Echoes of Ice and Iron-Chapter 40: The West’s Sons Unleashed

The bell rang again.

Not ceremonial now. Not measured.

"You shouldn’t have come here," Maric said as he retreated toward the dais, laughter flickering at the corners of his mouth. "Were you counting on my father’s strict rule to shield you?" His voice hardened. "On him playing host to your incredulity?"

Maric slowed, fingers brushing the arm of his chair as though it were a throne already earned. He did not turn at once.

Aya took a single step forward, a thought dangerously forming in head.

"Where is King Therin?" she asked, each word deliberate.

Maric finally faced her.

He smiled.

It was not a politician’s smile. Not even a predator’s.

It was the look of a man who had already crossed the line and was exhilarated by it.

"Oh, Lady Aya," he said softly. "Still asking after old men?"

The hall seemed to lean inward.

Aya did not blink. "You didn’t answer me."

Maric chuckled, settling into his chair at last, sprawling rather than sitting, one arm draped carelessly over the side. His eyes never left her face. "You Northerners," he mused. "Always so attached to symbols. Crowns. Fathers. Kings who believe their presence still matters."

Seth shifted beside her, subtle, controlled. Shin’s hand tightened on his sword.

Aya felt it then—the absence.

Not just of an answer.

Of restraint.

Her thoughts aligned with chilling clarity.

He’s dead.

Not missing. Not ill. Not delayed.

Dead.

And with King Therin gone, the West was no longer ruled—only consumed.

His sons, she realized. Unleashed.

Maric leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes alight. "Did you truly think we would keep kneeling forever?" he asked. "That the West would remain polite while the North sharpened its teeth?"

Aya exhaled slowly. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"So it’s true," she said. "The raids. The border fires. You let them happen."

Maric’s smile widened.

Then he raised his hand.

Just slightly.

A conductor’s gesture.

"Of course, we did," he said pleasantly.

His hand came down.

And the hall answered as soldiers and archers ran in.

Another bell rang. This one screamed.

And steel answered it.

The first bolt came from the gallery above—fast, brutal, meant to kill. Aya moved before thought finished forming. Her hand snapped up, sword flashing as the quarrel glanced off the flat of the blade and shattered against the marble behind her.

"Down," she said, calm as snowfall.

Shin obeyed without hesitation, already moving to intercept the guard rushing from the left. Seth pivoted the other way, blade clearing its sheath in a single smooth pull, catching a second attacker mid-stride and driving him back with efficient force.

The hall erupted.

Doors slammed shut with thunderous finality. Iron bars dropped. Archers flooded the balconies. Footsteps pounded in from side corridors—too many, too fast.

Maric laughed.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t wild.

It was of pure delight.

"There she is," he said as chaos bloomed. "The woman they warned me about."

Aya did not look at him, but moved.

She went low first—ducking beneath a sword swing that would have taken her head, turning with it, blade carving a clean, precise line across the man’s thigh. He went down screaming. She didn’t slow.

Another came in from her right. She let him think he had her—then stepped inside his guard, shoulder driving into his chest as her elbow snapped up under his jaw. Bone cracked. He dropped.

Aya flowed through them like a trained weapon given will.

No wasted movement. This was not the style of a court-trained duelist.

This was battlefield work.

Shin caught an arrow in the ribs and went down hard with a grunt, blood already darkening his side. Aya felt it like a pull—sharp, instinctive. She turned, parried a blade meant for Seth, then reached for Shin without looking.

"Hold on," she said as her hand closed around Shin’s wrist.

The world shifted.

Not light. Not fire.

Pressure.

A deep, unseen force rippled outward from Aya’s grasp, slamming into the guards converging on them. They staggered as if struck by an invisible wave, weapons clattering, bodies thrown back against stone.

Shin gasped as Aya hauled him behind her, the wound sealing just enough to stop the worst of the bleeding—raw, imperfect, but effective.

Seth stared at her for half a heartbeat too long.

Then he moved again.

"Left!" he barked.

Aya pivoted with him, their blades working in tandem—his strikes sharp and controlling, hers decisive. They advanced—not retreating.

Toward Maric.

