I'agrod
Snow had begun falling through the roof of the northern Gauntlet branch.
It settled on broken tables, spilled ledgers, and the bodies of men who had believed rules were stronger than the child standing among them.
I'agrod wore blue because blood looked honest on it.
His long coat had once belonged to an imperial officer and still carried the pale marks where rank pins had been torn away. He stood in the doorway with one gloved hand resting on the pommel of his curved sword and surveyed the ruined hall.
The branch boss remained alive behind the registration counter. So did three followers who had understood early enough that courage and intelligence were not always friends. None moved.
At the centre of the room stood a boy of twelve.
He was small even for his age. Snow melted in his dark hair. His plain white travelling clothes bore no blood despite the dead around him, and the sword at his back was almost as long as he was tall.
In one hand he held a sealed quest slip.
In the other, a narrow vial of colourless elixir.
"You killed the registrar," I'agrod said.
The boy glanced at the body nearest the cold stove. "He declined the quest."
"Registrars do that. It is why the Gauntlet gives them desks instead of swords."
"He used both badly."
I'agrod smiled.
The smile troubled the survivors more than the bodies had.
He crossed the hall, stepping around a dead contractor whose hand still enclosed half a crystal token. The boy watched him approach without changing stance.
"You are I'agrod," the boy said.
"On expensive days."
"You worked with Calci K."
The smile remained, but something behind it shut.
"Many people worked with K. Fewer admit it after."
"You taught him the blade."
"I corrected his worst habits. He kept the interesting ones."
The last time I'agrod had seen K, they had stood on opposite sides of a monster's steaming carcass in the northern ice. Six villagers had survived. The contract had required an artifact recovered from the creature's nest. K had chosen the villagers. I'agrod had chosen the contract.
Both men had called the other dishonest.
Only one of them had been right, and I'agrod had spent years refusing to decide which.
The branch relay blazed blue behind the counter.
The boss flinched.
The boy did not.
A woman's face formed above the relay crystal, enormous and wavering in the cold room. The silver collar of Welhemdor headquarters framed her throat.
"Aldin Sword," she said. "This branch operates under the Northern Compact. Church personnel possess no execution authority within Gauntlet walls. Under covenant rule twelve, any quest compelled by violence is void. Under crown accord four—"
"You speak as if they are alive to file a complaint," the boy said.
The headquarters official's expression tightened. "Your age does not exempt you from politics."
"Your politics did not exempt them from dying."
"The Church will answer for this."
The boy lifted the vial and watched the clear liquid divide around an air bubble.
"I am not acting on behalf of the Church."
For the first time, the official looked afraid.
"Then under whose authority are you acting?"
The boy touched two fingers to the relay.
"Mine."
He broke the connection.
Blue light collapsed into the crystal. Snow whispered through the hole in the roof.
I'agrod laughed.
It began low and climbed until the surviving contractors pressed closer to the wall. He had not laughed that way since K walked away from the monster contract with a child on each shoulder and an insult for every step.
The boy offered him the quest slip.
I'agrod took it.
The seal belonged to no Gauntlet branch and no Church office. Inside were three lines: a road leaving Erenora, a royal carriage marked for the arena, and the name Kavie.
Beneath them, written smaller, was K.
I'agrod read the name twice.
"A reunion," he said.
The boy held out the vial.
"Insurance."
I'agrod turned the quest slip over. "Against failure?"
"Against choice."
The branch boss found enough courage to whisper, "Don't drink that."
I'agrod looked at him over one shoulder. "This is why no one gives you the interesting work."
He accepted the elixir.
The liquid had no smell. When he held it toward the broken roof, it bent the falling snow into shapes that vanished whenever he tried to focus on them.
He could refuse.
The dead proved what refusal cost, but death had never persuaded him as reliably as boredom. Beyond these walls waited Kavie the Brilliant, a royal carriage, and the student who had once been his partner and left calling him a coward.
I'agrod pulled the stopper with his teeth.
"What does it do?" he asked.
"It makes the quest simpler."
"Simple things are usually lies."
He drank.
Cold spread beneath his tongue, then upward behind his eyes. For a moment the ruined branch appeared impossibly sharp: every flake of snow, every grain in the tables, every pulse beating in the throats of the living.
Then the sensation passed.
Almost.
The boy turned toward the northern door.
I'agrod slid the empty vial into his blue coat, drew his sword, and watched his own reflection curve along its edge. His pupils looked too wide. His grin looked wider.
"Time to make things interesting," he said.
Outside, the road to Erenora disappeared beneath the snow that they walked on, a week before the execution of the previous king.