The fire in the stables was now a boot of flame crushing the inn's roof. Orange sparks climbed the sky like fleeing souls, flooding the port of Ostrava with a sickly noon-brightness beneath a diseased sun.
The harbor folk—sailors with gold teeth, spice smugglers, and tavern rats—froze. Buckets of water were forgotten in calloused hands. Every eye turned toward the mouth of the muddy alley.
There, the Nephilim Malphas seemed to grow beneath the firelight. Black smoke coiled around his shoulders as though he wore a cloak woven from living shadows.
— So then, boy? — Malphas spread his arms, the palms of his gauntlets turned upward in a gesture of absolute mockery. — What will you do? Cut me with that scrap of iron you bought with corpse-coins? Wound me with the honor of a bankrupt noble?
Kaelen was gasping. Sweat mixed with soot streamed down his face, carving pale lines through filth. His lungs burned. His legs trembled so violently he had to dig his toes into the mud to stay upright. He looked like an insect before a giant—a remnant of a man life had already chewed up and spat out.
But he did not lower the short sword.
From a carved wooden balcony, veiled by purple velvet shadows on the upper floor of a neighboring manor, two sharp eyes watched the scene.
Madame Vespera, proprietor of the brothel that rivaled Garrick's, a woman who had climbed the ladder of power by slitting the throats of nobles and commoners alike, held a goblet of fine wine. She did not look at the fire. She looked at the black-haired youth in the torn tunic.
— What magnificent foolishness — she murmured, a glacial smile playing on her carmine-painted lips. — He knows he will die. He reeks of death. And still, he's trying to protect what's already been sold.
She saw what the others did not: it wasn't courage—it was the complete absence of hope. Kaelen did not fight because he believed he could win; he fought because nothing was all he had left, and nothing does not fear hell.
Kaelen glanced back for a single heartbeat. His mother clutched Elara, who whimpered in a trance of terror. The sight of his sister—that jewel of House Valerius now reduced to a trembling bundle of rags in the mud—pulled the final trigger in his mind.
— I don't need to defeat you, demon — Kaelen hissed, his voice coming out like a bark of hatred. — I only need you to remember that a "remnant of a man" made you bleed before going into the pit.
With a primal scream that tore his dry throat raw, Kaelen charged.
He did not use the elegant stances drilled into him at the Academy. He did not attempt a gentleman's duel. He dove into the mud, sliding beneath the reach of Malphas's long arms, aiming for the only visible flaw in the ebony armor: the leather-and-mail joint behind the left knee.
Malphas laughed, a sound like iron plates colliding.
— Predictable!
The Inquisitor did not draw his sword. He simply brought his fist down like a warhammer, aimed at Kaelen's back. The impact was so violent the ground beneath the boy cracked, and the air was torn from his lungs in an explosion of agony.
Kaelen felt his ribs splinter—but in the final sliver of consciousness, he struck.
The tip of the infantry short sword found the blind spot in Malphas's armor.
There was a tearing sound. Then a black, steaming fluid—the corrupted blood of the Nephilim—splashed over Kaelen's arm, burning his skin like acid.
Silence fell over the harbor.
Malphas let out a low growl, not of pain, but of surprise. He looked down at his knee, where the black ichor streamed.
The crowd released a collective breath.
The untouchable had been touched.
The Price of Insolence
Malphas tilted his head, the helm grinding. The aura of death around him tripled in intensity, forcing nearby onlookers to collapse to their knees, vomiting in terror.
— You… — Malphas's voice was now pure venom. — You actually made me spend blood on this filth.
He seized Kaelen by the throat before the boy could recover from the blow to his back. He lifted him from the ground with one hand, Kaelen's feet kicking uselessly at the air.
— Now — Malphas said, bringing his armored face close to Kaelen's — I will keep you alive just long enough to watch what I do to your sister in front of you. And then I will give your eyes to the crows, so the last thing you remember is the sound of her screaming.
