---
The ceiling was too clean.
That was the first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes. White and smooth and untouched, with none of the soot or cracks he had spent fourteen years sleeping under. He sat up slowly. The bed beneath him was softer than anything he had ever touched. The room was enormous — carved furniture, thick curtains, a fireplace that crackled with polite warmth.
He was on his feet before the thought fully formed.
The door opened. A guard stepped in — polished armour, careful posture, a voice trained to be soothing.
"My lord asks that you rest. You are a guest here and entirely—"
The wind hit him sideways. Non-fatal — just enough to lift him off his feet and put him firmly against the wall, armour rattling. The boy was already past him.
A second guard in the corridor raised his hands.
Wind again. Wall again.
Third and fourth moved together. He split them apart without breaking stride — one into a tapestry, one spinning into a side table that collapsed with a tremendous crash — and kept running.
He turned the corner at full speed.
He hit something.
Something alive.
He had time to register height — someone taller than him — and then the floor came up very fast and the grey edges returned and this time he did not even finish falling before the darkness took him.
---
When he woke the second time, voices reached him before the ceiling did.
"— four of them —"
"— he was asleep, my lord, we didn't think he would—"
"Four. Guards. One boy. Fourteen years old. Unarmed."
A pause loaded with something that was trying very hard not to be laughter.
"I want you to think, very carefully, about what you are going to tell your families you did today."
He opened his eyes.
The man standing with his back to the guards was broad-shouldered and unhurried, dark coat slightly rumpled, a glass of something amber held loosely in one hand. He turned at the sound of the boy stirring and waved the guards out with the glass. They left with the speed of men grateful for an exit.
The man pulled a chair close to the bed, dropped into it with the ease of someone who sat wherever he liked, and looked at the boy with calm, interested eyes.
He was not old. Perhaps early thirties. A short beard, slightly unkempt. The falcon crest on his chest was the same one the boy had seen through the dark — gold thread, wings spread, sword beneath.
He extended a hand.
"Earl Markus Vex. Golden Lands. Northwest border guard of Raum." A small grin. "And the thing you crashed into in the corridor, so we are even."
The boy looked at the hand. Then shook it once, briefly.
Markus leaned back. Poured a second glass from the bottle on the side table without being asked, set it in front of the boy, and lit a short pipe with the unhurried manner of a man with nowhere to be.
"Name," he said. Not unkindly.
Silence.
"Village?"
"No village left."
Markus nodded slowly. Took a long pull from the pipe. Did not push.
"Parents?"
"Didn't have them before either."
Another nod. Smoke curled toward the ceiling. He seemed to be thinking about something, or perhaps simply existing comfortably in the silence the way men who drink good wine and smoke whenever they like tend to do.
"I want revenge," the boy said.
"I know."
"Against Raum. Against the knights. Against whoever gave the order."
"I know that too." Markus tapped the pipe against his knee. "You should also know that I wear the empire's crest and collect the empire's border taxes — minimum, because I am not unreasonable — and sleep in the empire's territory." He looked at the boy directly. "And I have been quietly, carefully, patiently planning to burn it all down for six years."
The fire crackled.
"So," Markus said, "we may be useful to each other."
The boy said nothing. But he did not say no.
Markus refilled his glass. Gestured at the untouched one in front of the boy.
"You should drink something. You nearly killed yourself in a forest with no shoes on." He squinted. "What do I call you?"
The boy opened his mouth. Closed it.
No name had ever been given to him. No name had ever seemed necessary.
"Aren," Markus said, as if the word had been sitting in his pocket waiting.
The boy looked at him.
"Old northern tongue. Means the sound of war." Markus shrugged with one shoulder. "Seemed appropriate."
The boy — Aren — turned the word over silently. Tested its weight.
He picked up the glass. Did not drink. Just held it.
"When does the rebellion start," he said.
Markus smiled. It reached his eyes.
"It already has."
---
— End of Chapter 2 —
---
What comes next?