He turns and runs for the only shelter he sees, a dark, jagged slit in the rock face. A cave. He scrambles inside, his fingernails bleeding as he claws at the stone, trying to find a corner deep enough to hide from the monster stalking after him in hunting leathers.
I stop at the mouth of the cave. I don't follow him into the dark. I don't need to.
"Víl?! Please!" he shrieks from the shadows. "I'll leave! I'll go to the coast! I'll never mention the girls again!"
"I am a daughter of the Fey Court Hloir? Aralli?, Stephen," I say, my voice a melodic chime in the stillness. "I do not negotiate with dogs. And I do not break my word."
I step closer. The air begins to shimmer with the heat of a heavy spell. "I promised Eamon there would be no burial for you. He was quite adamant about that."
"What... what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to make you useful," I whisper.
I reach out, not for his throat, but for the air around him. I pull the threads of magic into the mundane world, weaving a transmutation so thick it tastes like copper on the tongue. I don't just change his shape; I fold his essence. I break the bones of his human form and knit them into the thick, bristled hide of a tusked forest boar.
His screams descend into a series of panicked, guttural grunts. His terrified blue eyes are the last things to change, shrinking into the small, black, beady eyes of a beast.
He stands there as four hundred pounds of muscle and bristle, trapped in a mind that still remembers how to beg.
I draw my dagger. It’s a clean strike. I am a soldier of seven centuries; I do not botch a kill.
The return to the King’s camp is a triumph.
The nobles are gathered around the massive fire pits, boasting of the stags they missed. Oskar looks bored, nursing a goblet of wine, until I emerge from the treeline. My Honor Guard follows, carrying the massive boar on a litter of saplings.
"By the Gods, Víl?!" Oskar shouts, standing up. "That’s a monster! I haven't seen a tusker that size since the Great Thaw!"
"He was... quite a fighter, Your Majesty," I say, wiping a single, calculated smudge of blood from my cheek. "He thought he owned this forest. I had to remind him otherwise."
"And Stephen?" Duke Webbe asks, looking around. "His horse was found wandering near the bluffs."
I offer a small, sad smile. "I saw his trail heading toward the high ridges. I suspect he’s still tracking that white hart he was so obsessed with. He’ll likely be out all night."
"His loss!" Oskar laughs, gesturing to the boar. "We shall roast this beast tonight. A feast for the Earl of Padma and his warrior Princess!"
The dinner is a grand affair. The smell of roasting meat fills the pavilion, rich, savory, and cloyingly sweet.
I sit next to Kenric. He watches as the servants carve the haunch, placing a thick, dripping slice of meat onto the King’s gold plate. Kenric looks at me, his expression unreadable to anyone but a Fey. He knows. He hears the "no burial" promise echoing in the clatter of silverware.
Oskar takes a massive bite, a drip of fat running down his beard. He chews, his eyes lighting up.
"Magnificent!" the King declares, pointing his fork at me. "The meat is... complex. Tough, but with a certain richness. Almost like it was seasoned with ambition!"
The court roars with laughter.
"I'm glad you find it to your taste, Your Majesty," I say, raising my glass of dark wine. "I thought it was only right that Stephen contributed something of value to your table, given the 'meager' silver shipment."
"To Stephen!" Oskar shouts, holding his goblet high, unaware of the gristle between his teeth. "Wherever the fool is hiding!"
"To Stephen," I murmur, meeting Kenric’s gaze over the rim of my glass.
I take a slow, deliberate sip. The Law is satisfied. The debt is paid. And in the morning, when the King’s hounds sniff at the scraps left behind, there won't be enough of Stephen Padma left to fill a thimble.
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The smell of the roast is everywhere, rich, fatty, and thick enough to coat the back of the throat. To the humans in the pavilion, it is the smell of a successful hunt. To me, it is the smell of a closed contract.
