"I have never once beaten you in a duel because you always cheat," Orin growled, his eyes narrowing to slits. "You win by any means necessary."
Ramius lifted both hands in mock surrender as he tilted his head.
"Hey, it's not my fault you only know how to dice and slice with those pretty twin daggers of yours."
His gaze flicked to the matched weapons riding low on Orin's belt, the hilts were wrapped in worn black leather, sheaths worked with subtle gold filigree that only someone very rich or very deadly could afford.
"Besides, using my head isn't cheating. I'm not the one who has his brain traded for a potato."
Orin's hands dropped to the daggers in perfect unison, his fingers curling around the grips.
The steel whispered half an inch from his leather.
The two palace guards stationed by the throne-room doors went rigid.
'Please, not here,' one thought, sweat prickling beneath his helmet as he stared at his comrade. 'The Tyrant and the Kingdom's General strategist killing each other in the corridor would get us both executed before breakfast. And Lady Nyxelene is literally on the other side of the door.'
"Hey," Ramius said suddenly, genuine curiosity replacing the mockery, "where did all your scars go?"
Orin froze.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, he lifted one broad hand and traced it across his cheek, then down the side of his neck where the long, pale burn from a fire-arrow had lived for years.
Nothing.
His skin was smooth as a child's.
The realisation slammed into him like a warhammer to the chest.
'She healed scars even Šërēĺįťh couldn't touch, and she didn't even speak the language to do it. She just… brushed them away like dust.
The rumours never came close to the truth. She might be more terrifying than any of us ever imagined.' Orin thought.
"Not one of your problems," Orin muttered, forcing his hands to relax and the daggers to slide home.
The guards exhaled in audible relief.
"Why are you even here this early, Ramius?"
"Believe me, waking before the roosters is not my idea of joy," Ramius sighed, pulling a tightly rolled scroll from inside his richly embroidered tunic. "I came to deliver the new attack patterns for the next Namesh confrontation to Lady Nyxelene. Here—this one's yours."
He flicked the scroll through the air. Orin caught it without looking.
"Honestly," Ramius continued, already turning away, "you should be the one doing this sort of thing. You're the commander. Yet you're too thick-headed to show your own men how and when to strike the enemy. If you had even half a brain, my job would be so much easier. What did I do to deserve being stuck with a potato-headed brute like you?"
The words had barely left his mouth when steel flashed.
Orin's right dagger left its sheath faster than the eye could follow, a horizontal silver arc aimed straight for Ramius's exposed throat.
Ramius tilted his head—just slightly, just enough—without even turning around.
The blade passed a finger's breadth from his skin and buried itself in the marble wall with a ringing shriek.
Ramius straightened his head, clicked his tongue, and kept walking.
"This exact habit of yours is an example of what I was saying." he called back with a light voice. "Going for my neck the moment you get annoyed like you always do. So predictable."
The guards opened the outer doors for him.
"You're like an open book, Orin," he said over his shoulder, already stepping through. "But don't feel bad. That's just how you were made."
The doors boomed shut behind him.
Orin stood alone in the sudden quiet, staring at the dagger still quivering in the wall.
'He looks like he's taking a stroll,' Ramius thought as he strode in to meet Lady Nyxelene. His hands were clasped behind his back with a faint smile playing on his lips. 'And yet he got faster again. I always won our duels before because he never took them seriously—fighting with elbows only, or the back of his hand, sometimes closing both eyes just to make it fair. Under those odds, of course I won.
Today, though… today he almost had me.'
The great doors had shut with a final, echoing boom.
Only Orin and the two palace guards remained in the corridor.
Orin stood motionless, staring at the dagger still quivering in the marble wall.
His right hand slowly tightened around the hilt of its twin.
One of the guards swallowed so loudly it echoed.
'I just want to go home,' the man thought as sweat rolled down his spine beneath the heavy plate. 'Please, gods, don't let him decide to take his mood out on us.'
Orin's gaze slid sideways, locking onto the guard.
The man went pale as milk.
After what felt like an eternity, Orin yanked the dagger free with a sharp screech of steel on stone, sheathed it, turned on his heel, and strode away without a word.
The two guards sagged against the wall, breathing again.
…
The morning sun had barely cleared the walls when Orin passed through the main gate of Ohlm's training field.
He held the sealed scroll in one fist, brows drawn together in a storm-cloud frown.
Every sentry and soldier within fifty paces dropped to one knee the instant they saw his face. No one—no one—wanted to be near the commander when that particular darkness settled over him.
Orin marched straight into the war room, his boots ringing like hammer blows.
Moments later the entire field went quiet again.
Heads turned toward the gate.
A new figure stepped through.
Aeloria.
She wore the black-and-crimson armor of Runevale's elite, the snarling wolf crest blazing across her breastplate. The plates were scarred and battered from countless battles, yet polished to a vicious gleam. Her cloak snapped behind her in the wind, the same blood colour as the queen's gown.
Some soldiers stared with open disgust.
Others with reluctant respect.
A few with something close to reverence.
She was wild.
She was unpredictable.
But every soul on that field knew one truth: the moment Aeloria the Cannibal stepped onto a battlefield, victory was already decided. Enemies feared being eaten alive far more than they feared clean steel.
She walked between the parted ranks as though she owned the ground itself, her eyes scanning left and right, searching.
Then she found who she was looking for.
"Yoru!"
Her voice cut across the entire field like a war horn.
A young female soldier in the middle of spear practice snapped to attention, lowered her weapon, and jogged over.
"Head Captain," Yoru said, saluting crisply—the same Yoru who had knelt broken-shouldered on Aeloria's very first day, now one of her personal aides and a captain in her own right.
Aeloria had earned the rank of Head Captain of all captains in Runevale's army the old-fashioned way: she challenged anyone who objected to a duel and left every single one bleeding in the dirt. No one had stepped forward in over a year.
"Do you happen to—"
A sharp, familiar knock cracked across the back of Aeloria's skull before she could finish.
"Why did I have to arrive before you? Did you oversleep again?" Orin's voice thundered.
Aeloria spun, rubbing the fresh lump, her eyes blazing. "I'm not late! You're just unusually early, that's all! And stop hitting my head—it hurts!"
"Don't talk back to your commander, you endless troublemaker. You've been late every single day since the day you arrived."
He knocked her again for good measure, seized the scruff of her armor like a wayward cat, and started dragging her toward the war room like he always did.
"Look at that—they're at it again," one soldier whispered, shaking his head as he watched the Head Captain of the entire army being hauled off like a sack of grain.
"I know, right? She's literally the only person in Runevale with the nerve to talk back to the commander," his comrade replied.
Orin paused mid-drag and jabbed a finger at Yoru.
"You—come with us."
"Yes, Commander!"
The three of them disappeared into the war room. Orin dropped into the high-backed chair with a thud that shook dust from the rafters. Aeloria took the seat opposite, arms folded, still glaring. Yoru stood at attention by the door.
Orin slapped the scroll onto the table between them.
"First of all, Aeloria," he began, adopting a tone of finality, "you will not be taking part in the coming war."
"Yes I will."
"No you won't."
"Yes I will."
"I said you will not."
"I said I will, and that's exactly what I'm going to do."
"At least ask why you're not participating before you argue, you needlessly stubborn, useless piece of flesh!"