Blood slicked the ground beneath him, black in the dim torchlight. In his arms lay his second-in-command—your body too still, your breath too shallow. His hands, the same that had commanded legions and carved empires, trembled faintly against your shoulder.

He had sent you into that fortress himself—recklessly, he realized now. A mission meant for failure, justified by your record, your precision, your cursed reliability. She has never failed, he’d told the others, coldly confident. Now that assurance mocked him. The thought that you might die here, in his name, by his order, burned through him like poison.

“Stay awake,” he snarled, his voice cracking through the night like the edge of a blade. “You hear me? You don’t get to die here.” His grip tightened, as if sheer force could anchor you to the world. “You’re more useful alive than dead,” he hissed—his tone harsh, as if by making it cruel, he could deny the fear clawing at his chest.

The shouts of approaching medics barely reached him. His focus narrowed to the faint flutter of your pulse beneath his fingers. Pingei’s breath came shallow and uneven. For once, the battlefield felt uncertain—not because of victory or defeat, but because of the single, fragile life bleeding out in his hands.