Adam was finishing the splint around Emma's wrist, focused despite his own arm being immobilized.
"It's going to be tight," he warned.
"I don't care," she replied, her eyes already fixed on the path ahead.
The hooves of the three horses lent by the monks struck the ground behind them. Bran, a solid man from the camp and former private guard, checked the straps, while Aldous adjusted the cord on his crossbow. The animals, sturdier than the camp's own, were still blowing hard, hastily saddled.
Édric stepped forward, bow and quiver in hand. His gaze caught on a scabbard hanging from a cart — Victor's sword. He drew it slowly, studying the blade the way a man measures a promise. It was with this weapon that Victor had once managed to disarm him. Pride and anger mingled in his expression before he slid it back into the sheath.
"When we come back," he said, "he'll have it in his hand."
He turned to Adam.
"You stay here. You look after the others. If we don't come back, you keep them standing."
Adam clenched his jaw and nodded.
"Bring him back to me."
"We'll bring him back."
Édric stepped toward Emma.
"We come back with Victor... or not at all," he said simply.
She held his gaze without answering.
A hand on the back of Rufus's neck, Édric added:
"We all come back. Stay with Adam."
Then he swung into the saddle, Aldous and Bran following.
Silence fell over the camp. Édric broke it with a firm voice:
"We're bringing Victor home."
The horses launched down the path, hooves thundering, until their shapes vanished into the trees.
The track wound through the forest, narrowing at times until it brushed the riders' knees. Hooves, muffled by damp humus, ate up the distance. Édric rode at the front, his torso leaning slightly forward, focused like a man on campaign. Bran followed silently, one hand on the hilt of his short sword. Aldous brought up the rear, crossbow resting across the saddle, eyes sharp.
"There," Bran said, pointing to the verge.
Brown streaks stretched between two roots, dry in places, still glistening in others. Blood. Édric dismounted, touching a fresher drop with his fingertips.
"They're not far. And Victor's hurt." A pause. "Or he hurt someone else"
He mounted again, eyes harder now.
They pressed on. The trees thinned only slightly, and the air grew heavier, carrying an acrid tang. Aldous caught it first.
"Smoke."
Édric raised a hand: immediate halt. All dismounted, leading their horses aside to tether them in a dense thicket.
"We go on foot," Édric murmured. "Quiet, and no shots until I give the word."
They moved through the shadows, each step measured. The smoke thickened, tinged with the scent of cold soot and metal. Finally, the trees opened onto a clearing. At the base of a dark rock slope yawned the wide, low mouth of a mine. To the left stood a makeshift shed of rough planks, a stack of wood and tools lying outside.
Near the entrance, three armed men loitered, their shapes indistinct in the grey light. One of them, a heavyset brute with a scar twisting his jaw, spoke to another. Édric knew him instantly — the swine who had gripped Emma's wrist hard enough to make her cry out. His fingers tightened on the bow.
"That's him," he breathed.
"Then this is the place," Aldous concluded.
Bran took in the layout, gauging distances.
"No way to get inside without them seeing us."
"Then we'll make them look elsewhere," Édric replied.
Aldous gave a brief smile, a flicker of his younger years in it.
"That shed... with that dry wood, it'll be burning in under a minute. Enough to draw plenty of eyes."
"You'll handle it?"
"Gladly."
Édric nodded.
"We'll take position by the entrance. When you light it, Bran and I slip in. No words, no noise. If Victor's inside, we get him out."
Aldous tightened the strap on his crossbow, already picking his route toward the shed.
"Give me two minutes. You'll hear it when it starts."
He slid away from them, shadow to shadow, while Édric and Bran pressed in behind a jumble of rocks, eyes fixed on the mine's dark mouth.
---
Victor clenched his jaw, hiding the discreet movement of his fingers behind him. Squirming just slightly, he had felt a shard of ceramic under his palm, sharp as a broken tooth. When the man spoke, he shifted it against the rope and began to saw, millimetre by millimetre, careful to betray nothing.
"And if I told you that crest has cost more than one fool his life?" the man went on.
His gaze sharpened, weighing every word, every breath.
"You know... I've met more convincing liars. You need practice, Peter."
He pressed the name like a thumb into a bruise.
"Because me, I don't believe for a second that's your real name."
Victor kept sawing, feeling the rope give the faintest bit.
"It's the one I've got," he said.
"It's the one you're giving me," the other corrected. "But you forget... I'm patient."
He straightened, looming again.
"So, Peter... why? Why chase after something you can't understand?"
The rope rasped behind Victor's back. It would come soon. But he gave no sign.
The man's gaze slid to Victor's bandaged eye and stayed there.
"How'd that happen?" he asked, as if wondering whether the scar would tell him more than Victor himself. His tone was steady, almost curious, but there was an edge to it — a quiet provocation.
Victor met his eyes.
"I was attacked," he said simply. "Not by chance. Someone wanted to punish someone else."
