11. Blood Ties #5
The crowd dispersed, children drifting toward the estate in twos and threes. Some of them looked at us with what might’ve been respect. A few just hurried past with their eyes fixed firmly on the ground, wanting no part of whatever trouble we’d brought back from the forest.
We started walking, slow and painful, and that’s when I noticed the two figures standing apart from the rest.
They were positioned on a small rise near the treeline, far enough from the marker stone to avoid the crowd of finishing teams but close enough to observe everything that happened.
Most of the other children didn’t even notice them.
I did, because I’d been trained to notice things that didn’t belong, and legitimate heirs had no business being at a night exercise meant for bastards.
Baldir de Blaise was fourteen years old, tall and composed, with the kind of easy authority that came from knowing exactly where you stood in the world.
He wore simple training clothes rather than the fine materials his rank would permit, and his hand rested on the practice sword at his hip.
Everything about his posture said he was comfortable here, comfortable watching, comfortable making assessments that would inform decisions years from now.
He had his father’s winter-slate eyes and his father’s iron-gray hair, though his was still dark with youth. In ten years he’d command armies, and in twenty he’d rule this house. For now he watched bastards bleed in the moonlight and learned what kind of weapons his family was forging.
His brother Armand was two years younger, lean and watchful, already carrying himself like the swordsman he was training to become.
Where Baldir was still, Armand vibrated with barely contained energy.
His eyes tracked movement the way a hunting hawk’s did, quick and sharp and hungry.
They were a study in contrasts, these two: the heir and the spare, the lord-in-waiting and the blade he’d one day wield.
I’d seen them from a distance over the years, always separate from the bastard children, always watching from a remove that felt like more than physical distance. But here they were tonight. Watching.
Baldir’s expression gave nothing away. He looked at me the way he might look at a ledger entry or a piece of equipment, assessing value and potential without any particular emotional attachment.
His eyes took in my injuries with clinical attention: the blood still wet on my face, the way I favored my left side, the arm that hung wrong despite my efforts to hide it.
I was a factor to be considered, nothing more.
A variable in whatever equations ran behind those calculating eyes.
Armand was different.
His gaze held something the older brother didn’t show: interest, maybe, or recognition of what he saw in the way I carried myself, in the blood still drying on my blade, in the fact that I was still standing when better odds said I shouldn’t be.
He looked at me the way a craftsman looks at raw material that might become something worth forging.
Neither of them spoke, because they didn’t need to.
The message was clear enough: they were aware of me now.
Whatever anonymity I’d had as just another bastard in the backhouse died tonight along with Torvald and Cren and the boys whose names I’d never learned.
From this moment forward, I existed in the calculations of the legitimate heirs, and that could be protection or danger, depending on what they decided I was worth .
I met Baldir’s eyes, then Armand’s, holding each gaze for exactly one heartbeat before looking away.
Long enough to acknowledge them. Short enough not to challenge.
It was the same calculation I’d made with minor lords and rival mercenary captains in my past life, the careful dance of showing respect without showing weakness.
Armand’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile but close, like he understood the game I was playing and approved of the move. Baldir gave no reaction at all, and that was somehow more unsettling.
Then we were past, limping toward the barracks, and the legitimate heirs faded into the darkness behind us.
◇ ◆ ◇
The healer set my ribs with efficient disinterest, binding them tight enough that breathing became a conscious effort.
She was an older woman with gray hair and steady hands, the kind who’d seen enough broken bodies that one more barely registered.
She clucked over Maise’s hands but didn’t ask questions, just cleaned and wrapped and moved on to the next patient with the steady rhythm of someone doing a job she’d stopped caring about years ago.
“Cracked, not broken,” she announced, prodding my side in a way that made lights dance across my vision. “You’ll live, but don’t do anything stupid for at least a week.”
“Define stupid.”
She gave me a look that said she’d heard that response before from boys who thought they were clever, and moved on to wrap Maise’s hands in fresh bandages.
Perrin refused treatment, claiming he was fine, but his hands shook when he thought nobody was watching.
He sat in the corner of the healer’s station with his knees drawn up to his chest, staring at nothing.
I realized this might be the first time he’d watched someone die.
Not heard about it, not seen the aftermath, but actually watched the light leave their eyes while blood pumped between their fingers.
It changed you, the first time. I remembered my own first kill, back when I was ten and still thought there were rules to fighting.
A border skirmish over grazing rights that turned ugly when someone drew steel.
The man I killed was older than my father, and he looked surprised right up until he stopped looking at anything.
I didn’t sleep for three days after that, because I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing his face.
Perrin would work through it or he wouldn’t, and nothing I said would make the process faster.
Grit disappeared somewhere between the healer’s station and the barracks. I didn’t see him go, because nobody ever saw him go. He processed things differently than the rest of us, in silences and shadows, and I’d learned not to worry when he vanished. He’d be back when he was ready to be back.
