My eyes snapped open.

  The feeling of helplessness lingered. The power that had bound Lumi was too familiar. The same pressure. The same infection that had cursed my veins my entire life.

  The sword lay motionless at my side.

  “That was you,” I said quietly. “Lumi.”

  A faint vibration travelled down its length.

  “It was.”

  The certainty in the answer tightened my throat.

  I swallowed and forced myself to think. “I felt it all. Adarin. He used the blood weapon on that thing.” My fingers closed around the hilt. “That’s how you were released. The curse didn’t break. You didn’t escape. You were severed.”

  Silence followed.

  I waited, heart pounding.

  Finally, the hum returned. Thinner this time. Uneven.

  “Yes.”

  My grip loosened without me meaning to. Emotion rose too fast to sort. Gratitude tangled with grief. Awe edged with guilt.

  “Adarin,” I asked quietly. “What happened to him.”

  The blade shimmered once, light rippling like a reflex. I felt the name pass through it.

  “Gone,” Lumi replied. “Long ago.”

  There was no feeling in the words. Just distance. Time worn smooth.

  I nodded. Immortal in name only.

  I rested my forehead against the flat of the blade. “Alright,” I murmured.

  The hum steadied.

  I lay back and stared at the ceiling. The memory replayed without Lumi, again and again. Each time it reached the same point, my thoughts slid away.

  Rain tapped softly on the roof. Constant. By the time sleep took me, the sound had thinned to an uneven patter.

  When I woke again, light spilled across the room.

  The rain had stopped sometime before dawn.

  I dressed slowly and went downstairs.

  Doyle was already in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing a pan that looked spotless. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled when he saw me.

  “You right there, young master?”

  I nodded, though the motion felt stiff. “It’s been a rough few days,” I said. The words came out flatter than I meant them to.

  “Mmm.” He set the pan aside and wiped his hands on a cloth. “No shame in that. You’ve earned a bit of rest.” He nodded toward the window. “Quiet day, at least for us.”

  “For once,” I said.

  He poured me a mug of something warm and set it on the table before I could ask. “The siblings are heading into the city this morning. Visiting their father. Brent and Jerald will be tied up with the new recruits all day, setting up sparring venues.”

  I paused with the mug halfway to my mouth. “Venues?”

  Doyle chuckled softly. “Aspirants don’t travel halfway across the region just to swing at posts. Once word spreads, the town will swell.” His smile thinned. “Nobles. Fighters from other kingdoms. Spectators with more coin than sense.”

  The mug slipped a fraction in my grip.

  I went still.

  “That’s… not a problem?” I asked carefully. “I mean. Wouldn’t that make things risky. You all said there were ways to detect my…” I lowered my voice and glanced toward the door. “Condition.”

  Doyle followed my look, then nodded once. “Aye. There are.”

  My stomach tightened.

  “But,” he added, turning back to the bench, “you’re in luck. Of a sort.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

  He smiled, but there was something cautious behind it. “The Veratii are expected to attend.”

  The name snagged in my head. Not a memory exactly. More like a loose thread brushing against something buried deeper.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “The Veratii,” I repeated. “Why does that sound familiar?”

  “Because they’re old folk,” Doyle said mildly. “And because people don’t like what they can’t make use of.” He paused, choosing his words. “They specialise in ancient runes. Very specific ones.”

  “Specific how?”

  “Limited reach. Limited power. Too narrow to impress anyone chasing raw force.” He shrugged. “Most consider them failures.”

  My eyebrow rose despite myself. “That sounds… useless.”

  “Or convenient,” Doyle said. “Depending on who you ask.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “And Jerald?”

  Doyle met my eyes. “Jerald believes your special metallic affinity makes those limitations irrelevant.”

  I grinned.

  “He’s ordered enough,” Doyle went on, voice even, “to make them useful to you.”

  The feeling hit me all at once. Not relief exactly. More like a door opening somewhere I hadn’t realised was locked.

  It felt like room to breathe.

  “When?” I asked, the word coming out sharper than I meant it to.

  “This afternoon,” Doyle said. “Sooner is better. We need you undetectable as quickly as we can manage.”

  I nodded, already running through what that meant.

  “For now,” he added, “stay here. Out of sight. Rest.” His gaze flicked to my hands. “Let yourself mend.”

  That part I did not argue with. My body still felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry.

  As I turned to go, Doyle paused and nodded toward the lower rooms. “And what are you planning to do about all the… many items below?”

  I followed his look.

  I smiled despite myself. “I’ll clean them up.”

  His brow lifted slightly, but he said nothing. Just gave a short nod and let me pass.

  It was still early. Hopefully, too early for anyone else to be moving about. The house felt hollow as I went downstairs, footsteps echoing faintly.

  The storage room was worse than I remembered.

  Crates sat open where they had been rifled through yesterday. Steel lay scattered across tables and the floor.

  And there was more coming by week’s end.

  I rested my hand on Lumi’s hilt.

