The mourning banners had not yet faded from black when the serpent unfurled its coils.
Within days of Jameson's burial, King Mansis issued his first decrees. The tone was honeyed, cloaked in words of stability and order, but their bite was bitter. Curfews fell upon the city of Harta like chains. Coin levies doubled. Soldiers, once loyal to Jameson's memory, were sworn anew under Mansis' seal, their tunics stripped of the old king's stag and replaced with the serpent-crowned emblem.
The people grumbled in hushed corners, but few dared raise their voices. Rumor told of a miller who had spoken too freely of Mansis' appetites in the taverns — his body was later found in the river, lips sewn shut with coarse thread.
Darian Duskbane heard all of it. He listened as the city changed under the shadow of its new master. What had been Jameson's city of laughter, where children played openly in the squares, was now patrolled by armored men who demanded to see writs of passage even from widows carrying bread.
And still the bells tolled. Not for mourning now, but for announcements: new taxes, new laws, new punishments.
Darian sat in the barracks where once he had trained squires, his armor lying dull in the firelight. He had not worn the stag of Jameson since the day of the burial. To wear it openly now would mark him as defiance incarnate.
He ran his fingers along the edge of his sword. It was sharp still, though his hands trembled. It was not fear that shook him but restraint. Each day that passed, each sight of Mansis draped in his brother's crown, stoked a fire inside Darian that threatened to consume him.
Yet Serena's words tempered him. Do this not for me… do it for the realm.
To strike blindly was to die meaninglessly. He could not simply storm the throne room. Mansis had too many guards, too many spies, too many ways to twist a knight's death into a traitor's tale.
No—if Darian was to fight, he would need allies. Shadows to move with him. Voices to echo his own.
And so he began to weave.
The Silver Stag tavern, tucked in the lower quarter of Harta, smelled of sweat, spilled ale, and secrets. Darian entered beneath a heavy hood, his cloak muddied to disguise the sheen of the knight beneath.
It was here that the city's veins ran loudest. Men and women of every craft gathered: smiths with blistered hands, scribes with ink-stained fingers, merchants tight-fisted with coin, and beggars who knew more of alleys than lords did of laws. All drank, all listened, all whispered.
Darian kept to a corner table. He watched, he waited.
It was not long before a familiar face appeared — a broad-shouldered man with arms like iron bars and a nose broken twice over. Garran the Smith, once a soldier under Jameson, now returned to his forge. He spotted Darian through the gloom, stiffened, then made his way over.
"You're bold," Garran muttered, sliding onto the bench across from him. "Or mad. Coming here with that face of yours. Some still know you, Duskbane."
"I count on it," Darian said quietly. "Sit. Drink. We've words to share."
The ale was poured, the noise of the tavern a screen against listening ears. Darian leaned in.
"The city bends under Mansis," he said. "But bending is not the same as breaking. The people hate him already. They fear him more. That fear will only grow… unless someone gives it a name to rally to."
Garran frowned. "And you think that someone is you? Jameson's knight, branded traitor before the ink is dry?"
"I think it must be someone," Darian replied. "And I'll not sit idly while his cruelty strangles children in their beds."
Garran's eyes softened, just for a moment. He had known Eleyna too. He had swung his hammer in rage when news of her death spread in whispers. But grief was dangerous fuel, and both men knew it.
"Careful, old friend," Garran said. "If you mean to raise banners, you'll need more than a sword and sorrow. You'll need spies, coin, safe houses. You'll need men willing to bleed. And Mansis has ears in every hall."
"I'll find them," Darian said. His voice was steel. "One by one, if I must."
While Darian spoke in shadows, Mansis ruled in daylight.
The throne room that had once glowed with Jameson's warmth now rang with the crack of whips. Petitioners still came, but their pleas were met with sneers. A farmer who begged relief from doubled taxes was thrown in chains. A minstrel who sang an old ballad of Jameson was struck across the mouth until he spat teeth on the marble.
Mansis sat upon the throne with the crown tilted ever so slightly, as though mocking its weight. His mother, Serena, watched from the dais, her face a mask of calm. But her eyes told another story, sharp with disgust and sorrow.
The princes were kept close — too close. Narion and Calen no longer roamed the halls freely but were shadowed by guards at all hours. Mansis paraded them at court as if to prove his guardianship, but Darian knew well enough that a viper did not cradle its prey without reason.
Every decree Mansis passed was signed in their presence, a cruel theater to show that he ruled not only the realm but the heirs themselves.
Back in the alleys of Harta, Darian's web grew by threads. Garran introduced him to others who still whispered Jameson's name with reverence: a baker whose shop had been burned for loyalty, a city guard whose brother had vanished into Mansis' prisons, a washerwoman who had once nursed the princes and still risked her life to bring them sweets in secret.
Each swore to secrecy. Each burned with quiet hatred.
But hatred alone would not fell a king.
Darian gathered what he could: maps of the palace from old comrades, lists of guards and their loyalties, notes of which merchants fed Mansis' coffers and which grumbled under his demands. Every scrap of knowledge was a weapon.
Still, the danger grew. Mansis tightened his grip further. A new edict forbade gatherings after sundown. Another forbade carrying blades within the city walls without a writ of permission. Patrols doubled. Taverns were raided under suspicion of sedition.
The Silver Stag itself was stormed one night by soldiers searching for "traitors." Darian narrowly escaped through a back alley, his hood pulled low, his heart pounding as the screams of beaten men echoed behind him.
He had no illusions — his time was limited. Mansis would soon know that whispers of rebellion stirred, and when he did, he would strike without mercy.
One night, Darian returned to the crypt beneath the cathedral where Serena had first spoken her charge. She was there, waiting, as though the shadows themselves obeyed her summons.
"You've begun," she said, reading the truth in his eyes.
"I have threads," Darian admitted. "But not yet a tapestry. Mansis moves quickly. His hand tightens daily."
"It will tighten until it chokes the realm," Serena replied. "That is his nature. But a serpent that coils too tightly strangles itself as well. All you must do is hold until the people cry out. They will. They always do."
Darian's jaw clenched. "And if he moves against the princes?"
Her face flickered with pain, though her voice remained steady. "Then you will do what must be done. Save them, if the gods will it. Avenge them, if not."
The words chilled him, but he understood. This was war, though no banners yet flew.
Serena stepped closer, her hand light upon his arm. "You are the blade, Sir Darian. I am but the whetstone. Sharpen yourself. When the moment comes, strike true."
That night, as Darian walked the streets of Harta, the bells rang again. Not for mourning, nor for decree, but for execution.
A man was dragged through the square, accused of hoarding grain. His wife and children screamed as the soldiers bound him to the post. Mansis himself did not attend, but his seal gleamed upon the writ of judgment.
The lash fell, and with it, silence smothered the crowd. None dared cry out. None dared move. Fear ruled where once justice had walked.
Darian watched from the shadows, his hands curled into fists. The serpent's coils were closing. But he swore, with every lash that struck that innocent man, that the serpent would bleed.
And somewhere in the silence, he thought he heard Eleyna's voice. *Do it for the realm.*
The knight turned outlaw melted back into the night, his mind already sharpening the blade of rebellion.
The war for Harta had begun.