The main hall of House Vanhart held its breath.
Torches burned along the walls, their flames thin and pale, casting long, wavering shadows that clung to stone pillars like silent spectators. The banners overhead—chimera sigils faded by time and neglect—hung with the heavy stillness of things that remembered better days.
Today, that stillness felt… strained.
Two lines of servants waited along the edges of the hall, heads bowed, eyes lowered but ears sharp. At the far end, beneath the Vanhart crest, sat Count Vanhart and Sera. To their right, Kel, Reina, and Landon stood slightly apart—not quite part of the house, yet no longer outsiders.
At the opposite end of the hall, upon a lower dais reserved for high guests, Viscount Edrian Malloren sat beside his daughter.
He did not relax into the chair.
He perched on it like a drawn bow.
His attire was impeccable—dark emerald and black layered in fine northern fabric, trimmed in silver. Rings gleamed along his fingers, not ostentatious, but solid. His hair, once fully black, now carried streaks of steel at the temples. The line of his jaw was tight, the muscles faintly twitching along his cheek.
Beside him sat Lysenne.
Her gown was of winter-blue silk lined with fur at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was braided simply, not elaborately styled—practical nobility. A cane of polished darkwood leaned against her chair.
Her legs were arranged carefully before her.
They did not move.
Her hands lay folded in her lap, knuckles faintly pale.
She observed everything.
Not with open anger—
With the distant, searching gaze of someone who had learned to watch the world from a still position.
The silence between the two noble houses stretched taut.
Viscount Malloren's eyes burned toward the dais where Sera sat, chin level, cloak clasped, hands composed in her lap. The only sign of tension was the near-invisible tightening at the corners of her mouth.
Kel's gaze traveled from one side of the hall to the other.
His eyes looked calm.
They were not.
Pieces set. No turning back.
The Count cleared his throat, as if to begin—
Kel stepped forward.
His movement cut through the hall like a blade through silk—smooth, unhurried, but unmistakable.
All eyes shifted to him.
The boy from the North.
The Rosenfeld heir.
Kel stopped halfway between both raised seats, standing at the midpoint of the hall—the line where history had once broken.
He inclined his head slightly toward Malloren.
"Viscount Malloren," Kel said. His voice carried without force, threading through the hall's vastness with quiet strength. "You have every right to be angry."
The Viscount's eyes narrowed.
Kel did not waver.
"More precisely," he continued, "you have every right to bear wrath toward Sera—" he gestured slightly with his hand, "—for crippling your daughter that day."
Sera's jaw clenched.
Lysenne's lashes lowered.
The Count's fingers tightened on his armrest.
Reina and Landon remained perfectly still, but both watched with sharpened focus.
Kel went on.
"No one here denies your grief," he said. "No one asks you to forget it. Your daughter's blood stained this house's stone. Her pain does not vanish just because time has passed."
Malloren's gaze remained hard—and yet, something in his expression eased a fraction at the blunt recognition.
Kel tilted his head.
"But you are not only a father," he said, eyes steady. "You are also a viscount of the Empire."
He let the words hang in the cold air between them.
"The anger in your chest belongs to a parent," Kel said, "but the judgment you pass here—today—will be recorded by history as a noble's."
Malloren's fingers tensed on the armrest.
"You would lecture me, boy?" he asked, voice soft and dangerous.
"No," Kel answered. "I would remind you what your title demands. Before you choose whether to use it as shield, or sword."
Silence.
The torches flickered, as if the air itself had shifted.
Kel stepped to the side.
"The floor is yours," he said quietly. "Speak."
He turned slightly, glancing toward Sera—just once.
"Then listen."
He retreated a few steps, placing himself where he could see all parties clearly. Reina and Landon flanked him without conscious thought, forming a quiet triangle of presence—support without overshadowing.
Viscount Malloren inhaled slowly.
His gaze fixed on Sera.
Her spine straightened almost imperceptibly under its weight.
"Sera Vanhart," he said.
Her fingers curled briefly, then loosened.
"Viscount Malloren," she replied, voice steady.
His lips twisted.
"You call me that," he said, "as if I were not the man whose daughter you crippled."
The word cut.
Crippled.
It had hovered unspoken so long that saying it aloud felt like driving a nail into old wood.
Sera did not flinch.
"…Yes," she answered. "I did."
The servants' heads dipped lower.
Malloren leaned forward, eyes blazing.
"Do you remember her?" he demanded. "Do you remember the way she cried on that day? How the sound tore through the hall? How the healers scrambled to put bone back where you shattered it?"
"…Yes."
"Do you remember how she looked at me?" His voice sharpened, turning brittle. "A child asking why she could not stand? Why her legs screamed when nothing touched them?"
The hall grew colder.
Sera's shoulders tightened.
