Chapter 17

  This Love, This Ruin

  Lindrao - 888 (nine years ago)

  Lindrao had been Matthias’ hometown once, a lifetime ago. It was where he’d grown up, where he’d known what it felt like to belong somewhere. And yet, after the war, after all he’d done and all he’d become, he never thought he’d set foot here again.

  The Undercity was the same in many ways—grimy and bustling with people—but he was not. He couldn’t see how he fit into it anymore. How someone like him, with so much blood in his past, could ever belong again.

  For two years since building the Dame, they’d wandered the wilds and wastelands, drifting from one rough town to the next. They’d never stayed long enough to leave a mark or grow roots. Maia had grown up knowing that nomadic life, but even she had started asking why they couldn’t settle somewhere. Matthias never had a good answer for her.

  Lindrao hadn’t been a destination he’d chosen, not consciously. But somehow, this was where the road had taken them. Deep down, he knew why. It was Kyra. The hidden part of his heart that he tried so hard to bury, the part that longed to see her again. It had steered him back here, no matter how much he told himself it was just chance.

  Matthias had prepared himself for the worst—at least he thought he had. But when Kyra opened the door to the cantina that first time, her expression was like a knife through his ribs. Shock, disbelief, joy… and then anger, all flickering across her face like lightning on the horizon. And then came the look that gutted him the most, betrayal.

  She’d stood frozen in the doorway, one hand on the frame as if to steady herself. “Matthias,” she’d said, his name brittle on her lips, like it barely belonged to her anymore.

  He’d tried to speak, but the words choked in his throat. He had rehearsed a thousand lines during their journey here, words to explain himself, to apologise, to make her understand. But not a one of them surfaced.

  Her eyes flicked down then, settling on Maia, who stood awkwardly clutching some toy that Matthias couldn’t even remember. She’d been staring up at the strange woman with quiet curiosity.

  “Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing,” Kyra had said, her voice suddenly warm. She’d crouched slightly to Maia’s height, her smile gentle but strained, Matthias hadn’t missed that.

  “What’s your name, love?”

  “Maia,” she replied quietly, glancing up at her father for reassurance before returning her attention to the stranger.

  “Maia, ”Kyra’s smile widened, but Matthias could see the cracks in it. “That’s a lovely name. I’m Kyra. Come in, sweetheart. The bar’s not open for a few hours, but I can fix you something to eat.” She stepped back, holding the door open and gesturing them inside. Maia happily stepped through.

  Matthias lingered in the doorway, his heart twisting. The pain in Kyra’s eyes had been brief but unmistakable, even as she masked it with kindness for Maia’s sake. He hadn’t expected this. Anger, sure. Fury, definitely. But this…

  “You can come in too, you know,” Kyra said, her tone cool now as she glanced back at him. “Unless you plan on standing out there all day.”

  The bar had barely changed in all the years he’d be gone. And Kyra was still as breathtaking as the day he’d left, perhaps even more so. Time had sharpened her a little, giving her an edge that hadn’t been there before. Her dark hair cascaded down her back in soft waves, framing a face that still carried that unmistakable warmth. Seeing her now, standing there with Maia, he couldn’t help but feel the ache of everything he’d thrown away. She’d been his world once.

  He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Kyra was already busying herself behind the bar, pouring a glass of juice for Maia.

  “There you go, love,” she said, setting the glass in front of Maia with a wink. “You sit yourself down and make yourself at home.”

  “Thanks!” Maia beamed, climbing onto one of the stools.

  “You’re very welcome,” Kyra replied. But when her eyes flicked to Matthias, the warmth drained away, replaced by something colder. She didn’t say anything to him, just turned back to Maia. “So, Maia, how long have you and your dad been traveling?”

  “Forever,” Maia said with a giggle, sipping her juice. “We live in our truck, the Dame. Ba even let me drive it once! He’s really good at fixing it,” she snorted, “she breaks down a lot. Like, a lot!”

