Evan ran.
The grassland outside Anticourt blurred under his boots. Breath burned his throat. Heartbeat slammed hard enough to shake his ribs.
On either side, the shadows kept pace.
They weren't normal dark—no soft edge, no fade. Two blotches of night slid over the ground, swelling as they moved. When he risked a glance back, the rise where the meeting had been vanished behind a curtain of ink.
Shadow Walkers. Arcanists.
He didn't know what their sorcery did. He refused to learn by letting it touch him.
He drove his legs harder.
One shadow lunged. It stretched forward across the grass like spilled oil, reaching for his ankles.
Instinct screamed to cut aside. Open field offered nothing. No ditch. No wall. No cover.
Then, he recalled.
"Evan, you're wasting half your strength when you run."
Ezra. Faintly scolding. Always a step ahead.
Evan had been leaning on the nursery wall that day, breathing hard, sweat gluing his shirt to his back. Ezra had finished another "test," sprinting on the rattling board contraption he'd built.
Evan had meant it as a complaint.
"How are you this fast, milord," Evan had muttered. "It's exhausting just tailing you."
Ezra hadn't taken it that way.
He'd hopped off his "treadmill," toddled over, and poked Evan in the thigh.
"Here," Ezra said.
Then higher, at the hip.
"Here. And your stomach. You're throwing mana everywhere. Focus it."
Evan had blinked.
"Milord, we're taught to just… strengthen the body. All of it. I don't know how to… aim it in pieces."
"Well, that's wasteful," Ezra had said bluntly. "Especially for knights. You don't have much mana. If you can push it into the right muscles, you don't need as much. Same with hitting things—if you condense all your mana into a fist, you get more power for less cost."
Ezra's eyes had narrowed in warning.
"But you have to practice, or you'll tear your own body apart."
Matter-of-fact.
"If you want," Ezra had added, almost offhand, "I can show you where to start."
Evan had stared at him.
"…Yes, milord," he'd finally said. "Please."
Ezra had smiled, small and pleased.
"Then listen. And don't complain when it hurts later."
Now, with death reaching for his heels, Evan obeyed.
He pulled his mana into line.
Wrenched it out of the useless scatter through his limbs and seated it into his right leg—thigh, calf, foot. A second thread wrapped his ribs and lungs, forcing air in and out on a tighter cycle even as the rest of him screamed.
His next stride landed like a kick.
He surged.
The shadow snapped shut on empty air behind him.
For an instant it stuttered, collapsing in on itself.
Evan didn't wait.
He ran the way Ezra drilled him to run: compact steps, clean foot placement, breath timed to the stride. Mana stayed where it mattered—legs and lungs—rather than smeared through everything.
Speed without burn.
The fields dropped away into Anticourt's first outlying houses. Light pooled ahead: a cluster of torches and the steady glow of a core-crystal lantern mounted above the village hall.
Evan aimed for it.
He hit packed street, boots biting clean stone. The administrative square lay mostly empty. Guards at the hall gate jerked upright as a sweat-soaked man in plain clothes sprinted past.
Evan kept going.
Only under the crystal's cold white glare did he look back.
The shadows had stopped at the edge of the glow.
They clung to eaves, pooled on rooftop edges, slipped from patch to patch—but they refused the open blaze of lamp and crystal.
Evan's chest heaved. He put his back to the base of the hall's stone steps and forced his breathing down.
Afraid of light. Bound to dark.
Either way, it bought time.
He pushed off.
There was one place he had to reach first.
The messenger post's door rattled under his fist.
The duty clerk started when Evan shoved inside.
"We're closed," the man began automatically, then stopped when he saw Evan's face.
"I bear Lord Blackfyre's seal," Evan said.
He dragged the steel token from his belt and slammed it onto the counter.
"I need a hawk in the air. Now."
The clerk swallowed, picked up the seal, and went pale.
"Y–yes, ser," he stammered. "Immediately."
Evan snatched quill and paper. His hands stayed steady.
He wrote in the tight, efficient script drilled into every Riverrunner.
Witnessed Duke Terros of Loria in secret meeting outside Anticourt with two Arcanists identifying themselves as "Shadow Walkers." Terros confirmed he ordered previous mercenary attack on your person. Has now contracted Shadow Walkers directly to kill you and to obtain intelligence on Castle Blackfyre in exchange for thirty thousand magic cores. Deal struck tonight. Shadow Walkers currently operating in and around Anticourt.
I was discovered spying and attacked by their sorcery. Evaded by retreating into administrative district. Shadow Walkers seem unwilling or unable to enter brightly lit areas / strong core-crystal light.
Currently lodging at Flameheart Tavern with Sir Deimos, Sir Phobos, and five of your Guard.
