The hall still tasted of the words that had just been spoken.
Grief. Resentment. Not forgiveness—but the first step toward it.
The air no longer crackled with raw fury, yet tension lingered like frost on unlit stone. Torches hissed softly along the walls, their flames stretching thin, casting long shadows behind pillars and across faces.
On one side of the hall: Count Vanhart and Sera.
On the other: Viscount Malloren and Lysenne.
Between them, the distance of years—and a stone floor stained by a past none of them could erase.
Kel stood at the center.
The world had narrowed here, to this axis between two ruined houses. From this point, he could see everything—the permanent stillness of Lysenne's legs, the brittle way Malloren held himself, Sera's controlled composure, the Count's barely contained fear, Reina's poised caution, Landon's grounded watchfulness.
Malloren's last words still hung in the air.
"I will not call for her execution.
I ask only that when she stands, she remember who paid the price when she fell."
Not peace.
But the sword, for now, had been lowered.
Kel watched the Viscount's face.
The anger there was no longer a raging fire.
It had settled into embers—pain, banked and smoldering.
Now is the time.
A thought.
Cool. Precise.
If I move now, the blade will sink into water, not brick.
Kel inhaled softly.
His decision settled.
He took one step forward.
His boots did not echo, but the shift of his presence did.
Reina glanced sideways at him, eyes narrowing just a fraction.
Landon's fingers relaxed near the hilt of his sword, then subtly tensed.
Sera's gaze flicked to Kel, something like wary recognition flashing through her eyes.
She had seen this before.
The moment he chose to gamble.
Kel's eyes lifted.
"Viscount Malloren," he said, voice as clear and cold as winter air.
Malloren's attention snapped to him fully, those storm-dark eyes narrowing.
"Yes?" the Viscount answered, tone guarded, neither hostile nor kind.
Kel did not look away.
His coat hung open now, the lamplight outlining the line of his shoulders, the faint rhythm of his breath. His face—young, too young for the depth in his gaze—was utterly calm.
"I can help your daughter stand again," Kel said quietly.
The hall froze.
No crackle of fire.
No shuffle of cloth.
Even the servants along the walls went utterly still, breaths caught.
Lysenne's fingers stopped moving against her skirt.
Sera's eyes widened.
Count Vanhart's heart lurched painfully beneath his ribs.
Malloren stared.
For a moment, no words came.
Then, slowly, his jaw tightened.
"…What did you say?" he asked, voice dangerously soft.
Kel's gaze did not change.
"I can help her recover," he repeated, each word deliberate. "Not just ease her pain. Not simply numb what she lost. I can make her stand on her legs again."
He inclined his head slightly toward Lysenne.
"Walk again," he murmured. "On her own strength."
The silence that followed felt heavier than stone.
A faint tremor passed through Lysenne's hands.
Malloren's expression did not soften.
It hardened.
"Do not mock me, boy," he said, his voice low and sharp. "No healer in the Empire could mend what was done. No priest's blessing could restore crushed bone and torn nerves. I watched them all try. I watched her endure every failed attempt."
His hand clenched on the armrest.
"You stand there and speak of it as if it were a simple favor," Malloren hissed. "Who are you, to claim such a thing?"
Kel met that fury with unshaken composure.
"Someone," he said softly, "who can do what they cannot."
Reina's fingers tightened near her spear.
Landon's gaze dropped briefly, studying the floor as if tracing lines of risk in the cracks.
Sera's throat moved.
Kel…
Sairen stirred within his mind—cool, coiled presence like still water tasting the edge of a thrown stone.
You are stepping into deep current, Kel.
I always am, he replied inwardly.
Aloud, he continued.
"If you wish to see your daughter stand," Kel said evenly, "I can attempt it. With your permission."
Attempt.
Not promise.
Not boast.
A precise word.
Yet even his restraint carried a dangerous confidence.
Malloren rose halfway from his seat, eyes narrowed to sharp slits.
