A loud smack echoed in the inner walls as Matthias struck the archer across the face.
"You stupid man," Matthias hissed. "We need Vencian Vicorra alive. What would you have done if that arrow hit him instead of his knight?"
The archer didn’t respond, eyes lowered. Another figure stepped up beside them and placed a hand on Matthias’s shoulder.
"Calm down," the man said. His voice was smooth but flat. He wore a dark traveling cloak with a high collar, and a strip of cloth covered the lower half of his face. Pale eyes, stared out from under a hood. "It was a mistake, but at least the target is isolated now. I’ve already deployed the others after him. He won’t get far."
Matthias shrugged off the hand and turned a glare on the masked man.
"You had one job. One. Capture him alive. What am I supposed to tell my lord if this fails?"
"Like I said," the man replied calmly, "he’s alone. It’s better this way. We’ll retrieve him before he can reach help."
Matthias didn’t answer right away. He looked toward the far end of the courtyard, where several robed figures moved in the dark, dragging unconscious bodies from the stable entrance.
Just beyond them, a single form lay motionless. Blood soaked the dirt beneath him, and at least three other bodies lay nearby, fallen with him. His sword was still clutched in one hand.
Matthias’s jaw tightened. He had only called for small number of men, expecting a clean capture.
Three targets. Sedated. No real resistance. Instead, they’d been caught off-guard. Vencian had seen through the ruse just in time.
"We were supposed to take them by surprise," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
"Just pray you’re right," he said. "Because if you’re wrong, my lord won’t accept failure. Not from me. Not from you."
Footsteps approached. A young monk jogged into view and bowed quickly.
"My lord. It seems Vencian didn’t eat the food."
Matthias exhaled sharply. "That explains it. I thought we had more time."
He tightened his grip around a crumpled sheet of parchment in his hand. The same letter that should have reached the Vicorra estate.
He’d tampered with the monastery’s communication machine before allowing Vencian access. Disconnected the relay. His instincts had been correct. Vencian hadn’t trusted him. And worse, he’d set a search in motion.
We can’t let them find Sebastian. If he speaks, Lord Ortega will be the least of my concerns, he thought bitterly.
The masked man was still standing silently at his side. Matthias didn’t look at him again.
"Sweep the area," Matthias ordered. "Every path, every ravine. Find him before morning."
The men moved quickly.
Matthias stood still a moment longer, looking out at the treeline beyond the gates.
"You should have just accepted your fate, Vicorra," he muttered. "It had saved us both from the trouble."
Vencian cursed himself as he kept moving through the dark. He had long forgotten which way he was going.
His only concern was to go far away from the Saint Aldric’s.
"It’s not your fault, Lucian," Quenya said. Her voice was filled with sympathy.
He hated how those words almost managed to provide him comfort.
The gallop had slowed. His body didn’t have much left in it. Neither did the horse. The adrenaline was burning out, leaving only the dry, buzzing quiet that came after a storm.
The trees began to thin. Roots broke through the ground in twisted lines, forcing him to guide the horse carefully or risk a shattered ankle for the beast.
Quenya drifted close, her glow dimmer than usual, but he didn’t speak to her. Words felt... irrelevant.
And Larik was likely gone too. They hadn’t seen him fall, but the odds weren’t generous. Not after that last look.
He steered off the path and let the horse come to a stop beside a small clearing. A thin stream cut through the soil, barely more than a trickle, but its gurgling seemed loud in the silence.
He dismounted awkwardly, too slow. The real Vencian would have been much faster, but he wasn’t Vencian.
The moment his boots hit the ground, his knees almost buckled.
He didn’t sit. Sitting felt like surrender. Instead, he stood by the water, arms hanging loose at his sides, watching the current crawl past like it had nowhere important to be.
The thought was clean. Just a fact. A fact with weight. Not soaked in self-pity.
He wasn’t supposed to feel this much. He’d thought the numbness was permanent. Life as Luke had taught him that.
Years of rejection. Of feeling invisible in a crowd unless someone needed to laugh at something beneath them. Of funerals with empty chairs and nothing left to say.
And he had done nothing.
He knew what a sword was. Knew what a fight looked like. He’d seen it in Vencian’s memories. But that didn’t put strength in his arms or instinct in his bones.
He should’ve led better. He should’ve thought faster. He should’ve gone back.
Still, he didn’t feel like crying. It didn’t feel like a moment for that. What he felt wasn’t sadness, but something heavier.
This was the cost of bluffing through someone else’s life.
He knelt by the stream and shoved his face into the water, holding it there until his lungs started to burn. Cold tore through him.
When he finally surfaced, gasping, the world felt cleaner. Sharper.
He needed a goal. Something clear. Something hard enough to drown out what he was feeling.
Whatever secrets had started in Saint Aldric’s, Sebastian had carried them away. And someone was willing to kill to keep them buried.
And now, he didn’t need Vencian’s memories to tell him what to do next.
As the thought took root, something stirred beneath his skin, a subtle current like a thread pulling taut inside his chest. He tensed, instinctively bracing, but it wasn’t pain. It felt more like alignment.
As if a door somewhere had been nudged open, and something long held back was starting to bleed through.
He blinked and steadied himself, pressing a hand to his chest.
Just focus. The goal was clear now. Find Sebastian. Uncover the truth.
And when he looked up, Quenya was watching him, hovering as still as a statue.
"Your face..." she said softly. "It’s changed."
Before he could notice any oddity within himself, his voice arose. Thɪs chapter is updated by novelꜰire.net
"Why are you glowing?" he asked.