Lysenne's hands clenched in her lap. Her face did not change. But the pale crescents of her nails pressed into her palms.
"And do you remember," Malloren pressed, voice low and cutting, "how you ran?"
That word struck deeper than any accusation.
Ran.
Kel watched Sera's face.
Her throat moved once.
She did not evade.
"I remember," she said quietly. "All of it."
Malloren surged to his feet.
The chair scraped against stone with a harsh sound.
"You broke my daughter," he hissed. "You broke my guards. You broke the trust between my house and Vanhart. And then—you fled. Tell me… what forgiveness do you expect?"
The Count's jaw clenched.
He opened his mouth—to defend, to plead—but Kel caught his eye and gave the slightest shake of his head.
Not yet.
Let the wound be acknowledged before the remedy is offered.
Sera met Malloren's eyes.
Her own held no tears.
Only weight.
"I do not expect forgiveness," she said.
Her voice was soft.
It carried.
"I did cripple her. I did run. If you wish to call that cowardice, I will not argue. If you wish to hate me, I will not ask you to stop."
Malloren's eyes flickered with something complicated.
But she continued.
"I will not ask you to forget what I did," she said. "But I will ask you to hear why it happened. Not to justify it."
Her gaze dropped briefly to Lysenne.
"But so that… you know it was not for nothing."
Lysenne's fingers trembled around the fabric of her skirt.
Sera drew in a slow breath.
"When I trained for that match," she began, "my uncle said he would make me strong."
Her eyes darkened.
"He gave me potions. Bitter ones. Every day. After every drill. He said they would increase my endurance, my recovery, my strength."
Malloren's eyes narrowed.
"I trusted him," Sera said. "I wanted to make my father proud. I wanted to stand beside your daughter as an equal—not as the heir who couldn't hold her own."
Her hand rose unconsciously to her chest.
"I didn't know," she whispered, "that they were cursed."
Kel watched Malloren's face carefully.
A flicker.
Doubt.
Resentment—
struggling against the sudden shock of details not previously understood.
"Cursed," he repeated coldly. "And you expect me to believe—"
"It ate my life," Sera cut in, voice suddenly sharper.
Malloren stopped.
Sera did not often interrupt nobles.
This time, she did.
"The potion," she said. "The curse. It amplified my strength, but it devoured my life force in return. Every time I pushed, every time I fought… I was burning years I hadn't lived yet."
Her fingers tightened at her sides.
"There was a shaman," she continued. "In the barbarian lands. He explained it better than any court mage. My muscles were forcibly overclocked. Tendons strained beyond natural limits. My body was reshaped into something else—something meant to prove a point. I didn't understand that then."
Her voice grew quieter.
"But my body did."
Lysenne's gaze lifted fully to Sera's face.
For the first time, their eyes met.
"I did not break your daughter's legs because I hated her," Sera said. "Or because I wanted to win. I broke them because I no longer knew how strong I was allowed to be."
Her eyes closed briefly.
"My body moved ahead of my intention. I swung. I struck. I overpowered. And when I realized what I had done…"
Her voice thinned.
"…I saw your face. And hers. And my father's."
She took a breath that sounded like it scraped her lungs.
"I was afraid," she said simply. "Afraid of what I had become. Afraid of what they would do to me. Afraid of what they would do to my father because of me."
Malloren's gaze hardened again.
"Afraid—so you ran."
Sera nodded.
"Yes," she said. "I did."
No defense.
No embellishment.
"Cowardly," he spat.
"Perhaps," she replied. "But I did not run to avoid punishment."
She lifted her head.
"I ran so that you would blame me," she said, "and not my father. So that Vanhart would suffer for raising a cursed heir, not for conspiring with your enemies. If I stayed…"
Her eyes drifted to the Count, then returned to Malloren.
"…he would have taken the blame himself."
Malloren opened his mouth—then closed it.
The line between his brows deepened.
Sera's next words were softer.
"I've lived years," she said quietly, "knowing a child's mistake did not stay as a child's. It spread. To you. To her. To this house. To many who never asked to carry that consequence."
Her shoulders shook once.
She stilled it.
"But if I hadn't gone north," she finished, "I would have died from the curse before I could even stand here to say this."
Silence.
The hall seemed to narrow.
The torches' crackling faded to background whisper.
Malloren's gaze shifted—just slightly—toward Lysenne.
Her eyes were distant.
Her hands trembled.
She spoke for the first time.
"Father."
Her voice was clear.
Soft.
Malloren turned toward her instantly, the fury in his face flickering with something more fragile—fear that she might break simply from speaking of it.
Lysenne looked at Sera, then at Kel, then at her own unmoving legs.
"She shattered them," she said plainly.
Her father flinched.
Lysenne did not.
"I remember the sound," she continued. "I remember the pain. I remember waking up and being told I might never walk again."
