They found the food stalls just beyond the square, where smoke from grills and braziers drifted low beneath the sun, and the crowd thinned into slower, contented knots of festival-goers. Dym bought a length of cured sausage from a cautus woman who wrapped it in waxed cloth and took his coin with a knowing look that suggested she had seen a hundred knights celebrating a hundred small triumphs the same way.
He stepped aside, drew his knife, and cut the sausage cleanly in two. He handed half to Soap.
They leaned against a wagon wheel to eat.
Dym chewed, swallowed, and let out a satisfied breath. "That went better than I thought."
Soap rolled his eyes but couldn't quite suppress the smirk tugging at his mouth. "Sure, ser."
They ate a few more bites in companionable silence, the festival noise a warm blur around them.
Then Soap said, more practically, "We should find this Fremont soon. She said he's very impatient."
"Aye," Dym agreed around another bite. "We should." He swallowed. "Soon."
Soap wiped grease from his fingers on his trousers. "Problem is, we don't know which pavilion he's in. And we can't just walk into the Leithanien camp plots."
Dym frowned. "Why not? This is Kazimierz, isn't it? They're in our land — and we—" he corrected himself with faint pride, "—I am a knight of the realm."
Soap shook his head, took a bite, and spoke while chewing. "That would be true if we were the ones visiting our own nobles' lands, ser."
Even then, we can't freely demand an audience. Soap thought.
Dym blinked. "Then what's the problem?"
Soap gestured vaguely with the salami. "Think of it like an inn. You rent a room. The innkeeper owns the building — but he still can't just walk into your room whenever he likes."
Dym chewed, considering.
Soap swallowed. "You still need permission to enter. Same here. Foreign delegation, foreign tents. Even if they're guests under Kazimierzan protection, their pavilion space is considered their own household ground while they're here."
Dym's brows lifted slowly as the idea settled. "Mm."
"And," Soap added mildly, "even with Ser Mlynar's letter acknowledging your knighthood, you are still a hedge knight of no renown, nor high birth, and of no formal ties to any of the attending courts."
Dym thought another second, then nodded. "Mm. Fair." He took another bite, chewing more thoughtfully now. "Then how do we find this Fremont if we can't even enter?"
Soap began counting on his fingers. "Well, we have two options. First, we can persuade some noble knight or lord to escort or recommend us. Which, based on your track records, would be very unlikely."
"Mm."
"Second, which is the more likely option, is that we find a Leithanien tent that isn't fully closed court. One attached to or adjacent with Kazimierzan nobles. Someone more accessible, and ask there. Test our chances, you know."
Dym hummed, gaze drifting over the distant rows of pavilions beyond the square — banners and lanterns marking the clustered estates of visiting houses and delegations.
"Well," he said slowly, "if that's the case... I do know a Leithanien pavilion nearby."
Soap's brows rose. "Do you, ser?"
"Aye." Dym nodded. "Remember when we first arrived in town? That night Rajmund invited me to supper with Władysław?"
Soap nodded. "I remember you leaving me all night alone to keep an eye on our camp, ser."
"R-Right, sorry." Dym said with dignity. Then continued, "Anyway — I saw a Leithanien pavilion set right next to his. Same dark colors, foreign sigils, weird angular motifs and those musical instrument-shaped standards they favor. It's hard to miss 'em."
Soap tilted his head, replaying the layout in memory. "By the west noble quarter area? Near the willow pond?"
"... I think that's the one."
Soap chewed, thinking. Then nodded once. "That could work. Maybe. If they're quartered beside or among Kazimierzan lord, access might be looser. At least enough to ask for the professor's location."
Dym pushed off the wagon wheel, finishing the last bite. "Then let's try our luck there."
Soap swallowed his own last piece and dusted his hands. "Now?"
Dym grinned, sudden and bright. "Aye, now."
They turned together toward the noble quarter, festival noise fading behind them as the orderly rows of banners and pavilions rose ahead — and somewhere among them, if fortune held, the impatient Leithanien professor they needed to find.
They did not have to search long.
