Chapter 22

  While Maira and Simon busied themselves in the common room, weaving layers of shimmering mana together to form the magical cage, Vin and I found ourselves—somewhat absurdly—sitting at the bar, drinking a beer. Yes, honestly. It wasn’t a joke or a break from reality. It was the simple, strange truth of the moment. We were seated at the bar of a man we both wanted to kill, who just happened to still be our host.

  Because, technically, Markus was still the innkeeper.

  That title lingered like smoke in the air—bitter, ironic, yet somehow grounding. Despite the revelations, the fury, the blood in our eyes… this was still his inn. And we were, in a twisted sense, still his guests.

  He didn’t speak to us now. He had retreated somewhere upstairs, leaving the bar unmanned. Or maybe he was giving us space, knowing full well that another comment from him might have ended the fragile truce we were barely clinging to.

  Vin sat beside me, cradling the mug in her hands, her eyes locked on the dancing foam.

  “He acts like a king,” she muttered eventually, her voice low and bitter. “But he has no throne. No crown. Just this frozen place and a handful of broken chairs.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  Markus Varnedor, once a prince of a powerful house—maybe even its heir—was now nothing more than a man who poured drinks for wanderers. His domain was no longer a castle of marble and gold, but a creaking building in the uncharted north, buried beneath snow and half-forgotten maps. His subjects? Strangers with regrets, thieves with too many enemies, merchants who had run out of better roads, and mercenaries who’d followed the wrong trail for too many years.

  This was the place people came to when they had nothing else.

  A haven for the lost.

  A last stop for those who no longer believed in destinations.

  A pitstop for those chasing myths of treasure and glory that were never real.

  And yes—sometimes, even for kings who no longer were.

  I took a slow sip of the bitter drink and let the silence settle over us. The world outside raged with snow and wind, and inside the mana cage was being prepared to trap something that had slipped through too many cracks in this world.

  But… why were we here in the first place?

  That question crept into my mind like a whisper carried on the northern wind. I turned slightly on the creaky barstool, letting my gaze drift away from the frothy rim of my mug to study the others. Simon—the warlock-battlemage—and Maira, the quiet cleric who’d grown more formidable with each passing day.

  Maira made sense, at least. She had once mentioned the Fobos Inquisition. An ancient, merciless order obsessed with purity and divine law. They hunted those who tampered with forbidden magics, and Maira—blessed or cursed with her affinity for infectious energies—was undoubtedly on their list. It was clear she'd been on the run, hiding, surviving.

  But Simon?

  His story was more complicated… and far less convincing.

  He had claimed he’d fled Neros, the capital of the elven kingdoms—mythical, resplendent, and nearly impenetrable. He spoke of an attack by necromancers, of chaos within its once-glorious walls, of separation from his family and the fall of his old life.

  But could that truly be possible?

  I narrowed my eyes, watching him in the distance as he knelt with Maira in the center of the room, arranging runes of binding for the mana cage. Simon had said Neros fell—or at least that it was breached. But…

  Neros was guarded by the Wall.

  Not just a wall. The Wall.

  The great barrier of Neros—twenty meters tall, ten meters thick, forged of arcane-calcite more durable than dragonbone. Enchanted with hundreds of sigils, ancient spells woven together by some of the greatest minds the world had ever known. It was more fortress than wall, more myth than stone. A living bastion of elven magic.

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  A successful assault on that? Impossible.

  Unthinkable.

  Something in Simon’s tale didn’t add up. Something stank.

  And yet… he clearly had lived there. He knew too many details and how he talk about it —You couldn’t fake that.

  So maybe… maybe it was only part of his story that was a lie.

  I would confront him—later. After the trap was laid. In the safety of our room, behind closed doors, when his focus wasn't on constructing magical cages. Just him and me. One question at a time.

  But then there was one person I couldn't place at all.

  I turned to Vin, still seated beside me. She hadn’t said a word in some time. Her fingers clutched the wooden tankard loosely, her green eyes fixed on the half-drunk contents as though they held the answers she refused to speak aloud.

  “Vin,” I said softly, my voice not unkind, “you’re an elf who can speak to animals and bend nature to your will. Why in all the dead gods’ names are you in the frozen north?”

  She didn’t look up.

  She just sighed.

  A sound that carried years of grief in a single breath.

  Then she spoke. And what she told me was both fascinating… and quietly tragic.

  “My brother, Hale,” she began, her voice low and steady, “was conscripted two years after the Dragon Wars began—taken by the throne’s lapdogs.”

