✦ ✦ ✦
Blood dripped from Dot's knuckles onto the tavern floor. Each drop landed with a quiet, deliberate sound, punctuating the ragged pull of his breathing. Around him, the room was ruin — overturned furniture, dark stains spreading across the boards, and a head lying several feet from the body it had belonged to.
Then came the sound of armoured boots.
Valdrick knights stormed the perimeter, encircling the tavern in a wall of dark red steel. Their sigil — a standing bear — marked every breastplate. Several of them hesitated at the doorway, eyes scanning the carnage, throats working silently.
"Halt."
The formation split. Five figures in golden cloaks swept through the gap, moving with the unhurried authority of people who had never once been told to wait.
"Golden cloaks," one of the Valdrick knights muttered, stepping back.
Dot exhaled — long, slow — as if emptying something out of himself. He didn't turn around.
A young woman stepped forward from the centre of the golden cloaks and entered the tavern alone. She surveyed the wreckage without expression.
"Hey," she said.
"I'm not in the mood." Dot's voice came out flat, aimed at the floor. "Stay back. I don't want to hurt you."
He turned to look at her.
The force hit him like a wall collapsing inward. Gravity doubled, tripled — something invisible and immense drove him down onto the tavern floor with a crack that split the boards beneath him. The wood screamed under the pressure. Dot's arms buckled. His chest compressed.
The woman — Sera — watched him with a level, unhurried gaze.
"You were saying?"
Dot pressed both palms flat against the floor and tried to push up. His whole body shook. Blood came up from somewhere inside him and stained the wood beneath his lips. He could feel the boards beginning to splinter under the concentrated weight of whatever she was doing to the air around him.
Sera turned and looked at the Hound. What remained of his face was barely recognisable — bone collapsed inward, jaw shattered to fragments. She studied him for a long moment.
Who is this? she thought.
"How—?" She turned back to Dot.
The force redoubled. The darkness came up fast, and then Dot was gone.
— ✦ —
"Sera, wait—!"
A second girl came stumbling through the tavern entrance, out of breath, cheeks flushed.
"I told you to wait outside," Sera said, without turning.
"You're not my teacher. I do what I want." The girl stuck her tongue out — then stopped dead, taking in the state of the room. The blood. The body. The collapsed section of floor. "What... happened here?"
She didn't wait for an answer. She was already crouching beside the Hound, head tilted, examining him with the focused curiosity of someone cataloguing a strange insect.
"Frightening, isn't he? Even like this." She tapped her lip. "That tattoo though — I've seen it somewhere." She scratched the back of her head vigorously. "Where, where, where—"
A pause.
"Oh."
"Bounty hunter," Sera said quietly.
"Yes." The girl looked up, pointing toward the unconscious Dot being held upright by two knights. "So the one he was hunting — that's him, then. The bounty."
"Take them both," Sera said. "They answer for their crimes." She released her hold on the air, and Dot slumped fully into the knights' arms.
As the knights carried him out, Sera's eyes followed Dot — his face slack, his hands still dark with dried blood.
I've seen him before, she thought. Or met him. Something.
"Caesar wants you at the castle," the girl said, appearing at her elbow. "Now, apparently."
Sera pulled her gaze away. "Let's go."
Behind them, as the last of the golden cloaks filed out into the street, the tavern gave a long, exhausted groan — and then the floor gave way entirely. The weakened supports surrendered to the damage Sera's gravity had done to them, and the whole interior collapsed inward with a sound like a held breath finally released.
"No—!" The owner's voice broke from somewhere in the crowd.
The Valdrick knights stared at the golden cloaks' retreating backs.
"Make sure they both answer for their crimes," Sera said over her shoulder, not slowing. The knights watched them march toward the capital and said nothing.
— ✦ —
THE NEXT MORNING
Valdrick Castle rose out of the early light like something from an older age. Its towers were wrong, somehow — too tall, too narrow, built to proportions no other kingdom in Valdheim had thought to attempt. The stone was pale at the crown and dark at the base, as though the earth had been slowly swallowing it for centuries. It stood apart from everything around it. It always had.
Inside, knights stood at measured intervals along every corridor. Every door was attended. The beauty of the place had a watchful quality to it — like a painting with eyes.
The throne room doors opened.