  Kyra’s lips curved into a smile, but her hands gripped the edge of the bar tightly. “That sounds… exciting.”

  “It is!” Maia said brightly, oblivious to the tension. Archons but Matthias loved that innocence in her.

  Matthias cleared his throat, stepping closer to the bar. “Kyra…”

  But the look she gaze him could have cut steel.

  “Nearly a decade,” she’d hissed at him later, after Maia had gone to sleep. “I thought you were dead!” Her eyes had been filled with tears. “You didn’t even write to me! You could have told me! And now you just show up. With… with her.”

  ***

  Despite that first night, life in Lindrao had been good.

  For once, Matthias wasn’t living day to day with blood on his hands or the weight of his blade at his hip. They had the Dame parked up in the narrow alley behind Kyra’s cantina, nestled between the rust-streaked bridge base and the bar itself. Kyra had inherited the bar after her old man had passed. Maia had taken to calling the Undercity home without hesitation—a word that always hit Matthias harder than it should have.

  The sudden return to Kyra's life had been tumultuous for Matthias. At first, she had been distant. Her anger surfacing in small, cutting remarks or in the way her gaze lingered on him with something unsaid.

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  There were moments of warmth too, fleeting, like the brief return of the sun after a storm. But time had worn down the sharp edges of her hurt, and nearly two years had passed since he and Maia had arrived in Lindrao.

  Some old friends—Kyra included—had helped Matthias find work fixing up old pre-war vehicles. He’d gotten good at tinkering from his years out in the wastes.

  These days, he and Kyra danced around each other like moths to a flame. There was an unspoken connection between them that neither could seem to break. Neither dared to voice what they both knew lingered in their hearts.

  Kyra had had other partners in the years he’d been gone. But she had waited, he’d learned after a few months… like she’d promised. That had been another knife in his gut. But after the Fall of the Archons, and the Verdant left, most soldiers that survived the war had all returned home. Matthias hadn’t. And everyone back home had assumed the worst about Matthias.

  Kyra was careful, guarded, unwilling to risk the hurt again. And Matthias—he was too scared of doing the hurting. Because deep down, he knew this was all temporary. As much as he allowed himself to settle, to pretend. He knew it couldn’t last. This could be Maia’s home for a time, but it wasn’t his. And it never could be.

  Maia thrived in the time they’d lived there. She was now nine, going on nineteen. Her days spent darting between the alleys, playing with the other kids who lived in the neighbourhood. She’d even started helping Kyra in the cantina.

  She was learning to cook—mostly under Kyra’s impatient but amused tutelage. Kyra had even started teaching her how to play the old battered piano that sat out the back. She would come back to the Dame each night with flour on her cheeks and stories about the Undercity’s colourful characters.

  Maia was happy here. And that made Matthias happy.

  ***

  The cantina was unusually quiet that night. The warm breeze of Lindrao’s night crept in through the open door. Maia had gone to bed hours ago, curled up in the Dame’s cab, the blanket pulled up to her chin.

  Matthias sat at the bar, a half-empty glass of dark amber ale in his hand. Kyra was behind the counter, wiping it down even though it hardly needed cleaning. They’d spent the night like this—talking, laughing, sharing stories. He’d come here for a few drinks after work with some friends. Those friends had since headed off home. He and Kyra had fallen into this habit since his return, their walls carefully dismantled brick by brick over the two years.

  She poured herself a drink, leaning her elbows on the bar across from him, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief. "You remember that time you got caught trying to sneak into my room?”

  “How could I forget? I thought your old man was going to kill me that night.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “I’ll never tell, couldn’t break Brod’s trust like that” Matthias winked. In truth, Matthias and Kyra’s father Brod had always had a good relationship. But he’d given Matthias a very firm talking to that night.

  Matthias chuckled, his voice warm and easy, the kind of laugh that came from a place he didn’t let himself visit often. The bar had emptied throughout the night and only the two of them remained.

