The boy walked through the snow, his boots leaving deep tracks in the white powder.
He carried a heavy wooden tray loaded with spiced wine, his hands trembling violently. His face burned—not from the freezing wind, but from a deep, suffocating shame.
"I came to be a soldier," Mika whispered to himself, his breath pluming in the dark. "My family will be proud... not this. I won't do this."
Tears froze on his cheeks. He thought of the commanders waiting inside the massive pavilion ahead. The way their eyes roamed over him. The way they laughed when he flinched. He wanted to run. He wanted to draw a blade and die fighting.
But he kept walking. He was prey. What else could he do?
Then, he felt it.
Cold steel pressed sharply against his spine, right between his shoulder blades.
"Don't move," a voice whispered from the darkness. It was low, calm, and absolutely terrifying. "Don't drop the tray."
Mika froze. His heart hammered wildly. Around him, the camp roared with drunken laughter and firelight, completely blind to the shadows.
Fear suddenly mutated into pure, reckless rage. He was done being weak.
Mika spun around, dropping the heavy tray into the snow, and threw a desperate, wild punch—
The stranger caught his fist. Effortlessly. Like catching a falling leaf.
Before Mika could blink, his feet were swept from under him. He hit the frozen earth hard, the air exploding from his lungs. A knee dropped onto his chest with bone-crushing weight, pinning him to the ground.
"I told you not to move," the voice said.
Mika thrashed wildly, trying to bite, trying to scream. "I won't let you use me! I'll die first!"
The stranger leaned in. The moonlight caught a face marred by three pale scars, and one eye that glowed a faint, necrotic green.
"I don't want your body," Ryan said coldly. "I want answers. Lie to me, and you die in the snow."
Mika stopped struggling, paralyzed by that strange, glowing eye. This wasn't a soldier. This was a predator.
"The tent," Ryan demanded. "Who is inside? How many guards?"
"T-two guards outside," Mika stammered, his breath shallow. "They always steal a drink before they let me pass. Inside... twenty commanders. Celebrating."
Ryan's expression didn't change. "Which ones look at you?"
Mika's face drained of color. The shame returned, choking him. He looked away, closing his eyes. "Just kill me."
Ryan pressed the hunting knife against Mika's throat. He didn't offer a speech. The wolf inside him had no pity for rabbits who gave up.
"Dying is easy," Ryan whispered brutally. "If you want to stop being prey, give me their names. And I will slaughter them for you."
Mika opened his eyes. He saw the absolute, dead certainty in the boy's mismatched gaze.
"Lord Borchu," Mika breathed, his voice trembling with sudden venom. "He sits in the middle. He's the worst. And... Lord Malach. The high commander. If he looks at you, he knows what you're thinking. Be careful of him."
"Borchu and Malach," Ryan repeated.
Before Mika could say another word, Ryan drove the heavy pommel of his dagger into the side of the boy's skull.
Mika's eyes rolled back, and he went completely limp.
Ryan stood up immediately. He didn't waste time looking at the unconscious servant. He quickly stripped the thick, warm soldier's cloak from Mika's body and threw his own blood-stained tunic over the boy so he wouldn't freeze to death in the snow.
Ryan wrapped the oversized cloak around his shoulders, pulling the heavy hood up to shadow his face.
He knelt by the fallen tray. Two glasses had spilled, but four remained full. Perfect.
Ryan reached into his pouch and pulled out the small, dead spider he had kept from the cave. The cold had killed it, but its venom sacs were still swollen. With terrifying calm, Ryan squeezed the spider's abdomen, letting two thick drops of paralytic poison fall into each glass of dark red wine.
He swirled the glasses with his finger, watching the deadly venom vanish into the alcohol.
Ryan picked up the tray, kept his head down, and walked straight toward the commanders' tent.Ryan pulled Mika's thick cloak tighter around his shoulders and knelt beside the wooden tray in the snow.
By some brutal twist of fate, there was enough spiced wine here to fill the cups of twenty commanders.
He reached into his pouch and retrieved the dead spider. It was a pale, ugly thing with dark, striped legs. To a city boy, it was just a bug. To Ryan, it was a weapon. His father had taught him the harsh alchemy of the deep woods—which mushrooms brought visions, which berries stopped a bleeding wound, and which creatures carried death in their veins.
"The cold took you," Ryan whispered to the tiny corpse, his breath pluming in the freezing air. "But your venom remains."