His gaze flicked, unbidden, to his daughter's unmoving legs.
Then back to Kel.
"And if you fail?" he asked.
The question cut.
Clean.
Kel did not hesitate.
"Then," he replied, voice steady, "I will accept any punishment you choose to give me."
The hall held its breath a second time.
Count Vanhart went pale.
"Kel—" he started.
Kel did not look at him.
His gaze remained locked with Malloren's.
Lysenne stared now, openly, her lips parted, breath shallow.
Viscount Malloren's face shifted—confusion, suspicion, an old, exhausted hope trying and failing not to rise.
He took one slow step down from his dais.
Then another.
Until he stood closer to Kel.
Not as close as an equal—
As close as a man weighing a blade in his hand.
"Any punishment," he repeated.
"Yes," Kel said.
Malloren's eyes gleamed.
"Swear it," he said. "On your life. Swear that if you cannot make Lysenne stand again, you will pay with your own."
Behind Kel, Reina stiffened.
Landon's brows drew together.
The Count surged to his feet, face tight with alarm.
"That is too much—!" he began.
Kel finally moved.
His hand rose slightly—
not to ward off the Viscount.
To halt the Count.
He did not look back.
His expression did not move.
He had expected exactly this.
His lips curved slightly.
Almost like he'd been waiting for it.
"I swear," Kel said, eyes never leaving Malloren's, "on my life."
The torches flickered.
"I swear," he repeated, voice quieter but sharper, "that if, after my treatment, Lady Lysenne Malloren cannot stand upon her own two legs… I will pay with my life."
Sairen's presence surged sharply within him.
You bind yourself with more than words, Kel.
I know.
The status window he alone could see did not appear—
but in the corner of his mind, he could feel a flag being set.
[CONDITIONAL LIFE OATH – ACTIVE]
[CONDITION: SUCCESSFUL FULL RECOVERY – LYSENNE MALLOREN (LOCOMOTION)]
Malloren stared at him.
His expression was caught between disbelief and something colder.
"You offer your life so easily," he said slowly. "Don't you want to live?"
Kel's answer was instant.
"Yes," he said. "I do."
He paused.
"But not at any price."
His eyes lowered, lashes casting faint shadows on his cheeks, before rising again—dark, deep, steady.
"Life," he said softly, "is meaningless to me if I cannot save someone worth saving when I have the power to try."
The words hung there.
Even Sairen, ageless water bound to him, quieted at that.
Reina looked at Kel's profile.
She had seen him walk willingly into pain.
Into battles as the weakest person on the field.
Now he walked toward risk not as prey—
but as someone setting the terms.
Landon's eyes softened, just for an instant.
He understood that logic.
Stark.
Uncompromising.
Count Vanhart swallowed hard against his protests.
He recognized the same cruel calculus in his own house's decisions—only turned to something… cleaner.
More dangerous.
Malloren's features twitched.
He looked at his daughter.
Her face was lightly flushed now, color rising unbidden to her cheeks.
She stared at Kel.
Not as a noble assessing an ally—
as a girl trying very hard not to show the way her heart stuttered at a stranger wagering his life so calmly.
Kel did not glance her way.
He kept his attention on her father.
"How long," Malloren asked at last, voice flat to hide the tremor beneath, "will this… treatment take?"
Kel did not pause to calculate.
He already had.
"One week," he replied.
Shock swept through the hall.
"A week?" the Count repeated, disbelief raw in his tone.
Kel nodded.
"It will take seven days," he said. "To align what was broken. To restore the pathways between bone and vein. To make the legs remember how to be legs, not just weight."
He lifted his hand slightly, then let it fall.
"And then," he said quietly, "she will stand."
Lysenne's breath caught.
Malloren looked at him as though searching for even a hint of frivolity, of lie, of arrogance without substance.
He found only calm.
An iron thread of will woven through a boy far too young to speak of life and death with such carelessness toward his own survival.
"…Why her?" Malloren asked suddenly.
Kel blinked once.