  “You’ve always had a talent for finding trouble, haven’t you?” she said with a teasing grin, sliding around to his side of the bar. She leaned in, closer than she needed to, close enough that the faint scent of her hair—something similar to coconut—washed over him, stirring something deep in his chest.

  "Still do," he said, his voice quieter now, his gaze meeting hers. There was something unspoken in the way he looked at her, something that had been building for years.

  She held his gaze for a long moment, then took a slow sip from her glass, the tension between them palpable.

  "You haven’t changed much, you know," she said.

  She was lying, of course. Matthias was a far cry from the boy that had left all those years ago.

  "Neither have you," he replied, at least he was being honest. "Still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen."

  The words hung in the air, daring either of them to take the next step. And then, as if pulled by some unseen force, she leaned forward, and so did he.

  Their lips met, hesitant at first, then hungry, desperate, as though years of longing and unspoken words poured into that single kiss. Her hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, and he wrapped his arms around her.

  Before either of them realised it, they were on their feet, his body pressing hers against the edge of the bar.

  They kissed like thirsty wanderers in a drought, their passion igniting like dry tinder catching flame.

  But then, as quickly as it began, it ended.

  Kyra pulled back sharply, her breath coming in short gasps. The warmth in her eyes turned cold, her lips pressed into a thin line.

  “I waited for you," she said, her voice trembling with a mixture of anger and hurt. "For nine years, Matthias. Nine years, not knowing if you’d been killed. And you came back… with a daughter. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?!"

  "I’m sorry," he said, the words weak and hollow even as he spoke them. He took a step back from her.

  "I would cry myself to sleep with fear that you’d been killed, wondering why you hadn’t written to me. Why I’d heard nothing."

  "I... I know," he managed, though his voice barely carried above a whisper.

  "No, no you fucking don’t," she snapped, her pain sharpening into rage. "You never cared about me. You were too busy doing whatever the hell you wanted, falling in love with someone else."

  "That’s not true," Matthias said, but the words felt like ash in his mouth.

  "Don’t lie to me!" she shouted, slamming her hand on the bar. The sound echoed in the empty room, stark against the fragile quiet that had followed their kiss.

  "I..." He stopped himself. He couldn’t lie to her, not anymore. "I... I’m sorry," he said again, and it was all he could manage.

  "I think you should leave," she said, cold and final.

  "Kyra..." he started, his voice pleading.

  "I mean it," she said, her tone softer now but no less resolute. "Maia is fantastic, she’s amazing, and I love her. I really do… but she will always remind me of what you did. The pain you’ve caused me, and I can never forgive you for that."

  Matthias wanted to tell her everything then, everything about Maia—about her Fatebond, her importance, the reason he’d had to leave. Why he couldn’t have reached out before. But he couldn’t… Maia was still too young, too vulnerable. Too important. Maybe he’d never be able to tell her.

  Matthias knew the truth could fix this. If he told Kyra everything about Maia, then she’d understand. She’d see it wasn’t a betrayal, that it wasn’t some cruel abandonment. They could be a real family, the three of them, whole and unbroken. He could almost picture it, a life he didn’t deserve but desperately wanted… But Maia was too important.

  Too important to the world.

  Too important to him.

  He couldn’t let anyone know the truth about her. Not even Kyra. It was a truth he kept buried so deep inside himself that some days, he let himself forget it was there. He couldn’t ever tell her.

  Maia mattered more to him than anything else in this world—more than Kyra, more than the chance to heal what he’d broken. And so he stayed silent, the words locked behind his teeth, knowing he was letting Kyra slip away forever.

  And that was the night Matthias and Maia left the cantina. She was nine years old, and he was taking her away from the first place she’d truly begun to think of as home. They left Lindrao under the cover of night, the old orange truck packed with all the pieces of their lives they’d managed to carve out.

  As the bridge disappeared into the distance behind them, Matthias glanced at Maia asleep in the passenger seat, her face peaceful in the pale light of the cracks. He gripped the wheel tighter, a hollowness settling into his chest.