31. The Climb of Knives
The Climb of Knives
The door to Henrik’s study closed with a click that ended one conversation and began another, longer one inside my own head. Win the tournament. I’ll acknowledge you. I’ll give you your team. The servant from before appeared, expression still severe.
“This way.”
She led me past the main stairs and into a different wing of the house. We passed through corridors that grew progressively warmer, past rooms that spoke of comfort rather than grandeur.
“Your companions have been fed and returned to the Stone Yard barracks,” she said without looking back. “They were informed you would be occupied for the evening.”
Good. At least they weren’t still waiting in the kitchens, wondering if I’d been killed or promoted.
She showed me into a small lounge with a fire crackling in the hearth.
“You will wait here,” she said, then vanished.
I couldn’t sit, couldn’t settle. The fine coat felt like armor I hadn’t earned, covering skin still raw from the morning’s scrubbing.
Two hours passed, maybe longer, and I spent them studying the maps on the walls, tracing borders where the Red Gale had bled for lords who couldn’t find their own battlefields without servants to point them out.
These parlor maps marked no graveyards, showed no blood-soaked fields, just neat lines dividing wealth from greater wealth .
The envelope crinkled in my pocket when I moved. Authorization for proper equipment, another chain to hold me down. Chains could be weapons, though, if you knew how to swing them.
Acknowledgment. The word rolled through my thoughts like a stone settling into a riverbed.
Henrik was offering what most bastards never dreamed of, and I understood the true price.
Winning the tournament meant earning the de Blaise name, becoming a true son, or close enough to sit at high tables and speak the language of power without revealing how recently he’d learned it.
I thought of Maise, Perrin, and Grit back in the barracks.
They didn’t know what had been offered, what winning could mean for all of us.
My sworn people, allies bound by shared survival who’d become the closest thing to family this second life had given me.
The fire popped, sending sparks up the chimney, and I watched them rise and disappear while my thoughts drifted to the Wolves.
They’d followed me because I kept them alive. I fought beside them, bled with them. This was different. This was building something with roots, something that might actually outlast the next culling, the next trial, the next grinder House de Blaise threw at its young.
The servant returned.
“It’s time.”
◇ ◆ ◇
The dining hall doors were carved from ancient oak, and they opened onto a scene from a different world.
The table was massive, dark wood scarred by generations of use.
Henrik sat at its head, Baldir to his right, Armand to his left.
The rest of the table held the real power: nine men whose scars told stories of real war, men who’d earned their seats with steel and blood rather than words and politics.
These were the Sword-Kin of House de Blaise.
“Danarre de Blaise,” the servant announced.
Every head turned. Every pair of eyes ran over me, measuring what I was worth and filing the answer somewhere between curiosity and contempt.
I let them look, kept my spine straight and my face blank.
Henrik gestured to an empty seat halfway down the table, placed with care between his sons and the foot.
A seat that said you exist, but your worth is yet to be determined.
I took it without hesitation.
“Gentlemen,” Henrik said, his voice carrying absolute authority. “Clarissa’s son. The boy who survived the Palisade.”
The introductions came one after another, each man a history lesson carved in flesh.
“Haim.” The oldest, maybe sixty, with one eye gone and a scar that told the story of its taking. His remaining eye was sharp and steady, the look of a man who’d stopped needing to prove anything decades ago.
“Sedrick.” Lean and thoughtful, a strategist who planned the battles others died in. His hands were clean, but I’d bet they’d signed more death warrants than the rest combined.
“Gwent.” A mountain of muscle and scar tissue gave a single nod, built like something you’d use to knock down castle gates.
“Rikken.” One of the youngest veterans, though far from young, with fresh scars on his knuckles that said he still loved the work.
“Cain.” Missing two fingers on his left hand, his right holding a knife even at dinner. A man who’d learned the hard way that weapons should always be close .
“Tennyson.” He’d been handsome once, before something had melted half his face. The good half watched me with amused interest, already sizing up how I’d wear my first real battle.
“Tormund.” Quiet and still, the way a man gets when containing himself takes all his focus. The kind of stillness that came before violence.
“Kent.” One of the few who wasn’t a de Blaise by blood, but had earned his place serving the house, same as Danzing. Proof that a name counted for less than what you did with a sword in your hand.
