3rd Week of March, 1460

  Theodorus strode through Suyren’s stony halls looking, to all the world, unconcerned, his hands clasped behind his back. Inside, his mind was a whirling knot of calculations, tracing and retracing the next steps he would need to take.

  He stepped out into the inner courtyard and was immediately intercepted by Demetrios. The old servant’s face was drawn with worry, lines carved into the weathered skin, yet his posture remained as correct and unremarkable as ever for any distant observer.

  “Is it done, my lord?” he asked, voice a low, tense whisper that barely carried past them.

  “Yes,” Theodorus said with a short nod. “And the information is priceless. I know the rebellion’s first military target.”

  “Mangup?” Demetrios asked at once, sure of his answer.

  “Kalamita.” Theodorus shook his head. Demetrios did a double-take.

  “They mean to cut off support from the Megas Doux’s lands,” Theodorus went on, keeping his tone flat.

  Demetrios fell silent, the implications settling on him like frost. Stefanos, however, did not.

  “And the lady?” he asked. His expression and voice were carefully neutral, but Theodorus knew very well what the young servant was asking. And the accusation layered beneath it.

  “She is asleep,” Theodorus answered quietly, giving the barest confirmation that he had gone through with the plan.

  “Unconscious, if not dead,” Stefanos corrected, iron roughening his words.

  He was not wrong about the risk. There was no precise art to dosing opium in this age, no glass vials with marked lines, no syringes to measure drops. Only the dark bottle the Doux had supplied and the corresponding jug, that piece of work which allowed Theodorus to pour poisoned wine for Cassandra and yet drink safely himself. The Doux had likely taken steps to minimise the danger, but in the end, it had still been guesswork.

  Theodorus’s jaw tightened. He was painfully aware of that possibility. “Her breathing was stable when I left,” he said. “She only drank one cup of the dosed wine.”

  “You may tell yourself that,” Stefanos said, coming a step closer, his voice trembling with barely controlled rage, “but I hope you will not cling to it as an excuse should she perish. Her blood will be on your hands.”

  Theodorus did not answer at once. He held Stefanos’s gaze without flinching, back straight, letting the weight of the accusation sit between them. He knew exactly what he had done and why he had done it. If she died, it would be because he had chosen this path. He would bear that. But he would not be cowed by a boy who could not see past his infatuation.

  “And if I had not acted,” Theodorus said at last, his tone still level, “the blood of the Principality would be on my hands.” He let the words hang for a heartbeat. “I know which burden I choose. The sovereignty of the state over my personal feelings for a young noblewoman. Wouldn’t you, Stefanos?” he asked, the question sharp as a knife’s point.

  Stefanos’s eyes flared, then swung toward Demetrios, wounded. He had clearly assumed the old servant had betrayed his secret. In truth, Theodorus had needed no confidences to see how the boys eyes shone each time he saw her.

  “Yes, my lord,” Stefanos managed. He looked down, fist clenched so tightly his knuckle blanched, his face hot with anger and humiliation.

  Theodorus suppressed a sigh. He could not allow this to fester between them, not at present with so much at stake. He was no sulking teenager to nurture petty grudges with his servants, and they would need steady heads and unity now more than ever.

  “I know what I did was callous, Stefanos,” he said after a moment, letting some of the steel bleed from his voice. “And you are right. It was not… kind.”

  Years spent in lecture halls had taught him that winning an argument and convincing someone were two entirely different arts. You could bludgeon a student into silence and still lose them forever. People needed to feel seen, to feel heard, or they would reject your reasoning out of sheer wounded pride. Sometimes you had to cede ground because you needed them to walk beside you rather than dig in their heels on the other side.

  “I’m not asking you to condone my actions,” Theodorus said quietly. “I am asking you to understand that I did not do this to toy with the lady’s heart for my pleasure, nor for my advancement, but to stop this rebellion in its tracks.” He laid a steadying hand on Stefanos’s shoulder, fingers firm but not unkind. “If war breaks out, no one is safe. Not the peasants in their fields, not the soldiers on the walls… not even the Lady.”

  Stefanos looked away at that, jaw clenched hard enough to hurt, and brushed Theodorus’s hand from his shoulder with a sharp movement.

