None would have believed such a knight existed outside legends, had they not witnessed this night with their own eyes.

  Eileen knew ??Salted Haven?? 's maidens would weave romantic fantasies about this enigmatic champion for years to come. Never mind that the knight himself remained blissfully unaware of his own legend—or that his occasional timidity clashed so violently with his battlefield ferocity. Dreams cared little for such contradictions.

  The denouement unfolded without surprises. Count Caspar pledged fealty before the crowd, his oath tasting of gall and wormwood. Honor dictated compliance, yes—but more pressingly, the memory of Adam's bone-steed shattering forty-eight lances still danced behind his eyelids.

  Moonlight gentled the square's edges as the defeated lord stormed off with his entourage. Torch flames trembled in the cooling night air.

  Amidst lingering cheers, Eileen stood motionless upon the dais. Her gaze lingered on four shrouded forms laid nearby—bodies that would never know morning's warmth again. Reveling knights exchanged relieved laughter nearby, their armor still bearing dents from the "impossible" duel.

  Only Adam remained still as a statue, reins slack in skeletal fingers. His faceless helm tilted slightly toward the veiled corpses, though whether in contemplation or confusion none could tell. The skeletal knight had no face to betray emotion—merely empty sockets where eyes should weep.

  ……….

  The moonlit square lay quiet save for the crackling pyre. Spectators had long dispersed, leaving behind a debris-strewn battlefield now haunted by lingering smoke.

  Most injured fighters had been carted off, though a few lightly wounded souls returned to huddle near the flames. Adam sat statue-still amidst their chatter, his answers drifting like half-remembered dreams:

  "Where’d you hail from? Can’t place your accent."

  "Mind if I pass on that?"

  "Show us your face then! Legendary knights ought to have chiseled jaws."

  "Rather not."

  "Teach us your training methods!"

  "Complicated."

  "You never remove that helm?"

  "Never."

  "What about eating? Or pissing?" A young squire chuckled awkwardly.

  Laughter rippled through the group, brittle as autumn leaves. Adam's silence grew heavier with each unanswered query until gazes drifted toward the square's heart—where Lady Eileen knelt alone, hands clasped in prayer before four shrouded forms.

  One by one, the knights melted into the shadows. Soon only Pasco remained, bare-chested and reeking of bloodstained bandages. The mercenary's wounds mirrored the company's state: every fighter bore injuries save Adam and Horus, whose untouched armor gleamed with cruel irony beneath the waning moon.

  "What's she doing?" Adam's metallic voice rasped.

  "Praying for the dead."

  "Praying... what's that?"

  Pasco nearly choked on his ale. "You serious? Never seen prayer before?"

  The skeletal knight tilted his helmet in genuine confusion.

  Leaning closer with conspiratorial gleam, the mercenary whispered: "Northborn, aren't you? Past Frostspire City where the snow tribes mingle with half-orcs? Pale-skinned freaks with emerald eyes, cursed by Sacred Flame." His bandaged finger tapped Adam's breastplate. "No churches up there. No prayers. No..."

  Adam remained motionless as a tomb effigy.

  "Relax," Pasco chuckled, breath reeking of cheap whiskey. "Your secret's safe. We outcasts stick together." His calloused palm thumped Adam's pauldron. "Though honestly..." He gestured at nearby clerics tending wounds, "...why bother hiding? Not like those holier-than-thou pricks ever helped my kind."

  Within his hollow skull, Adam's soulfire flickered like a candle in drafty hall. Surface dwellers deemed pale skin and green eyes monstrous, yet accepted actual monsters like dragons? How did human prejudice even function?

  The Lich's memories surfaced unbidden - underground libraries where kobold scholars debated with vampire alchemists, all united by magical pursuit. No one cared about eye color when deciphering eldritch runes.

  "Surface logic makes no sense," Adam's voice box crackled suddenly.

