"Why?"
"Because you were bleeding. Because I could help. Because in that moment, politics didn't matter."
The simple honesty hits harder than elaborate justification would have. She helped me because helping was the right thing to do, regardless of larger strategies or future conflicts.
Which makes this betrayal cut deeper.
"And now? Do politics matter now?"
"Now I need my prisoner back. And you need to decide whether preventing my mission is worth the cost."
"What cost?"
She gestures toward her soldiers, who've moved into more aggressive positions during our conversation. Still not openly threatening, but closer to weapons and better positioned for crossfire.
"I have twelve more fighters positioned around this courtyard. Crossbows trained on strategic points. One word from me, and this becomes a very different conversation."
I scan the ruins without moving my head. Subtle shifts in shadow, glints of metal where none should be, the faint sound of leather creaking as someone adjusts their grip.
She's not bluffing.
"You'd start a clan war over one smuggler?"
"I'd finish one."
This isn't negotiation anymore. It's a declaration of intent.
She came here ready for war.
"The Bloodfang have something you want badly enough to fight Ironspine forces for it."
"Yes."
"Something worth risking open conflict with a clan that's shown you mercy."
"Mercy?" She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You call interrogating my people mercy?"
"I call treating your wounds mercy. I call not killing you where you stand mercy."
"Then we have different definitions of the word."
We're close enough now that I can see flecks of gold in her violet eyes. Close enough to grab her throat before her soldiers could react. Close enough to end this standoff with brutal efficiency.
Close enough to remember the way she smiled when she finished stitching my wounds.
"Last chance," she says. "Release my prisoner, or learn why mercenaries survive when noble warriors don't."
The challenge hangs in the air between us like smoke from a signal fire. Behind me, Darian Thorne whimpers softly, probably realizing his fate depends on a pissing contest between two stubborn killers.
She won't back down. Neither will I.
But those weapons...
I think about poison-tipped bolts punching through Ironspine armor. About liquid fire burning through clan defenses. About my brother's grave marker standing lonely in the memorial grounds.
More Ironspine warriors will die if she delivers those weapons.
But starting a war here means Ironspine warriors die today.