  “I promise you I will do everything in my power to ensure Lady Cassandra suffers no harm,” Theodorus went on, unfazed by the rejection. “I know you cannot simply will your feelings away, but I need you to look past them and stay cool-headed. We have to make it through this together.” He said earnestly. He understood what Stefanos was feeling, and the boy was not wrong, not entirely. It was the domain of youth to get lost in the patterns of the heart. “I need you on my side, Stefanos.”

  The boy’s lips pressed into a thin line. He looked between the flagstones at his feet, the pale strip of sky above the courtyard, anywhere but at Theodorus or Demetrios. At last he swallowed and said, “You have a letter for me.” His tone was far from warm, but it was probably the best Theodorus could hope for.

  Theodorus slipped the folded missive into his hand with an inconspicuous motion, the way one might pass a coin. “This must reach the Doux posthaste,” he murmured. “Go on ahead of us. Take a horse from the stables.”

  At Theodorus’s insistence, and with the assistance of the reticent stablemaster, Stefanos had spent spare hours learning to ride. This would be a test of his skills, but Theodorus trusted almost no one else with this message.

  “Very well, my lord,” Stefanos muttered. He dipped his head in a stiff approximation of a bow and strode off toward the castle, boots striking the stone furiously. He was off to fetch his travel cloak and slip out by a less-used postern gate, eschewing going straight to the stables, as it would draw too much attention.

  “I worry for him, my lord,” Demetrios said softly, watching the boy’s back until it vanished around a corner.

  “So do I.” Theodorus’s gaze lingered a moment longer on the empty archway. “But I believe in Stefanos.” He turned away, squaring his shoulders. “Come. We must take our post at the end-of-season competition.”

  They walked toward the front of the assembled companies, where the other aides clustered. Stathis stood at the head, calmly guiding the different groups of men through the contests, voice carrying over the clatter of weapons and the ragged breaths of the competitors. The trials looked to be in their final stages. Sweat-darkened tunics clung to his men’s exhausted bodies, and they moved with heavy steps.

  “How are things looking?” Theodorus asked Stathis as he came up beside the man at the head of his own group.

  “My lord,” Stathis said, giving a small bow. “The boys put up a fight. We’ll finish far from the top two, as planned, but we eeked out a victory over Michail’s company. They did us proud.”

  Theodorus let his gaze travel over his men. Sweat and dust streaked their faces, and their jaws were set, eyes dark. They were not satisfied with third place. Good. Dissatisfaction meant they believed they could reach higher. The very fact they had contended with the other two companies at all was proof of how far they had come. Over five months they had transformed, just as he had promised.

  They had arrived half-starved peasants from the hills, narrow-shouldered and hollow-cheeked. Now ribs no longer showed under linen and the hollows had filled with lean muscle. Regular meals, strict hours for sleep, and a steady rhythm of regular drills and off-day competitions had hardened them without breaking them. He had never driven them to collapse, but increased the demands slowly, letting their bodies grow into the work.

  More than the bodily transformation though, the men had learned how to conduct themselves with straight postures and steady hands, integrating themselves with the townsfolk and, most importantly, had learned valuable skills. Listening to the minute signs of muscle fatigue, and how to mitigate it, working wood and daub in equal measure to improve their homes, and the strength of camaraderie and teamwork. All skills that would follow them later in life.

  This, Theodorus thought, watching them, was what seasonal militia service ought to be: not merely a levy of bodies, but an education for the realm’s men in discipline, skill, and cooperation.

  The starkest and most underrated result of Theodorus’s measures was the health he now saw in the troops. It was vastly underrated how much the various diseases men contracted in the Middle Ages affected the skill and progress of an army’s combat capabilities. Diseases ate into the body’s reserves and, naturally, its muscle mass, stopping the steady accumulation of gains as men couldn’t train and would lose their form and habits. Under his watch, no casualties to disease had been reported and injuries and diseases were few and far between. All other improvements followed off the back of this.

  Theodorus stepped forward, raising his voice so it carried to the far ranks. “Men,” he called. A ripple ran through the company as backs straightened. “Five months ago, you came here hungry, tired, unsure of yourselves. Today you have stood against men considered your betters and made them work for every point.”

  “You did not win this season,” Theodorus went on, “but you won something I value more. You proved to yourselves what your own hands and backs can do when you stand together. Every order, every drill, every patrol, you turned them into strength and trust. Look beside you. These men are no longer strangers. They are your comrades.”

