The hours bled away, marked only by the shifting intensity of the cold and the relentless, gnawing ache in his muscles.
Brandt sat at the heavy oak table in the private dining hall, the air thick with the smell of roasted meat and woodsmoke. The room was a cavern of shadows, the darkness held at bay only by the roaring fireplace and a few sputtering torches mounted in iron sconces.
Outside, the wind howled against the granite walls, a constant, mournful reminder of the freezing hell that awaited anyone foolish enough to leave the keep's sanctuary.
He tore into a shank of venison with a singular, clinical focus.
The meat was tough and stringy, dripping with rich, dark gravy, but to Brandt, it tasted like salvation. He chewed methodically, swallowing heavy mouthfuls without pausing to savour the flavour.
His new body was a furnace that burned through fuel at a terrifying rate. The mana channels, freshly awakened and hungry, demanded calories.
Across the table, Falk ate with the same grim efficiency.
The Master-at-Arms cut his meat into precise, uniform cubes, consuming them with the steady rhythm of a machine refuelling. He didn't speak. He didn't look up. He just ate, his scarred face illuminated by the flickering firelight, casting deep shadows into the hollows of his eyes.
To Brandt's left, the twins were a storm of chaotic motion.
Alise was attacking a loaf of bread as if it were a personal enemy, tearing chunks off with her teeth and washing them down with gulps of water from a pewter cup. She had gravy on her chin and a wild, restless energy in her eyes.
Alara was quieter, picking at a plate of roasted root vegetables, but her gaze darted around the room, cataloguing and analysing.
Brandt watched them from the corner of his eye, his own expression carefully neutral.
'Patience,' he told himself, wiping grease from his lip with the back of his hand. 'Wait for them to leave.'
He had a request to make of Falk, a negotiation that would determine his immediate survival. It wasn't a conversation for children. Alise would demand to join in, turning a strategic discussion into a noisy game, and Alara... Alara would listen too closely. She would ask questions he didn't want to answer.
He needed them gone.
He reached for his own cup, the cold water stinging his lips, his mind already running simulations of the upcoming conversation. He weighed the best opening gambit to secure Falk's cooperation, calculating the angles. He was so deep in his tactical assessment that he missed the movement of the small, pale hand to his left.
Thunk.
A silver fork stood quivering in the dark wood of the table, the tines buried deep, mere centimetres from Brandt's knuckles.
He froze, his heart skipping a single, violent beat.
Slowly, he turned his head. Alara was leaning forward, her chin resting on her hand, her dark eyes fixed on his face with an unnerving, unblinking intensity. She didn't look like a six-year-old girl. In the dancing shadows of the dining hall, she looked like a miniature, porcelain doll possessed by something ancient and overly observant.
"You have that look again, big brother."
Her voice was quiet, barely rising above the crackle of the fire, but it cut through Brandt's thoughts like a scalpel.
"That strange, far-away look. The one you've had ever since you fell in the yard."
Brandt felt a jolt of cold alarm spike in his chest. It wasn't fear of physical danger; it was the fear of exposure.
'She sees it.'
It wasn't just a childish observation. Alara wasn't commenting on a daydream. She was noticing the mask.
He had to misdirect her. Immediately. If her curiosity latched onto this anomaly, she would pick at it until she found the truth, or until she drew the attention of adults who would ask much harder questions.
He forced his facial muscles to relax, smoothing away the sharp lines of his internal focus. He widened his eyes slightly, adopting an expression of mild, brotherly annoyance mixed with placid confusion.
"I don't know what you mean," he said, his voice pitching up into the register of a defensive child. "The food is just good, Alara. I was... I was just thinking about things."
It was a weak defence. A vague, boring dead end designed to make a child lose interest.
It failed instantly.
Alara didn't blink. Her gaze narrowed, becoming sharper, more analytical. She looked at him not as a sibling, but as a puzzle box she hadn't quite cracked yet.
"What things?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and demanding. Even Falk paused mid-chew, his blue eyes flicking up to watch the exchange.
Brandt's mind raced.
