The clang of steel echoed across the eastern training yard, breaking against the still morning air.
Dust swirled beneath bare feet. Sunlight slanted across the cobblestones, casting sharp shadows that stretched and shifted with every movement.
Leon grunted, blocking Ethan's blow with a swift upward parry. "You're swinging like a tavern drunk."
Ethan narrowed his eyes, circling. "You'd know. You trained with them."
Leon laughed, breathless.
Their blades met again — the thud of steel on steel, fast and clean. The guards posted nearby barely glanced up. This wasn't anything new. Just another day. Another match. Two men who'd been doing this longer than most had been breathing easy.
Sweat rolled down Ethan's temple. He pulled back, twirled the wooden blade in hand, and lunged again. "How many years has it been?"
Leon caught the swing with a twist of his wrist. "Since what?"
"Since we were mucking horse stalls at Stonecrest."
Leon smirked. "You still swing like a stable boy."
"Right. And you still sleep with your eyes open," Ethan muttered, ducking a swipe. "I swear you're half owl."
"You say that like it's a flaw."
Another clash. Another pull back.
Then Ethan let out a short laugh. "Remember that old steward with the crooked eye?"
"Master Varis?" Leon made a face. "Smelled like sour meat and fear."
"He caught us sparring behind the training lodge once," Ethan said. "Thought we were fighting."
Leon snorted. "We were."
"Still. We nearly got flogged."
Leon rolled his shoulders, lowering his sword. "Worth it."
They paused. Breathing hard. Sunlight catching the angles of their jawlines, sweat gleaming on bare shoulders. The yard was quiet again.
Ethan dropped to sit on the training bench, wiping his face with a cloth. "Never thought we'd make it this far."
Leon joined him with a grunt. "Yeah. We were supposed to clean boots, not wear them."
Ethan laughed. "Now you're all polished and important."
Leon shook his head, chuckling. "We used to steal stale bread and fight over who had the least blisters. Now we command battalions."
Ethan took a sip of water. "Don't let the squires hear you. They'll start crying."
A short silence passed. Then Ethan said, "I can stop thinking about the audacity Travis had."
Leon's expression soured. "I have great comfort he's rotting in the dungeon."
Ethan leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Can't believe he had the gall to draw steel on Damon."
"He ran a slave ring. I can believe a lot worse."
Another silence. This one heavier.
Ethan tossed the cloth onto the bench and looked out toward the horizon. "I'd gut him myself if Damon let me."
Leon glanced sideways. "But he won't."
"No," Ethan said. "He's playing it smart. Making a statement. Letting the rest of the lords know what happens when you cross him."
"And yet the other lords pretend not to know," Leon muttered.
Ethan shrugged. "They'll learn."
He stood again, stretching his arms overhead. "When are we riding out again?"
"Next week. Patrol along the eastern ridge. Rumors of unrest." Leon informed.
"Good," Ethan said. "I need a fight that doesn't smell like politics."
Ethan asked, "Still up for another round?"
Leon grinned as he stood. "Always."
Without another word, they closed the distance again, circling like old wolves—no fanfare, no need for show. Just instinct.
Ethan struck first, a fast arc that Leon caught midair with the flat of his blade. The clash rang out, clean and sharp, echoing across the empty yard. Sweat rolled down their backs. The sky had shifted to a pale gold.
**********************
The Great Hall of Arkenfall had not been this full since Damon took the throne. It pulsed with noise and sweat, lined with faces too proud to bow and too afraid to rebel. Rich velvets brushed cold stone. Gold sigils glittered against shadowed cloaks. The long banners of the seven regions swayed in the breeze that slipped through the high stained-glass windows, each carrying the weight of a hundred years of politics, and now, a storm.
They had come.
From Stonecrest and Braemorin, from the gold-backed keeps of Edravon and the frost-blooded edges of Varketh. Lords, emissaries, high-born sons and old war dogs—all gathered beneath Arkenfall's towering chandeliers to stand united in one purpose: demand the release of Lord Travis Merin.
The accused slaver.
The King's prisoner.
Murmurs rumbled through the hall, a cacophony of cloaked outrage. At the front of the host stood Lord McCain of Stonecrest, tall and silver-bearded, his voice already rising in clipped fury to the guard at the steps of the dais. Behind him, other lords nodded with practiced indignation, many of them debtors to Travis's silence, each one cloaking their guilt in the fabric of tradition.
"It is unheard of," McCain spat, voice like a whetted blade. "That a Lord of a Major Seat be tossed into the dungeons like a common thief. Without trial. Without council. Without respect!"
The hall doors opened.
Silence fell like an axe.
King Damon entered, cloaked in black and steel. No crown today, but he didn't need one. Power coiled off him in quiet waves. He moved with the precision of someone used to walking into dangerous rooms and owning them.
Ethan walked behind him, silent and deadly.
Leon lingered just beyond the shadow of the columns.
Damon stopped at the foot of the throne but did not sit. Instead, he surveyed them—one by one. Eyes like cold fire. Calculating.
"My lords," he said, voice low but cutting. "You have come far to gather here today. So speak. Speak your hearts and grievances. Let no man say Arkenfall turns away the cries of its nobility."
It was not invitation. It was a challenge.
McCain stepped forward, jaw taut. "We demand to know on what grounds Lord Travis is kept in the dungeon. He is no criminal—he is a Lord of the Bannerlands. A voice of his people. A patron of trade. And he has served the realm longer than Your Majesty has worn that blade on your belt."
Damon looked down at the blade. Then back up, expression unreadable. "Yes. And perhaps too long in the shadows."
There was a murmur. Someone shifted.
"My king," another voice said—Lord Halbridge from Edravon, smooth and oiled. "If there are suspicions, surely they can be addressed with discretion. It does no good for morale… for the people… to see one of their own dragged down like a dog."
"You mean it does no good for your investments," Damon said, flatly.
A pause.
Then Halbridge smiled, thin and false. "My investments, Your Majesty, lie in the prosperity of the realm."
Damon took the throne.
The movement was slow, deliberate. He settled like stone, like judgment itself.
"Then let us be plain," he said. "Lord Travis is being held for defying the royal decree made three winters ago, when the Crown outlawed all slave trafficking within the Bannerlands."
"He's a merchant," McCain barked. "He oversees shipments. Goods. Labor. He has enemies."
"He oversaw the shipment of girls," Damon replied, voice now steel. "Twelve of them were found in crates. Half of them not yet old enough to bleed. And one with her throat cut when she tried to run."
The hall stilled. A few lowered their gazes.
"Would you like me to bring the crate?" Damon asked. "Perhaps parade the bodies before your retinues? Will that help you determine the weight of this accusation?"
No one spoke.
"I know what Travis was doing," Damon said, softer now. More dangerous. "Because I've known for some time. And I waited. I waited to see who else would come forward. Who would speak of honor when no one was watching. Who would act."
He looked around the room.
"No one did."
He stood again. "So I acted."
"This sets a dangerous precedent," Lord George from Varketh warned. "To seize a Lord without council… what king does this?"
Damon stepped down the dais, slow, measured. "A king who remembers the smell of slave ships docking in the fog."
He walked until he stood before McCain himself.
"You came here expecting me to kneel to tradition," Damon said. "I do not smile at monsters."
He turned, sweeping the room with one last glance.
"Lord Travis will face justice. In the eyes of the realm. In the light of the gods. And if that frightens you… then perhaps it should."
He didn't wait for permission to leave. He simply walked out.
The moment King Damon and his closest men exit the throne hall, the façade of formality crumbles. What's left is raw power play — Lords turning to whisper, to measure each other, to calculate the cost of silence and the weight of guilt.