Dare stepped fully into the clearing, each footfall a slow insult to the soil. The jungle's hum faded around him. Even the river nearby hesitated, as though the sound of his metal-forged hand had confused it.
Kael's pulse hammered in his throat. The past came back at him in shapes—braids tied to match his, feet racing along the riverbank, a boy shouting his name across muddy water.
A brother in everything but blood.
Dare was taller now. Broad. Hardened. Whatever softness Kael remembered had been chiseled away until only will remained.
And that gold-dyed hair—once a joke between them—now glinted like sharpened sunlight.
"Still breathing," Dare said, voice thick with old familiarity and new threat. "Good. I was worried I'd come all this way to bury an empty promise."
Kael swallowed the stone in his throat. "You came to Verdant? Alone?"
Dare's grin grew feral. "Alone? No. The Chancellor gave me a leash long enough to hang the sky. I'm here on contract." He tapped the metal cage where his right hand had once been. The chains along the fingers chimed a cold, metallic warning. "You broke one link. He wants the rest back."
The spirit beneath the kapok tree finally moved. A single step. Leaves curled around its ankles, bowing without touching.
"Two of Verdant's sons," it murmured. "One bearing a wound of oath. One bearing a wound of law. River meets river."
Nia shifted beside Kael, her voice low. "Kael… Dare's not the same. Be careful."
Taye's shadow bared invisible teeth, the only part of him unshaken. "His aura feels wrong. Like a trapped storm trying to chew its way out."
Dare tilted his head. "Your friends look tense. Let them breathe. This part is only for us."
"No," Kael said, grounding his heel into the soil. "If it was only us, you would've come with your old voice instead of a contract."
Dare's smile slipped—only for a breath, but Kael saw it. Under the gold-dyed locks and the city-trained cruelty, something cracked like old bark.
"You left," Dare said. Not shouted. Not snarled. Said. Quiet. Heavy.
Kael felt the words in his bones.
"I had to."
"You promised you'd stay." Dare's voice tightened. "We made a vow under the mangroves, remember? Two boys. Two blades. One home."
Kael flinched. The memory hit harder than any blow. Fireflies drifting through the dark, their locks dripping river water, the scent of wet earth and smoke.
Dare continued, voice trembling beneath the iron:
"You said Verdant wasn't strong enough to hold you. You said you'd come back with strength. You never did."
Kael clenched his fist. "I couldn't come back. Not after—"
"LIES."
The word cracked the clearing. Birds burst from the trees. Even the children ran behind huts, eyes wide with fear.
Dare took one step forward, and the metal cage on his arm groaned like a living thing.
"You didn't come back," Dare said. "So the Chancellor did. He found me starved, angry, ready to carve the world apart to find you. He gave me purpose. Gave me THIS."
He raised the cage-hand.
It moved like a claw—but it wasn't. The fingers bent backward first, then forward, unnatural and precise, each joint clicking into place like locks inside a vault.
Kael's brand burned in answer.
The spirit's eyes narrowed. "The Chain Below echoes through him."
Dare leveled the cage-hand at Kael.
"Now come home the way you were meant to—ON YOUR KNEES."
The metal fingers snapped shut.
The ground erupted.
Kael threw himself aside as a shockwave split the earth where he had stood. Soil burst into the air. Roots tore free like serpents whipped from the ground.
Abyssfang shrieked in his hand, half laughter, half hunger.
Finally! Something with flavor!
Kael charged.
Dare met him halfway.
Their first clash jarred Kael's entire arm. Dare wasn't just strong—his movements were perfect, economical, terrifyingly exact. Training honed his body, but the chain-magic sharpened him further, trimming doubt, trimming hesitation, trimming humanity.
Every hit felt like being struck by a verdict.
Kael ducked under a swing, blade slicing upward—
Dare caught Abyssfang with the metal hand.
Kael's eyes widened. "Impossible—!"
"No," Dare growled. "Just paid for."
The cage-hand tightened.
Pain jolted up Kael's arm. The sword wailed, not in fear, but in outrage.
UNHAND ME, YOU COWARDLY LOCK!
Dare yanked the blade sideways, dragging Kael off his feet. Kael twisted mid-air, landing in a crouch—
The ground ruptured again. A chain shot upward like a spear, barely missing his ribs.
Taye shouted: "Kael! He's pulling the chains from the—"
A second chain snapped from the soil, wrapping around Kael's ankle.
He hit the dirt—
—but rolled just before Dare's heel cratered the ground where his head had been.
Kael slashed the chain, sparks bursting in a sharp ring. The broken link glowed with the same hateful light as the mark on his chest.
He stood, breath ragged.
Dare stalked toward him, each step measured. "You always wanted power. Isn't this what you wanted to bring home? Let me show you strength that does not bend."
His cage-hand opened.
Metal fingers spread—
And the jungle answered.
Trees shuddered. Vines recoiled. Air thickened with pressure that pushed against Kael's ribs. Birds fled in mad arcs above the canopy.
The spirit under the kapok tree lifted their chin.
"Child of Verdant," they whispered to Kael. "Do not let a city teach you how to die."
Kael planted his feet. Gripped Abyssfang.
And moved.
He darted low, slicing at Dare's knee.
Dare blocked with his real arm, muscles hard as rootwood. The sword bit skin, but Dare didn't flinch. He brought the cage-hand down—
Kael leaped—
Chains erupted in a circle where he had been, stabbing upward like iron thorns.
"STOP RUNNING!" Dare roared.
Kael's breath came in burning bursts. "Then stop trying to break me!"
Dare's eyes shone with two kinds of fury—one metallic, one heartbreakingly human.
"I'm trying to bring you HOME!"
His cage-hand slammed forward.
Kael barely brought Abyssfang up in time.
Metal hit metal.
The impact blasted the air from Kael's lungs, forced him back. His boots carved twin trails in the soil. His shoulders screamed.
The chain-magic in Dare's arm flared, glowing gold-blue, crackling like stormlight trapped in iron.
Kael's brand ignited in response, heat flooding his chest.
Two forces—one Verdant, one Giltspire—fought inside him.
Abyssfang trembled violently.
LET. ME. FEED.
"No," Kael hissed. He pushed back. "Not now."
Dare's voice dropped to a whisper that hurt worse than the hits.
"We were supposed to become legends together. You left me to rot."
Kael's breath stuttered. "I didn't want you hurt—"
"You DID."
The cage-hand flared.
The spirit raised their palm. "ENOUGH."
Dare moved anyway.
The ground cracked.
And something ancient rose behind Kael—something shaped like the river he grew up beside, something vast and green and waiting.
A serpent of vines, water, and ancestral memory.
Its eyes opened—river-deep, old as Verdant's first breath.
Taye stumbled back. "Uh—Kael? Friend? Brother? Something is standing behind you and it knows your childhood better than you do."
Nia's voice dropped to a whisper:
"Oh gods."
Dare's expression broke.
"Of course," he said hoarsely. "Even the jungle protects you."
Kael didn't breathe. Didn't blink.
Because the serpent—the spirit—the ancestral guardian—
was wearing part of his face.
Not perfectly. Not fully. But enough to know:
This was Verdant's judgment of him.
Its echo.
Its question.
Dare's cage-hand rose, chains clattering with new fury.
The serpent-coil behind Kael tightened and readied.
The forest held its breath.
The spirit under the kapok tree whispered:
"Verdict comes."
And Dare lunged.
And Kael moved.
And the ancestral serpent struck