He held the spider delicately over the first flagon of wine and squeezed its abdomen. Two thick, black drops of paralytic poison slid from its fangs, disappearing instantly into the dark red liquid. He repeated the process for the remaining flagons, swirling the wine with a wooden spoon until the venom was perfectly, invisibly mixed.
Ryan stood up. He pulled the hood low over his mismatched eyes, lifted the heavy silver tray, and began the long walk toward the center of the camp.
The command pavilion was massive, a structure of heavy crimson silk and oiled canvas erected in the very heart of the muddy encampment.
Two men stood guard at the entrance. They did not wear the rusted ringmail of the common infantry. They wore heavy plate armor enameled in deep black, the insignia of the Dragon Empire polished onto their breastplates. These were Lord Malach's personal vanguard.
As Ryan approached, the guard on the left lowered his heavy halberd, barring the entrance.
"Halt, boy," the guard ordered, his voice muffled behind a steel visor. "Where is Mika?"
Ryan lowered his head, keeping his face hidden in the shadow of his hood. "Mika has fallen ill with the snow-fever, my lord. Master Gobin sent me so the commanders would not thirst."
The guard studied him for a long, agonizing moment. Through the steel slit of the visor, Ryan could feel the man's eyes scanning him, looking for a weapon, a threat, a lie.
"The wind is biting tonight," Ryan added smoothly, stepping forward to offer the tray. "Master Gobin instructed me to pour for the vanguard first. To keep the cold from your bones."
The guard hesitated, then lifted his visor. His face was scarred and wind-burned. He looked at the steaming, spiced wine, then exchanged a glance with his partner. In the freezing misery of the northern territories, hot wine was a rare mercy.
"Leave a flagon for us," the guard grunted, stepping aside. "Get inside before the Lord Commander loses his patience."
Ryan poured two iron cups to the brim, handed them over, and slipped through the heavy canvas flaps of the pavilion.
He didn't need to look back to know they were already dead.
The smell hit him like a physical blow.
It wasn't the smell of blood, or unwashed bodies, or wet wool. It smelled of jasmine. Sweet, cloying, imported perfume meant for the decadent halls of the capital, entirely out of place in a war camp surrounded by slaughtered villagers.
The pavilion was a cavern of luxury. Thick, imported rugs completely covered the frozen mud. Braziers of burning coal cast a warm, golden glow over a massive oak table groaning under the weight of roasted boar, honeyed fowl, and freshly baked bread.
Twenty men sat around the table. Twenty commanders of the Dragon Empire.
These were the men who drew the maps. The men who pointed the swords. The men who had ordered the burning of Ryan's home.
"Boy! You are late!"
A booming, wet voice shattered the low hum of conversation. A massive man with a red, pockmarked face and small, cruel eyes slammed his fist on the table. It was Lord Borchu.
"Mix the wine with the goat's milk! Not the water! And be quick about it, you miserable rat!"
Ryan didn't speak. He bowed his head, moved to the serving table in the corner, and began pouring the poisoned wine into the silver goblets, meticulously mixing in the milk as ordered. As he worked, he listened, memorizing their faces, their voices, their sins.
"My vanguard broke their shield wall in minutes!" a commander with a braided beard boasted loudly, tearing into a roasted bird. "We slaughtered them like sheep!"
"Your vanguard didn't even breach the treeline!" Borchu sneered, wiping grease from his chin. "You held your men back like a coward while mine took the arrows!"
"Your men took arrows because they broke formation and ran the moment that giant with the war hammer stepped out of his house!" the bearded commander shot back, his hand dropping to his dagger.
"Enough."
The single word wasn't shouted. It was spoken softly, with a chilling, absolute authority.
The entire table instantly fell dead silent.
Lord Malach sat at the head of the table. He didn't look like a soldier. He looked like an aristocrat—pale, meticulously groomed, with eyes the color of old flint. He slowly wiped his mouth with a linen napkin.
"You both lost fifty men today fighting farmers," Malach said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. "You accomplished nothing but wasting the Emperor's steel. Sit down, shut your mouths, and try to find some shame."
Borchu's face flushed a violent purple, but he immediately sank back into his chair, utterly cowed.
The tension in the room was suffocating. Malach slowly turned his gaze toward Borchu.
"And you, Borchu," Malach continued quietly. "You commanded from the rear. You spent the battle looking for boys to drag back to your tent instead of leading your men. You are an embarrassment to the Dragon."