He couldn't dismiss her again; she would only dig deeper. He needed a distraction. A topic potent enough to nuke the conversation, to shift the emotional gravity of the entire room so violently that his own strange behaviour became irrelevant.
He needed a bomb.
He dropped his gaze to his plate, letting his shoulders slump. He allowed his features to soften into a mask of dutiful, childish melancholy. He let a silence stretch for a beat, two beats, drawing the room's attention.
"I was just wondering..." he started, his voice quiet and small. "...how Father is doing."
The effect was instantaneous.
It was as if he had sucked the oxygen out of the room.
Alise stopped chewing, her cheeks stuffed with bread. The fork in Alara's hand stopped quivering. The boisterous, competitive energy that usually radiated from the twins vanished, extinguished like a candle in a gale.
They both lowered their heads, staring at the table. A genuine, shared sadness clouded their faces, stripping away the precocious intelligence and the wild energy, leaving just two lonely little girls missing their dad.
The room fell into a heavy, sombre silence. The absence of the Marquess was a physical weight in Frostguard Hold, a void that no amount of fire or food could fill.
Brandt kept his head down, hiding the cold calculation in his eyes.
He thought of the man whose name he now carried.
The Marquess of Rimescar. He had only seen the man in the flood of borrowed memories—a towering figure of dark furs and steel, a powerful Augmentor whose physical prowess was revered across the kingdom.
But that power came with a heavy chain.
The Marquess wasn't just a warrior; he was a strategic asset. He was perpetually summoned to the capital, kept in the King's orbit, a piece on the royal board used to project strength while his children grew up alone in the frozen north.
It was a cold war, and his father was the weapon the King kept on his hip.
Falk's gravelly voice broke the silence, the sound rough and grating against the quiet.
"I am monitoring the Raven Tower for a letter."
The Master-at-Arms took a sip of his water, his expression grim. He didn't offer false hope. He didn't coddle them.
"But do not be hopeful. The Marquess may be delayed further. Our neighbours grow restless, the bastards. The border is... tense."
Brandt mentally filed the information away. 'Restless neighbours. Delayed return.'
He realised, with a spike of frustration, just how dangerously ignorant he was. He knew the layout of the keep and the basics of mana, but he knew nothing of the geopolitical landscape he was standing on.
'I need to get back to the library,' he noted. 'The political section. Tomorrow.'
Externally, he maintained the charade. He nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on his venison.
"I only wish for his safe return," he murmured.
"Me too," Alise whispered, her voice unusually small.
"Me too," Alara echoed.
Falk nodded in grim agreement, raising his cup in a silent toast to their absent lord.
The heavy topic had successfully drained the twins of their volatile energy. The rest of the meal passed in a sombre, efficient silence. The food was consumed, and the plates were cleared.
When they were finished, Falk wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and looked at the twins. He gave them a single, sharp nod.
"You are excused."
They didn't argue. They didn't ask for sweets or demand a story. They slid off their chairs, their movements subdued.
"Goodnight, Falk. Goodnight, Brandt," Alara said quietly.
"Night," Alise mumbled.
They left the room, their small boots tapping on the stone. It wasn't until they were well down the corridor that Brandt heard the faint, returning sound of their chatter, the resilience of childhood reasserting itself now that they were out of the gloom.
The heavy oak door clicked shut.
Silence descended on the private dining hall. The servants had retreated. The fire popped and hissed.
It was just him and Falk.
Brandt sat straight in his chair. He let the mask of the melancholy son dissolve, replaced by the cold, focused resolve of the man within. He looked at the Master-at-Arms.
Falk was watching him, his scarred face unreadable in the flickering light. He looked like a statue carved from the mountain itself, immovable and ancient.
Brandt took a breath. The time for games was over.
"Falk," he said, his voice shedding the high pitch of childhood, dropping into a flatter, more serious register. "I want genuine training."
Falk raised an eyebrow, but didn't speak.
"Not the light sparring you showed me last year," Brandt continued, his gaze locking onto the older man's blue eyes. "I don't want to play knights. I don't want you to throw a wooden sword at me and tell me 'good job' when I manage not to drop it."