The noble quarter lay brighter than the rest of the festival grounds, banners standing in ordered ranks instead of the cheerful chaos of the market lanes. Even before they reached the pavilions themselves, they could hear the sound — laughter rolling thick and loud, mugs striking tables, a chorus trying very hard to stay in tune and failing gloriously beneath the open afternoon sky.
Soap tipped his head toward it. "That sounds like a siege."
Dym smiled faintly. "That sounds like Władysław."
They rounded the last row of lesser tents and the Kamiennogród pavilion came fully into view.
It dominated the line of noble tents like a banner brought to life: a vast pavilion of rich yellow cloth stretched high and proud, its color bright as hammered gold under the afternoon sun. The walls had been rolled up along three sides and tied back to carved posts so the interior spilled outward into the day, an open invitation to noise and celebration. From each roof strut hung long standards bearing the sigil of House Kamiennogród — a great black lion rearing on its hind legs, antlers flung wide like a crown of branching blades, claws lifted as if to trample the world beneath it. The beast seemed almost to move in the shifting light, its silhouette stark against the yellow field.
At the pavilion's peak stood a gilded statue of that same lion, cast mid-rear, antlers spread, forepaws raised. Sunlight struck its polished flanks and broke into bright flashes that could be seen from across the encampment, the metal gleaming like a signal fire above the revelry below.
Inside, knights and retainers drank shoulder to shoulder with visiting guests, sunlight flashing on armor rims and cup rims alike while a fiddler balanced on a crate and two armored men attempted a stamping dance that had long since collapsed into delighted shoving. Laughter rolled out in waves, thick and generous.
Dym pointed past it. "There. That's Władysław's. The Leithanien tent is the black one next to it."
Soap followed the gesture.
Where Kamiennogród gold blazed open and loud, its neighbor stood quiet and self-contained. A pavilion of deep matte black, its fabric drinking the sunlight rather than reflecting it. Tall, narrow standards rose beside it — black poles capped with silver harp-shaped finials, each bearing long ribbon streamers in muted dusk colors: ash-grey, wine, and pale amber. No walls were tied open. The entrance flaps were closed but not fastened, meeting in a neat vertical seam.
Soap frowned slightly. "I don't see any guards or squires near it, ser."
Dym studied it a moment. No movement at the entrance, no posted attendants, no tethered horses nearby. "Mm. Must be a minor knight then." He shrugged. "Come on."
They threaded through knots of festivalgoers moving between pavilions — a servant carrying stacked trenchers, a pair of laughing squires, a lady in pale gauze stepping carefully around spilled ale. The noise of Kamiennogród's feast washed over them in waves as they passed, then faded abruptly as they reached the shadowed edge of the black tent.
Up close, it proved larger than it first appeared.
The fabric was heavy, almost velvety, stretched taut over a framework of dark-stained poles carved with slender geometric patterns rather than the floral scrollwork favored in Kazimierz. The seams were bound in narrow silver braid. At the entrance, two layered flaps overlapped precisely, each weighted at the hem with small metal plaques etched in curling foreign script. Even in full daylight the workmanship showed — meticulous, restrained, severe.
Dym stepped to the seam and lifted his hand to announce himself.
Before his knuckles touched cloth, a voice spoke from within.
"Enter."
The word carried clearly through the layered fabric — dry, sharp, impatient.
Dym froze.
Soap blinked up at him.
They looked at each other.
Inside, the voice came again, edged now with irritation. "Are you daft, boy? Enter or leave."
Dym straightened instinctively. "A–aye!"
He pushed the flap aside and jerked his head to Soap. "Come on."
The boy ducked in after him.
The interior air was cooler, shaded from the sun and scented faintly of resin and old paper. The pavilion was arranged more like a study than a travel tent: rugs layered over the groundcloth, low carved tables set with precise order, and shelves — actual shelves — assembled along the rear wall, crowded with books of varying sizes bound in dark leathers. A small iron hearth sat to one side, its coals banked low for cooking rather than warmth, above it a copper kettle whispering steam.
On a central table lay several irregular orange-amber stones, each softly luminous even in daylight, their glow steady and contained — not flame, not crystal, but something between, casting warm highlights across the carved surfaces around them.