  A low murmur ran through the ranks, a few chins lifting, many men nodding along. Their eyes were open, earnest and Theodorus knew that their loyalty was his.

  “As a result of your hard work,” he continued, allowing warmth into his tone, “we will celebrate. We’ll pitch a camp outside the city so we do not disturb the good citizens of Suyren. So rejoice. Pack your things, take up your tents. One last excursion to end your season of service, men!”

  A rough cheer burst from the company.

  “Stathis,” Theodorus said more quietly when the noise had begun to fade, “we have news of the rebellion.” At once, Stathis’s eyes sharpened. “Stefanos will ride ahead with an advance message to the capital, to bring word as swiftly as possible. I’ll share the details later, when we are well away from prying eyes.”

  Stathis caught the subtext at once. “You’re not coming with us immediately?”

  “I will help coordinate the men, move them out in stages while the final contests finish,” Theodorus said. “I need you to prepare Stefanos’s exit. Make sure the guards are looking the other way and say nothing to anyone.” His tone was even, but his gaze made clear it was no suggestion.

  Stathis’s mouth tightened, worry flickering in his eyes. Theodorus added, more quietly, “I want to see who wins. And I need to speak with Kyriakos.”

  “I see,” Stathis murmured. He reached out and gripped Theodorus’s forearm in a soldier’s clasp. “Do not stay too long, my Lord. I would hate to have to mount a rescue.”

  “No such thing will be necessary,” Theodorus assured him. “The operation went smoothly and my cover remains intact. Lord Adanis has no reason to suspect anything yet. We have hours before anyone looks too closely.” He allowed himself a brief smile. The hardest, most uncertain part of the operation had gone off cleanly. All that remained now was getting out. Which was not without its perils of course.

  “Godspeed, then,” Stathis said. “I will see you on the other side.”

  Theodorus nodded.

  Stathis strode away, already giving orders in his calm disposition. At Theodorus’s signal, squads began to peel away from the competition grounds toward their quarters to pack their kit and stand ready to march. To a casual eye they were only tired militiamen drifting back to their billets after a long day.

  Hypatius surveyed the contest from the vantage point of the upper balcony, where the lord of Suyren and his closest retinue watched men battle it out in the mud. Below, the field was churned into a brown morass, banners hanging limp while squads staggered through the last of the events.

  He regarded the scene with cool, detached interest. He had fought in more than his share of duels and jousts. These contests were rougher, yes, but the core of the categories remained the same. Strength, strength, and more strength. Men staggered under heavy logs, locked themselves in ugly wrestling matches, sloshed forward with buckets, heaved and shouted in tug-of-rope. Some of the trials rewarded the teamwork built over the season, but they were a crude measure of a company’s worth. They tested only the raw muscle the aides had managed to build in their recruits, not the aides themselves.

  The most skilful of the competitions were the formation drills, but even those were reserved for the top two companies in the final bouts. The rest served as entertainment for the watching nobles and an excuse for boasting in the taprooms later.

  Still, Hypatius supposed, it provided some small measure of information. As he watched Theodorus’s company slog through their last event, he could not deny the men were a sight compared to the scarecrows who had first marched through Suyren’s gates. Yet, despite the improvement, they still lagged far behind the top two companies on the tally board.

  Hypatius could see the captain’s hand in that. Just as in the militia selection, Theodorus was losing on purpose, no doubt squeezing some hidden advantage from it and lulling everyone else into underestimating him. It was a thin ploy, and Hypatius was finished being taken in by them. The memory of that chess loss still burned whenever he thought of it, the moment he had realised he had been played.

  This entire contest was theatre, and perhaps a minor measure of the garrison’s readiness. He had expected nothing else from his brother. Adanis was forever more concerned with how things looked than how they would fare on a real battlefield, a truth Hypatius had seen clearly when he first set about overhauling Suyren’s garrison.

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  The men took diligent care of their arms and armour, oiled their shields, and kept their spearheads sharp, but when it came to actual battlefield craft they were utterly lacking. Hypatius had been forced to bring in his own seasoned retainers from the Nomikos estate to drag them up to a tolerable standard. That they had also helped him entrench his influence among the rank and file was a… fortuitous secondary outcome, of course.

  He understood now why his brother wanted him in charge of the troops. Adanis meant for him to do the tiresome work of readying the men for war, just as he had done with the armoury, and just as he had done with the moneylenders to fill the coffers for his little adventure.

