Chapter 770: Announcements To The Girls Of Blessed Land [III / Bonus - ]

Chapter 770: Announcements To The Girls Of Blessed Land [III / Bonus Chapter]

Gunnhild stumbled forward half a step with her cheeks burning under her weathered tan.

She leaned her spear against the railing at the foot of the stairs, smoothed the front of her jerkin with two shaking hands and started climbing.

"Ummm... Ummm..."

Every step felt strangely light.

The snowy wind whipped her cloak around her shins, and by the time she reached the top, Silas had already taken a few easy strides forward to meet her.

Gunnhild stopped two steps away and looked up at his face with a mix of awe and sudden horrible self-consciousness.

Her hands fidgeted at her belt then, hesitantly, she reached out and placed her calloused scarred palms into his.

He took them.

His long fingers closed around hers, warm and firm, and the heat of his Mythic Gold Core seeped through his skin and chased the cold right out of her knuckles.

Gunnhild’s breath caught, and a deep red flush crept up her neck to her ears.

She had spent nearly forty minutes in the washhouse before the assembly, scrubbing her blond hair with three separate bars of soap and dunking her head under the freezing pump until her teeth chattered.

...She’d scrubbed until her scalp was raw, desperate to get every last trace of dust and sulfur out of it, just in case her Lord got close enough to smell her since she had not forgotten the last time.

’And my hair no longer smells!’

Now, feeling his thumbs move in slow reassuring circles over her wrists and catching the clean scent of cedar from his robes, she felt a huge wave of relief that every single one of those freezing minutes had been worth it.

"My Lord..." Gunnhild managed, her voice thick as she bowed her head a little. "Thank you. I... I only swung my pickaxe as hard as I could. I never thought it’d be enough to earn a place in your house."

Silas chuckled warmly and gave her hands a firm squeeze.

"You brought in more crystal than two whole survey teams put together, Gunnhild," Silas said, real respect in his voice. "You were down in those shafts for a long time, and you were still hauling carts up the slope when people were having lunch... You set the bar for everyone."

Gunnhild’s knees very nearly gave out however she locked them out of pure stubbornness.

He let go of her hands and patted her shoulder with an approving grin.

"You earned every stone of your new room," he told her. "Go on over and join the others. You deserved it..."

Gunnhild bit her lip and nodded hard then crossed the landing toward the raised platform.

She made it about three steps before she realized she’d left her spear at the bottom of the stairs, turned around, saw a hundred and fifty people watching her and decided she’d get it later.

’It’s too scary to go back down...’

Eluned leaned forward with a radiant smile and pulled her in by the arm the moment she got close, while Morwenna gave her a short approving nod.

Silas turned back to the railing and rested his forearms on the stone, looking down at the sea of faces in the snow.

The women in the courtyard were still buzzing, their eyes bright with fresh motivation as Silas waited for the noise to settle, then pointed out across the crowd with a relaxed grin.

"I saw the numbers from this mining run," Silas called out. "And I know how hard every one of you worked down in those shafts... Don’t think for a second your sweat went unnoticed just because one person took the top spot today."

He let his eyes settle on several of the younger soldiers in the front rows.

"If you give this territory everything you’ve got," Silas promised, "the Keep will make room for you too. Every single one of you has a chance to earn a room under this roof... Keep training, keep building, and you’ll find your own door waiting up here."

The crowd went completely wild.

"WOOOOOOOOOO!"

The roar was so loud that the glass in the high windows behind him rattled in its frames.

Recruits and veterans alike stamped their feet and threw their fists in the air, shouting their devotion at the top of their lungs.

"Praise Lord Silas!" an archer screamed, her cheeks bright pink.

"We’ll dig up the whole mountain for you, Lord Silas!" a vanguard soldier yelled, waving her pickaxe over her head, where it narrowly missed three other people.

"We’ll follow you anywhere, my Lord!" another cried out.

Silas stood on the landing with his ears ringing, a stunned crooked smirk pulling at his mouth.

’Isn’t this a bit too much...?’ Silas thought, watching the crowd practically vibrate with adoration. ’They’re getting this hyped over mining quotas... These girls really love me a bit too much for their own good.’

Down in the third row, a girl had started crying into her friend’s shoulder and her friend was crying too.

Neither of them had been anywhere near winning.

He watched one of the recruits try to start a chant, forget the words halfway through and just keep yelling his name instead.

A few of the others joined in with her anyway... Within seconds, half the courtyard was yelling his name in no particular rhythm whatsoever.

Still, looking down at their beaming faces and the fierce loyalty burning in every pair of eyes, something warm spread through his chest.

Who was he to say no to that?

He raised both hands again until the shouting faded into an eager hush.

"Now then," Silas said, leaning a little further over the railing. "Like I said, mining isn’t the only way into the Keep... Some people’s work can’t be measured in carts of ore."

A curious rustle ran through the crowd, and the women glanced at each other.

Silas turned his head toward the terrace. His gaze moved past the Heroes and settled on the quiet figure standing beside the stone pillar.

"There’s someone here today," Silas went on, his voice dropping into something more measured, "without whom our weapons, our armor and everything else, golems included, wouldn’t have come along even half as fast. Every blade Thora hammers out and every golem that walks out of the Forgeworks has her runes on it... And even in the Lord War against Lord Sky, she contributed a lot."

Thora froze and she let go of the edge of her apron.

’No way...’

Her breath caught, and her eyes went as wide as saucers.

Her heart started pounding against her ribs like a trip-hammer, and a wild hope surged through her chest so hard that she genuinely felt like jumping clean over the stone railing.

’He’s doing it...’ Thora thought, her hands shaking. ’The thick-skulled human is actually doing it!’

Solenne, sensing what was about to happen, very quietly moved her tails out of grabbing range.

