31. The Climb of Knives #2
Rikken won a fight with a broken arm by convincing his opponent he’d poisoned his blade. The man surrendered rather than risk a scratch.
Sedrick turned a losing battle by setting his own fortifications on fire. The enemy retreated from what they thought was a trap. It wasn’t. He just preferred burning to surrendering.
Cain once killed a man with a chicken bone because it was what he had. “Goes through the eye socket just fine if you know the angle.”
Every story carried a lesson underneath the blood and humor, delivered without formality, without pretension.
“Your team,” Haim said eventually, setting his cup down with the careful deliberation of a man who’d earned the right to take his time. “ The angry girl, the clever one, the quiet mountain. They good troops?”
“The best I have.”
“That’s all anyone can ask for.” He ran his thumb along the rim of his cup. “Keep them close. A lord without loyal swords is just a man with a fancy name.”
Henrik had remained largely silent throughout, watching his Sword-Kin educate his bastard in their own rough way. Now he stood.
“Danarre will represent us in the Juvenile bracket,” he announced. “He will win, or he will learn why he didn’t.”
“He’ll win,” Gwent said, and the certainty in his voice surprised me more than the words. “Boy’s got the eyes for it.”
“What eyes?” Willem asked.
“Killer’s eyes.” Gwent shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. “Seen them in mirrors all my life. He’s already done it. Just a matter of doing it again.”
The dinner concluded. As the Sword-Kin filed out, each one paused long enough to leave a final piece of hard-won wisdom.
Rikken clasped my shoulder at the door. “Keep your guard up.”
Tennyson followed, the ruined side of his face twisting into what might’ve been a grin. “Trust your instincts.”
“Hit first,” Cain said, tossing his knife and catching it without looking.
Sedrick paused in the doorway and studied me one last time. “Think twice, strike once.”
Kent gave a nod as he passed. “Make them fear you.”
Haim was last. He stopped, looked back with that single sharp eye, and said the only thing that truly mattered. “Stay alive. ”
When they were gone, Henrik poured water into two glasses and handed me one.
“You handled that well,” he said. “They don’t usually talk so much with newcomers.”
“They were teaching.”
“Yes. In their way.” He drank, and I followed suit. The water was cold, clean, with a hint of mint. “They see something in you. Perhaps the same thing I do.”
He set down his glass. “You’ve earned a reward. Separate quarters have been prepared, a room of your own, as befits someone who might soon be an acknowledged son of House de Blaise.”
The words were honey covering poison. A reward that was also a separation.
“My team?”
“Remains where they are. You’ve risen. They haven’t.” His eyes were glacier blue, calculating the effect of each word before it left his mouth. “Win the tournament, and they rise with you. Fail, and you fall alone.”
A servant appeared at the door, a young man with downcast eyes.
“Show Lord Danarre to his quarters,” Henrik commanded.
Lord Danarre. The title settled over me, heavy as a yoke but lighter than it would’ve been without the Sword-Kin’s lessons still ringing in my ears. Heavy, but something I could learn to carry.
◇ ◆ ◇
The room was on the second floor of the main house.
Small by noble standards, but larger than anywhere I’d slept in this life.
A real bed with a feather mattress. A desk that didn’t wobble.
A window overlooking the training yards where I’d bled just yesterday.
A weapon rack, currently empty except for my sword.
“Your belongings will be brought from the barracks,” the servant said, then left.
I stood in the center of my new cage and let the silence press in around me.
Below, my team would be back in the barracks by now, wondering what had happened at dinner, what it meant for them.
Tomorrow, they’d see me in different clothes, coming from a different door, and understand that everything had changed.
The Sword-Kin had taught me valuable lessons tonight. How to fight, how to cheat, how to win without revealing everything. The most important lesson was the one nobody said aloud: in House de Blaise, every gift had teeth.
I lay on the soft bed and missed the hard wood of the barracks bunk. The Knight Brand burned steady against my spine, satisfied with the day’s promises of violence to come.
Tomorrow, I’d begin training for the tournament. Tonight, I was alone with the knowledge that I’d started climbing a ladder made of knives.
The only way forward was up.
The only way down was dead.
◇ ◆ ◇
「Hel’s Ledger」
Vessel: Danarre de Blaise | Year 828 | Age 13
House de Blaise | Status: Bastard (Unacknowledged)
Location: de Blaise Estate, Main House
「Knight of Swords」 — Burning
「Emperor」 — Sleeping
「Magician」 — Sleepin g
Active Charge: The trail leads to the Temple’s highest seat.
The vessel sat among killers and kin. Ate their food, heard their lessons. The old ones saw what she saw first. The Brand burns steady now. Ready for what’s coming, or close enough.