Her fingers loosened from her skirt.
"I also remember," she said, "that she looked horrified."
Malloren stared at her.
"Lysenne—"
"I hated you," Lysenne said to Sera, ignoring him. "At first."
The words fell like quiet stones.
Sera's eyes did not waver.
Lysenne continued.
"I thought you did it on purpose," she said. "That you wanted to prove you were stronger. That you wanted to show everyone your house kept its promises of power."
A faint, bitter hint of amusement touched her lips and vanished.
"Then," she murmured, "I watched my father."
Malloren stiffened.
Lysenne's gaze turned toward him.
"I watched him fight every healer," she said. "Every official. Every court whisperer. I watched our house bleed resources to maintain what respect remained. I watched him stand straight while others called me weak—"
Her eyes hardened.
"—or called you a monster."
Sera lowered her gaze.
"So yes," Lysenne said. "I hated you."
Her fingers tightened on the head of her cane.
"Then time passed."
Her voice turned quieter.
"I listened," she said. "To more than one side. To stories from our retainers… from merchants… from those who carried supplies north. They all spoke of a rumor. Of a barbarian chief girl with unnatural strength and a curse devouring her life."
She exhaled.
"When Father told me we were coming here," she added, "I knew who I was going to see."
Malloren's eyes widened slightly.
"You knew…?"
"Yes," Lysenne said simply.
Her gaze drifted back to Sera.
"I don't forgive you," she said. "Not yet."
The flicker of something like hope in Sera's eyes did not fully dim.
"But I also don't think you woke up that day and decided to destroy my legs."
She paused.
"Which means," she concluded softly, "you and I were both used."
The word hung in the hall like a new blade.
Kel watched Malloren closely.
The Viscount's lips pressed thin, his eyes hard.
But his grip on the armrest had loosened.
He looked between his daughter…
and Sera.
Then he shifted his gaze—
to Kel.
"Boy," he said.
Kel lifted his chin slightly.
"Yes, Viscount Malloren?"
Malloren regarded him for a long moment.
"Would you," he asked quietly, "have intervened, had you been there that day?"
The servants stiffened.
Count Vanhart's hand tightened.
Sera's eyes widened fractionally.
Kel did not blink.
"If I had the strength I possess now," he said, voice calm, "I would have broken the arm of the man handing her the potion."
His eyes darkened.
"And shattered the fingers of anyone who tried to make a spectacle out of a child's forced power."
Malloren stared at him.
Kel did not look away.
"But I was not there," Kel finished. "And now we stand in the aftermath. So instead of swinging at ghosts—"
His gaze slid briefly to Sera, then Lysenne.
"—we decide what to do with the people who are still here."
The hall exhaled.
Slowly.
Malloren let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
His shoulders sagged—just slightly.
He sank back into his chair.
"You offer much," he said finally, "for someone bearing no fault in this."
Kel's lips twitched.
"On the contrary," he murmured. "I intend to make sure those who are at fault don't escape behind polite silence."
His tone cooled.
"That includes your silence," he added. "If you choose it."
The Viscount's eyes narrowed.
A heartbeat passed.
Then—
He laughed.
Once.
The sound was sharp.
Worn.
"…You are your father's son," he muttered.
Kel's eyes glinted.
"I am myself," he answered.
Malloren looked at Sera again.
At his daughter.
He inhaled slowly.
"When I came here," he said, "I intended to demand Sera's confinement. Perhaps even custody. To ensure she would never again stand in a hall with unchecked power."
His gaze hardened—but not with the same raw hate.
"What I see now," he continued, "is a girl who has paid for her uncle's ambition with years she will never reclaim."
His jaw clenched.
"And a daughter who has paid with movement she will never regain."
Lysenne's hand tightened on the cane once more—but her chin did not lower.
Malloren swallowed, the sound audible in the quiet hall.
"I will not bless this," he said. "Not yet. Not today."
No one asked him to.
"But I will not call for her execution," he finished.
A breath seemed to release from every chest in the hall.
"I ask," Malloren added, voice rough, "for one thing only."
Sera bowed her head.
"If it is within my power, I will give it," she said.
Malloren looked at her for a long time.
Then at Lysenne.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was quiet.
"When you stand," he said, "do not pretend that your story ends where hers began."
It was neither condemnation nor absolution.
It was demand.
Of responsibility.
Of acknowledgement.
Kel inclined his head slightly.
"This," he murmured, "is a beginning."
Not peace.
Not reconciliation.
But the moment before both become possible.
He stepped back.
Allowing the weight of that choice to settle in the hall.
Outside, the snow had begun to slow.
Inside, for the first time since that long-ago match, two families faced one another—
not as accuser and accused.
But as people who had all bled from the same wound…
and were finally willing to look at it together.