Borchu swallowed hard. To deflect the humiliation, his small, cruel eyes darted toward the serving table.
"Where is the boy from last night?" Borchu demanded roughly, looking at Ryan. "I ordered him to my tent. He never showed."
Ryan kept his head down, carefully placing the goblets on his tray. "He fell ill with the fever, my lord."
Borchu sneered, a grotesque, ugly sound. "Fever? If I didn't have to march tomorrow, I would drag him out of his bed, cut him to pieces, and feed him to the hounds."
Ryan's expression remained completely blank. He picked up the tray and began moving around the table, silently placing a poisoned goblet in front of each commander. He watched Borchu take a deep, greedy gulp of the wine. He watched the bearded commander drain half his cup.
Finally, Ryan reached the head of the table.
He placed the last silver goblet in front of Lord Malach.
Malach didn't reach for it. Instead, the high commander leaned back in his chair, his cold, flint-like eyes locking onto Ryan's face hidden beneath the hood.
"I do not know you," Malach said softly.
"I work the fires for Master Gobin, my lord," Ryan replied, his voice perfectly smooth, perfectly subservient. "I rarely leave the kitchen."
Malach tilted his head a fraction of an inch. "You speak well for a scullion. Too well. Where did you learn to articulate like a scribe?"
Ryan's heart beat a slow, steady rhythm. "A former servant from the capital taught me, my lord. Before he died of the cold."
Malach stared at him. The silence stretched, thick and dangerous. The other commanders had stopped eating, watching the exchange with tense amusement.
"Drink from my cup," Malach ordered.
Ryan froze. His blood ran cold.
"My lord," Ryan whispered, keeping his eyes on the floor. "I am not worthy of the commanders' vintage. And I have more serving to do."
Malach didn't blink. "It was not an invitation, boy. It was a command. Drink."
There was no way out. If he refused, Malach would have him cut down where he stood.
Ryan reached out with a steady hand. He lifted the silver goblet, brought it to his lips, and tipped it back.
The wine was rich, heavily spiced with cinnamon and clove. But beneath the heat of the alcohol, Ryan tasted the bitter, metallic tang of the spider venom. He swallowed a generous mouthful, lowered the cup, and placed it back on the table.
Malach stared at him intensely for five long seconds. Waiting for the boy to choke. Waiting for him to fall.
When Ryan simply stood there, Malach let out a short, dry laugh.
"For a moment, I thought you might be a partisan assassin," Malach said, picking up the cup. "Can you imagine? A kitchen rat taking down the Dragon's generals?"
The table erupted into tense, relieved laughter. Borchu laughed the loudest, already swaying slightly in his chair.
Ryan offered a small, subservient smile. But inside, his body was already going to war.
The venom hit his bloodstream. It was a terrifying, freezing heaviness, spreading from his stomach toward his limbs. But Ryan was not a soft city boy. He was a son of the deep woods. His body had fought off poisoned berries, venomous insect bites, and tainted water his entire life. The wolf's soul within him roared, his accelerated metabolism immediately fighting the paralytic agent, slowing its advance to a crawl.
Malach took a slow sip of the wine. He set the cup down and looked at Ryan again, his eyes narrowing.
"Pull back your hood."
Ryan hesitated, then reached up and pushed the heavy wool back from his face.
Malach frowned, his eyes flicking from Ryan's normal brown eye to the faintly glowing, necrotic green one. "You are deformed. Why do your eyes not match?"
"A curse of birth, my lord," Ryan lied smoothly. "My mother and father had different bloodlines."
Malach stared at the green eye for a moment longer, clearly repulsed. He waved his hand dismissively.
"Pour me a fresh cup. Then get out of my sight."
Ryan moved to the serving table. His legs felt like lead. The poison was trying to lock his muscles, making his fingers numb and clumsy. He fought through the heavy, freezing fog in his veins, poured a fresh goblet, and set it before Malach.
He bowed low and walked toward the exit. Every step was an agonizing battle of will against the venom.
He pushed through the heavy canvas flaps and stepped out into the biting cold.
The vanguard guards were gone.
Two armored bodies lay crumpled in the snow beside the entrance, their halberds abandoned in the mud. The snow was already blanketing their armor, turning them into white mounds in the dark.
Ryan walked past them into the shadows, waiting for the screams to start.