Chapter 21: The Fight

I DIDN’T SLEEP that night.

I wandered the University like a ghost, my mind churning with everything Denna had told me. The song. The bindings. The door that was about to close.

Part of me wanted to chase her. To find wherever she was staying and force her to listen, to let me help, to stop whatever was happening before it was too late.

But another part of me—the cold, calculating part that had been growing since the Fae—understood that forcing wouldn’t work. Denna had made her choices. She was bound by magics I barely understood.

And any attempt to intervene might only make things worse.

The Cthaeh’s words, I thought bitterly. Every action I take plays into its design.

But doing nothing wasn’t an option either.

I found her the next day.

Not by searching—by accident. Or perhaps by design. The world has a way of bringing together the people who need to destroy each other.

She was in the garden behind the Grey Man, sitting on a stone bench, staring at nothing. Her lute case lay beside her, unopened. In the daylight, I could see more clearly what the months had done to her—the shadows beneath her eyes, the tension in her shoulders, the way she held herself like someone bracing for a blow.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, without looking up.

“Neither should you.”

“I’m allowed to sit in gardens. I’m allowed to have a moment of peace before—” She stopped. Pressed her lips together.

“Before what?”

“Before everything ends.” She finally looked at me, and her eyes were red-rimmed. “Why are you doing this, Kvothe? Why can’t you just leave it alone?”

“Because you’re in trouble. Because someone is hurting you. Because—”

“Because you want to be the hero. You want to save the damsel and defeat the monster and have everyone applaud while you take your bow.” Her voice was savage. “That’s what you always want. To be the protagonist of every story.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s completely fair.” She stood, her hands clenched at her sides. “You think you understand what’s happening. You think you can fix it with cleverness and courage and sheer bloody-minded determination. But you don’t understand anything.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I can’t.” The words broke from her like a sob. “I’ve been trying to tell you. The bindings—they prevent certain things. Certain words. Certain truths.” She touched her throat. “I can feel them, Kvothe. Every time I try to warn you properly, they tighten. If I say too much…”

“Then show me. Write it down. Find some way—”

“There is no way!” She was shouting now, tears streaming down her face. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? Don’t you think I’ve spent months looking for loopholes, for escapes, for some clever trick that would let me tell you what I need you to know?”

“What do you need me to know?”

She went very still.

For a long moment, she didn’t speak. Her eyes were distant, like she was listening to something I couldn’t hear.

“The song,” she said finally. “It’s not just about changing how people think about Lanre. It’s about… preparing them. Making them ready to accept something that’s coming.”

“What’s coming?”

“I don’t—” She winced, her hand going to her chest. “I can’t say more. But Kvothe… the people behind this, they’re not who you think they are. The monsters and the heroes… the lines aren’t where you expect them to be.”

“The Chandrian.”

“Are not what you think they are.” Another wince. She was breathing hard now. “And the Amyr… the Amyr are not what you think either. Everyone has been lied to. Everyone is part of a game that’s been playing for three thousand years.”

“Which side are you on?”

“I don’t know anymore.” She picked up her lute case, held it like a shield between us. “I thought I was helping the right people. I thought the song would make things better. But now…”

“Now?”

“Now I’m not sure there are any right people. Just different kinds of wrong.” She backed away. “Stay away from me, Kvothe. Whatever happens next, I don’t want you involved.”

“I’m already involved.”

“Then get uninvolved.” Her voice cracked. “Please. If you’ve ever cared about me—if any of what we had was real—just walk away. Let this play out without you.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then you’re going to die.” She said it flatly, without drama. A simple statement of fact. “Whatever you think you know, whatever plans you’re making—he’s anticipated them. He’s been doing this for longer than you can imagine. And he’s very, very good at destroying people who get in his way.”

“Your patron.”

“My patron. My teacher. My prison.” She was at the edge of the garden now. “His name is—”

She stopped. Her face contorted with pain. Her hand flew to her throat.

“Denna!”

“Don’t.” She held up her other hand, stopping me. “Don’t come closer. Don’t try to help.” She was gasping for breath, but her eyes were fierce. “The binding… it’s reacting. If you touch me right now, it might—”

She stopped speaking. Stood very still, breathing slowly, deliberately.

Then the tension eased. The color returned to her face. And when she looked at me again, something had changed in her expression.

Resignation.

“His name starts with Ash,” she said softly. “And ends with ice.”

Then she was gone.

I stood alone in the garden, the words echoing in my mind.

Starts with Ash. Ends with ice.

Ash. Ice.

Cinder.

The Chandrian who had killed my parents.

The monster I had sworn to destroy.

My legs gave out. I sat down hard on the bench, my hands shaking, my breath coming in short gasps. Not fear—not exactly. Something worse. The feeling you get when the world you thought you understood reveals itself as something else entirely. When the ground beneath your feet turns out to be ice over deep water.

He was Denna’s patron. He was the one writing her, shaping her, turning her into a weapon. The man who had killed my parents—who had stood over their broken bodies and smiled—was now teaching the woman I loved to sing songs that would change the world.

And she had known. At least partly. She had known who he was, and she had stayed anyway.

Or she hadn’t been able to leave.

Or the truth was somewhere in between, tangled up in bindings and compulsions and choices that weren’t quite choices.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. My mind was racing, trying to fit this new piece into the puzzle I’d been assembling. The Chandrian weren’t just killing people who knew too much. They were recruiting them. Using them. Cinder had found Denna—had probably been watching her for years, waiting for the right moment—and bound her to his service.

But why? Why her specifically? What made her voice, her music, valuable enough to risk exposure?

The song. The song that painted Lanre as a hero. That reframed the Chandrian as guardians rather than murderers.

It was propaganda. Magical propaganda, woven into music, spreading through the Four Corners like a disease. Changing how people thought. Preparing them for something.

And I had no idea how to stop it. Killing Cinder wouldn’t break the binding on Denna—might even make it worse. Trying to counter the song would put me in direct opposition to her work. Any action I took risked destroying the very person I was trying to save.

The Cthaeh had known this. Had seen this exact moment coming. Had given me the truth about Cinder knowing it would lead me here—to this garden, this bench, this impossible choice.

The stone beneath me was still warm from her body.

Cinder. Master Ash. The white-haired monster with eyes like frozen midnight.

He was here. Close. Close enough to teach Denna, to write his patterns into her flesh.

And he had been doing this while I chased shadows in the Archives. While I planned and plotted like I had any idea what I was facing.

The Cthaeh had told me Cinder was responsible for my parents’ deaths. It had given me that truth to ensure I would act. To ensure I would destroy something in my rush for revenge.

And now I knew what that something might be.

Not Cinder. Not the Chandrian.

Denna.

I was being maneuvered. Used. Every choice I made was somehow playing into a design I couldn’t see.

But what was the alternative? To do nothing? To let Cinder continue his work? To watch as the song spread and changed and opened doors that should stay closed?

I stood up. Walked out of the garden.

Whatever the Cthaeh wanted, whatever Cinder was planning, I couldn’t step aside. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know.

I would find a way. Save Denna, or destroy Cinder, or both.

Or die trying.

It wasn’t much of a plan. But it was the only one I had.