✦ ✦ ✦
Midday. The breeze moved through the Valdrick castle courtyard carrying fallen leaves and lifting strands of Sera's dark, close-cropped hair. She stood straight — as she always stood — eyes forward, expression unreadable. Beside her, the full ceremony of the occasion had been arranged: the Valdrick knights in their dark red steel, the golden cloaks in their own formation, and Lord Wulfram Caedric himself seated in a wooden chair at the courtyard's head, Caesar standing at his shoulder like a shadow with good posture.
"Nice view, isn't it," Lora said, from directly beside Sera. She wasn't looking at the courtyard. She was looking at Sera.
Sera said nothing.
"Do you know," Lora continued, undeterred, "this is the courtyard where King Thorass Vald died? Right here. His youngest brother killed him — a duel, apparently, and a vicious one." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "They say no one ever cleaned the blood from that spot over there truly a stunning sight. The brother's orders, once he took the lordship. He joined with Luminaris after the war, earned a seat at the great table, and Valdrick became what it is today." She paused for effect. "Remarkable, isn't it?"
Sera's eyes had not moved from Caesar, who was leaning slightly toward Lord Wulfram in quiet conversation.
"I see the way you look at him," Lora said.
Sera blinked. Straightened, though she was already straight. Cleared her throat. "What do you mean?"
"You like him." A pause — then Lora dissolved into quiet laughter, shoulders shaking. "Don't you?"
"He's like a brother to me," Sera said, her expression doing something complicated. "That's all."
"No fun whatsoever," Lora declared. She clasped her hands behind her back, rocking slightly on her heels. "I heard Thorne and the other elite knights have left Luminaris. Some kind of special mission."
Sera's attention sharpened despite herself. "What for?"
"Not clear. I hope they'll be joining us at some point — it's been too long. I want to see Hollow Bane." Lora pressed both hands to her cheeks, eyes going briefly dreamy.
"Stand straight," Sera said. "You are an elite knight — a rookie, yes, but still. The Valdrick knights are watching us. Your posture reflects on all of us." A beat. "And you talk too much."
"I'm tired. How much longer do we have to stand here?"
Caesar, what were you thinking, saddling me with this girl, Sera thought.
"You've never once called me by my name," Lora said, quieter now. She glanced sideways. "Why is that?"
Sera opened her mouth. Something in her stopped the answer before it arrived — some thought, or the edge of one — and she closed it again, facing forward.
"Look — they're here," Lora said, pointing.
— ✦ —
The air at the far end of the courtyard shifted. A pressure built, invisible and sourceless — and then a point in the atmosphere simply opened. It swirled outward like water disturbed at its centre, widening into a gate, a portal, a tear in the ordinary fabric of the afternoon.
The knights who emerged from it were like nothing the Valdrick soldiers had seen up close. Their helmets were full and enclosed, each one trailing a white cloth that fell across the face like a veil. Their armour bore no sigil that anyone present could name. Every single one of them carried only a sceptre — no sword, no axe, nothing else.
"Knights of Valor," Lora murmured, her excitement barely contained. She turned to look at Sera; Sera was already facing forward again.
Seven of them came through first, forming a perimeter without being instructed to. Then, through the portal's dying light, two figures in travelling clothes stepped into the courtyard.
The councillmen had arrived.
"Councillmen — welcome." Caesar inclined his head.
"That's a lot of knights for two men," one of the Valdrick soldiers whispered to the man beside him.
"Are you out of your mind?" his companion hissed back. "The Allthing councillors — ten of them in total — they run the world. Be quiet."
One of the golden cloaks turned a slow, pointed look at them both. They went silent immediately.
The first councillman — the one who had arrived looking as though the journey had been a personal inconvenience — surveyed the assembled welcoming party and addressed Caesar directly. "Boy. Our bags need carrying and we haven't eaten since dawn. What is everyone standing around staring for?"
"My apologies, Lord Ozym," Caesar said, and with a small motion of his hand dispatched two golden cloaks to see to it.
"Ozym." The second councillman turned to his companion with the tone of someone who had been having the same argument for decades. "We are guests of the Lord of Vald. Try to recall that you represent the Allthing."
Ozym looked unbothered.
The second man turned and crossed toward the seated lord, his expression warming. "Lord Wulfram of Vald. The Silver Fox. It has been far too long."
"Lord Eryl." Wulfram smiled with genuine warmth. "Forgive me for not rising to greet you properly. My legs have made that decision for me, I'm afraid."
"The paralysis — I'd heard." Eryl rested a hand briefly on his old friend's shoulder. "Come. Let us go inside and catch up on everything we've missed."
"I'd like nothing better."
The knights of both formations split cleanly to either side, opening a path. The two lords moved toward the castle doors.
"Eryl — wait, don't just leave me out here—" Ozym turned back to Caesar. "You're Caesar, aren't you? The one who fought Valthor."
"Yes, councillman."
"What's he like? I've never actually seen him — not once." There was something in Ozym's eyes that was less idle curiosity and more appetite. "What is he actually like?"
"You'll see for yourself one day, councillman," Caesar said, his voice even and offering nothing further. "I'm certain of it."