  Hypatius was well aware of the rebellion his brother was plotting, and of the role he was meant to play in it. But, as ever, Adanis only saw the immediate gain, not the long-term outcome. The more control he handed over, the easier Hypatius’s eventual succession would become.

  War was a messy, perilous business. Adanis was preparing to march straight into the fire, leaving Hypatius in charge of the holdings in the relative safety of Suyren. For Hypatius, it was a wager without real risk. If the rebellion failed, he could deliver his brother bound to the crown, bend the knee, and keep the northern lands for himself. If it succeeded, so much the better. He would have ample opportunity to deal with his brother once the cheering died down.

  Either way, Hypatius thought, watching the mud-streaked men below, the outcome would favour him. The realisation curled his lips into a small, private smile.

  A servant slipped onto the parapet where Hypatius stood sipping at a cup of cold tea, the breeze tugging at his sleeves. The man bowed low, then leaned close to speak into his ear. “The lord requests your presence in his study, Lord Hypatius,” he whispered.

  Several of the older knights and distant kin in the retinue flicked glances their way at the interruption, then turned back to their wine and quiet boasts, the sycophants sickened Hypatius. They would be among the first things he would change once he became ruler of Suyren.

  “Did he say why?” Hypatius asked, his face still arranged in a pleasant, idle smile, as if they were speaking of the weather.

  “He did not explain, my lord,” came the soft reply.

  Hypatius let his gaze drift once more over the courtyard below. The contests still dragged on, men stumbling through the mud, but there was nothing happening he had not seen a dozen times already.

  He rose in a fluid motion, setting aside the half-finished tea, and made his way into the shadowed corridors. As he turned a corner he caught sight of one of his pieces.

  “Othon,” he called.

  The man halted mid-stride, clearly in a hurry, his cloak thrown back, the mail beneath fully buckled, sword at his hip. “My lord?”

  “What is the matter?” Hypatius asked, voice mild, eyes sharp.

  Othon weighed him for a heartbeat before answering, then stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Theodorus has sent his one-armed servant through the postern gate. He took a horse from the stables. We believe he is carrying a message.”

  Hypatius stilled.

  So Theodorus was using the end-of-season competition as cover to make his move. And this timing… bold, sending a rider in broad daylight instead of under darkness, and not in keeping with the captain’s usual careful patterns. Whatever the message was, it was rushed. And serious.

  “Get me that message,” Hypatius said, instincts sharpening to a needle point. “And kill the one-armed boy. Leave no witnesses.” His tone went flat and cold, the decision made as easily as moving a pawn from one square to another.

  Othon nodded once and slipped away, his quick steps already fading down the passage. Hypatius watched him go, a flicker of satisfaction stirring beneath his composed exterior. At last. This was the overextension he had been waiting for, the moment when a patient hunter saw his prey step into the snare.

  “My lord?” the waiting servant prompted gently.

  Hypatius resumed his pace toward his brother’s study, but the forthcoming conversation was the furthest thing from his mind. His thoughts ran ahead with Othon, to the postern gate, to a boy on horseback and a sealed letter that would soon be in his hand.

  He entered the study to find Adanis on his feet, standing before the tall window that dominated the far wall, hands clasped behind his back. One he knew well. The ring of mountains, the folded valleys, the thin silver thread of the river cutting through them. They would all soon be his.

  “My lord,” Hypatius said, offering a bow even though his brother’s back was turned. Playing a part, he had long ago learned, meant keeping the mask on even when no one seemed to be looking.

  “Hypatius.” Adanis waited a long moment before turning away from the glass. “Please, take a seat,” he said with a smile.

  Hypatius crossed the carpet and sat, his eyes drawn despite himself to the tapestry hung front and center on the opposite wall, depicting a hunting scene in rich dyes. He had never looked at it closely during the end-of-year feast, but from this distance, at this angle, something about the arrangement of riders and trees felt familiar, like an echo of another another hunt.

  “You wished to see me?” he asked as Adanis eased into his own chair.

  “Yes.” Adanis followed Hypatius’s glance to the nearby sideboard. “Would you like a drink?” he offered, already reaching for a decanter.

  “Gladly,” Hypatius said.

