Chapter 19

Shaken from the battle at the rot crater, Aris confronts Harlan Raker about the mind-controlling crimson blade. Raker explains that only Godswords glow with power, implying the fallen immortal’s weapon was one. They push on to a cave, where Raker offers water looted from corpses and, to Aris’s surprise, proposes to train her “so she doesn’t get killed.”

Raker corrects Aris’s grip and stance with exacting, intimate precision, then tests her with sudden attacks and evasions. He refuses to use his sword at first, easily reading her predictable strikes. When Aris swallows her pride and asks for help, Raker drills only the basics: a proper ready position. He orders her to hold the stance for hours while he sleeps, forcing endurance and discipline. Exhausted, Aris reframes the weight of her ancient sword as a responsibility and steels herself to be worthy of it.

The next day Raker assigns the long guard and leaves to hunt. Aris sustains the position by focusing on her happiest memories, proving her resolve when he returns. Mapping shows only desolation, so she urges a northern detour for supplies; Raker agrees. They find the village consumed by rot and continue until reaching a murky river and a narrow stone bridge.

On the bridge, Raker teaches rapid sheathing and unsheathing. Each attempt ends with Raker’s sword at Aris’s throat, driving home her slowness until practicing in tandem pushes her speed. They sleep side by side on the cramped bridge, blades between them, and Aris haltingly shares fears of darkness, water, and senseless death; Raker deflects but listens.

Overnight, heavy rain falls. Aris and Raker refill canteens and wash grime away as floodwaters rise. When Aris slips, Raker catches her, his tattooed hand revealing gray eyes that trigger her memory of his earlier brutality. She recoils, and Raker wordlessly presses on through the storm. Rehydrated but still starving, they resume the march, their fragile cooperation tempered by persistent mistrust.