“Willem.” The youngest, maybe thirty, and still had both eyes and all his fingers, which meant he was either very good or very lucky.
These were the men who’d built House de Blaise’s reputation with steel, blood, and the willingness to do what needed doing.
“Heard you used a spear,” Cain said, his voice rough as gravel. “Don’t see many in this house who do it well.”
“Sword wasn’t enough for what I needed to do,” I said.
“Sometimes it isn’t.” Haim took a drink. “Had four of them break on me in one fight. Killed the last man with a rock.”
He set the cup down. “Nobody talks about the rock in the songs.”
“Songs are shit,” Gwent said. “A rock works when it works.”
The food arrived, real meat rather than the mystery stew of the barracks. Roasted, seasoned, the kind of food I’d only smelled from a distance before today.
As we ate, they talked around me, through me, at me. Casual, testing without seeming to test.
“The Duke’s tournament,” Tennyson said, cutting a piece of meat with his knife held close to the blade. “You know what matters there? ”
“Winning.”
“No.” He leaned forward, the ruined half of his face twisting in the firelight until it looked almost alive. “Surviving. Winning’s secondary.”
“First rule,” Sedrick added, those sharp eyes studying me over the rim of his cup. “Fight to win. If you aren’t strong enough, get stronger. If you aren’t fast enough, get faster. No excuses.”
“Second rule.” Cain picked up seamlessly, turning the knife in his remaining fingers. “If you need to cheat, do so. Just don’t get caught. Getting caught is worse than losing.”
“Third rule.” Haim’s one eye fixed on me. “The only fight that matters is the one you lose. Doesn’t matter how many times you win. You can only lose once.”
He paused and let that settle over the table. “Because when you lose, you die. And dead men don’t get rematches.”
I met his eye. “Then I won’t lose.”
Gwent snorted. “Boy’s got balls, at least.”
“Your Brand,” Tormund said, speaking for the first time, his voice soft but carrying weight. “The Knight. It gave you speed?”
“Yes.”
He folded his hands on the table. “Brands are crutches until they’re not. Learn to fight without it. Then learn to fight with it. Then learn when to show it.”
“Show him,” Henrik said.
Tormund stood and rolled his shoulders. “Watch.”
He picked up his knife from beside his plate and drew the blade across his palm without ceremony. Blood welled, dripped onto the white tablecloth. Then his skin began to change .
The flesh hardened, took on a bronze sheen that spread up his arm like liquid metal flowing beneath the surface.
The cut sealed itself, blood drying and flaking away as the transformation climbed past his elbow and into his shoulder.
When he flexed his fingers, they moved smoothly even as they turned to steel.
“Taurus,” he said. “Body becomes the weapon.”
He pressed his hardened hand against the table’s edge and the thick oak groaned, then cracked under the pressure. A split ran through the wood, deep and clean, the sound of something that should’ve held forever giving way to something stronger.
“Brands aren’t just power,” he continued, letting the bronze fade back to normal skin as he sat down and reached for his wine as if he hadn’t just cracked solid oak with his bare hand. “They’re choices. When to reveal, when to hold back, when to push beyond what your body can handle.”
“Trump cards,” Willem said, cutting into his meat with deliberate strokes. “That’s what Brands are. You show yours too early, everyone knows what to expect. Show it too late and you’re already dead.”
“The Duke’s tournament isn’t just about skill,” Sedrick added, leaning back in his chair. “It’s about information. Who knows what about whom.”
Rikken nodded and tapped two fingers against the table. “Lords bring their best, and they also bring spies. Watchers. People taking notes on every move you make.”
“So you hold back,” I said. “Win without revealing everything. ”
“Now he’s getting it,” Cain said, and the knife stopped turning in his fingers long enough for him to point it at me in what might’ve been approval.
“We serve the house,” Haim said, his one eye finding mine across the table. “Henrik points, we cut.”
He gestured around the table with his cup. “Same as you’ll do, if you prove worthy.”
Cain leaned forward on his elbows. “Remember, though. Politics will try to use you. Make you think things matter that don’t.”
Tormund set down his wine. “They don’t. Steel matters. Blood matters. Everything else is noise.”
“You quit when you’re dead,” Gwent said flatly. “Or when you win. Nothing between.”
The meal continued, and they shared stories, each one a lesson wrapped in blood and dark humor.