Rowenna, meanwhile, was the only person in the entire courtyard who still hadn’t figured it out.

...She was looking around politely, clearly wondering who he meant.

Silas turned fully toward the pillar, and his lopsided smile broke wide.

"Rowenna," Silas called out warmly. "Come on up here."

Beside the pillar, the Grand Runemaster blinked.

Her hands went limp over her belt as her blue eyes went wide and glassy, staring at Silas in total shock.

’Huh...?’ Rowenna thought, her mind grinding to a dead stop.

Thora didn’t give her a single second to recover... The dwarf let out a triumphant bellow, lunged forward and planted both hands squarely on the small of Rowenna’s back.

SHOVE!

"Get moving, you bloody genius!" Thora roared, grinning from ear to ear as she practically launched the slender runeworker across the terrace. "Don’t just stand there catching snowflakes! He’s calling your name!"

Solenne swept two of her silver tails out to catch Rowenna before she could topple over and gently steered her toward the steps, while Eluned and Lupina clapped and cheered.

A dozen other hands joined in, patting her back and nudging her forward, until Rowenna was being passed toward the landing like a parcel nobody wanted to be responsible for dropping.

Before she could gather her thoughts or mumble a single protest, she was standing on the landing in front of Silas.

Her cheeks were burning bright pink against her pale skin.

The silver runes stitched along the cuffs of her dark coat hummed faintly in the cold, and her ink-stained fingers trembled against her thighs as she looked up at him through her lashes.

Silas smiled and stepped closer.

He took her right hand in his, his warm calloused palm wrapping around her slender fingers.

"Congratulations, Rowenna," Silas said softly.

He raised his free hand and scratched the back of his head, a rare sheepish smile tugging at his lips.

"Honestly," he said quietly, just loud enough for her and the nearby Heroes to hear, "I’m sorry it took this long. I should’ve done this a while ago but I’m really glad to finally have you living under our roof."

Rowenna’s breath caught.

Back behind her, Thora had both hands clamped over her own mouth to keep from making any noise at all, and was failing.

A sudden overwhelming warmth flooded her chest, so sweet that her blue eyes welled up with shining tears.

...She’d carved those runes for so long without ever expecting anything back, just quietly grateful to have a home and a Lord who didn’t treat his people like they were disposable.

And now he was standing in front of the whole valley, holding her hand and apologizing for not giving her a room sooner.

’I... I...’ Rowenna thought frantically, her throat locking up as a dozen different thank-yous crashed into each other in her head and none of them made it out.

She couldn’t speak, it was as though her voice had packed its things and left.

Her face went even redder as she felt every single eye in the courtyard on her.

Completely overwhelmed, and absolutely terrified that she was about to burst into tears on the landing in front of a hundred and fifty people, Rowenna did the only sensible thing her mind could come up with.

She gave Silas’s hand one desperate squeeze, spun on her heel and bolted across the landing like a startled deer.

RUSTLE!

Her dark coat flared out behind her as she scurried over to the platform, dove straight behind Gunnhild’s broad shoulders and buried her burning face in the back of Gunnhild’s wool cloak to hide from the entire courtyard.

Gunnhild, who’d only been on the platform for about three minutes herself, stood very still and let it happen.

She did, very gently, pat the hand that was clutching her cloak while Silas was still holding his hand out where hers had been.

Silas blinked at the empty air in front of him then he threw his head back and laughed so hard it echoed off the walls of the Keep.

"HAHAHAHA!"

"Well," Silas chuckled, shaking his head and wiping the corner of his eye. "I guess that settles that... Welcome to the Keep, Rowenna."

From somewhere behind Gunnhild’s cloak, a very small muffled voice said something that might have been "thank you."

Silas turned back to the railing and rested his hands on the cold stone again.

The crowd was buzzing with happy chatter, glad to see both the tireless miner and the quiet runeworker rewarded.

Down on the terrace, Thora had grabbed Solenne’s tail again and was hugging it so hard that Solenne had started making small pained noises but Silas wasn’t finished.

His dark blue eyes sharpened as he let his gaze travel across the front row of the fighters, until it came to rest on two women standing side by side in the snow.

"Now then," Silas announced. "We aren’t done yet."

The courtyard quieted again, and everyone leaned forward as they followed his gaze.

Silas looked straight at Tasmin and Brida.

Every head in the courtyard turned the same direction at the same time, and the girls standing around the two of them very quickly found reasons to be somewhere else.

"When I went over the final numbers," Silas explained, gesturing at the two of them, "these two broke the whole scale. Gunnhild’s team put up an incredible haul, but these two? Their contribution was higher than anyone else’s in the entire valley."

Tasmin stood with her arms folded over her fitted black leather armor and shifted her weight slightly.

Her sharp face stayed cool and aloof, but a few silver-streaked strands of her black hair fluttered across her brow as her dark eyes narrowed toward the landing.

Beside her, Brida stood with her legs planted wide in the slush, wearing a sleeveless tunic that left her thick corded arms bare to the winter air.

Her auburn hair was tied back in a messy knot, and her amber eyes glinted with a confident spark, though she kept her jaw clamped shut.

"While the rest of you were mining," Silas went on, leaning forward on the stone, "these two found a whole hive of shapeshifters tunneling under the eastern crags, right next to our mines... They were watching our people and waiting for the right moment to break in."

A gasp rippled through the newer recruits.

Up on the platform, Eluned’s smile slipped for just a moment, and Morrighan’s tail went perfectly still.

Even a few of the hardened border guards exchanged grim looks... Everyone knew what a hive of shapeshifters could do if it got inside the walls.

"They didn’t call for backup," Silas said, with clear pride in his voice. "They didn’t fall back and report it... The two of them went in and wiped out the entire hive by themselves, including its four-armed alpha, which was at least Tier 4."