"Because she is worth saving," he said simply.
"Because she was collateral in another man's gamble."
His eyes darkened.
"And because people like Rodrik Vanhart should not be allowed to define the limits of what the world can heal."
Sera's hands tightened.
Her uncle's name spoken here, without deference, without hesitation, without fear—it stirred something like fierce, quiet satisfaction in her chest.
Malloren was silent.
He looked at Sera.
At his daughter.
At the boy who had bound his life to the outcome of a treatment no healer had ever succeeded at.
Finally, he turned to Lysenne.
"What do you say?" he asked her.
His voice trembled around the edges.
Lysenne had been silent until now, listening to men and girl and boy speak of her fate like a battlefield drawn in words.
Now, she swallowed.
Slowly.
Her fingers brushed the smooth wood of her cane.
She tilted her head upward and met Kel's gaze fully.
His eyes were not gentle.
They did not soften for her.
They did, however, see her—not as a piece to be moved, not as an excuse for politics—but as someone whose future was being placed on the scale with his life.
Heat climbed unbidden into her cheeks.
Her heart beat fast—faster than it had in years, not from fear, but from the brutal, terrifying possibility of hope.
"Will it hurt?" she asked.
Her voice did not shake.
Kel's answer was honest.
"Yes," he said. "A great deal."
Her breath shivered out.
"I've lived with pain," she whispered. "It does not frighten me anymore."
The faintest ghost of a smile flickered across Kel's lips.
"In that case," he murmured, "you're better prepared than most who chase miracles."
Her fingers curled around the cane head.
She looked toward her father.
"Let him try," she said.
No hesitation.
Just quiet resolve.
Malloren closed his eyes for a brief moment, eyelids pressing tight—shutting out everything but the sound of his child asking permission to gamble with a stranger's life.
When he opened them again, the storm behind them had not cleared.
But it had focused.
"Very well," he said at last, voice low.
He faced Kel fully.
"Kel von Rosenfeld," Malloren said, each word weighty. "On the life you have sworn, I grant you permission to treat my daughter."
A current seemed to ripple through the hall.
Sairen's silent voice flowed against Kel's thoughts like water against stone.
This is not a small promise, Kel.
I know.
I will not always save you from your own bargains.
I know that too.
The hall, for a moment, was nothing but breathing.
Kel inclined his head.
"Then let it be witnessed," he said quietly, "by Vanhart, by Malloren, and by whatever God still bothers to look at this land—"
He placed a hand lightly over his chest.
"–that this week becomes the line between what was broken…"
His eyes rested, finally, on Lysenne.
"…and what will stand."
Her face reddened, lashes lowering for a brief moment as she looked away, pressing her lips together to steady the sudden tremor.
"Treatment begins tomorrow," Kel added. "At first light."
He stepped back, cloak shifting gently around him like a shadowed second skin.
Behind him, Reina gave the slightest exhale, shoulders adjusting as she recalibrated all the outcomes in her head.
Landon's jaw hardened with renewed determination.
Sera stared at Kel's back.
Life is meaningless for me if I cannot save someone worth saving.
The words replayed in her chest.
She had once run to keep others from paying her price.
He walked forward to put his throat on a blade for someone not even bound to him.
Count Vanhart looked at the boy his Duke called "son"—and for the first time, he understood what kind of storm was being quietly raised in the North.
Malloren sank back into his chair, exhaustion and lingering rage and fragile, painful hope warring in his features.
Lysenne's fingers trembled around her cane, her cheeks still faintly flushed. Her eyes—bright, fierce despite it all—remained on Kel as he turned away.
Seven days, she thought.
Seven days to reshape the life stolen from her.
Seven days in which the boy who spoke of life like a negotiable term would either become her miracle—
or a corpse under her father's judgment.
Kel walked out of the hall.
Snow dusted the windows.
The wager had been set.
And winter, watching silently from beyond the stone walls, wondered—
which of them it would devour if the gamble failed.