[Draven’s POV]

The southern walls are solid. Three generations of lords reinforced them against sea assault — catapult platforms sunk into bedrock, cliff batteries angled to cover overlapping fields of fire, harbor chains thick enough to stop a warship dead in the narrows.

Whatever Aldric throws at the harbor, it will cost him. The east is the problem.

Riven walks beside me along the ridge path, his eyes scanning the coastline below. The Shattered Coast stretches east from the compound — a jagged maze of rock and current, reefs like teeth breaking the surface at low tide.

For generations, this approach has protected itself. No naval chart marks it as passable, and no commander has ever tried.

Until now.

“The funneling point is here.” I stop at the eastern gate — a narrow cut in the ridge where the coastline compresses any approaching force into a corridor barely fifty yards wide.

“If they come through the Shattered Coast, this is where the terrain works for us. Fifty yards of kill zone, high ground on both flanks.”

Riven crouches and studies the approach.

“The problem is the beach below. If longboats land before we can position, they’ll have cover behind the rock formations. Once they’re in the rocks, dislodging them becomes house-to-house fighting without the houses.”

“Which is why we don’t let them land. I want fortifications at the gate — palisades, archer positions, anything that turns this corridor into a death sentence for anyone walking through it.”

“How long do we have?”

“Four weeks, maybe less.”

“I can have palisades up in two. Archer platforms in three, and the concealed positions along the ridge are already occupied — my flanking force has been sleeping in the scrub for a week.”

“How are they holding?”

“Cold, irritated, and sharp. Exactly how I want them.”

He straightens and surveys the ridge. “If the longboats come, they’ll hit the beach at the tidal window. My force drops from the ridge onto their flank before they reach the gate. Between the palisade in front and my fighters behind, we turn the beach into a box.”

“And if there are more than two hundred?”

“Then we hold the box until you can redirect from the harbor, which means the harbor defense needs to function without you for at least two hours.”

“Theron can hold the harbor.”

“He can hold anything. That man was born with a fortification in each hand.” Riven kicks a loose stone off the ridge and watches it tumble toward the surf below. “Speaking of permanent arrangements. The consort bond.”

I glance at him. “What about it?”

“I’ve heard enough about the politics from Sera and Corwin and every warrior with an opinion and a mouth. I’m asking something different.” He meets my eyes. “Are you happy?”

The question catches me off guard: not the word — the sincerity behind it.

Riven deflects everything with humor, handles vulnerability the way he handles blades — keeping it at arm’s length, always moving.

For him to ask directly, without a joke wrapped around it, means he actually wants the answer.

“I’m terrified,” I say. “Of losing someone again.”

The words come out before I can shape them into something less exposed.

“Aldric isn’t what keeps me awake. The fleet, the assault, the tactical problems — I know how to fight those. What I don’t know is how to stand next to someone I chose in front of three hundred people and survive it if the world takes her the way it took Lyanna.”

Riven is quiet. The wind pulls at his hair. Below us, the waves break against the Shattered Coast, white spray exploding against dark rock.

“Lyanna would have liked her,” he says.

The grief that surfaces is old and familiar, but its edges have worn smooth.

Not the sharp thing that used to cut me when I breathed — something softer, rounder, carrying warmth alongside the ache.

“You’re assessing her capabilities.”

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