Talon sat by the candle’s trembling flame, hands folded on the table, staring at a map that no longer looked like a country but like a wound. The cities marked in red ink bled into each other, their borders fading, their names half-burned by spilled wax. Two days had passed since Aros had left with Digiera’s squad, and every hour without word gnawed at him.

  Aros was chaos wrapped in loyalty, brilliant in the field, reckless in mind. Talon both admired and feared him. The man fought as if trying to tear something out of himself, and that kind of soldier was useful, but dangerous. Still, the Knights of Light needed him. They needed everyone now.

  He leaned back, listening to the faint crackle of the fire in the hearth. Around him, the sounds of the camp blurred into a familiar rhythm: boots on stone, distant laughter, the rasp of weapons being sharpened. For the first time since the rebellion began, they had territory, a semblance of power. But power without faith was a candle in the wind.

  And Gemma... the thought of her made him press his lips tight. She’d been the symbol, the spark, the one proof that the Light was not just metaphor. Without her, they were an army with no god. He needed her back, needed her voice, her fire, her powers.

  But she was gone.

  And Aros, the only one who might have found her, was walking further into enemy lands.

  Talon rubbed his temples. “We’ve grown strong,” he muttered to himself. “But not strong enough.”

  He needed Alexander. The man was infuriating, manipulative, self-serving, cold, but he had what Talon didn’t: reach. Nobles still listened when Alexander spoke, merchants still feared him, and the priesthood still pretended to respect him. The rebellion could not survive on swords alone; it needed faces people recognized, men with influence and gold.

  He had just begun to fold the map when the door creaked open. A young soldier entered, panting. “Sir Talon, a messenger...he says it’s urgent.”

  Talon frowned. “From whom?”

  “Lord Alexander. Through his brother, Phillip.”

  That got his attention. “Send him in.”

  Phillip appeared moments later, his cloak still damp from travel, his hair plastered to his forehead. He didn’t waste time with greetings. “Alexander sends warning,” he said. “Jacobo knows Lexordo is here. The Sanctum’s intelligence confirmed it. He’s sending patrols to sweep the southern valleys by tomorrow.”

  Talon’s stomach tightened. “How much time do we have?”

  “Hours,” Phillip said. “Maybe less. We need to be quick.”

  Talon exhaled through his nose. “Then we move him out tonight.”

  “I was told to tell you the same,” Phillip replied. “Alexander suggests Bondrea. He’ll arrange hiding through his channels.”

  Talon nodded slowly, thinking. He didn’t exactly trust Lexordo, he doubted anyone truly did, but the man’s soldiers had fought well. Without them, the Knights would never have taken Sbelto. He was a monster, yes, but also he was an expert of Light and could inspire thousands of people.

  He looked to the soldier at the door. “Fetch Lord Lexordo. Now.”

  The messenger hurried out.

  Phillip took a seat, stretching his legs. “You don’t look surprised.”

  “I’ve been expecting this,” Talon said. “Nothing stays hidden forever. Especially not someone like him.”

  Talon didn’t look up when the flap lifted; he recognized Lexordo’s gait the way some men recognize a storm. Heavy, assured, metal whispering where leather should. The old warlord stopped just inside the candle’s pool of light and grinned with too many teeth.

  “You sent for me, Talon,” he said. Not mockery, familiarity. It sounded like two veterans meeting in a ruined chapel.

  Talon stood and they clasped forearms, the grip brief and solid. “I did. Word from Bondrea. Jacobo knows you’re here.”

  Lexordo’s brows ticked. “Of course he does. He always knows, eventually.” He said it almost fondly, like speaking of an enemy who’d outlived a dozen ambushes. “What’s the clock?”

  “Hours,” Phillip said from the shadows, stepping forward. He kept a polite distance and not a shred more. “Patrols by dawn. If you’re still in Preta when they sweep, they’ll call it proof.”

  Lexordo gave Phillip a flat once-over, eyes cold. “The brother,” he said. “With the tidy handwriting and the tidy conscience.”

  “Phillip of Dromo,” Phillip replied evenly. “And yes, my conscience prefers tidy things, like not traveling with child-torturers.”

  The room cooled. Talon cut the air with a hand before heat could gather. “Enough. We don’t have time for old indictments. We move you tonight.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Lexordo turned back to him and the edge softened. “If you say go, I go,” he said. “You’ve earned that weight.”

  Phillip blinked. The line surprised him, and Talon knew it. The young man still expected Lexordo to bark and Talon to bristle. He didn’t yet understand that some bonds are forged in the same fire that ruins other men.

  “We’ll route you south track, then west to Bondrea,” Talon said. “Alexander will place you where Jacobo’s net can’t reach quickly.”

  “Alexander will place me,” Lexordo muttered, amused. “You always had a talent for making wolves share a den.”

  “You’re here because you chose this fight,” Talon said. “And because we bled together at Sbelto.”

  Lexordo’s grin turned quiet. “We did.” He tilted his head. “How many did you lose?”

  “Four,” Talon answered. The number still tasted of iron. “And we brought more home than I expected.”

  “You brought hope home,” Lexordo said, surprising Phillip again. Then, to the younger Dromo, softer in a way that was somehow harsher, “Don’t mistake me for a friend, boy. I’ve been every kind of monster. But this man”, he jerked his chin at Talon, “isn’t lying when he says we’re building something that isn’t rot.”