  "Ha! Finally speaks!" Pasco grinned through broken teeth. "Don't sweat it, tin can. Just keep smashing things prettily. Nobody cares about your lineage when you're winning tournaments."

  As dawn's first light crept over the harbor, Adam's skeletal fingers absently traced the Sacred Flame emblem on Eileen's gifted cloak. The irony burned brighter than any prayer candle - surface dwellers worshipped symbols of purity, yet embraced a walking heresy as their champion.

  …………………

  As Eileen concluded her final prayer, the night's chill seeped through her kneeling gown. Abe Roberts materialized like a specter, proffering a waterskin carved with House Beishire's falcon crest.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Any revelations?" She drank deeply, the ale's bitterness mirroring her mood.

  "Stonewalled." The spymaster's gaze tracked Adam's silhouette against moonlit battlements. "More armor than man, that one. What if..." His voice dropped to poisoned honey levels, "...the helm hides pointed ears? Or worse?"

  Eileen's fingers tightened around the waterskin. Across the courtyard, their enigmatic champion sat motionless as a gargoyle. "We need his sword arm. Caspar's 'support' reeks of coercion."

  "Yet we court danger embracing a wraith with no past. No true knight of such caliber wanders title-less unless..."

  "Unless the Sacred Flame itself forged him for this hour?" Her bitter laugh startled roosting crows. "Convenient miracles reek of traps."

  ………………….

  The dying torchlight painted long shadows across the training yard as Adam and Pasco leaned against the infamous iron gate.

  "You really hauled this monstrosity just to climb on it?" Pasco kicked the dented metal, sending hollow echoes through the courtyard.

  Adam's helm tilted in contemplation. "Ground combat's not my strength. Needed elevation advantage."

  "And the chains? Planning to strangle someone?"

  "Ranged offense." The skeletal knight demonstrated an awkward whipping motion. "Accuracy improves with repetition."

  Pasco's snort startled a nesting owl. "Brilliant. While you're flailing iron noodles, any archer could feather you like a festival turkey."

  A beat passed. Adam's gauntlet absently brushed his arrow-free breastplate. "Archery... is permitted?"

  "Rules allow any weapon, you clanking fool!" The mercenary's laughter peeled across midnight battlements. "Oh, how Caspar's ghost will writhe! A single longbow could've ended this farce!"

  Inside his armor, Adam's jawbone creaked in silent amusement. How quaint these humans found projectile weapons threatening. His clavicle still bore the scar where Lich Brutus' bone javelin had pinned him to an obsidian monolith - now that was proper ranged combat.

  ……………………………

  Under the watchful moon, Eileen observed Pasco's raucous laughter echoing across the campfires. "Retain his mercenary company," she instructed Abe. "Payment deferred until White City's coffers reopen."

  "They'll trust a lord's credit."

  "Ensure their commander rides with us - procure a carriage if his wounds hinder riding." Her gaze lingered on the bandit-king-turned-ally. "That one smells of secrets worth keeping close."

  ??……………

  Count Caspar's study trembled under his wrath. A crystal goblet shattered against oak paneling, staining a cowering lieutenant's doublet claret-red. "How does a knight materialize from thin air?" Spittle flew as he gripped a trembling scribe's collar. "Not household guard, not sworn sword, not even godsbedamned sellsword!"

  The door creaked salvation.

  "Well?" The Count wheeled on his steward, fury momentarily eclipsed by desperate hope. "Speak words worth your tongue remaining attached!"

  The steward's eyes darted meaningfully toward quivering attendants.

  "OUT!" Caspar roared.

  Men scrambled over each other in their retreat, one junior clerk leaving a trail of urine droplets across heraldic rugs. When the lock clicked, the steward produced a scrap of vellum bearing a crude sketch - a horned helm eerily matching Adam's silhouette.

  "Whispers from the northern wastes, my lord..." His whisper slithered through incense smoke. "...of dead things walking."

  The study's air grew thick enough to choke a dragon. Count Caspar snorted through flared nostrils. "Out with it!"