  In truth, he usually refused his brother’s concoctions, preferring to keep his head clear and his intake moderate - especially where Adanis’s fondness for bitter, spiced brews was concerned. But he also knew his brother was prone to take a refusal as personal insult, and Hypatius had no desire to waste effort smoothing ruffled feathers.

  Adanis poured and handed him the drink. Hypatius raised it in a small gesture of thanks and took a careful sip, fighting not to grimace at the acrid taste that bit the back of his tongue.

  “In truth, I called you here to get your opinion on the state of our troops,” Adanis began. “You’ve been overhauling the garrison as we discussed, yes?”

  “Yes, brother.” Hypatius inclined his head. “Your decision to grant me additional liberties has paid off in that respect.”

  He was always quick to frame his own labor as the fruit of Adanis’s wisdom. It cost him nothing, and his brother’s vanity lapped it up. Delegation was, after all, the one thing Adanis excelled at.

  “I’m glad, brother. I knew you would be well-suited to the task.” Adanis nursed his drink. Hypatius followed suit, taking another measured swallow.

  “Then all is ready for the coming rebellion,” Adanis said, smiling fully now, a satisfied gleam in his eyes.

  Hypatius blinked, thinking for a heartbeat that he had misheard. His brother had never outright admitted to such a thing, nor even of having foreign correspondence, kicking Hypatius out whenever a missive of such import was received.

  “I beg your pardon, brother?” Hypatius let confusion touch his features, which wasn’t difficult given the situation. “What rebellion?”

  “Oh, please, don’t play coy with me, Hypatius.” Adanis waved a hand. “I know you have long since surmised my plans. You’ve always been good at thinking a few moves ahead.”

  Hypatius wasn’t entirely sure whether he was meant to feel flattered by that observation. He decided he would, and shaped his face into the appropriate mix of modesty and faint pride, even as his mind turned over the implications of what Adanis had just so casually laid bare.

  “I could not hope to predict everything, brother. You flatter me,” Hypatius replied, mouth curving into a modest smile.

  “Not at all.” Adanis waved a hand in airy dismissal, and Hypatius noticed for the first time that in the corner of the desk lay a folded letter with the wax seal of House Makris already broken.

  “You overhauled our armoury with your own connections,” Adanis went on, “and by arranging deals with merchants who just so happen to owe you favours.”

  Hypatius allowed himself the slightest smile at the praise. How charming that his brother imagined any of that had been done for Suyren’s sake and not his own. He would accept the compliment regardless.

  “You took charge of the provisioning for feasts and supplies,” Adanis continued, “placing your own middlemen into the chain and quietly swapping out my servants from under my nose.”

  At that, Hypatius’s smile thinned. The tail end of that sentence had acquired an edge.

  “You increased the productivity of the Nomikos holdings by an acceptable margin,” Adanis said, leaning back, “though somehow the expected profits did not all find their way into the family treasury.”

  “Brother, what do you mean-” Hypatius began, the accusations were not lost on him.

  “You even strengthened Suyren’s garrison,” Adanis spoke over him, voice rising though the pleasant expression never left his face. “With men loyal only to you. Men who have quietly supplanted the old hierarchy and cemented your authority as hypostrategos over the army.”

  Hypatius rose from his chair in a smooth, affronted motion. “I will not accept the indignity of these accusations you lay before me-”

  “Sit. Down.”

  Adanis’s command came out frigid and absolute. His eyes were flat, emptied of warmth in a way Hypatius had never seen. For a heartbeat, Hypatius had the uncanny sensation of facing some great beast from the old tales, a lion in human skin. Cold prickled along his spine. He eased himself back into the chair, movements far more cautious than before, suddenly acutely aware of the weight of the blade at his hip and of how very alone they were in this room.

  “What is this, brother?” Hypatius asked, and the ice in his own tone matched Adanis’s now. The mask dropped cleanly away. “Explain yourself.”

  “This, little brother,” Adanis said, “is where you learn that I know all about your little escapades in intrigue. That you have been planting agents in my household, that you have been weaving your influence through my fortress, stone by stone. That you have been seeking to undermine me.”

  “Where has this notion come from?” Hypatius demanded. “I have done only as you asked.”

  “No.” Adanis’s lips curved, but there was no humour in it. “You have done only what you volunteered to do.”

  The words landed with a dull, heavy weight. Hypatius felt a slow, sick realisation uncoil in his gut.

