Draka waved for Valmond to return to the table. He took the bowl of stew with his right hand and tipped it to his lips. Salty, meaty broth filled his mouth with grains of herbs and seasons as he watched them at his table. Aurie, the mother. Maud, the daughter. Adrian, the son he never had. Valmond, the dutiful friend. Alice, the organizer. He took another sip, spreading his mouth wider to catch chunks of meat and chopped vegetables.

  Their laughter filled the shadows left by the lamplight and hearth. Their quips were warming. Alice and Valmond, with their smiling kisses. Aurie with her periodic glances in his direction that he met by holding the bowl for her to see his thankfulness. Maud set herself across from Adrian, her head-raised cackles and beaming smiles making the warmth of that light all the warmer. And Adrian. They didn’t see it, but Draka knew that his laughs and quick wit were the shield of his grief.

  “He chased her around the house,” Maud said at one point between teary-eyed guffaws. “They were doing circles! There goes Vigora, prancing. And then Draka, looking like he was going to skin her.”

  “I’ll have you know that that horse has her own reputation in the palace back home,” Adrian helped himself to another scoop from the pot set in the middle of the table. “If you have an opened door, she was going to walk through it. To this day, our stablemen have no idea how she gets out.”

  “Little shit is constantly eating from my garden,” Aurie chuckled with another glance to Draka.

  His family. They were all here at his table. Those he loves. Those he had yet to lose. To see their faces in the firelight, elevated in the sense that nothing could tear them from him, as he once felt before. Only once. And this time, it was hurting even more. In his heart, where the vice was still tight, still squeezing at his chest, he knew that this was just as fragile as when he would sit at Philip and Isa’s table with Adrian bouncing on his lap with a wooden sword in hand. As fragile as when he spent his days playing hide-and-go-seek with the boy that had become the man at his table. Philip’s laughter, like a shovel running over gravel, would never be heard again. His chair wasn’t there, but Draka saw his place, beside his grown son, beaming at him with that half-cocked grin that never showed teeth. Always a joke with that man. Even in the heat of battle, Philip had something to say that would make you chuckle amidst the chaos.

  “Do I have something in my teeth?” Maud asked Adrian when Aurie and Alice began clearing their empty bowls while Valmond scrubbed at the pot over the hearth.

  Adrian turned from her, pleading to Draka to save him. Draka only shrugged.

  “You’re what, thirteen? Fourteen?” Maud coaxed him.

  “Eighteen last month.”

  Draka rolled his eyes at himself for getting his age wrong. Aurie gave him the exact look he would have given himself when she grabbed his empty bowl from him. She shook her head at him. Her grin warmed him.

  “You act like you’re fourteen,” Maud was being haughty as ever.

  Adrian gave another pleading look to Draka before meeting her narrow-eyed gaze with a brimming, embarrassed smile. “Sometimes, we need to laugh. If I make you smile once in a day, I think being a little stupid and young like is well worth it.”

  Draka’s brows creased at him. He leaned to see Maud’s reaction over the chair and table. She was blushing, blinking her way from meeting his gaze. Draka narrowed his eyes. He snapped his fingers at Adrian and waved for him to come over to his bedside. As soon as Adrian did, Draka bent a finger at him to come closer. Then he swatted the back of his head to a chorus of laughter from everyone else in the room.

  “It was a good one, though,” Adrian said under his breath, sinking beneath Draka’s glare.

  When everything was cleaned and everyone was shuffling out, Maud kissed Draka’s cheek and hugged him. Aurie made certain that Maud was carrying the pot out the door before nodding her goodbye from the doorway. Valmond looked him over, made sure his pillow was fluffed, helped him to lay back down, and gave him his normal, “See you in the morning, your Majesty,” before helping Alice with what remained to be done.

  Adrian hovered at the doorway, watching them. The cool air made Draka pull the covers over his bare feet. Adrian sank back from the door and shut it, the smile faded as it met the hazy orange glow within. He came to his knees beside Draka and folded his hands together to pray. Draka shut his eyes and, though it made him grit his teeth through the ache, he clasped his hands.

  “Lord God Almighty, who raised your people out of slavery into the land of milk and honey,” Adrian prayed, his eyes clenched shut, “Please lend your blessings upon those who sat at Draka’s table this night. Care for them and all those who are intertwined in their lives so that they may live long and full lives without sorrow, without suffering, in Your name, by Your Will. Tonight, as we lay our heads, may we dream of your Holy Light and be uplifted by Your Holy Spirit. By Your Will, and Your Will alone, we pray. Amen.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Amen, Draka mouthed as he watched Adrian climb to his feet and lay on the mat he had made for himself across the room. The hearth fire reflected over Adrian’s stilled face, over the bottles he had lined at his head, and over the blanket he had wrapped himself in. Stilled and at peace. Draka wondered what he might be dreaming in the warmth. Wondered what he might be feeling when he closed his eyes and let his imagination take control of his vision behind those lids of his. Snug in that blanket, only rising and falling with his breathing.

