Shadows Draw Near
1207 Words
The wind howled like a warning.
It swept across the stone walls of the captured garrison, carrying with it the cold scent of winter and something darker something that made even seasoned warriors glance over their shoulders.
The rebels had claimed a victory, but it was a quiet one now. The air was tense, the camp restless. News of the Shadow Templar’s approach spread like wildfire through the ranks, and no one not even Alaric could mask the weight of that threat.
Liora stood atop the watchtower, her cloak whipping around her. From here, she could see the curve of the woods in the distance, black and endless. Somewhere out there, they were coming.
She shivered not from the cold, but from the certainty that this next battle would not be one of strength alone. The Templar were hunters of the unseen, trained in sorcery and stealth. They did not fight to defeat.
They fought to erase.
Behind her, Alaric climbed the last steps to the tower, his breath misting in the cold. He came to stand beside her, his arm brushing hers.
“Still watching the horizon?” he asked softly.
“I keep thinking I’ll see them first,” she replied.
“You won’t. That’s the terrifying thing. The Templar don’t announce themselves.”
She turned to him. “Then we have to be ready for what we can’t see.”
He nodded. “Garran is fortifying the walls. Elira’s laying traps in the woods. And we’ve moved the wounded to the lower levels. We’ve done all we can.”
“Except run.”
He looked at her, the wind catching strands of his golden hair. “You want to?”
She hesitated.
“No,” she said finally. “But part of me wonders if the others should. If I’ve become more danger to them than hope.”
His gaze hardened. “Don’t. Don’t ever say that.”
“Alaric ”
“You are the reason they believe,” he said fiercely. “You gave them a reason to fight. You’re not their burden, Liora. You’re their beacon.”
She didn’t argue. She just stepped into his arms, resting her head against his chest.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“So am I,” he said. “But we’ll face them together. Like always.”
By midday, Garran gathered the inner circle in what remained of the commander’s war chamber. The wooden table was now marked with new maps, bloodstained but functional.
Elira traced her fingers along the eastern road. “They’ll come from here silent, fast, and deadly.”
“They won’t march like a normal army,” Garran added. “They’ll strike in the night. From within the shadows. We won’t see them until they’re already cutting throats.”
“They want Liora,” Alaric said flatly. “They think killing her ends this rebellion.”
Elira gave Liora a calculating glance. “Then we don’t let them find her.”
Liora sat straighter. “I won’t hide.”
“We’re not suggesting you do,” Elira said. “But if they reach you, we all fall. So we need a contingency plan.”
“She should be surrounded at all times,” Garran said.
“I can fight ”
“We know,” Alaric interrupted gently. “But this is different. These aren’t soldiers. They were trained to kill royalty, Liora. They can’t be fought the way we’re used to.”
She looked down at the table. “Then we learn new ways.”
That night, she walked through the halls of the stone outpost, memorizing the routes, the weak spots, the cracks in the walls. Every creaking floorboard was cataloged. Every torch that burned low was noted.
She passed rebels cleaning weapons and mending armor. Some nodded to her. Others watched her with the kind of reverence that made her skin itch.
She didn’t want to be a symbol anymore.
She just wanted to survive.
In the chapel a small ruined space with shattered stained glass and a broken altar she found Alaric alone. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the fallen pieces of colored glass.
She stepped beside him.
“This used to be a place for prayer,” he said. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?”
“What would you pray for now?”
He turned to her.
“You.”
Her breath caught.
“Alaric”
He stepped closer. “I never believed in fate until I met you. And now I can’t believe in anything else.”
She touched his face, fingers brushing along the scar on his jaw. “If we make it through this…”
“We will.”
“If we do… I want more than this fight.”
He took her hands in his. “Say it.”
“I want a life,” she said. “Not as a symbol, not as a rebel leader. Just as a woman who loves a man. I want to wake up in a home that’s ours. I want gardens, and sunlight, and children who don’t know war.”
He kissed her, slow and reverent.
“Then that’s what we’ll have,” he whispered. “I swear it.”
The attack came just before dawn.
Not with horns. Not with fire.
With silence.
A rebel on patrol was the first to fall his throat slit so cleanly, he didn’t have time to scream. Then another. Then two more.
When the first alarm bell rang, chaos erupted.
Liora jolted awake in her chamber, blade in hand. Alaric was already dressed, sword drawn.
“They’re inside,” he said.
“How?”
“They climbed the cliffs. Avoided every trap.”
They moved through the halls quickly. Shadows flickered along the walls. Distant screams echoed from the lower levels.
Then a figure stepped into their path tall, cloaked in black, face covered by a bone-white mask. The Shadow Templar.
He raised a dagger.
Alaric stepped in front of Liora. “Stay behind me.”
But Liora raised her own weapon.
The Templar lunged.
The fight was swift, brutal. The assassin was fast, but they were faster together. Liora dodged his strike, swept his legs, and Alaric drove his sword down.
The Templar stilled.
“Together,” Liora breathed.
But it wasn’t over.
Not yet.
Voices called from the lower hall. More assassins. More blood.
They ran toward the main corridor, where Elira and Garran were locked in combat with another pair of Templar. The rebels were losing ground.
Liora loosed an arrow into one’s back. Alaric finished the other with a swift thrust.
Then silence.
Only the dead remained.
And the Queen’s message had been delivered.
No place was safe.
In the hours that followed, they burned the masked bodies in the courtyard. The smoke spiraled into the gray sky.
Liora stood beside the pyres, numb.
Ten rebels had died.
All for a single night’s survival.
She felt Alaric’s hand slide into hers.
“We need to move,” she said.
“Yes.”
“She won’t stop. Not until I’m dead.”
“She’ll never touch you.”
Liora looked at the flames.
“She already has.”
- Writer