"And who?"
"My father," Victor said. "A bit like you, when you sent your men to grab my companion to bring me in."
A heavy silence filled the tunnel. The ceramic shard cut deeper into the rope, but Victor hardly noticed; tension thrummed through every muscle.
The man narrowed his eyes, but didn't back off.
"They were told to fetch you," he said at last. "I never told them to take a hostage."
"Hostage?" Victor's voice was sharp. "They hurt her. Twisted her wrist."
Something flickered across the man's face — hard to read. He looked aside briefly, then back at Victor.
"Yeah... I heard about that."
He took a slow step, eyes never leaving him.
"A redhead, isn't she?"
Victor's jaw locked.
The man nodded to himself.
"The one who held her... he talked about her. A lot. Even in passing, I couldn't help but hear."
Blood pounded in Victor's temples.
"Shut up."
"Funny thing," the man went on, ignoring him. "Details like that... they always get under a man's skin. They get under yours, Peter?"
The shard rasped harder now. Victor's breathing quickened, and he knew the man noticed.
The rope gave way with a sharp snap, almost covered by the slow drip of water from the mine ceiling. Blood rushed back into Victor's wrists in painful pins and needles. He was about to rise when a brutal hand closed on his throat, slamming him back against the post.
"You think I didn't see you?" the man growled, his voice now rough, closer to a threat than the earlier measured calm.
Victor's breath caught. He tried to pull back, but the fingers only tightened — and then the cord around his neck slipped free. Two rings swung into view, glinting in the wavering torchlight.
The man froze.
One heartbeat.
Then another.
The tension in his face cracked, not with a shout, but with a quiet, contained shock in his dark eyes.
Victor didn't need more. He knew. Everything slotted into place — the rumours, the crest, the ring he'd seen before. Doubt fell away, leaving only a cold certainty.
The man still held him, not choking now, but keeping each breath an effort. His gaze stayed locked on the rings. He touched them briefly, as if checking they were real, then looked up.
"Where did you get these?"
"One... at Briarhold," Victor panted.
"The other... at Dunleigh. The day I was born."
Silence thickened, the mine itself holding its breath. Confusion flickered in the man's eyes, giving way to something sharper.
"Who's your mother?" he asked, almost abruptly.
"Haelena Ashcombe," Victor said without hesitation.
A faint light crossed the man's face — real, if fleeting. His features set, as though fitting together pieces of a puzzle he'd never thought connected. Victor's voice was steel when he spoke again:
"And you... you're the Count Néri. You were, at least."
The name cracked through the air. There was no denial, only a pause. Then:
"You lied earlier," the man said, lower. "You talked about your father."
Victor's mouth twisted into a smile without warmth.
"Yeah. I have a father. In the troupe.
A good man. Who taught me to fight, to think. Who stood his ground when everything fell apart. Who never left me behind."
His gaze locked with the man's.
"That's my father. And when he gets here, you'll regret you were ever born."
The man's stare faltered. The grip on Victor's throat loosened — not in mercy, but as though it burned to hold. He stepped back, eyes still on the rings.
"You... were born in Dunleigh?" His voice had lost its bite.
Victor nodded.
"Yeah."
"And your mother... Haelena... she's..."
He didn't finish.
"Alive," Victor said, jaw tight. "But sick. Since I was a kid. The body's there... not the mind."
The man stayed frozen a moment, as though forcing himself not to picture her. Then he looked away.
"I didn't know... I didn't know I had a son. No one would've kept that from me."
"No one had to," Victor said, sharp. "You were gone."
A twitch worked in the man's jaw.
"They forced me into that marriage. I never planned to stay. So I left. You're not so different — you chose a life on the road."
Victor's laugh was cold.
"Difference is, I travel with people who work. Who hunt, craft, help. I wasn't married. Or a father.
And I didn't run off to lead criminals who kidnap and beat to survive."
The silence after that was almost a blow. The man held his gaze, but something had cracked.
"And your real name?" he asked at last, voice low.
"Victor Ashcombe. Used to be Néri. Doesn't fit me anymore."
The man repeated it under his breath, tasting the sound.
"Victor..." His eyes held no pride, no satisfaction — only a restless, awkward regret.
Victor felt a strange exhaustion wash through him. Years he'd imagined this moment — finding a name in a war grave, or a face in a home full of children. Never this. Never a gang leader holed up in a mine.
"I thought I'd find you on a gravestone," he said quietly. "Or with another family. Not here. Not... like this."
The man made a sharp, dismissive gesture.
"You think you're better than me?"
"No," Victor said, straightening. "I know I am."
The man's gaze wavered — and then it came.
A muffled crash echoed through the tunnels. Shouts. The pounding of running feet. Steel on steel. A table overturned, orders barked into the chaos.
The man flinched, his eyes darting from Victor for just a heartbeat.
Victor's smile was brief, almost feral.
"That," he murmured, "is him."