  The corrupted rune caught the light. The metal around it looked wrong. Not shattered, but thinned. Brittle, like dried clay stretched too far.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked quietly.

  The sword did not answer.

  You become what you eat.

  I fed Lumi clean metal first, pressing the blade into un-runed steel and reducing it to ash. Each offering tightened the fracture around the corrupted rune. Not healing. Binding. By the time I stopped, my arm ached and my chest felt tight, but the metal no longer looked ready to crumble.

  Only then did I turn to the runed pieces. Contract and core runes unravelled as Lumi consumed them, their light folding in on itself before vanishing. None were new. They only reinforced what was already there. Still, the new contracts settled uncomfortably close to the corrupted kinetic rune.

  Too close.

  When the room was empty, I leaned on the table, breathing through the strain. “We’ll have to be careful,” I said.

  Lumi did not answer.

  The new contracts were meant for energy control and conservation. I triggered them, feeling power move through me in a steady flow, then fade without resistance or backlash.

  “Maybe that one’s for you,” I murmured, resting my hand on the blade.

  Lumi’s hum shifted. Lower. Considering. “Perhaps.”

  I smiled. “Feel better?”

  The silence answered.

  I waited, then let the smile fade. I had felt it in the memory. His fear. Awe. Hunger. Wonder. Anger.

  The immortal had pulled him from the dark. From whatever he was supposed to become.

  I shook the thought away before it could settle. Pity would not help either of us.

  My breath fogged as I scanned the room.

  My gaze caught on the carved door.

  Roman figures marched across its surface and my mind. Soldiers. Senators. Red daggers flashing. White marble streaked dark. Zealots cutting down voices that had thought themselves untouchable.

  There were answers behind that door. I was certain of it.

  “Am I ready?” I asked quietly.

  Lumi answered at once.

  “No.”

  I nodded. The certainty in it left no room to argue.

  “Then tell me,” I said. “What do I need to get stronger.”

  The hum deepened.

  “Feed.”

  A short laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Of course.”

  The word lingered. Feed.

  The hag’s voice echoed in my head. The way the ground had screamed. The sound of bone breaking under pressure that was never meant to exist.

  The Shepherd.

  For some reason, the thought did not hollow me out. It terrified me.

  But it also gave me direction.

  An idea took shape. Irresponsible. Outright dangerous. And far too tempting to ignore.

  “So, if I get stronger and let you feed,” I asked quietly, “can I go in there?”

  Lumi hummed once. Agreement.

  I looked back at the carved door. At the figures frozen mid-march. At the history cut into stone.

  My fingers tightened on the hilt.

  “Alright,” I murmured.

  The sword did not answer.

  But it leaned, ever so slightly, toward the door.

  Soon, Jerald would arrive, carrying the last piece of the puzzle I needed.

  “In just a few days,” I said quietly. “We’re going in.”

  “Going where?” Rob asked.

  I turned. He was tightening the straps on his bracers, already half in training mode. I grinned.

  “Nowhere special.”

  He snorted. “More secret presents you’re organising? Amelia reckons she’s already figured it out. Won’t tell me though.”

  “Good,” I said, laughing. “At least one of you should be surprised.”

  He huffed, then his eyes lit up. “Fancy a spar?”

  I glanced at the rack of wooden swords and felt my grin widen. Lumi sat dull and masked in its scabbard. Harmless. The wooden blade felt almost weightless when I picked it up.

  We squared off.

  “Ready?” Rob asked.

  He lunged without warning.

  I barely got my guard up in time, wood cracking against wood. “Cheap shot,” I scoffed.

  He smirked.

  We circled. He shifted his grip, eyes flicking up. “So,” he said casually, “what’s going on with you and Celeste?”

  I hesitated.

  That was enough.

  He slipped straight through my guard and smacked my side. “Ouch!”

  “And nothing,” I managed, winded.

  “Yeah, I’m calling bullshit, mate.”

  I pressed forward, forcing him back a step. He scowled, then grinned and came at me again.

  “Whole time I was stuck with her out in the fields,” he said, “she wouldn’t stop asking about you.”

  I froze.

  Whack.

  “Really?” I hissed, more breath than word.

  “Mate,” Rob said, tapping his sword against mine, “you’re wide open.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  I tried to sound casual. “So… what’d she ask?”

  I swung. Rob turned it aside easily, annoyance flashing as he came back at me with a proper strike. I caught it, then lunged.

  “I dunno. Usual stuff. Where you’re from. That kind of thing.”

  “That all?”

  He shrugged, moving again, trying a clumsy feint that telegraphed itself a mile away.

  I smacked him hard across the back.

  “Right,” he said, wincing. “Note to self. That don’t work.”

  “Come on,” I said. “What else?”

  He hesitated this time. “Honestly? Half of it didn’t make sense.” He frowned. “I can’t tell if she’s afraid of you… or if she’s got some kind of grudge.”

  Something sank in my chest.

  Whack!

  Rob clipped me hard.