Seats of carved wood and padded upholstery formed a conversational cluster nearby, their design foreign but elegant: high narrow backs, angular arms, plush cushions in dark fabric. Everything spoke of portability without compromise — a scholar's room reconstructed under canvas.
And in one of those chairs sat the old man.
He was tall even seated, long-limbed and narrow through the shoulders, his posture straight despite age. Long, sharply pointed ears rose from pale hair drawn back and tied, the strands threaded with silver but still thick. His brows were black and knife-straight above eyes pale and cold, the gaze of someone who had spent decades measuring the world and finding it wanting. A narrow beard, combed straight and severe, framed a mouth set habitually toward impatience.
He wore a black doublet of foreign cut — close-fitted, high-collared, fastened in precise lines down the chest — the fabric matte and severe as the pavilion walls.
A book rested in his long hands.
He glanced up at them once, briefly, with dismissive disinterest — two dusty Kuranta, nothing notable — and returned to the page.
Then, after the smallest pause, his eyes lifted again.
This time his brows rose.
"Well," he said.
His gaze traveled up — boots, belt, chest, shoulders, neck — until it reached Dym's face. The old man leaned back a fraction, studying him with sudden keener attention.
"The old boy wasn't lying," he remarked dryly, "when he said you'd be this tall. Even for a Kuranta."
Dym swallowed. "Old boy?" He thought.
His mouth had gone very dry very quickly.
He cleared his throat anyway.
"Ser—" His voice cracked. He tried again. "Ser. Um. My lord. I—" He gestured stiffly at himself. "I am Ser Dymitr. Ser Dymitr the Tall. A knight of Kazimierz." He turned a fraction, dragging Soap into the moment with him. "And this is my squire. Soap."
Soap bowed cleanly, far smoother than his master. "My lord."
Dym nodded too late, too much. "Yes. My lord. And we—we wished to ask—"
He stalled.
The words tangled somewhere between his chest and tongue. The old man's eyes did not leave him. The silence lengthened.
Dym forced it out in a rush. "—for direction, my lord. To find Lord Fremont of Leithanien."
The old man hummed.
One dark brow lifted.
"And you chose," he said mildly, "to come to my tent. Why?"
Dym opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His mind emptied so completely it felt almost audible.
Soap stepped in.
"We cannot freely enter foreign soil," the boy said, voice steady. "Even here. We require either permission or recommendation from a Leithanien lord or knight. It is... simpler if such a lord is already encamped on Kazimierz ground."
The old man tilted his head a fraction.
"Yet," he said, and pointed idly at the rug beneath their boots with the hand that still held his book, "you have stepped onto foreign soil already."
Soap did not hesitate.
"Your pavilion stands outside the agreed Leithanien demarcation," he said. "My lord."
Dym's stomach dropped.
"Soap," he hissed under his breath.
He bowed abruptly. "Forgive him, my lord. He is young. Still learning—"
No answer came.
The old man simply watched them.
His gaze moved between knight and squire, slow, precise, weighing. The pavilion seemed suddenly very quiet around them — only the faint tick of the hearth metal and the soft whisper of the kettle behind.
Dym's hands felt too large for his body.
He shifted his weight. Stopped. Shifted back. His heart thudded against his ribs, hard enough he was certain it must be visible through his tunic. Soap had just corrected a foreign lord on territorial protocol. Dym could feel heat rising up his neck as a dozen possible consequences flashed through his mind in escalating horror.
If the lord took offense—
If he called guards—
If he—
He was already bracing, muscles tightening, the old reflex forming: step forward, place himself between rank and boy, take whatever came.
The old man sighed.
It was not an angry sound.
It was tired.
He closed the book with a soft thump against his palm.
"That," he said, "is true."
He studied them one more moment — and something in his expression shifted, the severity easing into a dry, private resignation.
"You are both," he said, "very fortunate."
Dym blinked.
"The foreign lord," the old man continued, "whose aid you seek... would be me."
Dym stared.
"P—pardon me, my lord," he said helplessly. "I... I do not understand—"
The old man cut him off with a small lift of his hand.
"I," he said, "am the Lord Fremont of Leithanien you are looking for."
Silence fell like a dropped curtain.
