spoke.

One by one, the others were taken. Sold.

She was small, scrawny, frightened and passed over.

Then the long wait began.

Weeks. Months. Years.

Her body grew taller, her spirit thinner.

The guards stopped bothering with her. The slavers laughed. "That one's cursed," they said. "Won't even cry anymore."

She didn't. Not after the first year.

Only prayed that it would end.

Selena shot upright, breath ragged.

The dream still clung to her skin like sweat. Her hands trembled, clutching the edge of the blanket. Her chest rose and fell with quiet gasps as she tried to separate past from present.

It was still dark.

She looked around.

She was not in a cage. Not in a cellar.

She was in the inn.

The scent of fresh linen. The faint creak of timber in the walls. A sliver of moonlight slipping through the window shutters.

And there, in the second bed, lay Red.

He was asleep...finally asleep.

Selena stared in disbelief for a moment. She had begun to wonder if he ever truly rested. His armor was removed, set neatly by the bedside. Even without the black steel, he looked formidable: a man hardened not just by war, but by purpose. His chest rose and fell steadily beneath the black undershirt he wore, one arm draped loosely over the blanket, the other resting atop a sheathed blade that he hadn't let out of reach.

She didn't move.

She didn't want to wake him.

A strange feeling crept through her, one she hadn't known in years.

Safety.

It came not from locked doors or guards or thick walls, but from the knowledge that the man sleeping beside her would kill a hundred men before letting harm come to her.

And somehow, that meant more than any protection she had ever known.

Her eyes dropped to his face.

Even asleep, Red seemed… watchful. Tense. As if something deep within him never truly allowed peace. There were faint scars beneath his jaw, and the corners of his eyes were marked by pain that had clearly endured years. He looked not like a knight or noble hero—but like a survivor. Just like her.

She pulled the blanket around her shoulders.

The dream still throbbed in the back of her mind, like a wound not fully closed. Her parents' faces. The jackal-helmed raiders. The endless coldness of the cage. It was all still there, no matter how clean she felt, no matter how warm the room was now.

But something else was there too.

She was free.

Because of him.

Because Red had walked into that slave office, seen something in her that no one else had, and reached out his hand, not to possess, but to offer choice.

She swallowed, her voice barely a breath.

Selena: …Thank you," she whispered.

Red didn't stir.

Selena laid back down, facing his bed, her fingers tucked beneath her cheek. The wind brushed softly at the shutters, and a star blinked in the crack of the window above.

Sleep would not come easily again, not after that dream.

But for the first time in years, she didn't fear the dark.

She closed her eyes.

And this time, the chains did not follow her.