You in the Ruins

Ronan 4

Ronan sat by the embers, the fire reduced to a sullen glow that cast long shadows across the tent walls. The night had deepened outside, the camp settling into uneasy quiet after the bear—men on watch, low murmurs, the occasional snort of a horse. But his mind was a storm, churning over the road ahead. The city loomed like a dark promise, its gates a threshold he couldn’t cross without a plan for her. Sage.

How the hell was he supposed to handle this? Keep her hidden? Smuggle her in under canvas or cloaks, train her in secret—teach her the city’s ways, the knives in smiles, the poisons in wine—without anyone noticing? It was madness. His father’s eyes were everywhere; Ivar’s spies even more so. Or let her stay with trusted friends—Colin, maybe, or Iain—as a “slave” on the surface, scrubbing floors or tending gardens while she learned to fight, to survive. Mark her as property to deflect the vultures, but keep her close enough to watch over. It could work. Maybe. But trust was a thin blade in the city; one slip, and she’d be dragged to the breeders’ halls.

He needed to figure it out fast. Normally, the ride back was a hard day’s push on horseback, but with the caravan groaning under supplies—crates of grain, salted meat, tools pilfered from the village—and slaves shuffling on foot, chains clinking like grim bells, they wouldn’t reach the walls until tomorrow evening. If nothing went wrong. Bears were one thing; bandits, rival raiders, or a sudden storm could turn the trail to hell. And all the while, Sage would be there, pulling at him like a tether he couldn’t cut.

He stared into the fire, flames licking at his thoughts, so lost he didn’t hear the flap rustle or the soft tread of boots on dirt. Colin’s voice jolted him.

“You okay, boss? You look bothered—like I’ve never seen.”

Ronan shook his head, glancing at the crate where Sage lay curled in the furs. Her breathing was even now, soft and steady after she’d finally drifted off. He kept his voice low, barely above a murmur. “She’s my problem. She’s making me feel things… like an obsessive need to keep her safe. And I don’t think I can. I’ve seen so many people die—animals I loved as a kid, friends gutted in raids—but that woman… I think it’d break me if anything happens to her. And I don’t even know her, besides how she hates me.”

Colin chuckled quietly, settling on a log nearby, his tall frame folding like a knife blade. “All the good ones hate you at first. That’s how you know they’re worth keeping. If she threw herself at you, you’d be disgusted—and you know it.”

He was right. Women who clawed their way into his bed, desperate for favor or a scrap of power, turned Ronan’s stomach. Pitiful, the way they begged with their eyes or bodies, thinking it would buy them safety. But there had been others who hated him—beautiful ones, rare redheads with freckles dusting their skin like stars, sharp-tongued and fierce. He’d taken them anyway, discarded them without a backward glance. Not her. His Sage. She was the most perfect woman he’d ever seen. Not too short—average height, he guessed—but that dark hair framed her face like night around a lantern, making her light eyes glitter in any light. Firelight, moonlight, the cold gray of dawn—it didn’t matter. They pulled him in every time.

“Get some rest, Colin,” Ronan said, rubbing at his eyes. “I want to be up as soon as it’s light enough to start packing.”

Colin nodded, no arguments. He grabbed a blanket from a nearby pile and a half-empty sack of grain for a pillow, stretching out by the fire’s edge like he always did—close enough to guard, far enough not to pry. Loyal to a fault.

Ronan stood, feeling the stiffness creep through his back and shoulders from sitting too long in one spot. The heat had baked into his muscles, turning them tight. He crossed to his cot, the furs rumpled from where he’d barely touched them earlier. He lay down, propping his head on one arm, and let his gaze drift back to the crate. Sage’s outline was just visible through the slats—her hair spilling over the edge of a fur, one hand tucked under her cheek like a child. Peaceful. Vulnerable.