  Draka shifted himself to get comfortable on his back. He stared at the beams above him, at the jagged tops of the stones that dripped with trails of water like the dew on leaves. He watched the hues of the fire dance across their shadows and tried to steady himself. Philip was gone. The boy sleeping on the other side of the house was without a father. He was without his closest, dearest friend. His brother in all but blood. The only other constant in his life dashed away.

  It had been months since he had really thought about Philip, or Adrian for that matter. But now, he felt the emptiness of his loss. He felt the heaviness on Adrian’s shoulders. Why would he have thought about them? They were always there, a letter or ride away, where they always were. Philip on his campaigns, valiant as he ever was. Adrian never far behind. All he had to do was write and they would answer. All he had to do was ride and he knew he would find Philip eventually, meeting him with ale and jokes as if nothing had ever changed between them. As if time hadn’t passed. As if everything hadn’t changed in their absence.

  Philip. Brother. Friend. Comrade in arms. They shared blood because they had spilt theirs together, had survived the worst of frays together, had been side by side for a lifetime…for Adrian’s lifetime. Maud’s lifetime. Gone. Ripped apart. Because he’s hunted. Not Philip. Not Adrian. He is. And they were his bait. Just like Maud was not so long ago. Barely a nightmare ago.

  Draka waited until he knew Adrian wouldn’t wake before he slid the door open and stepped lightly onto the porch with his boots laced together over his shoulder. He had grabbed his sword and belt and quietly buckled it before he went to the door. He made sure that Adrian didn’t wake from the few muffled chimes of the buckles. It was the black pelt he pulled to himself, the one Balian and Aurie had slept with when they spent that last night in place of where Adrian was now. The door shut behind him with barely a brushing sound. His toes felt the icy porch through the socks. He pulled on his boots and buckled their straps over the tightened laces. Aching shoulder or not, he couldn’t make a sound and risk waking him.

  Vigora was nestled against Pearl in the same stall, reunited with her own daughter. He decided to leave her. She loved Maud. She loved Adrian. He loves her. With a wrap of his pelt over his shoulders, Draka notched the toggles, and looked to the trees beyond the shed in front of him. The shed where he kept his damaged armor that he was still waiting on the replacement for. The shed where he kept his few tanning racks and skinning knives.

  The air tasted cold. Moist. There was no frost, but it would be coming soon, he knew. The dark of the sky was bright enough for him to see from a moon covered by clouds.

  He looked toward Aurie’s house. The light glow of their hearth glistened through their garden window at him. A hand went to his shoulder. The cold had made it ache a bit more. He swallowed it down. The thought of how much they had already suffered because of him, of how much more they will suffer if he stays, rushed over him as he watched the flickering of the glow in their window. Because he loves them. Because they are his family.

  ‘Not yet.’ Draka froze to the thunderous command within him.

  They’re in danger if I don’t.

  ‘Still your heart, friend,’ Philip’s voice took its place. ‘They’ll be in more danger if you do.’

  Draka shook his head away from that tiny glow beyond Aurie’s garden. His eyes were on those trees. The Abbey beyond, waiting. Taunting him.

  He sat on the edge of his porch and pulled the pelt tighter around him. It has been long enough. The Abbey needed to be dealt with. It needed to be reconquered from the creatures that had taken it. To make them safer, he needed to take it back.

  For them to be safe, he needed to prepare. He needs to be ready.

  Sophia, Draka wished he could scream it. What did you do?

  She allowed herself to be possessed, attacked their child, destroyed all that he loved then. And now, it is her searching for him? How could that be? It was him who had sworn to go into hell to retrieve her unjudged soul. Because even his people knew that was what happened when you died while possessed—your soul was dragged into the Enemy’s domain as his plaything. How could she be the one searching for him, then? She’s a plaything entertaining angels, nothing more.

  A chill shook him. There were too many questions. And if he is being hunted, then even approaching the Abbey would provoke them. What he saw when he died, when he felt his son in his arms, was not what should have happened. It was hell pulling him down into it, but it was his son who came to carry him away from them. Still an infant, still unable to do more than suckle and sleep. But they were pulling him down from him. With him.

  Draka narrowed his eyes at the trees before him, grayed as if they already had frost clenching them. They know where he is because of that. Aurie’s house drew his gaze as the thought sent another chill down his spine.

  They know where to find them.

  He needed to prepare. The hunter will become the hunted.