Dym's thoughts simply... stopped.
Beside him, Soap inhaled once, sharp.
Dym looked at the old man.
Looked at the black pavilion. The books. The foreign cut. The harp finials outside. The luminous stones. The impossible composure.
Looked back at the old man.
"Oh," Dym said.
It came out very small.
"Oh."
Dym was just drawing breath to speak again — some hurried apology or stumbling clarification forming in his throat — when Lord Fremont lifted one long, pale hand and made a short, decisive gesture toward the carved chairs set before him.
"Sit."
The word carried no force in volume, yet it landed with such authority that Dym obeyed before he had even consciously decided to move. His knees folded too quickly; he dropped onto the cushioned seat with a rustle of cloak and an awkward hitch of armor straps that sounded far louder to his own ears than it truly was. Soap lowered himself beside him with far more care, one boot sliding back neatly beneath the chair, hands settling on his thighs. The boy's posture held respectful composure, but his gaze never left the Leithanien lord's face.
Fremont, meanwhile, did not look at either of them.
He simply flicked his fingers.
The effect was immediate and uncanny.
The pavilion outside — moments ago alive with roaring laughter, clattering mugs, shouted songs, and the brazen joy of midday revelry — seemed to recede as though the world itself had taken a step backward. Sound did not vanish; it dulled and softened, as if thick velvet had been draped across the air. The party became distant, blurred, indistinct, like noise heard from underwater or through deep snow.
Dym's head snapped toward the tent entrance.
Then back again, eyes wide.
"H—How did you do that, my lord?"
Soap leaned forward slightly, curiosity sharpening his voice. "Is it Arts?"
A thin line appeared at the corner of Fremont's mouth — not quite a smile, but something that acknowledged the question's competence.
"Indeed," he said.
He settled back in his chair with the unhurried composure of someone accustomed to attention, long fingers steepling before him. The lamplight — or perhaps the diffuse glow from the Originium stones scattered about the pavilion — traced the angles of his sharp-boned face and the narrow line of his pale beard.
"What most common folk call Arts," he began, voice measured and precise, "or Originium Arts, to employ correct terminology. The distinction is seldom understood outside educated circles. Many individuals — soldiers, villagers, even minor nobility — interpret manifestations such as this as 'magic' or 'sorcery.' An understandable mistake, yet an incorrect one. The disciplines are separate in origin, mechanism, and limitation."
Soap's brows drew together as he followed. "How so, my lord?"
Fremont turned his hand palm-up.
The air above it bent.
At first the distortion was subtle — a faint angular shimmer, like heat haze forced into straight-edged geometry. Then the space itself folded with a soft crystalline whisper, opening into a tiny triangular rift no larger than a coin. From within slipped a shard of dark mineral, its interior threaded with faint amber light: raw Originium.
It dropped neatly into Fremont's waiting palm.
Dym leaned back an inch without realizing he had moved.
Soap leaned closer.
"Originium," Fremont said, holding the shard delicately between two fingers, "is not merely fuel, as crude explanations often suggest. It is medium, catalyst, and structural language. The mineral stores and transmits patterned energetic states responsive to neural and cognitive imprint. In simpler phrasing: Originium amplifies and externalizes directed will shaped through trained mental constructs."
He rotated the shard slowly. Its inner light pulsed in faint geometric rhythms.
"Originium Arts," he continued, "are therefore the disciplined manipulation of energy via Originium resonance matrices — geometry, frequency alignment, cognition, and mineral conduction operating in concert. One does not 'cast' in the childish sense. One composes."
He closed his hand.
The shard dissolved into fine motes that streamed back into the triangular rift. The opening snapped shut with a soft tick, leaving only empty air above his palm.
The muted quiet of the pavilion settled again around them.
"Sorcery," Fremont went on, "is an entirely different phenomenon. Traditions commonly labeled as such derive largely from Sarkaz thaumaturgic inheritance — power expressions rooted in bloodline traits, metaphysical contracts, or pre-Originium energetic frameworks. They do not require Originium as medium. Indeed, many cannot utilize it at all without destabilization. Where Arts is structured resonance through mineral interface, sorcery is intrinsic manifestation through lineage or pact."