He had drawn steel now, on his feet, expression alight, eyes fixed on Aya like a man finally standing before something he’d dreamed of breaking.

"You see, sister?! That fire!" he shouted over the din. "This is why you never belonged in the North! As you were promised to my brother, you should have been here!"

Aya came at him without a word.

Maric was no fool. He had skill—years of training, a strong arm, a vicious instinct. He met her blow for blow, sparks flying as steel rang against steel. He pressed hard, trying to force her back toward the archers.

Aya let him.

Then she shifted her weight and slipped inside his guard, blade turning at the last instant.

Steel bit deep into his shoulder.

Maric screamed—more in fury than pain—and stumbled back, blood soaking his sleeve. Aya followed, relentless, sword already rising for the next strike—

A horn sounded.

Not from the hall.

From outside.

Seth swore. "That’s ours."

As if summoned by the sound, the floor shuddered. Somewhere beyond the sealed doors, shouting erupted—foreign accents, familiar voices.

Aya hesitated only once—eyes flicking to Maric, who was being dragged back by guards, clutching his bleeding arm and laughing even now.

A sharp cry.

Aya turned on the sound of it—metal biting metal, too close, too sudden—and her sword met a halberd mid-swing. The impact rattled her arm to the shoulder. She pivoted, boots skidding on polished stone already slick with blood, and drove her second blade up beneath the guard’s chin.

He fell without a sound.

"Shin—stay close," Seth barked, his voice cutting through the chaos as he dragged Shin backward by the collar of his armor.

Shin was on his feet but barely. Blood soaked the left side of his ribs, dark and fast, his breath coming in sharp, shallow pulls. He raised his sword anyway.

"Don’t," Aya snapped, stepping in front of him as another blade flashed from the right. She caught it, twisted, broke the man’s wrist with a sharp turn of her hilt, and kicked him back into the marble balustrade.

"Kill them!" Maric howled from the raised dais, pacing like a caged animal having shaken off the guards who dragged him back. "Kill all of them! Tear them apart—here, now!"

Stone ground against stone as the inner gates of the hall started to seal—slow, inexorable slabs descending from the archways. Every exit. Every corridor they hadn’t already been pushed away from.

"Lady Aya," Seth breathed. "We need to get out of here."

Aya didn’t answer as she cut the thought off as a spear thrust toward Shin’s exposed side. Aya caught it on her crossguard, snapped the shaft, and drove her blade into the soldier’s throat.

The man collapsed, clawing at nothing.

Maric shrieked again from above. "Don’t let her reach the doors! Cut her down! Cut her down!"

Aya felt it then—the pressure behind her eyes, the old familiar tightening in her veins.

"What do you want to do, Lady Aya?"

For half a heartbeat, the hall seemed to still around her.

Aya exhaled slowly.

"I have a promise to keep, Master Seth," she said, her voice calm—too calm—cutting clean through the din of steel and bells. "So we’ll have to fight our way out."

Seth and Shin nodded and drew their defensive stances. No hesitation.

The guards surged.

Aya stepped forward—and stopped, a frightening calm appearing on her face.

She drew her blades in, one smooth motion, and sheathed them.

The nearest soldiers faltered, confused shouts rippling through their line.

Above them, Maric froze mid-laugh.

Aya turned her head, eyes lifting to the dais. When she spoke, her voice carried—low, even, and utterly devoid of mercy.

"I have some sort of respect for your father, Prince Maric," Aya said in a low voice. "For he at least knew how to receive people in his court properly."

Aya continued walking forward, pressure welling around her and the air growing colder by the second.

"As such, this kind of welcome... unacceptable and well beneath your station."

She looked at each guard and shook her head. "The dead already know me," she continued. "I shall send you all along to meet them."

The guards surged forward.

Steel rasped free. Boots struck stone. Someone shouted an order that never finished leaving his mouth.

Aya lifted a hand and the air buckled.

It was not heat that followed—but cold. A pressure that slammed inward from every direction, as though the hall itself had decided to close its fist. Blood answered her call instantly, violently—drawn not from wounds but from within.

A man screamed as crimson threaded out through his nose and eyes, lifting like smoke before snapping into sharp, glistening lines in the air. Another dropped to his knees, clawing at his throat as blood seeped through his pores, staining his mail black and slick. A third never made a sound—he simply collapsed, lifeless before he struck the floor.

