"Adam," Jake said tersely, the name scraping out of his throat. His body had gone rigid, muscles coiling tight beneath his skin, every instinct screaming readiness—ready to bolt, ready to fight, ready to survive.
Adam did not meet his gaze. He couldn't. Those eyes—golden and too familiar—were a mirror he refused to look into. Too much of her stared back at him from them.
"Come," Adam said simply, already turning away.
Jake hesitated. The space between them felt heavy, charged, like the moment before a blade fell. Then he forced his feet to move.
He followed a step behind, eyes locked on Adam's back, tracking every shift of his shoulders, every subtle movement of his hands. Years of hard-earned instinct whispered warnings—watch him, don't relax, don't trust the quiet. His breath stayed shallow, measured.
"What do you want?" Jake asked as Adam led him into a sparse room. Stone walls pressed close, cool and bare. A round stone table dominated the center, its surface scarred and worn smooth by time, wooden chairs arranged around it like witnesses.
Adam sat first and flicked his ears toward one of the chairs in a sharp, dismissive gesture. The motion was small, but Jake's own ears twitched in response before he could stop them, nerves jumping as if he'd heard something skitter just out of sight. His tail flicked once, betraying him.
He sat, stiff-backed and tense, hands resting uselessly on his thighs. His eyes never left his father.
For a moment, there was only silence. Thick. Suffocating.
Then Adam glanced at him. "The Malanors have been quite bothersome recently." His voice was flat, emotionless—colder than the stone beneath them.
Jake nodded, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth as though thinking, though his thoughts were already spiraling elsewhere. The memory hit unbidden: the stench of blood, copper-thick in the air; the sickening heat of burning flesh; the way screams had cut short, one by one.
"Are you finally going to act?" Jake asked, his voice dry, edged like ash. His eyes narrowed, pulse thudding in his ears.
Some monsters didn't need to move to be terrifying.
They only had to be remembered.
Adam was quiet for a moment. Then he shook his head once. "No."
The word was quiet, yet it demanded to be heard.
"It's something else," he said, folding one hand over the other as he leaned forward, elbows resting on the stone table.
Jake's muscles tightened instantly. The sudden closeness made his skin prickle.
"Someone's been buying from the Malanors," Adam continued, voice even. "Carelessly. Paying far more than the goods are worth."
Jake frowned. "So?" The word came out sharper than he meant. "People like throwing money around."
Adam's gaze lifted, fixing him at last. "Not like this."
He paused deliberately.
"They're fattening him up," Adam said. "Like a pig they plan to bleed."
"What are you insisting here?" Jake asked, quirking a brow.
Adam smiled, which made Jake flinch.
"We starve them, we bleed the pig ourselves and drink every last drop,"
Jake sat in silence, turning the idea over, instincts already slotting pieces into place. Routes. Leverage. Names. Then he spoke. "Who is this pig, as you say?" His voice was steady now, professional. Ready.
"He's a young noble, and he's careless, eager to please, eager to show off… eager to be useful," Adam said, swirling his hand in the air.
"Plenty of nobles fit that description," Jake muttered, eyes narrowing.
Adam gave a soft chuckle. "They all do," he hissed, the words edged in steel, venom coating the blade.
Then, just as quickly, his voice slid back into that detached monotone. "But this one pays triple for silence."
Jake swallowed, "That's… excessive," he said, trying to think of noble families or houses that could lend that amount of money.
Adam nodded, "So you agree to take him out?" and Jake hesitated for a moment before sighing. "Anything for the family," he said, yet the words sounded bitter.
"Good."
"He is Henry Falmil," Adam said, watching Jake's reaction yet still not meeting his eyes.
Jake's blood froze.
For a heartbeat, he forgot how to breathe.
Instinct surged hard and fast—run. His pulse slammed against his ribs, loud as thunder in his ears, every muscle screaming to move. He forced himself still, locking his expression into something passable as calm while his thoughts scattered, racing for purchase.
His breath came heavier despite his effort to control it. A thin sheen of sweat broke along his temple and slid slowly down his skin as his fists became iron. His nails were nearly piercing his palms.
He stared at his father.
At the man who had slaughtered nobles without hesitation.
The man who had killed a Head of one of the Seven Houses and walked away untouched.
The man whose name made courts whisper and shadows recoil.
And now that man was asking him to destroy a Falmil.
"A… Falmil?" The words scraped their way out of his throat, thin and brittle.
His pulse lurched, a hard, violent thud that drowned the room. Elena's face surfaced without warning, too bright, too close. The way she smiled when she thought no one was watching. The way she trusted him without question.
Henry. Cousin. Blood.
His thoughts fractured, skipping like a blade across stone. If the Malanors were involved—if Henry was already too deep—then there would be eyes on the family. Questions. Pressure. And pressure always turned inward.
