Morning broke over Harta in muted gray, the river mist hungrily filling the low lanes. Bells tolled from the fortress spire — slow, deliberate, heavy — not for worship, but warning. Every man and woman in the capital knew that sound: the call to order, the call to obedience.
New decrees were nailed to every post before the sun had fully risen. Curfews. Searches. Rewards for information. The ink on the parchments still gleamed wet, and at the bottom of each sheet, in bold black, the royal seal of King Mansis shimmered like oil.
Darian Duskbane — traitor to the crown.
Wanted dead or alive. Reward: ten thousand crowns.
By midday the posters were defaced across half the city — scratched, torn down, daubed with crude drawings of severed serpents.
In the catacombs beneath the northern quarter, Darian crouched by the dying light of a lantern. Even kneeling, his head nearly brushed the damp stone. The air smelled of mold and iron, the odor of old secrets.
Before him lay a hand-drawn map: the castle, the guard towers, the barracks. Every choke point, every patrol path. He had memorized this ground once as a servant of the rightful king; now he studied it as an intruder.
He traced a calloused finger along the southern gate. "Two shifts. Four men at dawn, six at dusk. The watch captain changes every three nights. That's when they'll sign the treaty."
A voice answered from the shadow. "And you mean to stop it."
Queen Nina stepped into the weak light, her cloak drawn tight, her face hidden beneath a deep hood. Even in the dimness Darian could see the iron resolve in her eyes. She brought no guards, no servants — only danger and defiance.
"They'll ride through the South Gate at dusk," she said. "King Halvek of Tirnovia and his escort. Mansis intends to pledge troops to Halvek's invasion. If that treaty stands, half the continent will burn."
Darian looked up, the lantern catching the harsh planes of his face. "You want me to kill him."
"No." Nina's voice softened but kept its edge. "You're no assassin. But that treaty must not be signed. Mansis has already lost face — make Halvek lose faith in him. Make him see weakness, and he will waver."
Darian studied her. "You know what you ask. There will be blood either way."
"There already is," she said, steel under sorrow. "But not his. Not yet."
Above ground the city seethed. Guards marched in pairs through the market lanes, stopping carts and questioning traders. People lowered their heads and said nothing. Spies listened behind walls.
At the heart of that enforcement rode Sir Silas Varron, the king's favored blade.
Silas was lean where Darian was broad, sharp where Darian was blunt. His face, once handsome, had a tight cruelty now. His armor shone like silver and bore the serpent sigil on the breastplate.
He reined his horse outside a tailor's shop and dismounted with the slow confidence of one who expects obedience. The tailor trembled. Silas smiled — a smile that never reached his eyes.
"You've heard the whispers?" he purred. "About the butcher's boy returned from the dark? The outlaw knight?" He leaned close. "Tell me where."
The tailor's voice broke. "I don't know, my lord. Only — only the tavern folk —"
"The Broken Pike," Silas finished, amused. "So the vermin gather to toast their ghost. How poetic."
He turned to his men. "Burn it."
The guards hesitated. "My lord, the tavern — there are people inside —"
Silas' hand flashed. He struck the nearest man across the face with the back of his gauntlet; blood spattered the cobbles. "Then they chose their company poorly."
Minutes later, smoke rose over the eastern quarter.
Darian saw the plume from the rooftops. Black, oily, defiant — the Pike. The tavern's flames meant more than a roof lost; they were a message. The people had spoken in whispers. Silas had answered with fire.
For a long instant Darian stood very still, the wind tugging his cloak. Then, without a word, he moved.
He fell through alleys like a shadow — eight feet of silent fury, each step measured. When he reached the burning tavern the guards were gone; the roof had collapsed in places and flames chewed at beams. A figure stumbled from the smoke — Mira, the barmaid, apron charred, hair streaked with ash. She fell against him, coughing.
"They came for your name," she rasped. "Silas — he — he said—"
"I know," Darian answered. He caught her as she toppled, lowering her gently to the wet cobbles. Her eyes met his, glazed with tears.
"They'll keep burning, won't they?" she whispered.
"They will," Darian said, voice low and terrible in its calm. "And someone will stop them."
That night the city slept under the weight of fear. Darian did not.
He returned to the tunnels with Queen Nina's plan burning in his mind. Halvek would be signing the treaty under heavy guard. Darian had no army — only a handful of loyal shadows: old soldiers, smugglers, servants who remembered Jameson's mercy. But he had something mightier than numbers: the castle's bones.
He moved through the culverts with a torch, marking walls with chalk, counting paces. Every turn was etched into memory — drainage grates, forgotten wells, old wartime escape routes. Beneath the dais where the treaty would be signed ran a disused culvert that fed into the banquet hall's underfloor vents.
The plan took shape like stormclouds. A spark in the banquet fire. Smoke rising from beneath the floor. Panic. Confusion. If Halvek's confidence was shaken before ink dried, the treaty would be a bad bargain — perhaps no bargain at all.
And if his plan failed — Darian clenched his fists — then it would be war.
He was not alone.
From the darkness Nurse Lira emerged, cloak damp with rain, hair streaked with gray. "You mean to interfere with the treaty?" she whispered.
"You shouldn't be here," Darian said sharply.
"Neither should you." Her voice softened. "The princes ask about you, you know. The elder remembers you from the old days. He says you were his father's lion."
Darian turned away. "A lion in chains."
"They need you," she said gently. "But if you fall now — if Mansis wins — they will grow under a monster's rule. Think what that will make them."
He fixed her with a long look. "I think of it every day."
Dusk came and the torches at the southern gate flared. The visiting king and his retinue were quartered in the western wing. From a tower balcony Queen Nina watched, her hands clenched; Mansis stood beside her, smiling his serpent's smile, his eyes bright with false hospitality.
"Soon," he murmured, "the world will know our power."
"The world already knows your rot," Nina said under her breath.
He turned. "What was that?"
"Nothing, Majesty," she replied smoothly; the smile did not reach her eyes.
Below, the hall filled: the muffled clatter of boots, the rustle of finery, the forced laughter of lords. Darian crouched by the old culvert grate, a leather pouch in one huge hand. Inside shimmered fine powder — a mix of ground niter and ash, drawn from the castle's old stores. Enough to choke and blind, enough to turn comfort into chaos.
He waited for the signal — a single toll from the city bell at the hour's change. When it came, distant and hollow, Darian rose.
With one great sweep he hurled the pouch through the iron grate. A faint hiss, then a bloom of smoke, slow at first, then rising through cracks into the hall.
The hall turned to chaos.
Knights and lords coughed, hands clawing at eyes. Servants screamed. Mansis shouted for guards. Halvek coughed with watery eyes, his brow furrowing in alarm. Silas drew his sword and strode forward, but sightless panic had already taken root.
Through the haze a single shout rose — whether a cry of rage or praise no one could be certain.
"The people's knight!"
The words rolled through the smoke like thunder.
By the time the air cleared and the servants had swept the last of the haze away, Halvek's temper had been spent and his confidence shaken. The signing dissolved into argument and accusation; Mansis stood humiliated before his court. In the confusion one serpent-sigiled guard vanished into the corridors — Silas slipping away, fury simmering beneath the surface.
He knew who had done this.
Far below the castle, where the city slept uneasily, Darian was already gone.
That night in the black halls of the fortress, Silas swore an oath.
Next time he would not chase a shadow.
He would bring back Darian Duskbane's head.