Chapter Ten ;- The Day of Retrieval
1155 Words
(Idris’s POV)
---
We rode in the hour when night is thinnest but dawn has not yet claimed the sky.
No one spoke.
Leather creaked softly. Hooves struck earth in controlled rhythm. Steel rested quietly against thighs and backs, hungry but patient.
Ahead of us, the quarry lay like an open wound in the land a hollow carved from stone, abandoned by honest men and claimed by those who thrived in shadows.
A year.
A year of whispers.
A year of ash.
A year of waking with the taste of failure thick in my mouth.
Indra did not pace tonight.
He watched.
Alive, he murmured low inside me.
I raised my fist.
We dismounted as one body splitting into many. Unit One moved toward the rim. Unit Two circled east, ghosting along higher ground. Saadun remained at my side not speaking, because he did not need to.
This was not a battle of glory.
This was retrieval.
And we would not fail.
The concealed tunnel hid behind loose rock and brush just as the scout had sworn.
Two guards.
Human.
Mercenary scent oil, iron, sweat.
They died without ever fully understanding why.
We lowered them gently.
No alarm.
Inside, the air changed.
Thick. Damp. Bitter.
Ash layered the floor in fine dust. Herbs burned in shallow bowls along the corridor sharp enough to distort scent.
They had learned our nature.
They had prepared.
Iron doors lined the passage, each one a silent accusation.
Then
A sound.
Soft. Fragile.
Not chains.
Breathing.
Whispers.
I stepped forward and took the keys from a fallen guard.
The first door opened with a groan of metal against stone.
Eyes stared back at me.
Wide. Hollow. Unbelieving.
For a moment, no one moved.
“We are Silver Claw,” I said quietly, forcing steadiness into my voice. “You are coming home.”
Something cracked in the room.
A sob strangled back. A trembling hand covering a mouth. One girl sank to her knees without sound.
We moved quickly then unlocking doors, gathering them, counting.
Twenty-eight.
Too many.
Not enough.
Indra searched beneath the scents of fear and dirt.
Not here.
My chest tightened, but I pushed the thought aside.
This was not about me.
This was about them.
---
The alarm came like a blade through the quiet.
A horn bellowed from deeper within the tunnels low, violent, echoing off stone.
So much for silence.
“Positions,” Saadun ordered, voice sharp but controlled.
Torches were kicked from their brackets. Darkness swallowed the corridor whole.
But darkness does not blind wolves.
They came fast.
Not reckless rogues trained fighters. Organized. Moving in formation.
Steel rang.
The first clash jolted through my bones like thunder. A blade grazed my arm; I did not slow. I drove my shoulder into a mercenary’s chest and felt ribs splinter beneath the force.
Indra surged forward.
I shifted mid-strike.
Bone snapped. Muscle tore and reformed. Heat consumed me.
The corridor narrowed the fight, turned it savage.
Teeth found flesh.
Blood slicked stone.
They fought with discipline. I fought with fury.
For a year, I had swallowed rage. Tonight, I let it breathe.
Unit Two descended at my call, crashing into their flank. The tide turned. The air filled with the metallic scent of endings.
I reached the ritual hall.
It was larger than the rest circular, carved deliberately. Symbols etched into the floor. A raised stone platform at its center.
Selection ground.
The rogue commander waited there.
He smiled when he saw me.
“You’re too late, Alpha’s son.”
The words ignited something cold inside me.
We collided like beasts.
He was fast unnervingly so striking with precision, aiming for tendons, throat, eyes. He fought like a man who had survived many challengers.
But I had survived a year of failure.
That kind of hunger sharpens a man.
We tore into each other under flickering torchlight, claws against blade, fury against calculation, I was about to tore his throat when a rogue warrior came for his rescue, a rogue commander escaped,
the fight continue with the rogue warriors,
When my teeth closed around his throat, I did not hesitate.
I did not look away.
The chamber fell silent but for the drip of blood against carved stone.
The ritual would never happen here again.
---
When the last of them fell, silence returned heavier now., but the commander escaped
Twenty-eight girls gathered near the corridor entrance.
Some clung to one another. Some stared blankly. One shook uncontrollably, whispering to herself.
And then
I saw her.
She was kneeling beside a younger girl, pressing torn fabric against a bleeding arm.
“Breathe,” she murmured softly. “With me. In… and out. You’re safe now.”
Her voice did not tremble.
Her hands were steady.
Dust streaked her dark hair. Her clothes hung loose, worn thin from months underground. But her back remained straight.
She was not the loudest.
Not the most broken.
But the others looked to her.
Warda clung to her side, pale but alive.
The quiet one leads, Indra observed.
She lifted her head then.
Our eyes met.
Silver-gray.
Unusual.
There was no recognition in them. No awe. No fear.
Only assessment.
“Are you injured?” I asked, stepping closer.
“No,” she answered simply. “Others are.”
She did not bow.
Did not thank.
She turned back to the wounded without waiting for dismissal.
Indra inhaled deeply.
Something flickered faint, buried beneath ash and blood and the overwhelming scent of fear.
Close.
My pulse stuttered.
I searched harder.
Twenty-eight scents.
Smoke. Dirt. Iron.
But not the undeniable strike I had imagined for a year. Not the burn that would split my ribs and claim me.
If she were mine… I would know.
Wouldn’t I?
Indra fell quiet.
Uncertain.
And uncertainty was worse than absence.
---
We emerged from the quarry at dusk.
The sky blazed gold mercifully not red.
The girls were mounted in pairs, wrapped in blankets. Some leaned into our warriors as though afraid the world might vanish if they loosened their grip.
Twenty-eight rescued.
Alive.
That should have been enough.
Saadun rode beside me.
“We brought them home,” he said.
Yes.
We had.
But something hollow echoed beneath the triumph.
I glanced back.
She rode near the center someone had spoken her name during the chaos.
Leyla.
Warda rested against her shoulder. Leyla’s gaze did not wander toward me. She stared ahead, toward the distant outline of Silver Claw territory.
Not like someone returning.
Like someone arriving.
Indra exhaled low inside me.
Close.
I clenched my jaw.
No.
If she were my mate, I would know. The world would shift. The bond would ignite.
It had not.
The Moon remained silent.
Behind us, the quarry burned.
Before us, Silver Claw awaited its daughters.
And somewhere between victory and destiny
My mate remained unfound.
so the search is still on,
- Writer