The echo of boots came first. Then the golden cloaks — Caesar at the front, moving with the composed ease of a man entirely comfortable in throne rooms. Sera walked a step behind. The girl drifted at the back, looking at everything with open curiosity.
At the end of the hall, Lord Wulfram Caedric — the Silver Fox — sat with one hand braced against his cheek, watching them arrive with the patience of someone who had been kept waiting and had decided not to make a show of it.
"Lord Wulfram of Vald. The Silver Fox." Caesar dipped his head. "We are grateful for your hospitality."
Beside him, Sera's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Caesar caught it. He turned just slightly to look at her.
"You're late," the lord said.
"My apologies, I got recently stationed here by the Allthing council when I got the letter I was far away also we encountered some difficulty passing through Thornhold."
"What kind of difficulty?"
"Nothing that need concern you."
The lord studied him for a moment, then let it pass. "The guests — when do they arrive?"
"Midday."
"See that the Allthing councillors coming for the Games are made comfortable." Lord Wulfram sat forward slightly talking to his advisor.
"We hope the tournament will draw more of Luminaris's support to Valdrick." He waved a hand in dismissal. "That will be all."
"Thank you." Caesar bowed again, and the golden cloaks filed out.
The doors closed behind them.
"I've never seen Caesar so—" the girl began, trailing after Sera into the corridor. "What's the word—"
"Polite," Sera supplied, teeth together.
"I was going to say unlike himself. But yes." The girl brightened. "At least we get proper beds."
Sera said nothing.
— ✦ —
Somewhere in the capital, in a cell that smelled of damp stone and old iron, Dot sat on the floor. Chains at his wrists. Chains at his ankles. A chain at his throat. He wasn't looking at anything in particular.
"You look awful."
Jeffery appeared on the other side of the bars. Before Dot could respond, a piece of bread came sailing through the gap. Dot caught it and bit into it without ceremony.
"How are the others?" His voice came out rough. "Where are they?"
"Slow down." Jeffery settled against the cell door, then slid down to sit on the floor outside it, back against the bars. "They're fine. All of them. Staying where I'm staying, here in the capital." He paused. "Astrid wanted to come herself. I had to talk her out of it — the knights are still looking for your group."
Dot chewed. Swallowed. "What actually happened? After—"
"Your friend with the sword arrived before things got any worse on our end. The bounty hunter slipped away — barely. She won't last long, not with those wounds." Jeffery produced a cigar from inside his coat and lit it. He held it toward the bars. "Want one?"
"No."
"Time's up," the stationed knight said.
Jeffery reached into his pocket and sent a silver coin spinning through the air. The knight caught it without looking.
"Two more minutes."
Jeffery exhaled a slow curl of smoke. "Listen, Bot—"
"It's Dot."
"That's what I said." He leaned his head back against the bars. "They'll sentence you to death. Sooner rather than later — that's how Valdrick does things. Brutal, but consistent." A pause. "There is one way out."
Dot stopped eating. "What?"
"The Seven Rings Tournament. You fight, you live — and if you win, the lord of the Games grants two wishes. Any two things. No conditions."
"I don't want to fight."
Jeffery smiled faintly at the ceiling. "First wish: you walk out of here a free man. Second wish—" he let the pause stretch— "that one's mine."
"Why would I give anything to you?"
"Because." Jeffery turned his head to look through the bars. "You've been asking about witches."
The air in the cell seemed to shift. Cooler, somehow. Still.
"Getting cold in here, isn't it," Jeffery said. He rose and moved closer to the bars, dropping his voice. "I know what happened to your friend. Enough of it, anyway — your people filled in the rest. I can help you find the witch responsible. But I need something in return." He extended a hand through the gap. "One wish. That's all. You get your freedom. I get my wish. And I help you find what you're looking for."
A pause.
"So what do you say?"
Dot looked at the hand for a long moment. Then he reached up and shook it.
"Good." Jeffery was already straightening, already turning to leave. He paused at the corridor's edge. "One more thing. The tournament."
"What about it?"
"The fights." He glanced back. "They're to the death."
— ✦ —
At the ports of Valdrick, two riders came in from the sea road, horses slowing to a walk as the city opened before them. Julius pulled ahead slightly, surveying the docks and the streets beyond with the measuring look of someone already counting exits.
Hana drew level with him.
"We're here," Julius said.
TO BE CONTINUED