Soap nodded slowly, absorbing the distinction. "So... Arts uses Originium as a conduit. Sorcery doesn't."
"At last," Fremont said dryly, "a mind with traction."
Dym had followed perhaps three recognizable words: mineral, energy, and sorcery.
He nodded anyway, with solemn conviction.
"Yes," he said. "Quite."
Fremont turned his head and regarded him.
One black eyebrow rose.
"You understood none of that."
Dym hesitated, caught between honesty and dignity.
"...no, my lord."
A soft scoff escaped the old man — irritation edged with something like resigned amusement.
"It does," Fremont said, "frequently cause confusion among the simple-minded."
Dym nodded at once, relieved to find agreement. "Yes."
The word left his mouth before his thoughts arrived.
Silence dropped between them like a stone.
Soap closed his eyes.
Dym froze.
Fremont stared.
The knight's ears flooded scarlet in a heartbeat.
"...I meant," Dym tried, voice shrinking, "that it is... very advanced, my lord."
Another pause stretched thin enough to snap.
Then Fremont exhaled slowly through his nose, irritation easing a fraction into something drier and more tolerant.
"You are," he said at last, "exactly what he described, young man."
Soap glanced up, interest sharpening. "Who is 'he,' my lord?"
Fremont's eyes narrowed slightly, "Who else," he said, "but the same man who sent you here."
Dym blinked. "You met Ser Don? Uh— my lord?"
Fremont rolled his eyes toward the pavilion ceiling as though appealing to higher powers for patience.
"Indeed. The damned peacock raided my wine cellar on the first night of this farce of a grand tourney."
Soap's mouth twitched despite himself — but the flicker of humor vanished as something in Fremont's tone, or perhaps in the casual mention of Ser Don, tugged his thoughts sideways.
He tilted his head, studying the old Leithanien lord more closely.
"My lord," he said carefully, "how did you come to know a hedge knight like Ser Don?"
Fremont did not answer at once.
His gaze drifted past them, not unfocused but turned inward, as though memory lay arranged somewhere behind the visible world and he was selecting which fragment to retrieve. When he spoke, the dryness in his voice had thinned, replaced by a quieter register that carried age rather than irritation.
"That is because," he said, "Ser Don Quixote was once my personal guard. A sworn sword of sort."
Both Dym and Soap blinked.
Fremont continued before either could react.
"I knew him when we were young," he said. "Before scholarship consumed me and before wandering consumed him. We often traveled together — expeditions, contracts, misadventures of varying legality and wisdom. He was already insufferably theatrical even then, but competent enough to justify tolerating it."
A faint breath of something like nostalgia crossed his face and vanished.
"But that ended," he said, "when he was infected."
Soap's brows knit. "By the stoneskin?"
Fremont inclined his head once. "Aye. What layfolk call stoneskin. We scholars term it Oripathy."
Dym leaned forward, confusion plain. "But... I never saw any on his skin, my lord."
Fremont's eyes slid to him.
"I never said," he replied evenly, "it was in his skin."
Dym stared, confused.
Soap's gaze sharpened.
"...is it on his... eye?" the boy asked slowly. "Is that why he wears the patch?"
Fremont watched him. "Why would you think so?"
Soap shifted, thinking aloud as he often did when piecing things together.
"Ser Don is hale, ridiculously hale for one his age." he said. "Strong. Loud. Always laughing. If the disease were visible or painful on his limbs, torso, or insides, he'd show it — or at least favor it. But he doesn't. He moves freely. Drinks freely. Fights well when he trained Ser Dymitr. And he could swims in the river without much difficulties."
He paused.
"But," Soap went on, "he never removed the bandage over his right eye. Not once. Not when bathing. Not when we had spare cloth to change it. Even when it was dirty."
Fremont's expression did not change, but a low approving hum escaped him.
"What if," the lord said, testing, "it were simply an old wound? He spent years in my service to both sell his sword and my house in Leithanien's wars. Injury would not be unlikely."
"True," Soap said. "But wounds are cleaned. Bandages are to be changed. He never did it. Well, when he was with us, that is."
Silence gathered.
