Garrick clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, grip lingering a beat too long, testing muscle and resolve."We'll hunt those beasts, lad.For Thorgrin."
Guwayne forced a nod, his smile a thin blade, but inside, the anger coiled tighter.Prey.That's what he was to them—a fawn in the den, untested, the throne's empty half a lure.How soon his exploits at the breach had been forgotten, swept under the rug.They watched not with loyalty, but hunger: for the ring, for the crown, for the boy-king they could mold or break.Varis pressed forward with a goblet of spiced wine, but his eyes darted to Aldrich, seeking approval like a hound.Even Sir Kellan, stationed by the hall's arch, shot him a warning glance—Watch them, boy.
"Thank you, my lords," Guwayne said, voice steady, injected with the authority he'd honed in training yards."The Ring endures because of such unity.We'll speak more in council—on the breaches, the hunts.Father's work unfinished is mine now."He accepted the goblet from Varis, sipping just enough to wet his lips, then set it aside.The nobles murmured approval, but their eyes followed him as he moved through them, a ripple of silk and steel parting before the heir.
In the hall's alcove, away from their gaze, Guwayne leaned against cool stone, his breathing ragged.Anger surged anew—not at the nobles, not yet, but at the web closing around him.They thought him prey?Let them.He'd be the blade in the dark, the storm in the desert.If Thorgrin lived, he'd find him.If not, he'd carve a legacy from their bones.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The rain had ceased by midnight, leaving King's Court cloaked in a shroud of mist that clung to the cobblestones like the breath of ghosts.The palace slumbered uneasily, its halls patrolled by shadows—Shield Guards in silver plate, their cloaks damp and heavy, torches sputtering in iron brackets that cast wavering pools of light across the ancient stone.Sir Kellan the Steadfast moved through them like a specter himself, his massive frame a silent bulwark against the night's chill.At forty-five summers, he was a relic of the Blood War: broad as a Highland oak, his face a ledger of scars earned in service to the MacGils, from the canyon's bridges to the frozen tundras, to the lands of the Empire and beyond.His hair, cropped close and streaked with iron gray, framed eyes like polished flint—unyielding, ever-watchful.Loyalty was his creed, etched into his soul when, as a boy of sixteen, he had knelt before King MacGil and sworn to guard the throne with his life.That oath had carried him through exile, through Thorgrin's rise, through the restoration of the Shield.With the news of Thor’s passing, it bound him now, tighter than any chain, to Gwendolyn and her son.
And like Guwayne, he, too, had doubts.His were not born of dreams, however.His were of a much more pragmatic nature.
Kellan had not slept since Proudlock's arrival two days past.Grief was a luxury he could ill afford; suspicion was a blade he honed in the dark.The lieutenant's tale had rung hollow from the first telling—too polished, too rehearsed, the details aligning like beads on a merchant's abacus rather than the chaos of battle.Thorgrin dead?The man who had slain dragons and bent storms to his will, felled by rock-skinned beasts in a nameless gorge?Kellan had seen Thorgrin bloodied before, rising from wounds that would have claimed lesser men.No, something festered here, a rot beneath the noble veneer of mourning.And the nobles...their swift formation of this "Council of Protectors," their honeyed words dripping into the queen's ear like slow poison.Aldrich's granaries opened, Elowen's scouts deployed, Holt's caravans laden with steel—it smacked of orchestration, not desperation.
He descended the spiral stairs to the undercroft barracks, where the returned soldiers from the northern expedition had been quartered.The air grew thick with the scent of damp wool and unwashed bodies.A dozen men, mercenaries and Silver veterans alike, had staggered back through the northern bridge with Proudlock—survivors, they claimed, of the beasts' ambush.All but Proudlock were from additional forces who they claim had heeded the King's call for help and joined the original expedition shortly before or during the fateful attack had taken place.
Kellan had stationed them here, under light guard, until their wounds mended and statements could be taken.Now, in the dead hour before dawn, he would begin.
The barracks door creaked open on oiled hinges, revealing a long hall lined with cots and flickering oil lamps.Snores rumbled like distant thunder, mingled with the occasional cough or murmur of nightmare.Men who had gone through what these men had gone through, had seen what they had seen, rarely enjoyed an untroubled night's sleep.
Kellan paused in the threshold, his shadow swallowing the light, then strode to the first cot.Garr, the burly mercenary with frostbitten fingers wrapped in rags, stirred as Kellan's gauntleted hand clamped on his shoulder."Up, you.Questions wait for no man."
Garr's eyes fluttered open, bleary and bloodshot, his massive frame shifting like a bear rousing from hibernation.He sat up, wincing at the pull of bandages across his ribs, and rubbed a meaty hand over his stubbled jaw."Captain Kellan?Gods, it's the witching hour.Can't a man dream of whores in peace?"
Kellan ignored the jest.“Come with me,” he said, his voice a low rumble as he led the yawning soldier across the barracks and into a small room with a table and half a dozen crude chairs.He indicated one of them and waited for Garr to sit down, standing with his back to the closed door."Dreams can lie, Garr.But steel doesn't.Tell me again of the gorge.The beasts—how many?Describe the first strike."
Garr blinked, confusion flickering before settling into rote recitation."Dozens, Cap'n.Hulkin' things, rock hides gleamin' like wet stone, claws drippin' green venom that sizzled on snow.Came from cracks in the earth, roarin' like thunder.King charged 'em, sword blazin'—Destiny's own light, it was.Felled three with one sweep, but they swarmed.Claws rakin', venom flyin'.I took this—" he tapped his bandaged side—"holdin' the line while Proudlock pulled the lads back."