By the time Maise and I limped toward our bunks, it was well past midnight. The barracks corridor was empty except for the flicker of a single torch at the far end, and our footsteps rang against stone worn smooth by generations of children learning to become weapons.
The room held eight beds but only four of us remained from the original assignment, the others culled by sickness, accidents, and the quiet disappearances that nobody questioned. This room belonged to my people now .
Maise collapsed onto her bunk without undressing, her bandaged hands crossed over her chest. The blood had soaked through again, dark spots spreading on pale linen, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“That was stupid,” she said to the ceiling. “We almost died.”
“Almost only counts in horseshoes.” Perrin sat on the edge of his bed, still pale, still shaking. “We didn’t die. They did.”
“Four of them died, and two ran.” Maise turned her head to look at me. “They’ll tell people. Everyone will know what we did.”
“Good.” I eased myself onto my own bunk, every movement sending fresh fire through my bound ribs. “Let them know. Let them understand what it costs to come after us.”
“Us.” Perrin tested the word like he was tasting it. “When did we become an us?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, because I wasn’t sure when it happened either.
There was no single moment I could point to, no oath sworn or blood pact made.
Just the slow accumulation of shared meals, training drills, and the small kindnesses that added up to something larger: Maise watching my back during sparring, Perrin making sure I got extra bread when the kitchen staff tried to short my portions, Grit appearing beside me in moments when I needed someone beside me.
“Does it matter?” Maise asked. “We’re here. We’re alive. They’re not.” She closed her eyes. “That’s enough for tonight.”
“That’s enough,” Perrin agreed.
He pulled his blankets around himself and curled into the position he always slept in, arms wrapped around his chest. Within minutes his breathing deepened, though I noticed his hands were still trembling even in sleep .
Maise took longer. She lay with her eyes closed, but her breathing didn’t settle into the rhythms of true rest. I watched her for a while, wondering what she was thinking, wondering if she was seeing Torvald’s face every time she blinked.
She spoke at last, quiet enough that I almost missed it.
“I didn’t hesitate.”
“I noticed.”
“When I threw the knife, I didn’t think about it. Didn’t wonder if I should. Just saw him about to kill you and threw.”
“That’s what kept me alive.”
“I know.” She paused. “I thought I’d feel worse about it, killing someone. They always talked about how hard it was, how it stayed with you forever, how you never forgot.” Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact. “I don’t feel anything. Just empty.”
“That comes later.”
“Does it?”
“Sometimes.” I thought about all the men I’d killed in another life, the faces I remembered and the ones that blurred together.
The nights when the dead lined up behind my eyes and refused to leave.
“Sometimes it hits you all at once, weeks or months later. Sometimes it never hits at all. Everyone carries it differently.”
“How do you carry it?”
I considered the question. In my past life, I carried it with alcohol, violence, and the simple expedient of never stopping long enough for the weight to settle.
I killed until killing became ordinary, until bodies were just problems to be solved, until the screams stopped meaning anything except confirmation that the job was done .
“I remember their faces,” I said finally. “All of them. And I tell myself that I’d make the same choice again if I had to. That keeps it from crushing me.”
Maise was quiet for a long moment.
“I’d make the same choice,” she said. “He was going to kill you, and I stopped him. I’d do it again.”
“Then hold onto that.”
She nodded, and this time when she closed her eyes, her breathing settled. Within minutes she was asleep, her face peaceful in a way it rarely was during waking hours.
I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the estate settling into night.
Somewhere in the main house, Henrik de Blaise was asking questions about bodies in the forest. Somewhere else, Lady Meresin was receiving word that her latest attempt had failed.
And somewhere in the barracks for acknowledged children, Baldir and Armand were thinking about the bastard who refused to die.
The Knight Brand pulsed warm against my spine, a reminder of promises made in another world.
Find the one who broke Hel’s claim. Kill him. Everything else was just survival until I was strong enough to keep my end of the bargain.
Tonight was survival. Tomorrow would be consequences. The day after would bring new threats and new calculations and the endless work of staying alive in a house that wanted me dead.
But I wasn’t alone.
That was worth something. Maybe worth everything. Sleep took me eventually, pulling me down into darkness where dead men waited with questions I couldn’t answer and a goddess watched with one eye of fire and one socket of endless cold.
I didn’t dream of the forest. I didn’t dream of the bodies or the blood or the moment I understood that four children had become something that couldn’t be easily broken.
I dreamed of a ribbon, faded blue, worn in the hair of a woman I never met.
And a voice that sounded like winter telling me that some promises lasted longer than death.
「Hel’s Ledger」
Vessel: Danarre de Blaise | Year 822 | Age 7
House de Blaise | Status: Bastard (Unacknowledged)
Location: de Blaise Estate, Eastern Training Grounds
「Knight of Swords」 — Stirring
「Emperor」 — Sleeping
「Magician」 — Sleeping
Active Charge: Find the one who broke Hel’s claim.
Four pups killed their first meat tonight. The vessel led, bled, and held. The pack forms around him the way iron filings find the lodestone. There will be need of more.