Lydia the Siren's Arc

Chapter 20 of 37

The quiet in Lydia's mind held for one breath. Then a fist hit the cabin door. The blows came hard and steady, rattling the frame. Lydia knew the weight behind them before Bastion said the name. Gregorio had walked the road all night, and now he stood outside. Bastion rose. "Stay," he told her. He crossed to the door and opened it wide. Gregorio filled the doorway in battle-worn iron. His dark eyes swept the room and stopped on Lydia. She sat on the bed, hands folded. He drew a slow breath through his nose, the way he read every beast he had ever hunted. "She smells human," Gregorio said. His voice stayed flat. "No siren under it. Nothing." He looked at her longer, and something in his jaw tightened. He had crossed a kingdom to kill a monster, and the monster was gone. "She is," Bastion said. "There is nothing left to hunt." Gregorio stepped inside anyway. He pointed at Lydia. "Do you know what she is? What she did? Merchants. A shepherd. Travelers who never came home. Their families still wait at the road." His hand shook once, then went still. "She killed them. All of them. And now she sits on your bed like a girl." Lydia met his eyes and said nothing. She did not defend herself. She did not beg. The names he threw at her were true, and she let them land in silence. "Say something," Gregorio said. "Tell me you're sorry." She kept her mouth shut. Bastion moved between them. He was younger, smaller in his plain shirt, but he did not step back. "Your oath was monsters," he said. "You told me that yourself. Kill the beast, spare the man. There is no beast here anymore." "There is a killer." "There is a woman." Bastion's voice dropped, steady and low. "You wanted out. A small piece of land where nobody knows your name. Go have it. That was the whole reason you left the crown." Gregorio's hand drifted to his sword hilt. Lydia watched it. She had no way to save herself. If he drew, she would die as a woman. Bastion did not reach for a weapon. He only held Gregorio's gaze. "You buried a man alone once. You don't want another grave, because I will make you bury me alone as well." For a long moment nobody breathed. Then Gregorio's hand fell away from the hilt. "She's yours now," he said. "Whatever she is." He looked at Lydia one last time. He turned and walked out. The door swung shut behind him. Lydia listened to his boots fade down the road and did not stop listening until they were gone.