Kaelen's vision dimmed. Malphas's hand was an iron vise crushing his windpipe, and the stench of his own flesh burning beneath the Nephilim's acidic blood was the final thing his senses registered. Through the haze, he saw his mother's silhouette trying to rise—fear pinning her to the ground.
— Look at them, Valerius — Malphas hissed, his voice vibrating inside Kaelen's skull. — Look at the end of your lineage.
But the end did not come by Malphas's steel.
It came by a thin whistle that sliced through the roar of the fire.
Flic. Flic. Flic.
Three arrows—black shafts tipped with purified silver—struck with surgical precision into Malphas's pauldron and neck seam. The Inquisitor did not feel pain as mortals did, but silver was an insult to his demonic blood. The impact and alchemical reaction forced the giant to stagger, releasing Kaelen's throat.
The boy collapsed into the mud, coughing violently, air tearing into his lungs like razor blades.
— Enough free spectacle, Inquisitor — Madame Vespera's voice carried from the balcony, cold and melodic, cutting through the chaos. — Ostrava is a city of commerce, and you're spoiling the merchandise with your clerical sadism.
Malphas roared, ripping the arrows from his shoulder with a contemptuous jerk. He looked up at the balcony, where Vespera stood unmoving, flanked by four archers wearing black leather masks.
— You dare interfere in a matter of the Holy Inquisition, woman? — Malphas thundered with heretical fury. — I could burn your whorehouse with you inside it.
— You could try — Vespera replied, swirling her wine. — But the Inquisition pays tithes to the Crown, and the Crown owes my guild favors for financing the last three wars your King failed to win. If you kill that boy now, you kill my entertainment. And I despise being bored.
Vespera made a discreet gesture. Her archers kept their strings drawn, aiming at the joints of the Nephilim's armor.
— Malphas — she continued — the Cathedral merchant has already received the gold for the women. They are Garrick's property. But the boy… the boy belongs to no one. And I have just decided that I want him.
Malphas let out an animal growl, but he knew Vespera was no ordinary brothel keeper. She was the Matriarch of the Pale Rose, an espionage network that kept the secrets of half the clergy locked away in its drawers.
— Take the trash, then — Malphas spat, glaring at Kaelen with a hatred that promised a future reckoning. — But the females stay. Garrick's contract is absolute.
Kaelen tried to rise, his hand groping through the mud for his short sword.
— No! — he choked, watching his mother and sister being surrounded again by Garrick's men, who were now recovering from the shock.
— Silence, little hero — Vespera's voice cracked like a whip. — You don't have the strength to spit, let alone save anyone. If you want them to live through another night, come with me now. Or die here and watch Malphas finish what he started.
Kaelen looked at his mother. The Baroness, in a final moment of clarity, slowly shook her head at her son. Her lips moved without sound: Live.
Two of Vespera's men leapt down from the balcony, landing silently beside Kaelen. They seized his arms—not with the brutality of Malphas's guards, but with professional firmness.
— Come, boy — one of them whispered. — Madame doesn't like to repeat invitations.
Kaelen was dragged into the shadows of Vespera's mansion as the iron gate slammed shut behind them. The last image burned into his mind before darkness swallowed everything was his sister, Elara, being thrown back into the Black Roses Lupanar under Malphas's watchful, hungry gaze.
Inside the mansion, the luxury was suffocating. Velvet, incense, and the scent of fresh blood. Madame Vespera descended the stairs, studying Kaelen as though he were a rare animal just pulled from a pit.
— You have courage, Valerius. Stupid, suicidal courage… and useful — she stopped before him, lifting his filthy chin with the tip of an ivory fan. — Do you want your family back?
— I will kill them — Kaelen hissed, his eyes bloodshot. — I will kill every last one of them.
— Oh, you will — Vespera smiled, and for the first time Kaelen understood she was just as dangerous as the Nephilim. — But first, you will learn that steel is nothing if you don't know where to put it. You now belong to the Pale Rose. And your cadet training has just become a children's game.
Kaelen is safe—but at a terrible cost. He is now an asset to a dangerous woman, while his family remains in the hands of his enemies.