I sit at the high table, my hands folded neatly in my lap. I have already declined the meat, claiming a "Fey constitution" that prefers the light cakes and honeyed wine.
Across the table, Rho reaches for a platter of the sliced "boar." Her small hand, still sticky from the journey, hovers over a piece of crackling skin.
I don't move fast, but I move with purpose. I pick up a small, silver tong and gently nudge a lemon-glaced tart onto her plate, steering her hand away from the meat.
"Not that, little one," I say, my voice as smooth as polished glass. "The forest can be bitter this time of year. Stick to the sweets. They suit you better."
Rho looks at me, her wide eyes reflecting the orange glow of the hearth. She doesn't ask questions. She has learned that when the Princess speaks, there is a reason. She takes a bite of the tart, the citrus cutting through the heavy, cloying scent of the roast.
Beside me, Kenric has a slice of bread and a wedge of sharp cheese on his plate. He hasn't touched the silver platter in the center of the table. He watches King Oskar, who is currently laughing with his mouth full, a piece of Stephen’s "ambition" disappearing behind his teeth.
Duke Webbe sits to the King’s left, chewing slowly, his expression thoughtful. "You know," Webbe says, dabbing his lips with a silk kerchief, "I could have sworn I heard Stephen’s voice near the ravine. Just before the hounds picked up the scent of this beast."
I take a sip of my wine, the vintage cold and sharp. "The Ravine of Mists is famous for its echoes, Duke. The wind can play tricks on a man's ears. It can make you hear all sorts of things that aren't there."
"I suppose," Webbe mutters, taking another forkful.
I catch Kenric’s eye. There is a dark, shared silence between us. He knows that in the morning, the King will wonder why Stephen hasn't returned. He knows the search parties will find nothing but a few scraps of leather and some trampled moss.
And he knows that every time Oskar speaks of the "Great Boar of the East Bluffs," he is speaking of a man who no longer exists in any ledger, any grave, or any memory.
"A toast," Oskar shouts, standing up and swaying slightly, his goblet sloshing red wine onto the tablecloth. "To the Earl and his Princess! For the silver they brought, and the feast they provided!"
The court rises, a chorus of "To Padma!" echoing off the timber beams.
I rise with them, my charcoal silks shimmering in the firelight. I raise my glass, but I do not drink to the toast. I drink to the law.
"To the hunt," I murmur, the words lost in the cheering.
I look at the empty space where Stephen should have been sitting, then back to the King, who is reaching for seconds.
Eamon wanted no burial. I have given him a feast instead.
"Don't eat the sausage, Kenric," I whisper, leaning into his shoulder as the celebration roars around us.
"I wasn't planning on it," he replies, his voice low and steady. "I think I've had quite enough of the Padma family for one night."
I smile, and for a split second, the firelight catches the violet in my eyes and the sharp, predatory edge of a tooth that is just a little too long.
The Killing Wind is satisfied. The debt is settled. And Dobile is just a little bit quieter than it was yesterday.
Three seats down from the King, Duke Hedde Jellema is having a perfectly pleasant evening.
Or rather, he is performing one. He has spent forty years in the courts of Centis, and if there is one skill that separates the living Dukes from the dead ones, it is the ability to eat a meal while the world is burning and look as though the soup is excellent.
The smell in the pavilion is extraordinary. The cooks have outdone themselves, the roasting meat is rich and dense, threaded with the sweet, cloying scent of rendered fat and the sharp bite of juniper that the kitchen master uses on all his game. The candles are bright. The wine is flowing. The King is laughing.
Jellema reaches for his goblet and takes a measured sip. His plate holds a crust of bread, a wedge of cheese, and a thin slice of the roasted boar that he has not yet touched. He tells himself he is simply not hungry. The morning ride was long, and his physician has been after him about rich meats.
That is the first lie.
He watches Oskar tear into a haunch of the beast with the kind of gusto that only a truly oblivious man can manage. The King’s beard is slick with grease, and he is gesturing with a bone, making some joke about the size of the tusks. He is red-faced and happy. He is the center of his own universe, and the universe is made of meat.