Toward her.
Jake's hands tightened before he realized they were shaking. He forced them still, nails biting into his palms, grounding himself in the sting. Think. Think. If Adam moved first—no, if Adam suspected—the thread would be followed. It always was.
A tap on the stone table silenced his thoughts as Jake's golden eyes met Adam's pure red, then they looked away as he continued tapping.
The rhythmic tapping echoed in the silent chamber, and Adam gave a slight smirk as if remembering something pleasant. Which only made Jake's blood run colder.
"Yes, a Falmil," Adam said simply as if it were another simple piece on the board he wanted gone.
He looked at Jake, "I have asked you to do many things, and you've always succeeded. You have also done things for yourself, which impresses me," he said, tilting his head, his ears flicking with pride.
Jake's breaths were still heavy, but slowly he controlled them as he listened to his father.
When he finally could breathe normally, though his body was still tense like a steel coil ready to burst, he spoke. "So you want me to kill a Falmil, like you killed the former head of the Selene house?"
Adam chuckled, yet it was bitter, and something else Jake couldn't place, "Yes," he said finally.
The word landed heavily as Jake's eyes widened.
"You will become lord of this territory soon enough," Adam said as he leaned back in his chair. Yet it felt like Adam only closed the distance.
"You're a shadow mage, just like your mother," Adam sighed, his body loosening as he glanced down at the table. The air of control slightly slipped before Adam's body went rigid. The control returned as if Adam had caged it behind iron bars.
Jake's own gaze also softened as he remembered her weak form that laid in bed. Her gentle smile and her golden, shimmering eyes.
Adam broke him from reminiscing on the few memories of her.
"With your skills, it will be easy for you to enter the Falmil compound and enter Foris manor," he said as he resumed tapping his clawed finger against the table.
Jake's eyes narrowed as he tried to hide his hesitation and figure a way out of the job Adam wanted him to do.
Adam looked at his son and was able to see his hesitation, "She won't be there, she's off on a trade agreement or something," he said with a small smile.
"They won't be protected, and the Head of the family is busy with something else anyway," he said, swirling his hand.
Jake blinked in confusion as he tried to process his words. Trying to understand what he meant. Then he realized Adam mistook his hesitation for worry about Elena's father, who was a war hero in the Moris war, and his control over stone. Cracking the earth and burying and crushing his enemies. Earning him the name of The Devourer.
But there was someone else in that compound who always put him on edge, who served alongside Robert.
Thalia, The Flame of Helver.
"So she's not in the compound?" Jake muttered, leaning back as Adam's smile grew.
"They are unguarded. Vulnerable," Adam said, the smile fading as quickly as it came. "And the noble court is beginning to forget. They have been digging deeper than they should."
His claws tapped once against the table.
"I want them reminded to not dig too deep."
Jake exhaled slowly, closing his eyes as he ran through every possible outcome. Silencing Henry would, in a twisted way, protect the Falmils. But it would also shatter Elena, everything she believed in, everything she trusted.
His fist clenched beneath the table.
He opened his eyes and met his father's gaze. "What happens if I don't accept?"
Adam studied him for a long moment. Not judging. Measuring.
"Then the Malanors keep their advantage," he said quietly. "They gain deeper access to the noble courts. And eventually… they stop being subtle."
The warning sat heavy in the air.
Jake looked away, his thoughts spiraling. If he did this, their friendship would never be the same, if it survived at all. If he didn't, the danger would spread outward, unchecked toward her.
His jaw tightened.
"…Fine," he growled. "I'll do it."
Adam's lips curved not wide, not cruel.
Satisfied.
"Good."
Then, Adam rose from his seat and left Jake alone in the stone room, the sound of his footsteps fading until there was nothing left but silence.
Jake sat there for a heartbeat longer.
Then something inside him snapped.
A roar tore from his chest as he surged to his feet and drove his fist down into the stone table. The impact thundered through the room, sharp and violent.
"Curse you, Adam," he snarled, the words ripped from between bared teeth.
He struck the table again. And again.
Each blow landed harder than the last, fury drowning out reason as pain lanced up his arm, hot and blinding. He welcomed it. Let it burn. Let it hurt. His knuckles split, blood slicking the stone as cracks spidered outward with a sharp, ringing crack.
He froze.
His fist was buried in a dent in the table, blood pooling thick and dark in the fractured stone, seeping into the veins like something alive.
Jake's chest heaved. His vision swam.
Slowly, deliberately, he drew in a breath. Then another. He forced his fingers to loosen, forced the tremor out of his limbs as he leaned back, eyes squeezing shut.
Control.
Breathe.
Calm.
The fire in his veins dimmed, leaving only a dull, aching rage smoldering beneath the surface.
"Think, Jake, think," he said slowly to himself. His other hand dragged over his face as he collapsed back into the chair, his bloody hand hanging limp next to him.