  There was venom in her tone now. Cold, sharp, and chilling. The way her lip curled slightly, the sudden rigidity in her shoulders—it was anger that had aged well, buried deep, like a tree root twisting through stone.

  “I believe it was House Althos,” she continued, almost spitting the name. “They dragged recruits like lambs to altars. That’s what the battlefields looked like—altars. And we were the sacrifices. Nothing more than flesh to throw at fire-breathing gods.”

  Her words trembled slightly, but not from weakness. From memory. Then, without warning, her anger collapsed into something more fragile. A wounded silence wrapped around the next sentence.

  “Five years later… we received word that he had died a martyr for our people.”

  She took a slow sip from her mug. Her eyes didn’t leave the woodgrain of the bar.

  “But that word—‘martyr’—didn’t raise anyone’s spirits. Not even ours. His death didn’t inspire. It drained. It hollowed us out.”

  Another sigh, quiet and bitter. The sound of someone who had long since run out of things to cry over.

  “Anyway,” she muttered, brushing a strand of hair behind one pointed ear, “after his death, the second-born was to take up the mantle. That’s our way.”

  “You?” I asked, already knowing the answer. I just needed to hear it confirmed.

  She nodded.

  “I was twelve. And eight years later, when I turned twenty, they sent me away—to learn, to grow, to find what my people call the inner strength. To wander until I understood my purpose. Until I was worthy to lead.”

  She fell quiet again, eyes distant.

  “And I’ve been wandering for twelve years now. Still not knowing where to begin. Still unsure what that strength even looks like.”

  Her voice cracked just barely at the end. Not a sob, not a plea—just the fatigue of someone who’s been walking in circles for far too long.

  I sat in silence, letting the words settle.

  It was a haunting tale—one of duty, loss, and impossible expectations. But what caught me most wasn’t just the sadness of it. It was the math.

  If she was twelve eighteen years ago… then now she had to be—

  Gods.

  I blinked, trying not to make a face.

  I needed to seriously work on estimating the age of people.

  Not that it mattered. Time weighed differently on her people.

  “What brought you here?” Vin asked suddenly, her tone light—strangely cheerful even. The anger from earlier had been swept away, replaced by something that sounded suspiciously like curiosity. Genuine curiosity.

  I kept my reply short, careful. I wasn’t about to let the past spill out again. “I’m looking for an informant,” I said flatly, without meeting her gaze. “He’s supposed to be in Thulegard. A city in the Frostspine Mountains, or maybe west of them.”

  I paused, took a long drink, feeling the cold bitterness of the ale slide down my throat like a warning.

  “I just hope he’s still there. There’s a high bounty on his head.”

  Vin blinked, her expression faltering. “Why?”

  I shrugged slightly, pretending the details didn’t matter. “He pissed off the wrong people. Nothing extraordinary. But if he’s still breathing, and I get what I came for—”

  “You’ll claim the bounty,” she finished, her voice suddenly sharper. Sharper… and shocked.

  I nodded without speaking.

  “But… you’re a paladin!” she exclaimed, her voice rising, almost cracking—not with anger, but something close to disbelief. She stared at me, wide-eyed, like I’d just kicked over a shrine.

  Across the room, Simon and Maira glanced in our direction, brows furrowed, but returned quickly to their magical preparations.

  “Yeah,” I said simply, still staring into the dregs of my mug.

  “You’re supposed to help people,” Vin continued, her voice now trembling with something that sounded like heartbreak. “You’re supposed to protect them!”

  “Yeah,” I echoed again, barely above a whisper. This time, my answer felt heavier, dragging against my ribs.

  Her voice broke. “You should be saving people from bounties, not hunting them!”

  I didn’t flinch.

  I emptied the last of my drink in one long gulp, the bitter taste mixing with the lead weight settling in my chest. Then I looked at her, slowly. My voice was quieter now. Duller.

  “Then I guess I’m not a real paladin,” I murmured. “Just a broken one. A wrong.”

  For a moment, neither of us said anything. The warmth in the room didn’t touch me. The fire in the hearth may as well have been a hundred miles away.

  Finally, I stood up. My joints popped softly as I rolled my shoulders and stretched my arms out wide, more from habit than comfort.

  “I’m heading upstairs,” I said, keeping my voice casual, as if the conversation hadn’t just cracked something deep inside both of us. “Going to rest for a bit.”

  I didn’t wait for a reply.

  Boots thudding dully on the wooden steps, I climbed the staircase without looking back—leaving behind the noise, the candlelight, and whatever Vin might have said if I’d stayed just a little longer.