Fremont looked at the boy a long moment, then inclined his head slightly — acknowledgment, not praise.
"That," he said at last, "is correct."
He leaned back in his chair, long fingers resting together.
"Ser Don Quixote contracted Oripathy while in my service," he said. "Approximately ten to twenty years ago. The infection localized within the ocular structures and adjacent cranial tissue. He dismissed himself from my guard soon after."
Dym swallowed. "Dismissed?"
"He left," Fremont said. "Voluntarily. Stated that a knight visibly marked by such an incurable disease should not stand as shield to a lord whose position demanded unimpeachable appearance. As well as the high pssibility it would do more harm to me and those around him. Foolish pride, but consistent with his character."
The old man's eyes lowered briefly.
"He visited occasionally thereafter," Fremont went on. "Arriving suddenly without warning, departing without plan. He brought me stories. And artifacts — curiosities he scavenged across his journey across Terra. He seemed to believe I required entertainment."
The dryness returned faintly, but it no longer bit.
Soap nodded slowly, pieces settling into place.
Fremont's gaze shifted back to them fully, memory giving way to present.
"And during his last intrusion," he said, "he spoke of you."
Dym stiffened.
"Your aspirations," Fremont continued. "Your five days of lessons. Your intent to become knights and — his phrasing, not mine — 'be better knights than the world expects.'"
Soap looked down, suddenly intent on a seam in his glove.
"He described," Fremont went on, "your clumsiness."
Dym scratched the back of his neck at once. "I am... occasionally slow as a burdenbeast — I mean, an aurochs."
Fremont's mouth twitched.
"He described," the lord added, "your squire's unrestrained tongue."
Soap winced.
"And," Fremont finished, voice softening a fraction, "your injuries."
Dym's hand stilled on his neck.
Fremont glanced aside briefly, then back.
"Ah," he said. "And also that — about your recent loss of your father-figure, Ser Arlan of Przozowa Polona that Pi—" he stopped himself, irritation flickering at the slip, "—that Don helped you bury him. My condolences."
The words were spare, but not empty.
Dym swallowed, throat tight. "Thank you, my lord."
A pause lingered — not uncomfortable, but weighted.
Then Fremont straightened slightly, tone returning to business.
"So," he said, "what is it you require from me? I already agreed to that damned fool to grant a favor, and he has chosen to spend it on you. A stranger."
His eyes sharpened.
"Do you want Money? Food? Armor?"
Dym shook his head quickly. "N–No, my lord. No."
He drew breath, gathering himself.
"Y-you see, for the past week in this town," he said, "I had been seeking lords and knights willing to vouch for my knighthood so that I may enter the grand tourney's lists. I feared I might find none. Ser Don told us that if all else failed, I could seek you — that you might help, if willing."
He hesitated, then added, almost shyly, "But... recently, I did receive it."
Fremont's brow rose. "You did?"
"Yes, my lord."
"And who," Fremont asked, "was persuaded to stake reputation on you?"
"It was Ser Mlynar," Dym said, pride lifting his voice. "Mlynar Nearl, the—"
Fremont cut across him instantly.
"The Grand Knight of Kazimierz and commander of the Silverlance Pegasi?"
Dym blinked. "Aye."
"And witnessed by who?" Fremont pressed.
"His brother was there, my lord." Dym said, gaining momentum. "Ser Aleksandr Nearl, the Silver Hand. Then there was Prince George of Victoria, the Lord of Rudnicka Vale, the Master of the Game, and a Lady whom—"
Fremont's composure cracked.
"Prince George?" he said sharply. "How in hell did you encounter a prince of Victoria's Dragon court at the same time?"
Dym's confidence collapsed at once. "W–Well, I..."
He looked helplessly at Soap.
The boy rolled his eyes and answered.
"He followed the procession to Castle Rudnicki today," Soap said. "Presented himself before the council, explained his case, and begged for acknowledgment. Ser Mlynar granted him a letter of recognition before assembled witnesses — including all those named."
Fremont stared at them.
Then, slowly, he leaned back again, studying Dym with his green and purple eyes.
"Well," the Leithanien lord said at last, chuckling, "that is... unexpected."