Leo Nerona pushed open the oaken door of the Rusty Boar, and the bell above it jingled in the hush that greeted him. The tavern was dimly lit, a handful of low tables scattered across sawdust-strewn floorboards, and only two patrons nursing mugs in shadowed corners. He slipped onto a stool at the bar and caught the barkeep's eye.
"A dwarf's stout," Leo said, reaching for a copper coin. The man grunted and set a foaming tankard before him.
Leo took a slow sip, savoring the burn, when the door swung open again.
She walked in like someone who owned every brick of the kingdom: tall, cloak billowing, Black hair coiling around pale shoulders. Her gaze fixed on Leo with a predator's focus. His lips curved into a half-smile.
Before he could rise, a sharp slap crashed toward his cheek. Leo caught the air where her hand had been, pivoted, and seized her wrist in one fluid motion. The barkeep ducked behind the counter, expecting a fight. Instead, Leo's expression shifted to a knowing smirk.
"Hello… big sister." he breathed.
The woman's eyes flashed— black as the abyss, fierce and familiar. She wrenched free, spun, then pressed her back to the doorframe.
"Hmph, still sharp I see," she hissed, voice low. "However, don't call me that. My name is Annie Cole."
Leo studied her. The face was identical to his own—same high cheekbones, same confident tilt of the chin—but her jaw was set in quiet steel. Under her cloak, he glimpsed the edge of a castle-fashioned uniform: dark blue with silver trim.
"Annie Cole," he repeated softly. "In Bethel Keep."
She drew in a rigid breath and looked away. Leo's heart thudded with questions: why the alias, her real name is Annie Nerona, why the castle? But before he could press, she slipped past him and toward the door. He stood breathless, tankard half-empty.
Outside, a burst of laughter echoed across the courtyard. Leo straightened, pocketed his coin, and shouldered out into the midday glare.
⸻
Moments later, Zeno and Lex found themselves corralled into separate lines at the tournament's registration tent. Lex, still wearing his heftiest grin, boomed his false name—Sir Hardwin the Hulking—to a scrivener who barely glanced up before rolling his eyes and jotting it down. Behind him, a knot of common folk jeered.
"Look at that…" one sneered. "He's too tall for any brave knight. Probably a butcher."
Lex's laughter stuttered. He whipped around to face them, chest heaving. The quizzical sneers on their faces vanished when recognition dawned.
"Blasted," one whispered. "That's—"
Lex grinned wolfishly and dropped another purse on the table. "Number seventy-three," the scribe muttered.
A few paces down, Zeno leaned against the tent, slipping his pen across the parchment to scrawl Sir Nightshade in neat script. A pair of armed peasants nearby nudged each other, jaws dropping.
"A…" one began, then stammered. "Is that—the half-elf bladesman?"
Zeno's reply was a cool smile. "No more questions," he said softly, tucking the parchment away. The peasants melted into the crowd, eyes down.
⸻
In the grandstands above the lists, Liv perched on the stone rail, arrows clinking at her hip. She nudged Dorothy, who watched the comings and goings beneath a hood of red.
"They really thought changing their names would allow them to escape notice," Liv chuckled, tilting her chin toward the field. "Stupidity is their true disguise."
Dorothy smiled, crimson cloak stirring in the breeze. "Appearances," she murmured, "are never what they seem." Her gaze drifted to the castle tower rising behind the stands, and the line of banners fluttering lazy in the wind. Even now, she felt the soft pull of fate threading through the stones of Bethel Keep.
⸻
Deep within the seer's sanctum, Madame Frida sat bolt-upright at her incense-smoking brazier. The lid trembled upon the brazier's edge, spilling purple smoke into the lamplight.
"Closer," she muttered, wiping sweat from her brow. The crystal grail on the altar had begun to pulse again, slow but insistent, like a heartbeat. Madame Frida's knuckles whitened as she braced herself against the carved iron stand.
"A life for a life," she whispered, recalling her own prophecy. "The debt calls. The red woman approaches… but not at sunset. Too soon."
The vision receded, leaving her gasping. She pressed trembling fingertips to the carved runes around the grail's rim, as if warding off an invisible tide. Outside her heavy wooden door, the faint sound of horns echoed—an announcement from the royal gallery.
⸻
High on the castle wall, King John Bethel, resplendent in gilded armor, surveyed the lists with cold precision. Queen Cynthia stood beside him, emerald eyes gleaming. The twins, Mason and Madison, hovered at her side—Madison with a polite bow, Mason with arms crossed imperiously.
"The challenger rolls the first lance," King John said, voice carrying over the field. He turned to his captain of the guard—Annie Cole who had returned from where she was with Leo, though he knew her not by that name.
Annie gave a crisp salute. "Everything is set, Your Majesty."
King John inclined his head. With a graceful lift of his gauntleted hand, he signaled to the herald.
"Let the tournament begin!"
A trumpet blast cracked through the midday air, and cheers rippled across the stands. In the tilt-yard below, knights sprang into the saddles of their destriers. Leo, watching from the edge of the crowd, tightened his cloak around his throat. Annie—his sister—stood nearby in her borrowed colors, gaze fixed on the field. He wanted to call to her, to demand answers, but the moment passed as the first pair of knights lowered their lances.
Dorothy reached out, gripping his forearm. "Stay close," she whispered.
Leo hesitated, glancing back toward the bar where his thoughts had chased ghosts of family secrets. Then he turned, fixing his attention on the lists before him. The clang of steel on shield rang out as the first lance shattered, and the tournament's pageantry sprang fully to life.
Yet even as the cheers rose and the banners danced, Leo's heart beat with a new uncertainty. His world was shifting—names changed, faces disguised, prophecies unfurling. Somewhere in the clamorous crowd, the threads of his fate were tightening, drawing him deeper into a story he had tried so hard to leave behind.