Chapter 24 · Frontier Lord - Chapter 24: What Sleeps Under the Keep

The door wasn't supposed to be there.

Ava stared at the black iron surface rising from the rubble, her palms still pressed flat against the broken stones. The red light that had torn through the north wall was fading now, sinking back into the cracks like blood into dry earth. Her ring finger throbbed where the Windstone signet had been two minutes ago. Now there was just a pale band of skin and a dull ache that went all the way to her shoulder.

Rain stood three feet behind her, sword still drawn, breathing hard. The raiders had pulled back past the tree line, but she could see torchlight moving between the trunks. Regrouping. Waiting.

"Ava." His voice was flat. "What did you do."

She tried to stand. Her knees didn't want to cooperate. "I don't know."

"That's not good enough."

She twisted to look at him. His jaw was locked, his free hand clenched so tight the knuckles were white. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the door.

Sera's voice cracked across the yard from the east barricade. "They're coming back! Sixty seconds!"

Ava forced herself upright, gripping the edge of the iron door for balance.