Ozym studied him for a moment, then smiled in a way that didn't reach his eyes. "I do hope your skills at protection outmatch your skills at... other things." He let the implication settle, then walked on.
The knights of Valor followed without a word.
— ✦ —
"Effective immediately — double shifts. Golden cloaks and Valdrick knights, rotating together." Caesar's voice carried across the courtyard, calm and absolute. "The most important people in the known world are inside those walls. If any one of them is harmed, no number of our heads will be sufficient answer for it." He let a beat pass. "What are you waiting for? Move."
The courtyard emptied in under a minute.
"Caesar." Sera crossed to him as the last of them dispersed. "You want us standing guard at the councillmen's doors. I understand the assignment — but Valthor is still out there. We still haven't found the boy. That should be—"
Caesar laughed. A real one — brief, quiet, but genuine.
What is funny about this, Sera thought, jaw tightening.
"You swore the same vow I did," Caesar said, composing himself. "Whatever the mission is, we go. This is the mission." He turned slightly to face her. "The other elite knights are hunting Valthor. He's recovered by now — stronger, most likely, especially if he's found his staff. It's only a matter of time."
"Before what?" Sera asked.
Caesar didn't answer.
"Master Caesar!" Lora appeared at his elbow, slightly out of breath.
"Lora." He looked between the two of them. "Both of you — go inside. Eat something, wash, sleep if you can. Tomorrow before the games begin we'll have no time for any of it."
He walked away.
Sera watched him go. Her grip tightened around nothing — and somewhere beside the courtyard wall, an elm tree cracked loudly at its trunk and came apart in a shower of splinters.
"Scary," Lora said pleasantly.
— ✦ —
Somewhere in the Capital
"Before the war happened, Valdrick was once among the great kingdoms — a king on the throne, real power, real pride. Then the king's own brother put a blade in him and went running to Luminaris with the offer of an alliance. They gave him a seat at the table in exchange. That's why there's no king here — only a lord. The title died with Thorass Vald." Jeffery exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "The tournament fills the city's coffers every cycle. Luminaris takes a share and everyone pretends the arrangement is something nobler than what it is. Two classes of people — the rich and the poor, kept just stable enough that neither side boils over. That's Valdrick." He gestured with his cigar. "Stable. Comfortable. Bought."
A thunderous snore rolled through the room.
Cottage was asleep upright in his chair, head tipped back, mouth open.
Jeffery stared at him.
"Unbelievable," he said, to no one.
"I already knew all of that," Garon said from the wall, where he had been leaning since the beginning of the explanation. "My father made sure of it. History of the war — I ate and slept with it for years."
"Same," Astrid said, chin resting on her folded arms on the table. "What I want to know about is Dot."
The word had an immediate effect. Cottage woke mid-snore. Everyone shifted. Even Garon straightened slightly from the wall.
"He's going to die," Jeffery said.
"What?"
The outcry came from all of them at once.
Jeffery laughed — a real, satisfied laugh — and raised his hands. "Joking. He's not dying. Not yet, anyway." He leaned back. "He's in a cell in the capital. The way out is the Seven Rings Tournament — he fights, he wins, the lord of the Games grants him two wishes. One for his freedom. One for..." he paused. "Other arrangements."
"We should go to him," Astrid said. She sat up straight. "It's been a full day."
"Aha — the princess misses her—"
"Finish that sentence," Cottage said pleasantly, "and I will have something of yours removed. My lady and Dot are friends. Choose your next words carefully."
Jeffery laughed again, and after a moment Cottage did too.
"If you want to see him," Jeffery said, settling back and relighting his cigar, "you'll need to get yourselves tickets to the tournament. Or—" he smiled— "you could always enter it yourselves."
The room went quiet in a particular way.
— ✦ —
The Low Side of Valdrick — Before the Capital Gate
A man came stumbling out of the brothel doorway with the specific gait of someone who had been inside for a long time and was only now remembering how streets worked.
"One thing I'll say about this city—" he announced to no one in particular, sloshing his jug— "the women are a disaster. Absolute disaster. Days I've been here. Days."
He walked directly into Julius.
Julius looked at him the way a wall looks at someone who has run into it. Then he walked on.
"Oh, think you're something, do you?" The man drew himself up with the dignity of the profoundly drunk. "Jerk." He wound up and hurled his jug at Julius's back.
It missed. It shattered on the cobblestones instead.
Hana came up behind, leading both horses by their reins, and the man's posture shifted immediately into something approximating charm.
"Here, let me give you a hand with those—"
"Touch her," Julius said, without turning around, "and I'll break both your arms. Then your legs." His voice was very quiet. The threat in it was not.
The man looked at Julius's back. He looked at his own hands. He made a decision and left at speed, not quite running but committed to the direction.
"Hana. Let's go," Julius said.
She moved to follow. For a moment her hand rose — reaching toward him, toward his shoulder, some thought arriving that needed more than just movement to carry it.
Julius, she thought.
Her hand slowed. Stopped. She drew it back to her chest, fingers folding inward, and kept walking.
To Be Continued