  “Oh? Only now you see it?” Adanis’s smile sharpened. “You watched how I let our captain run amok, just to uncover his true aims, and yet it never occurred to you that I might apply the same method on my little brother?” He gave a low, humourless chuckle. “I let you run the armoury, let you run the provisions, let you command the troops, because I wanted to see what you would do when handed the reins.”

  “I wanted to see how far you would go,” he finished.

  Hypatius’s stomach lurched. For a moment he could do nothing but sit very still. Already his mind was racing ahead, laying out moves like lines on a board - some of them dangerous, most of them drastic, all of them ending in his brother’s death. But he would not move yet. Not until his brother had finished speaking, had laid bare everything he thought he knew. Knowledge was a weapon, and Hypatius never struck without forethought.

  “So blind, little brother,” Adanis said softly. “So blind. Too proud to follow another’s lead, too fearful to take the leap with us.”

  Hypatius let his lip curl into a sneer. “Now you bring up the golden hare? It never existed, and you were fools chasing gold where none lay.”

  “It existed,” Adanis replied at once. “I saw it.”

  “Even if it were, I was a small child,” Hypatius shot back, dismissing the memory with a flick of his hand. “I went to bring help.”

  “You abandoned us.” The words came out ragged. “I should have known your true self at that moment.” He paused, as if the admission cost him something. “No. I did know. I simply chose not to see it. I chose not to see it for years afterwards. And I paid the price for that blindness.”

  His voice trembled on the last words, the edges fraying as if he were on the brink of tears.

  Hypatius opened his mouth with some cutting retort ready - and stopped.

  A strange tingling had begun along the inside of his lips, a prickle of numbness spreading across his tongue and the roof of his mouth. His throat felt oddly tight, as though it no longer quite belonged to him. His eyes widened, flicking down to the cup in his hand, then back to his brother’s composed face.

  “Brother… what have you done?” Hypatius rasped. A wave of nausea rolled through him as he tried to rise, the room lurching sideways.

  “What I should have done years ago.” Adanis’s voice was suddenly firm.

  Hypatius’s hand moved almost of its own accord, dragging his sword free of its sheath. The steel flashed in the lamplight, but his fingers felt clumsy on the hilt.

  “That toy is useless, little brother,” Adanis said calmly. “A sword, no matter how sharp, cannot cut if badly wielded. A mind, no matter how astute, cannot think if it is disoriented.”

  Hypatius’s vision swam, the edges of the room smearing. His own hand looked distant, the blade wobbling.

  “And a predator, no matter how strong,” Adanis finished, “becomes prey the moment he is wounded.”

  Hypatius’s legs gave out. He crashed to the floor, the impact jolting the sword from his numb grasp. It clattered across the tiles beside him. A hot, coppery taste flooded his mouth. He coughed, and blood splattered the stone.

  “Why?” he forced out. It felt a bitter irony that his tongue still obeyed him. Only his body felt as if it belonged to someone else, heavy and weak.

  Adanis opened a drawer and drew out another letter. “I received this from the captain some weeks ago,” he said. “It concerns Kostakis’s last hunt.”

  The name hit Hypatius like a blow. His eyes widened despite the growing fog.

  “Lies… all of them, brother,” he ground out. “The captain is our enemy, trying to undermine you. Spying for the Crown.”

  “Spying for the Crown?” Adanis arched a brow.

  “He was sent by the Megas Doux, my lord,” Hypatius seized on the opening, forcing the words through tightening lungs. “I have been tracking him, analysing him. I am certain he is in contact with the capital.”

  “I am aware of his correspondence,” Adanis said slowly, “but to suggest-”

  “He must be aware of the rebellion,” Hypatius pushed on, his voice quickening. “He just sent an urgent message to the capital. It must be something large. No doubt he means to warn the Megas Doux of what is coming. Something has him spooked. He has received urgent news, I am certain, and he has surely deduced the rebellion.”

  Adanis frowned, gaze dropping to the letter in his hand for a long moment. Hypatius dared to hope for some cure, to buy himself some time to betray him. Then his brother scoffed.

  “You were always eager to point a finger at the captain,” Adanis said. “Always so ready to wave him before me as a threat, to draw my attention away from you. All because you lost a game of chess to the boy.”

  Hypatius’s breath hitched. “How did you…?”

  “Did you truly think the servants you cultivated were yours?” Adanis asked, a sad smile touching his lips. “You are na?ve, little brother.”