  Phillip held his gaze. “I mistake you for nothing.”

  “Good,” Lexordo said. “Then you’ll live longer.”

  Talon rolled the map, slid it into its leather tube, and tied it off. “Your companies?”

  “Already saddling,” Lexordo said. “All but Rethal. He’s still at the Sanctum on other business.” A flicker, pride? “He’ll find his way home.”

  Phillip’s jaw tightened. “Convenient how your best man is never where bodies fall.”

  Lexordo’s eyes iced. Talon stepped between them without seeming to move. “Phillip brings a message, not a fight. He’s here under my tent. While he is, you’ll treat him as mine.”

  That landed. Lexordo adjusted the strap on his pauldron, almost sheepish. “You always were the only priest I listened to,” he said. “And you don’t even own a chapel.”

  They both smiled, the kind that remembers smoke and doesn’t flinch.

  Phillip exhaled and, for once, chose not to press. He turned to Talon. “I leave at first light. Alexander wants Hirias settled before the Sanctum questions him. If the steward wavers, Velovia wavers with him.”

  “Go,” Talon said. “Hirias respects honest leverage. Bring him some.” He hesitated, then added, “And thank your brother, quietly. Without his channels, this would be a slaughter.”

  Phillip nodded, though the thanks cost him. “I’ll carry the message.”

  Lexordo shifted his weight. “Before I vanish, a gift.” He set a small pouch on Talon’s table. Inside: three wax seals, each impressed with minor priestly sigils; two folded billets of safe-conduct; a ring whose face was a worn lamb under a sunburst. “Stolen honest,” he said. “Your choir team can walk through two gates with these before anyone counts the lambs.”

  Talon’s mouth twitched. “You keep surprising me in ways I don’t like.”

  “Good,” Lexordo said. “Surprise is how we outlive saints.”

  He reached out his hand again. Talon took it. The grip lingered a heartbeat too long for politics and exactly long enough for memory.

  “Ride hard,” Talon said.

  “Bleed later,” Lexordo replied, and the old campaign benediction sat between them like a shared prayer.

  He went. His men ghosted after him, the camp swallowing their sound into the noise of saddles and low commands. When the flap fell, the room seemed to lose a shade of weight Talon hadn’t noticed carrying.

  Phillip watched the canvas stir. “You trust him more than I expected.”

  “I trust what he does when arrows start,” Talon said. “He doesn’t run, he doesn’t freeze, and he doesn’t pretend war is a sermon. There aren’t many like that left.”

  “And when the arrows stop?” Phillip asked. “What does a man like that become?”

  “Someone you don’t let sit near your laws,” Talon said. “But we aren’t writing laws. Not yet.”

  Phillip accepted that and adjusted his cloak. “I still think he’ll cost us,” he said.

  “He already did,” Talon answered. “And he already saved us. Both can be true.”

  They stood in companionable quiet. Outside, a horse snorted; leather creaked; a voice low and rough said something about the south trail’s mud. Farther off, someone began a song that never quite found the melody.

  “Broko told me he left two days, ago” Phillip said after a while, meaning Aros.

  “I know,” Talon replied.

  “You sent Digiera with him. If anyone brings him back, it’s her.”

  Talon let a real smile appear. “She’ll mock him the whole way home.”

  “Good,” Phillip said. “He’ll need the noise.”

  The young Dromo reached for the map tube, hesitated. “I meant what I said before,” he added, eyes on the candle. “I don’t trust Lexordo. But I saw how he looked at you. Like a man who remembers someone pulling him up by the collar when he wanted to drown.” He glanced up. “That matters.”

  “It matters until it doesn’t,” Talon said. “Our work is to make sure it matters long enough.”

  Phillip gave a short nod and straightened. “I’ll see Hirias before noon. If he balks, I’ll remind him how quickly Sbelto learned the sound of a cracked bell.”

  “Remind him Preta isn’t his shield,” Talon said. “It’s his bet.”

  Phillip allowed himself a thin smile. “He likes his bets hedged.”

  “Then offer him two,” Talon said. “One with us, one with himself.”

  Phillip stepped back toward the flap. “Try not to make any new devils while I’m gone.”

  Talon glanced at the empty space Lexordo had left. “I don’t make them,” he said. “I just hire them before the other side does.”

  Phillip left on a soft laugh, and the tent quieted to the candle’s small hiss. Talon unrolled the map again, palms anchoring Velovia and Dromo at either edge. The lines no longer looked like a wound. Tonight, they looked like stitches.

  He marked a new path south with a charcoal stub, the route Lexordo would ride until the trail dropped into the pines and the pines into the fog, and beyond that the ridge roads that led to Bondrea. He imagined the old killer’s silhouette dwindling in moonlight, imagined the men behind him who’d chosen this, who’d chosen him, and felt the unwelcome heat of gratitude.

  Years ago, he would have spat on the thought of relying on someone like Lexordo. He would have preached about clean wars and clean hands. He knew better now. Wars weren’t clean; hands weren’t either. You chose which blood stayed and which washed away, and you learned to live with the stain.

  He pinched out the candle and listened to the night. Somewhere at the perimeter, a sentry coughed. Somewhere to the north, a fox barked. Farther still, hooves faded.

  “Bleed later,” he murmured into the dark, and let the map rest beneath his palms until the paper cooled.