He hoped to gods he could come up with a plan for her fast. Time was bleeding away. His men were desperate to be back home—warm beds, willing women, ale that didn’t taste like river mud. Whispers would start soon if he delayed, questions about why the village girl rode with him instead of chained in the wagons. He needed a solution before he had to kill his own people to protect this villager he couldn’t stop thinking about. How far would he go for her? Turn on Ivar? Defy his father? Burn the whole damned city if it came to it?

Maybe he didn’t want to know the answer.

Colin stirred in his sleep by the fire's edge, the grain sack under his head lumpy but familiar. Dreams came to him in fragments—always the same ones, pulling him back to the days before he rode at Ronan's side. He never spoke of them much; words were for orders, not wounds. But tonight, with the camp hushed and the bear's blood still staining the dirt outside, his mind wandered deeper, unbidden.

He'd been born in the city's underbelly, not the high towers where Ronan's father held court, but the sprawl of shanties clinging to the outer walls like barnacles on a rotting hull. His mother was a seamstress—or that's what she called herself, stitching patches on raiders' cloaks and warming their beds when the work ran thin. She never named his father; could have been any of the men who passed through, faces blurred by drink and desperation. Colin learned early to stay small, stay quiet. Watch everything, say nothing. By six, he was picking pockets in the market crowds—fingers quick as a rat's, eyes sharper. A loaf here, a knife there. Survival wasn't a choice; it was the only game in town.

The sickness hit when he was nine. It swept through the shanties like fire through dry grass, turning strong men into wheezing skeletons overnight. His mother coughed blood for days, her skin burning under his small hands as he pressed damp rags to her forehead. "Run, boy," she'd whispered one night, eyes glassy. "Get to the high folk. Beg if you have to." But he didn't run. He stayed until her breaths rattled to nothing, then buried her himself in the frozen ground outside the walls, using a stolen shovel that blistered his palms raw.

Orphaned, he scavenged. Joined a pack of street kids who fought over scraps in the alleys—tall even then, with limbs that grew faster than his frame could fill out. He wasn't the strongest, but he was smart. Learned to read faces like maps: the twitch of a lip that meant a lie, the shift in stance before a punch. One winter, when hunger gnawed holes in their bellies, he led a raid on a merchant's cart—nothing big, just cheese wheels and dried apples. They ate like kings for a week. But the merchant's guards caught two of the pack. Colin watched from the shadows as they strung them up, bodies twisting in the wind. Lesson learned: loyalty had limits. Trust only those who earned it.

By thirteen, he'd caught the eye of the raiders. Tall enough to pass for older, arms thickening from hauling crates and swinging makeshift clubs. He started as a scout—slipping ahead of parties to spot ambushes, count heads in villages. That's where he met Ronan. The heir was just a year older, already leading small crews under his father's glare. Their first raid together went south: villagers with hidden bows, arrows whistling like angry bees. Colin took one in the shoulder, but he didn't scream. Pulled it out himself, kept fighting. Ronan noticed. Pulled him aside after, clapped a hand on his good arm. "You don't break easy," he'd said. "Stick with me."

From there, it was years of blood and brotherhood. Colin rose as Ronan's shadow—second in command, the one who saw what Ronan missed, handled the dirty details without question. He never craved the lead; too much light drew too many knives. Better to watch, to observe, to strike from the side. He'd lost count of the raids, the faces blurred into one endless march. Women came and went—quick comforts in the dark, nothing more. No family left to claim. Just Ronan, the only man who'd ever treated him like more than a tool.

Now, with this girl Sage in the crate, stirring things up in Ronan's head, Colin felt the shift. He'd seen his friend stare at women before, but not like this. Obsessive. Protective. It worried him. The city chewed up softness like that. But he'd watch. He'd guard. That's what seconds did.

Colin rolled over in his sleep, the fire's warmth fading as dawn crept closer. His backstory wasn't a tale for telling—it was scars under skin, lessons etched in bone. But it kept him alive. And for Ronan, he'd keep it that way.