Page 6 of A Match Made in Slumber

“Sable Citadel,” he grated. “And negative. That is in Barbarian Territory.”

“Aha, I see. So that’s where it is. Splendid.”

Splendid indeed. Just fucking brilliant.

Fighting off the oncoming anxiety attack I felt creeping up my chest, I pressed the bridge of my nose and commenced the box-breathing technique Fern had taught me. Inhale for four counts, hold for four… but my lungs refused to cooperate. The market began to tilt, the chalk-tinted stalls blurring into a dizzying smear of watercolours.

A few hours before the Great Midsummer Market opened, I had summoned from another world a teeth-clenching warlord, itching to use his big stabby stick on me. Pun absolutely not intended.

Oh, Elian. This time, you’re truly, properly fucked.

My knees turned to marshmallows.

He levelled his gaze at me, a flicker of concern cutting through the frost in his eyes. His leather boots made barely a sound along the cobblestones as he closed the distance between us. “Are you all right?”

I felt his body heat radiating against me—a sensation familiar from my dreams, yet novel in reality. It did nothing to settle my nerves. On the contrary, his proximity left me even weaker.

I wiped my damp palms on my tunic. “Nope, I don’t believe I am. But thank you for asking nonetheless. Very kind,” I rabbited on, despite the heart palpitations and the sudden ringing in my ears.

“What’s wrong with you?” He clearly wanted to interrogate me further, but the dizziness sent me sliding down the side of the stall counter.

Before I could crack my skull on the oak timber, a pair of strong, armoured arms intervened. Kill’em lunged forwards, catching me before I hit the ground. The momentum of my slump pulled the commander down with me. Still, he pivoted mid-fall, ensuring his own body shielded me from the stone surface. With a fast grip, he secured me by the waist, cushioning our descent until we sat tangled together on the floor of my stall.

“Are you going to pass out?” he demanded, his deep voice vibrating right through my ribs.

With little conviction, I shook my head to deny it, even though, based on previous experience, this marked the exact destination where my nervous system headed.

He supported me in his arms, holding me as though I was a crate of unstable explosives, ready to detonate at the slightest tremor. Speaking took an immense effort, but I had to try. “Commander… would you mind checking if there’s a… a black matchstick with a lilac head anywhere on the counter?”

To my relief, he refrained from asking questions. Displaying a commendable efficiency, he craned his neck, straining upward to scan the display without letting go of me.

“The only match with a lavender head I see comes with a white splint,” he reported.

Well, the one he referred to—wisteria, not lavender-tipped, to be precise—held a guilt-relieving charm. While not without merit in this situation, it wasn’t what I needed right this second. Typical. On the day I performed a cross-dimensional kidnapping, I’d left my anti-anxiety medication at home.

“That’s a pity,” I whispered.

The black spots in my vision began to swarm, distorting the image of his handsome, worried face until they swallowed it entirely.

And then—I passed out.

The Position Will Hold

Timeline: Two hours until the opening of the Great Midsummer Market.

Keălhem

Ikept my arms locked around the Mage—fine, Magical Alchemist—as his face drained of colour and his eyes rolled back, losing focus. His ink-smudged forehead slumped against my breastplate, his slight, fine-boned frame forfeiting all structural integrity. Supporting his dead weight required little physical effort; training had conditioned me to handle far heavier burdens, but the sudden, absolute vulnerability of his posture triggered a chaos within my own chest.

While I didn’t understand much of what had transpired since that sandstorm claimed me at the Citadel, it took no genius to figure out this realm belonged to my world no longer. And judging by the alchemist’s—fine, Elian’s—reaction, responsibility for this planar shift rested partly upon his shoulders. A butchered spell? A random blunder? We’d spoken only a short while, but years of military command had made me a sharp judge of character. His easily flustered demeanour and tendency to rapid chatter painted a portrait of a man chaotic enough to trigger an accident of this magnitude.

An uncomfortable sense of chagrin arose in my chest. Had I just terrified Elian into a fainting fit? He didn’t look resilient, given his delicate physique. I took no pride in driving civilians out of their wits and past their breaking point. Yet dammit, didn’t landing out of nowhere in a pastel-hued circus, away from everything I knew and understood, justify a bit of a temper? And what kind of name was Everend, anyway?

A tight pressure built around the back of my head. A muscle in my jaw kept twitching. Apart from general bafflement and unease over my heavy-handed conduct, I couldn’t deny I burned with an unmitigated, blinding rage.

Of all occasions, the universe chose the worst moment for a cross-dimensional abduction. To be ripped away from the brink of a historic military victory, mere moments from the final assault, defied all logic. I seethed thinking of the months I’d spent combating lethal heat and exhaustion, maintaining gruelling vigilance to repel brutal Barbarian sorties. The meticulous tactical planning, the staggering resources invested in this campaign—all of it wasted. Compromised by a magical fuckup? Evaporated in a single puff of desert dust?

Worse than the broken strategy lay the gnawing spike of guilt. Unwillingly or not, I had abandoned my men. As the Highest Vanguard, I answered to unyielding duty. I lived by one simple rule: guide and shield my subordinates and hold the line alongside them. And where was I, when they needed me most?