The stone beneath them darkened in spreading blooms.

Aya stepped forward. With every step, the pressure increased.

The guards closest to her fell first—helmets clattering as bodies crumpled bonelessly to the ground. Farther back, men staggered, retching blood, veins standing out like ropes beneath their skin. Even the banners along the walls sagged, weighed down by an unseen force.

Seth felt it like hands closing around his lungs.

His vision blurred for a heartbeat. Blood trickled warm at the corner of his mouth. He stayed upright by will alone, boots grinding into the stone as he forced breath back into his chest.

Shin gasped. Not loudly—but enough.

He dropped to one knee, one hand braced against the floor, the other clutched to his side as blood seeped between his fingers. His teeth were clenched so tightly Seth could hear them grind.

But Aya did not notice.

Her eyes had gone distant—storm-gray turned silver, reflecting nothing human. Blood arced toward her now in fine threads, orbiting slowly, reverently, as though the hall itself were offering tribute.

"Obey," she continued, pressure swelling until the stone groaned beneath their feet.

A guard tried to run.

He made it two steps before his heart ruptured.

Aya’s gaze swept the hall—over the dying, the kneeling, the already dead.

Seth moved towards her. He forced his legs to move, lungs burning, blood in his mouth metallic and hot. He reached her just as Shin’s body sagged fully to the floor behind them.

"Lady Aya!" Seth grabbed her arm—hard. "Please stop!"

The blood-lattice trembled.

"If you do any more," he snarled through clenched teeth, hauling her closer, "We will bleed out. Shin will die."

Something hesitated.

The pressure wavered.

Aya inhaled sharply—like a swimmer breaking the surface after too long below.

The blood threads shuddered, then fell.

They hit the floor in wet, scattered drops.

The cold receded.

Bodies slumped fully, whatever force had been holding them upright finally released. Survivors collapsed gasping, sobbing, clawing for breath. Silence rushed back into the hall in stunned, broken pieces.

Aya dropped her hand.

Seth kept his grip firm.

Across the dais, Maric screamed.

Not in fear, but in laughter.

He had fallen sideways from his chair, blood streaming from his nose, ears, and mouth—his fine robes soaked through, hands shaking violently as he clawed himself upright.

His eyes were wild. Bright. Ecstatic.

"Ah," he rasped, choking on a laugh that turned into a wet cough. "Blood-witch."

He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and smeared it across his cheek like war paint.

"That," he gasped, staring at her with reverence and madness tangled together, "that is why they feared you."

He dragged himself to his feet, swaying, still grinning. He looked around the hall and saw that all of his men were either dead or dying and that there was no one else there to stop Aya and her party.

"This isn’t over," he spat.

Aya met his gaze, cold and unafraid.

"No," she agreed. "It isn’t."

She turned and signalled to Seth, grabbing the nearly unconscious Shin to escape the hall.

They burst through a side passage as the inner hall collapsed fully into chaos, with Maric shouting expletives behind them. Aya led them through corridors, Shin leaning heavily on Seth now, jaw clenched against pain.

They emerged into the outer court in a storm of noise and blood.

Masa was there—hammer swinging in wide, brutal arcs. Bela fought back-to-back with Thorne, her blade precise, his movements savage. Frost Fire held formation even as Western guards poured in from every gate.

"Aya!" Masa shouted.

She raised her hand and the ground answered.

Not splitting. Not breaking.

But moving.

A wave of force surged outward from her, invisible but undeniable, slamming into the guards and throwing them back like leaves before a gale. Horses screamed. Men fell. The press broke.

"Mount up!" Seth roared.

They ran.

Horses were already being cut loose, Frost Fire moving with terrifying efficiency. Aya swung into the saddle beside Seth, Shin secured between Masa and Bela.

The gates were closing.

Aya did not slow.

She stood in the stirrups, one hand outstretched.

The air howled.

The gate shuddered, warped, and burst outward just enough for them to tear through in a thunder of hooves and flying debris.

They did not look back.

And Ceadel vanished behind them in smoke, blood, and ringing bells.