He sanded, folded, and sealed the message. Automatic.
The clerk returned with a sleek dark hawk—hooded, jessed.
Together they strapped the capsule to its leg.
Evan stepped outside with the man and watched the hood come off.
The hawk launched into the night and arrowed north toward Bren.
Only when it was a speck against the stars did Evan let himself breathe.
At least he'll know.
Duke Terros of Loria paced.
They had pulled back to one of Anticourt's outer manor houses—a "guest estate" owned by a merchant. The room was rich with velvet hangings and polished wood. Terros moved through it like a man trapped in a privy.
"You have not killed him yet?" he snapped.
The nearest Shadow Walker didn't flinch.
"This spy was no tavern mouse," the Arcanist said. His voice came smooth, controlled. "He ran like a trained knight. And he reached light before we could test his mettle."
Terros's fingers dug into his own thigh.
He forced the thought down.
"Then find him," he said. "I will not pay a single core if you cannot dispose of the rat."
He rounded on an attendant.
"The population of this town?"
The man cleared his throat.
"Including merchants and guests, milord, roughly eight hundred and fifty souls. Fifty knights in residence or passing through. Three barons, one viscount—transients, all. Lord Flair's men besides."
Terros nodded, counting.
"A spy with that kind of speed will not be a commoner," he muttered. "By now, he has almost certainly reported to someone. If our… dealings… are laid before a tribunal, my head will be on a pike."
He turned back to the shadows.
"How many of your brothers are here?"
"Thirty," the Shadow Walker replied. "Enough to match the blades of this town, if need be."
Thirty Arcanists.
Thirty violations of Imperial law on his doorstep.
Tonight, they were an answer.
"I will hire them," Terros said. "All of them. Five hundred extra cores apiece if they earn their keep before dawn."
One hood tilted, just a fraction.
"As you wish, Duke Terros," the voice said.
Terros looked to his attendant.
"Have my men encircle Anticourt," he ordered. "No one leaves the town. Any messenger bird that tries to flee—hawk, crow, pigeon—I want it shot from the sky. As for the messenger post itself… send Orst. Tell him to burn it to the ground."
"Yes, milord."
"In the morning," Terros said, "Anticourt will have suffered… an unfortunate raid. Bandits, perhaps. Or beasts."
His lip curled.
"And no one will remember a lone commoner running through the night."
Evan's legs started to tremble by the time he reached their lodgings, but his head stayed clear. He was already counting exits and lanes.
Inside, the common room had gone quiet. A few die-hards slumped over cups while the barkeep cleaned. Evan took the stairs two at a time.
He went straight to Ezra's room.
The boy slept on his stomach, one small fist under his cheek. The pendant Deimos had given him rested against his collarbone.
Evan let his lungs fill.
Still here. Still breathing.
He shook Rycharde awake where the Captain dozed in a chair by the door.
"Up," Evan said softly. "We have a problem."
Minutes later, the Blackfyre knights and Demon Hunters packed into the suite's sitting room, armor pulled on over shirts and trousers, hair still mussed from sleep.
Ezra stayed abed.
Evan wasn't waking him until he had to.
"You were attacked by the Shadow Walkers?" Deimos asked. His eyes caught the light. "Here? In Anticourt?"
"Yes," Evan said.
He gave them the meeting outside town. Duke Terros's offer. The price. The terms.
When he finished, the Blackfyre knights held stone faces.
"Duke Loria," Rycharde said slowly, "ordered the attempt on Lord Blackfyre's life."
"He did," Evan said. "And now he's bought Arcanist blades to finish the job."
Rycharde's hands clenched and unclenched.
"That snake," he hissed. "If the Earl brings this before the Imperial Tribunal, he'll swing for it."
"Aye. If it's written, witnessed, and sealed," Galwell said.
"I've sent a hawk," Evan said. "Blackfyre seal. Straight to Bren. Reitz will know by morning, if the bird makes it through."
Deimos leaned back, rubbing his jaw.
"Shadow Walkers this deep in Imperial lands," he said quietly. "They grow bold. Good. Saves us the trouble of hunting them down at the borders."
His voice put a cold weight in the room.
"What happens now?" Oswyn asked. "If the duke knows his dealings were seen, he won't sit still. He'll try to erase any witness."
"He doesn't know who I am," Evan said. "I had no armor, no crest. To him, I'm a fast peasant who ran too well."
"That will only slow him," Rycharde said. "Not stop him. A panicked duke with Arcanists at his call may decide it's safer if Anticourt… disappears."
A sound cut through the night.
Bells.
Not the lazy toll of a timekeeper—the frantic, pounding peal.
One bell, then another, then the next tower taking up the cry.
Every man in the room went rigid.
"That's an alarm," Phobos said. "Anticourt is under attack."