Prologue - A Discarded Blade

Silence had returned to the forest, holding its breath for dawn to break. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called once, clear and high. A few dry leaves drifted slowly, spiraling.

Beneath them, where the cliff gave way to darkness, Hoche lay—half-buried in frosted soil and shadow. Broken branches were scattered around, their jagged ends showing the violent fall that had brought him there.

He felt nothing.

No—he felt the stabbing throb in his ribs, the sluggish warmth of blood trickling down his side. His right eyebrow was split diagonally. Crimson streaks slid past his lashes, clouding the world into a wash of rusty red. Somewhere close, too close, he heard the ragged sound of his own breath under the mask.

Only the pain in his body reminded him that he hadn’t died yet. If a hungry beast came, he would be devoured, bones and all. Even so, any trace of will—to tend his wounds, to rise, to survive—had long since bled from his body.

What did I do wrong?

The thought rose like a wisp of frost, but it melted away before he could hold onto it. It didn’t matter. Not anymore. His limbs were growing colder. His vision blurred. He let his eyes fall shut. And he welcomed the darkness.

But then, a different warmth bloomed in his side.

It was faint at first—a gentle pulse, the last flicker of a dying fire. But it didn’t die out. It grew. It spread—a comfortable heat like a warming pan slipped under cold sheets. His mind, weighted as stone, began to shift. His senses crept back in.

He was still alive.

Before the thought could settle, a firm hand pressed against his shoulder. It gave him a gentle shake as a man’s voice called out to him.

“Hey. Hey—can you hear me?”

Hoche’s eyelids flickered. All he saw were shadows and shapes bleeding into one another—the deep green of the forest and the dark indigo of the night sky. A face came into view, lined and weathered. Gray eyes stared at him. Watchful, cautious . . . but relieved.

“Good. I thought I was too late.” The voice was calm, low. Hoche’s mind struggled to catch up, but he knew what the warmth in his side was. The strange sense of restoration—it was magic. A magic powerful enough to bring back someone on the edge of death, far beyond the reach of ordinary healers.

But why?

Hoche tried to lift himself, but the knight’s arms slid beneath his slack body and propped him up against the rough stone of the cliff.

His limbs still refused to obey. But his eyes tracked the man in front of him. A knight—probably a royal one, judging by the quality of his armor and the confidence in his movements. He had long, gray hair streaked with strands of white, carelessly tied back at the nape of his neck. He appeared middle-aged, broad-shouldered, with arms built from years of swordwork. A warrior, clearly—his sword, worn and half-hidden under the folds of his green cloak, told its own story.

If this man had wanted Hoche dead, it would have taken only a moment. But there was no threat in his stance, no sharpness in his gaze.

The knight drew a cloth from inside his cloak and dampened it with the waterskin he carried. After wringing it out, he reached for the mask covering Hoche’s mouth.

Hoche stiffened like a cornered animal, but the pain anchored him in place. His mask was a wall, a shield—the last fragile distance he kept between himself and the world.

“Easy,” the knight said, tilting his head as if speaking to a skittish colt. “Just let me wipe the mess off that brave face of yours, all right?”

He peeled away the mask covering Hoche’s mouth, then wiped the dirt and blood from his face. The damp cloth brushed against his skin and the wound with a delicate touch. Still, Hoche remained tense, every nerve taut, unaccustomed to the touch of another.

“Where are you from?” the knight asked. “You’re not from this kingdom, are you? Were you lost? Or separated from the unit?”

Hoche didn’t answer, though the knight didn’t seem to mind the pause between them. He kept working, wrapping bandages around Hoche’s side with the same gentle precision. No one had ever touched him like this—not without a reason, not without a price.

He wants something. He must. Everyone does.

He’d believed his heart had long since gone numb. But there it was—a pang, small and sharp. A voice from his own heart, long silent, now stirring at last.

No. I’d rather be . . .

His left hand twitched, grasping at nothing. He had lost both the means to fight and to end his life when he fell from that cliff. He was too tired to run, too broken to fight. So he lashed out in the only way he could.

His arm jerked, weak and trembling, but enough to slap the knight’s hand away. A feeble gesture. A clear rejection.

The knight’s gray eyes widened. But instead of pulling away, he studied Hoche’s face. His gaze was steady. Not pitying. Not expectant. Just watching.

Hoche stared back, waiting for the knight to give up, to turn away, and leave. That was what people did when he shut them out. That was what he had learned to expect.

But the man stayed. 

Then, he smiled.

The smile was a fleeting thing, barely there but unmistakable. “Well, so be it,” the knight said. He rose to his feet. 

It’s over.

At least, that was what Hoche thought, until something warm and heavy fell across his shoulders. His breath caught. It was the knight’s cloak—deep green, like forest moss after rain, trimmed in faded gold. It smelled like cedar and smoke.

The knight had draped it over Hoche—the man’s own cloak, rich and finely made, now settling over a stranger caked in mud and blood.

Before Hoche could react, the world tilted.

“Wha—!?”

His body left the earth. His battered legs dangled, and a shallow gasp escaped him. Now he was pulled securely into the knight’s arm, his head resting against a steady shoulder.

“Your wounds are still fresh,” the knight said, holding Hoche like a child of his own. “We need to get you proper care at the castle. My horse isn’t far.”

Hoche’s pulse pounded in his ears. Dazed, he stared at the base of the cliff where he had fallen and drifted further away.

This is wrong. This is all wrong.

He had already accepted his fate. He’d made peace with it.

“Why . . .” His breath trembled as he forced out the word.

The knight adjusted his grip as he strode through the forest. “Why what?”

There was no heat in the question, no demand for answers. And Hoche didn’t even know who he was asking anymore. His right brow throbbed—a slow, dull ache where the knife had split skin.

“Why . . . would you . . . do this?” he asked in a raw, cracked voice that escaped him before he could stop it. It was too soft to be anger, too heavy to be wonder, as if the world itself owed him an answer.

Only the sound of footsteps through fallen leaves filled the silence. After a few moments of listening to the sound of dry branches crunching underfoot, the knight let out an amused huff.

“Just a whim.”

Hoche wanted to argue, to demand something more. But his eyelids sagged. Warmth pressed in from all sides—the cloak, the arms carrying him, the lingering magic still threading through his veins.

“I have nothing.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “There’s nothing left of me . . .”

Before the darkness swallowed him whole, the knight’s voice reached his ears. “Then you’ll just have to find something, won’t you?”

Behind them, the first light of dawn slipped over the horizon. A thread of gold touched the treetops, drawing the dark forest out of shadow.