He leaned forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table.
"I want to be taught how to fight. Properly. Brutally."
He paused, letting the weight of his next words hang in the air.
"More importantly... I want to be taught how to survive."
"I command the entire garrison, Brandt," Falk said, his voice a low rumble. "I am responsible for the defence of the pass. I do not have the hours in the day to nursemaid you through the basics."
The rejection was flat. Absolute.
Brandt didn't flinch.
'Expected.'
"I knew you would be," Brandt countered, his voice steady. "I am not asking you to train me personally."
Falk narrowed his eyes.
"Then what are you asking?"
"I am asking for your men," Brandt said. "Your most trusted soldiers. Assign me a tutor. A rotation. A new man each day."
He tapped a finger against the wood.
"I need to learn different styles.'
He looked at Falk with a cold, adult intensity.
"I need to know how to counter... everything."
Falk stared at the nine-year-old boy, his mind visibly reeling from the cold logic. It wasn't a child's request for glory. It was the request of a pragmatist preparing for war.
The Master-at-Arms slowly stood up. He loomed over the table, a mountain of leather and muscle.
"You speak of combat as if it were a trade to be learned from a book," Falk said quietly. "You speak of survival."
He picked up the iron poker from the fireplace, stirring the coals until they flared hot and angry.
"Words are wind, boy. You want my men's time? You will have to prove you are worthy of it."
Brandt stood up, facing him. He barely reached the man's waist, but his posture was rigid, unyielding.
"I will do whatever it takes. I will not fail. Tell me what I must do."
Falk studied him for one last, heavy second. He gave a single, sharp nod.
"Follow me."
He didn't wait. He grabbed a burning torch from the wall sconce and strode out of the room.
Brandt followed him into the corridor and then out into the night.
The cold hit him like a physical blow. It was a living thing, biting at his exposed face, seeking the warmth in his veins. The wind howled across the courtyard, carrying the scent of ice and pine.
Falk led him past the stables, past the barracks, to the main training ground.
It was a vast, open yard of frozen, unforgiving earth. The ground was packed hard as stone, scarred by the boots of a thousand soldiers.
Falk used his torch to ignite several others fixed to wooden posts. The flames sputtered and caught, casting the arena in a flickering, hellish, orange light. The shadows stretched and danced, monstrous and distorted.
Falk walked to a weapon rack covered in frost. He reached out and grabbed two blades.
He turned and tossed one at Brandt's feet.
Thud.
The sound was heavy. Metallic.
Brandt looked down. He had expected a wooden waster—a practice stick.
It was a sword. Iron. Dull-edged, but real.
He looked up at Falk. The Master-at-Arms was drawing his own blade, the metal hissing against the leather scabbard.
"Pick it up," Falk commanded.
Brandt bent down. The cold from the iron hilt bit through his skin instantly. He gripped it with both hands and heaved.
It was impossibly heavy. It was a weapon forged for a man, poorly balanced for a child's frame. His arms shook under the weight, his muscles straining just to keep the tip off the frozen dirt.
Falk stood ten paces away, his sword held easily in one hand. He looked like a giant executioner in the firelight.
"Attack me, Brandt," Falk said, his voice carrying over the wind. "With everything you have. Show me what you learned in that library."
Brandt gritted his teeth. The wind whipped his hair across his eyes. His arms burned.
'This is it.'
The first actual test.
He closed his eyes. He ignored the cold. He ignored the fear.
He reached inward, searching for the hum—the static.
He found it. The mana was there, pooled in the centre of his being, waiting.
He pulled.
He willed the energy into his channels. It rushed through him, a sudden, electric warmth that chased away the frost. His muscles tightened, energised. The exhaustion vanished. The sword, which had felt like an anchor a second ago, suddenly felt lighter. Manageable.
He opened his eyes.
His vision was sharp, the world rendered in high contrast. He saw the shift of Falk's weight. He saw the opening.
He didn't hesitate.
Brandt lunged.