“Magnificent!” Oskar declares, chewing with his mouth open in a way that would get a lesser man barred from any table south of the river. “The meat is… complex. Tough, but with a certain richness. Almost like it was seasoned with ambition!”
The court laughs. It is the rehearsed, obedient laughter of people who know that the King’s jokes are always funny, even when they aren’t.
Duke Jellema wipes at his face with handkercheif. Ambitious. Yes, Stephen was ambitious. Who calls their food ambitious? Oskar must surely sense SOMETHING to say that.
Jellema does not laugh. He is staring at the word the King just used. Ambition. It is an odd word for meat. It is the kind of word one uses for men. For men like Stephen Padma, who had ambition the way some men have mange, visibly, aggressively, and to the discomfort of everyone in the room.
Jellema’s fingers tighten around the stem of his goblet. He sets it down carefully, because his hand has begun to tremble, and a Duke does not tremble at a dinner table.
He looks at the empty chair.
It is four seats to the left of Duke Webbe, wedged between a minor baron and the court astrologer. It is the chair where Stephen Padma should be sitting. Stephen, who rode into the bluffs that morning with a recurve bow and a smirk and a plan to bring back a trophy. Stephen, whose horse came back three hours later, lathered and riderless, with a broken rein trailing in the mud.
Stephen, who has not been seen since.
Jellema’s gaze drifts, almost against his will, to the silver platter in the center of the table. The boar is enormous. Four hundred pounds of muscle and bristle, Víl? said when she brought it in from the treeline, her Honor Guard carrying it on a litter of saplings. Her charcoal leathers were barely dirty. A single, calculated smudge of blood on her cheek. She looked like a painting of a huntress.
She looked like a woman who had enjoyed her morning
Today's notes brought to you by the infamous Fey bard, Ashenleaf Brightnote, Chronicler of Courtly Catastrophes.
WELL.
If Chapter 144 was the hunt beginning…
Chapter 145 was the moment the predator stopped pretending it wasn’t watching.
Let us savor, dissect, and lovingly mock:
Ahh, Stephen.
Beloved by no one.
Trusted by fewer.
He really stepped into this chapter thinking he was the hunter.
By the end, he was approximately:
- 30% mud
- 40% panic
- 30% final regrets
- 100% wrong about everything
My favorite moment?
When he realized the glowing eyes in the woods were NOT a deer, NOT a trick of the light, and definitely not leaving without collecting a debt.
He saluted Rho earlier like it was funny.
He dies knowing exactly how unfunny it was.
Chef’s kiss.
When the glamour drops?
When the sprint begins?
When she keeps pace with a running horse on foot?
Stephen has the audacity to look surprised.
Sir.
She told you what she was.
And best of all?
She doesn’t roar.
She doesn’t monologue.
She doesn’t gloat.
She collects.
Lawful Fey justice: cold, clean, inevitable.
The wind itself was like, “Oh, we’re killing someone? Say less.”
Oskar contributed absolutely nothing to this chapter except:
- being wrong
- being loud
- being sweaty
- and being in the general vicinity of problems he caused
Look, if Oskar had been present for this hunt, he would have:
- Fallen off his horse
- Blamed the horse
- Blamed Kenric
- Blamed the economy
- Asked if the Night?Walkers accept IOUs
Thankfully, he stayed behind, where he could only endanger upholstery.
Kenric’s chapter résumé:
- Understands the plan
- Enhances the plan
- Does not question the plan
- Loves his terrifying wife
- Hands Stephen his death warrant with a straight face
A supportive king among men.
This chapter is everything a Fey?flavored justice arc should be:
- Atmospheric
- Terrifying
- Cinematic
- Righteous
- Beautifully lethal
And the moment Stephen sees her keeping pace with his galloping horse?
Mwah.
Peak storytelling.
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