  The pieces slid into place in Hypatius’s mind. His thoughts leapt to the only name that fit. “Othon…”

  “My son would never betray me,” Adanis said quietly. “Unlike you, he understands that we are all branches of the same tree.”

  “Of your tree,” Hypatius spat. The words came out with a gob of blood, spattering his tunic. The simple act sent a wave of nausea through him, and he retched, choking on the taste of iron.

  “Always so prideful.” Adanis rose. Framed by the great hunting tapestry, he looked for a moment like a lion in his own woven jungle. Lord of this den, of this fortress, of Hypatius’s fate. In that instant Hypatius knew, with cold clarity, that he was checkmated.

  “A leopard attack…” Adanis shook his head slowly. “I did not need the captain’s report to know you murdered Kostakis, brother. I have always known.”

  He gripped the back of his chair, knuckles whitening, as if watching Hypatius die caused him real pain. “I simply lacked the courage to kill my little brother,” he whispered, tears streaming down his face.

  “Don’t… pretend… to cry,” Hypatius wheezed. “You used me.”

  “I tried to warn you, little brother.” Adanis came closer and knelt, one hand sliding behind Hypatius’s head to prop it up, forcing him to meet his gaze. “I told you, didn't I? People often underestimate the lion because he lounges.”

  He leaned close, breath hot against Hypatius’s ear. “Your men are my men now,” he murmured. “Your loans void with your death, but the coin remains with me. Your distribution networks, your improvements in my castle - all mine to use.”

  He rose to his full height again, shadow falling over Hypatius.

  “Your sacrifice will pave the way for victory in the coming war, little brother,” he declared, voice swelling, tears streaming down his cheeks as he spread his arms wide. “It will help raise House Nomikos to greatness. It is the highest honour I can grant you.”

  Hypatius’s vision had narrowed to a tunnel, the edges darkening. His eyes glazed, yet he dredged up the last remnants of strength. “I will wait for you… on the other side… brother…” he whispered. “And I will find you…this hunt is not over…”

  “Of course, little brother,” Adanis replied almost affectionately. “We are forever connected, after all. All branches of the same great tree.”

  He said it as if it were a blessing, turned, and left Hypatius sprawled on the carpet to bleed out alone in his office.

  Only in his dying breaths did Hypatius truly see the tapestry opposite him. Front and centre, a great leopard lay beneath a lion’s claws, its throat torn open in scarlet thread. And there, almost hidden in a corner of the woven forest, a golden hare ran from the slaughter.

  Adanis stepped out of the study, drawing the door shut behind him with careful, deliberate quiet. For a heartbeat he stood there, listening to the muffled rasp of Hypatius’s breathing on the other side, already growing faint, trying to master himself. In that quiet, he said goodbye to his little brother. In the end, he couldn’t face his final moments.

  His old knight waited just beyond the threshold, straightening at once. “My lord?”

  Adanis’s face was carved from stone. “Have the body removed from my study and the carpet scrubbed.” he said, voice cold and level. “When you are finished, no one is to know what happened here. My brother is feeling unwell and has retired back to the Nomikos estate to rest. Is that clear?"

  The old knight nodded once and moved to obey. A stray thought from his conversation with Hypatius, however, snagged at Adanis’s attention.

  “Wait.”

  The single word halted the man mid-step.

  “Send three more men after Othon,” Adanis said at last. “Make certain the captain’s messenger dies. No mistakes.”

  “My lord?” The knight could not hide his surprise. “Three more?”

  “The captain may be more dangerous than I have given him credit for,” Adanis replied. “Nothing must go wrong in the next few moves.” His tone left no room for argument. “And send word for Apostolos.”

  “Your son?” The knight’s brow creased slightly in surprise.

  Adanis’s eyes darkened. “I have a task for him of the utmost importance.”

  The knight bowed again, more deeply this time. “As you command, my lord.” He strode away, already calling for trusted men.

  Adanis remained in the corridor a moment longer, alone with the fading sounds of boots and distant cheers from the training grounds.

  For years he had lounged and smiled, letting others mistake his ease for softness, his patience for weakness - Hypatius, Philemon, the Doux, even the Prince himself. Let them all think him a vain lord in a comfortable castle.

  They would learn.

  They would learn that the north lay beneath the lion’s claws.

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