  The steward cleared his throat with the delicacy of man balancing eggshells. "Our investigation confirms Adam holds no ties to House Beishire's vassals. Cross-referenced with Scarlet Vipers' rosters—"

  "By the Nine Hells!" The Count hurled an inkpot against ancestral portraits. "You parrot the same drivel as those imbeciles I just expelled!"

  "Please, my lord!" The steward produced soiled tavern receipts like sacred relics. "Eyewitness accounts place him at the Gambler's Nook last night. Bested local toughs in a brawl. Even the Vipers' own testify..."

  Caspar's jeweled finger tapped an erratic rhythm. "Then why champion that Beishire brat? Why not seek patronage here?"

  The steward's Adam's apple bobbed. "There's... another detail. This morning..."

  "SPEAK!"

  "Two gate guards turned him away. They thought him... common rabble seeking alms."

  The Count's face underwent a violent spasm, his eyes bulging like overripe grapes.

  The steward’s parchment-pale face glistened with sweat. "His armor bears outdated smithing techniques, my lord. The barding resembles pre-Crusade designs. Combined with his… reticence regarding identity—"

  "Enough!" Caspar’s roar rattled leaded windows. "You’re saying a masterless knight—powerful, obscure, desperate for legitimacy—came to my gates seeking patronage. And my brainless guards…" His jeweled fist slammed the desk, cracking an ivory inkwell. "...turned him toward that Beishire whelp?"

  The steward’s nod was barely perceptible.

  The Count’s subsequent transformation would have fascinated physicians—veins bulged like swollen rivers beneath skin gone purple as overripe plums. Clutching his jeweled doublet, he swayed like a storm-tossed sapling. "Bring me those gate-watching imbeciles! I’ll flay them alive!"

  "Under… what charges, my lord?"

  "Existing while breathing my air!"

  …………………………..

  The castle courtyard echoed with agonized screams deep into the night. Adam craned his neck to observe the grisly spectacle - two figures strung up by torchlight, their backs striped raw under Count Caspar's furious lash. Each whipcrack carried the nobleman's porcine squeals across the bailey.

  "Adam."

  The skeletal knight turned to find Lady Eileen and Abe Roberts approaching. He rose stiffly, armor clanking in salute.

  "Well met, my champion." Her voice held honeyed steel. "Your valor has proven worthy of House Beishire's crest. Yet before oaths are sworn..." Her gloved hand gestured at his sealed visor. "Might I behold the face behind our salvation? A liege should recognize her knight beyond battlefield glory."

  All peripheral conversations died. A dozen knights pretended not to stare.

  "Remove... my helm?"

  "Merely for formalities." Her smile tightened.

  Adam's voice modulator crackled with glacial calm: "Will knighthood be revoked should I decline?"

  Disappointed groans rippled through the onlookers. Eileen's composure fractured for a heartbeat.

  "Not revoked, but..." She gestured helplessly at his armored form. "Must you remain entombed in steel eternally?"

  "Affirmative."

  The resulting silence thickened like congealed blood. Knights exchanged sideways glances, their coughs and boot-scuffs carving the awkwardness deeper.

  Adam's peculiarities had carved an indelible impression upon all present, yet his unwavering stance still caught Eileen off guard. She'd intended to unravel his past after the ceremonial unveiling—no prudent liege would accept oaths from a masked stranger. What if he bore the brand of a wanted criminal? Under normal circumstances, she'd have dismissed this armored enigma without hesitation.

  But the cheers still ringing in the square weren't normal circumstances.

  The skeletal knight stood motionless before her, his unblinking visor reflecting torchlight like twin moons. No trace of supplication softened the finality in his posture—one wrong word, and this walking arsenal would vanish into the night.

  Silence stretched taut between them, threaded with the distant clatter of celebratory feast preparations. When Eileen finally spoke, her smile held equal parts steel and surrender.

  "I honor our pact. Rise, Ser Adam of House Beishire."