Epilogue
The stage lights pooled like melted amber, cathedral colors washing across silk banners and foam masonry, turning the sold-out theater into a chapel for nerds.
The Paladin Live logo burned above a painted rose window and a throne no one would sit on.
The air shimmered with the electric hum of anticipation, thick with the scent of popcorn butter and the warmth of overheated bulbs, the thready odor of an overworked fog machine ghosting through the aisles.
If faith had a sound, it was two thousand people holding their breath at once, waiting for a twenty-sided die to stop rolling.
Felix had pulled a few strings and gotten them good seats—Felix good, not normal good.
Mid-center orchestra, the kind of section reserved for platinum cards and recognizable last names.
Seven still couldn’t look at the ticket stub without smiling.
Nico tried—and failed—to look unimpressed with their surroundings, his gaze darting from item to item, like he might miss something.
Felix checked the stitching on Seven’s bracer, while Shiloh traced the edge of his own pauldron, smiling that soft, secret smile he saved for Levi.
Arsen had gone full paladin with hand-tooled leather, unnecessary buckles, and a cape that made him look taller.
Ever shimmered in sorcerer-inspired glitter.
Mal endured chainmail for love, bribed by Nico’s promise of post-show pastries made with his own two hands.
Lake and Cree kept it clean, donning quiet silhouettes and careful details.
Silas managed fratty knight chic, which shouldn’t have been possible, yet there he stood, laughing with Mal about whether mead could be shotgunned.
Legacy idiots and later recruits alike had been polished to Felix’s standard: not a thread wrong, not a seam unpressed. Felix would rather perish than be seen in bargain plastic at a landmark Paladin event, and not just because of vanity, but because he knew what this meant to all of them.
The sound of the dice clattering across the stage seemed to travel down Seven’s spine.
It wasn’t just a game sound, it was a memory trigger.
Their childhood had sounded like this. Over ten years of logins, lag, homework unfinished because the Greenwood needed him more.
Over ten years of this guild. The Knights of the Kids’ Table, named as a joke at twelve, but kept because some names just rooted under the skin and refused to be evicted.
The d20 settled. The lead—Ser Thalos himself, the man who’d carried his voice for a decade—peeked down, lifted a hand, and grinned into the mic. “Natural twenty.”
The hall detonated. People stood and screamed and clapped.
A guy two rows back yelled, “CRIT, MY LIEGE!” Someone near the aisle cried.
Joy rolled through the crowd in a single living wave.
Arsen shook Ever’s shoulder and glitter took to the air.
Shiloh laughed helplessly, then hid his face against Levi’s sleeve, like he’d been caught doing something illegal.
Which, with Levi, was always a statistical possibility.
Seven clapped until his palms stung. It was absurd how happy this made him. How right it felt.
On stage, the table was theater, all carved edges, brass inlay, and leather-bound rulebooks no one pretended to read.
The actors wore stage-worthy versions of their characters, accurate enough to thrill, and theatrical enough to be seen clearly from the balcony.
The Ser Thalos actor rose for a curtain call.
He was older up close, silver at his temples with lines at the eyes earned by laughter, frowns, or both.
He had a gravity about him that made things like honor and vows and better selves feel possible.
He wasn’t quite as handsome as the character in the game, but Seven was riveted just the same.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice rolling across the crowd like a summer storm.
“We started as a handful of friends rolling dice in a drafty soundstage, and now, it’s—” He took them all in: the crowd, the banners, the phones held up, their screens glowing like stars.
“This. You grew up with us. We grew up with you. We watched guilds form, break apart, reunite. We watched communities build. We watched you fall in love.”
Laughter and cheers.
“We know some of your guilds by name,” he went on.
“We see your fan art. Your memes. There’s a running list in our writers’ room of ships we didn’t plan but wish we had.
” A beat of silence. “Tonight, we’ve got some legends with us.
Tonight, we have”—he shaded his eyes, scanning the crowd—“the Knights of the Kids’ Table in the building. Where are you? Stand up.”
The theater roared.
Seven’s heart fell straight into his shoes.
Felix’s fingers found his and squeezed like a tourniquet. Nico made a noise unfit for human throats. Cree, calm as a surgeon, murmured, “What did you do?” If he’d known anything, he wouldn’t have asked. But Seven hadn’t done anything.