He stayed silent for a moment, his breath steadying more as his mind raced, raced through all the things he could do.
He stared up at the ceiling, as if the stone would have the answers. Finally, he let out a whimpering groan as he pushed his eyes deeper into their sockets with the palms of his hands.
"Damnit," he whispered to the room that didn't dare to answer him.
~~~~~
Elena smiled at her opponent, the leather-wrapped hilt of the wooden sword warm and solid in her grip as she parried the knight's strike. The impact shuddered up her arm. With his blade knocked wide from his chest, she glided along his guard and snapped her strike forward, the wood thudding against his armor.
The knight who didn't wear a helm, his brown eyes glowing with delight in the duel, didn't stumble backwards; no, he moved forward, the wooden blade sliding off his armor.
Elena's eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed.
She let a snarl out, realizing pulling her blade back to block against his next strike wouldn't be fast enough. She let go of her blade as she dropped down in a crouch, his swing cutting through the air where her chest had been, close enough that she felt the rush of it. Stone scraped beneath her boots as she surged upward again, catching him as his momentum carried him off balance.
She spun sharply, looping an arm around his head, her shoulder driving into his chin and forcing a grunt from his throat. With a twist of her hips and a heave of strength, she threw him.
The crash echoed through the space—metal pots clattering and skidding across the floor—as the knight hit hard and groaned, the breath knocked from him.
A large smile spread across her lips as she walked toward the knight, "Almost had me, John," she said as he rose up on his knees, panting.
A small smile was also playing at his lips as Elena offered a hand. He shook his head as he grasped it, and she pulled him up with ease, which once again surprised him.
"You're definitely strong, my lady," he said as he rolled his shoulders. He winced in pain, feeling the soreness between his shoulders.
"Thank you," she said, walking away to grab her wooden sword.
"May I ask what caused the abrupt training? You usually come once every two days?" John said, as he started to stretch, but his armor got in the way as he tsk'd.
Elena thought for a moment. Sheknew John well; she was the one with whom she usually trained with. He would listen to her gossip or complaints about her noble life.
She sighed, shaking her head, "Wanted some fresh air… My father," she paused, glancing down as her grip tightened on the leather handle of her sword. "Is trying to marry me off once again," she finally said, letting out a sigh.
John quirked a brow as he too picked up his own wooden sword. "With your reputation, I would think he would stop by now, for even the guard speaks of you avoiding marriages," he said as he checked over his sword, making sure there were no cracks or splinters.
The parry she had dealt didn't feel like one of a noblewoman who just trained regularly. No, it felt like one with real combat experience, but he wouldn't question it. It was not his place.
"I have already made my move against this one, but I am… worried about his reaction," Elena said, mumbling.
John's brow furrowed; he had heard tales about the Head of the Falmil house from a knight who served under him in the Moris war. Robert was a man who didn't react on impulse but was level-headed and calculating… Unlike his sister.
"What did you do to make you fear his reaction?" He said, then quickly added, "But only if you want to satisfy my curiosity, my lady."
Elena smirked, shaking her head. She could never truly beat out John's or the knight's formality towards her.
"I shall satisfy your curiosity," she said, brushing her red hair behind her ear. "Last night I went to the Dalfor Manor, where they usually hold a… lover's ball and I went with a shadow, publicly."
John froze, his eyes wide, his jaw agape.
Elena chuckled as she rubbed the bridge of her nose.
"You went with a shadow as a lover's?" John said quietly as his mind tried to process her words.
Elena nodded, "It was only an act, a play of sorts, so my father stops trying to marry me off," she said, some venom seeping into her words at the thought of being married off to a slaver. But also her words of it being an act felt… wrong.
She remembered his touch, his smile, those golden eyes. The thought of him carrying her to bed while she was asleep, of them-
"Only an act," John said, some clarity finally showing in his eyes. His words cut her thoughts short.
Elena shook her head, hiding the blush that was about to appear as she took a fighting stance.
"Yes, now enough with talk, I want to continue." She said as a smile spread across her lips. Her hand tightened around the leather grip of her sword.
John smiled as well, and he too took a fighting stance, and they started their duel once more.
Their duel continued until midday, when it was cut short as another knight ran up to them, along with Lily.
"My lady, a servant from your house has requested your presence immediately," the knight said, as Lily handed her a canteen of water and a rag.
"I will be there as soon as I can," Elena said as she wiped the sweat that she had collected away.
Lily wore a worried expression, but Elena gave her a small smile of reassurance. Then she turned to John, "Wish me luck."
"I shall,"
Elena smirked as she and Lily headed out of the training grounds. While she passed through the gates, some nobles spotted her and instantly started to whisper.
She quirked a brow, wondering how far the rumors had spread already.