Kellan nodded, and probed further, getting Garr to repeat certain details, taking him back and forth in the timeline of events, committing the words to memory.When he was satisfied, he moved away from the door.“Get back to your dreams,” he said, “let’s hope the whores haven’t grown cold on you.”
He watched Garr settle down and almost instantly start snoring, then moved to the next cot.Skarn, the wiry one with the missing ear, was already awake, propped on an elbow, his perpetual sneer twisting in the lamplight."Trouble sleepin', Cap'n?Or just pokin' at wounds best left scarred?"
"Truth heals cleaner than lies, Skarn.Come, a word.”He followed him into the room.“The tremors—when did they start?Before the cracks, or with 'em?"he asked as the soldier folded himself into the chair.
Skarn scratched at his scarred lobe, eyes darting over Kellan’s shoulder in the direction of Garr's cot."With 'em, I reckon.Ground shook like a dyin' beast, splits openin' wide.Mists poured out, burnin' the eyes.Then the horrors—eyes like coals, teeth serrated as saws.King shouted orders, we formed up.But numbers...aye, they had us."
Kellan pressed on, cot by cot, the questions a steady drill: the timing of the ambush, the beasts' movements, Thorgrin's final words, the escape through the blizzard.The answers came in fragments, a mosaic of consistency that felt too neat, too synchronized.Garr spoke of "dozens" swarming from the east; Skarn, from the west.One veteran, a grizzled soldier named Twine, swore the first claw struck Thorgrin's thigh before the side; another, a lanky Islesman called Vira, reversed it.The beasts were taller than a man?Aye, they chorused—yet some claimed they stood three times their height, whereas others swore they were no more than a couple of feet taller than Kellan standing in the doorway.And Aiden, the young princes comrade?Felled by a swipe, bitten by two, or crushed by a rock hurled from one of the beasts.Their accounts differed.
By the tenth man, Kellan's jaw ached from clenching.The tales aligned on the grand strokes—Thorgrin's heroism, the beasts' ferocity—but frayed at the edges like poorly woven cloth.Pauses too long before answers, and now men were roused and awake, watching what was going on, there were glances exchanged like coded signals.
And Proudlock himself?The lieutenant had vanished into the nobles' manors after his audience with the queen, claiming need for rest."A hero's due," Aldrich had purred when Kellan had inquired that evening.But heroes didn't dodge questions.
As the first gray light of dawn seeped through arrow-slit windows, Kellan stepped into the corridor, signaling two guards to bar the door.His mind churned: inconsistencies piled like storm clouds.The timing—Proudlock's return coinciding precisely with the Council's proclamation, as if scripted by the same quill.Kellan was a soldier, not a politician, but he had been in and around the court long enough to know that things took time, especially when different houses were involved.The council had been formed and had moved with lightning speed.It also involved only a select few nobles and merchants.Were others exempt or was it simply opportunity and geography that had meant they were involved?
His instincts were ringing the alarm bell, but he also knew that in times like this rumor and paranoia could run amok.The last thing he wanted to do was fan those flames.
His instincts were rarely wrong though.He would not have survived this long if that wasn’t the case.
Aldrich's "generous" granaries: Kellan knew the lord's ledgers from war audits; those silos had stood half-empty since the last harvest, grain hoarded for black-market sales.Elowen's scouts, deployed "for the borders"—yet whispers from the walls spoke of them riding south, toward the nobles' estates, not the canyon.And Holt's steel caravans?Arriving unbidden, guarded by private arms, not Legion banners.
Treachery.It reeked of it, subtle as poison in wine.Not beasts alone, but hands unseen pulling strings—perhaps the Empire's remnants beyond the Shield, or closer: ambitious lords chafing under Thorgrin's reforms, the elevation of common blood over ancient titles.Instead of protection, was the Council a noose, tightening under mourning's cover.
Kellan did not want to go to the queen with his thoughts.The last thing she needed were half baked theories he could not back up with evidence.He needed allies—steel he could trust, untainted by gold or grudge.He made for the Shield Guard's sanctum, a vaulted chamber beneath the eastern tower, its walls hung with ancestral blades and shields etched with oaths.Here, he knew that loyalty was forged in fire, not bought in coin.He rapped the iron-bound door thrice— the signal:Steadfast endures—and it swung open to reveal Sergeant Lirra, his second, a lithe warrior from the Western Isles with braids like coiled serpents and eyes sharp as her dagger.Behind her stood Corporal Talin, a broad-shouldered Highlander with a laugh like gravel and a mace that had crushed skulls, and Ensign Mira, a raven-haired scout whose arrows never missed, her quiet demeanor hiding a mind like a trap.
They rose from their posts, faces hardening at Kellan's expression.The sanctum's central table bore a half-eaten meal—cold meats, dark bread—but they pushed it aside as he entered, the door sealing with a resonant thud.
Kellan unrolled a map of the Ring across the scarred oak—borders inked red, noble estates marked with black thorns.He recounted the night's interrogations: the mismatched details, the rehearsed cadence, the vanished Proudlock."Garr says east, Skarn west.Twine claims thigh first, Vira side.Even allowing for the chaos of battle, there are too many holes, while around them it is suspiciously solid."