“Me? I didn’t—” His mouth went dry. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Seven,” Nico breathed. “They know about us.”
A stagehand was already hustling down the aisle wearing black clothes, a headset, and the friendly smile assigned to wranglers of nerds. “Knights of the Kids’ Table?” She pointed at her clipboard. “Can you come with me? We’re bringing you up for a minute.”
Seven leaned toward Felix. “I will strangle you.”
“You’re welcome, you ungrateful douche,” Felix whispered back, straightening his cloak like a single out-of-place hem might determine his fate.
Enzo hated crowds, so no wonder he’d skipped this.
Seven now wished he’d skipped it, too. He pictured an immaculate kitchen, coffee cooling on the counter, a livestream on a laptop.
He pictured Enzo in the corner of that kitchen, the light from the window cutting across his jaw, the quiet click of his pen as he annotated case files, content, miles away from all this glitter and noise.
Lights up close erased the edges of his vision.
The stage dissolved into heat and noise.
The crowd sounded like surf. The Thalos actor pressed a mic into Seven’s hand, his smile kind but conspiratorial.
The microphone was warm against his palm, and the sound of the audience folded into a single, expectant hum that made Seven’s throat tighten.
“Everyone,” the actor announced, “these are some of the longest-running legacy players in Paladin history. They’ve logged in together since Beta, taken their mains through every expansion, kept a campaign alive through high school, finals, moves, break-ups, and—” He glanced at them with a knowing warmth that seemed oddly intimate. “Life. The Knights of the Kids’ Table.”
Pride landed low in Seven’s sternum—a silly feeling to have over a name, but names did that.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. It felt like someone had reached into his chest and struck a match on his ribs.
Why did hearing about his own life in this particular voice make it feel holy?
Sacred? This was crazy. He was standing next to the Ser Thalos.
“They’ve got a ranger,” the actor added, “who many of you will know by reputation, if not his stupidly high stealth rolls. The original Thorn Vale.”
The camera found Seven’s face and flung it twenty feet tall on the LED wall. A guy in a beautifully made ranger costume, who didn’t like being looked at, watching himself be looked at.
He lifted the mic. His voice came out just steady enough to hear clearly. “Uh, hi. I’m Seven. I play as Rowan Thorn Vale.”
The audience laughed—not at him, but because they recognized his nervousness. They were probably imagining themselves suddenly being thrown into the spotlight.
“The fans—our watchers,” he heard himself say, heat creeping behind his ears at how sentimental that sounded, “kind of ship me with another origin character.”
“Ship?” the Thalos actor echoed, voice ticking up in question at the end, as if he had never met fans before.
“Yeah.” Seven couldn’t stop his smile. “There’s a…romance thing that plays out in our adventures.”
“And who,” the actor asked, like this was news to everyone there, “do they ship you with?”
“Ser Thalos.” Seven tipped the mic toward him. The cheer for the name and the face was immediate. “They, uh, like watching our interactions.”
“We like watching a lot of things,” Felix said salaciously, alluding to the NC scenes in the game cuts. “Some of us are married to it.”
The actor lifted his hands, and the surrounding laughter died down.
“You’ve written a love story with us for a decade.
Tonight, we thought we’d return the favor.
” A pause, then the sound of strings rose, soft and earnest. He turned toward the table as the actor playing Thorn Vale stood, light pooling around his boots.
The proposal scene from the Arc of the Greenwood finale. The one with compilation videos Seven didn’t watch because he already knew it by heart. The ranger took a step toward Thalos and lifted his chin for the line everyone could mouth.
“The Greenwood has no kings. It has guardians.”
Thalos answered on cue. “Then give me leave to guard what I cannot live without.” The actor stopped mid-gesture and laughed, delighted. He turned back to the crowd and shook his head. “This doesn’t feel right, does it?”
Noise tangled through the room. Some said yes. Others said no. But democracy had nothing on a showman with a plan.
He faced Seven, his voice lowering, the amusement in it giving way to gentleness. “Maybe tonight,” he said, “we ask the actual Thorn Vale to step in. Would you like to take a turn as my Thorn Vale?”
Seven wanted to sink through the stage. “I’m not—I don’t—”
“Do you,” the actor interrupted, not performing now, but asking the younger man for an answer he seemed to already know, “by any chance, have your own Ser Thalos?”