MICHAEL

  MORNING CAME CREEPING SOFTLY through cracks in the stone. Big Mike sat shackled to the wall, chains coiled around his wrists like iron serpents. The light leaking into the cell was weak, thin as old broth. Dust swirled in it, catching every breath like ash.

  Above him, the city rumbled.

  The sounds had changed overnight. Less thunder. More clatter. Fewer war drums, more hurried boots. Shouts that carried the wrong pitch. Not orders. Not prayers. Warnings.

  Something had shifted. Of course it had. He could smell it, like ozone before a storm.

  The guards outside his door didn’t laugh like they had yesterday. Didn’t trade cards or whistle dirty songs. Their voices were low. Tight. Bouncing between nerves and disbelief.

  “…took her, I’m telling you.”

  “Bullshit. No one got past the walls.”

  “I heard from Mazz. He swore it. The girl’s gone. The Virgin Mother. Gone.”

  Mike leaned his head back against the stone, eyes closed. Let the whispers crawl beneath his skin.

  Amaia was gone. Taken. Mike’s jaw tightened. He breathed deep through his nose, slow and deliberate.

  They hadn’t just lost the girl. They’d lost control of the story.

  He opened his eyes when the footsteps came. Two sets. Sharp. Fast. Stopping just outside his cell.

  Keys scraped metal. The lock clicked.

  The door swung wide, spilling light sharper than he wanted.

  A man stepped in. Not a guard. Too clean. Too confident. Coat dark, crisp. Sword at his hip. Hair slicked back, except for one stubborn curl above his temple. His mouth was a hard line.

  “Get him up,” the man ordered.

  A guard moved quick, unshackling the chain from the wall. Left the cuffs on.

  Mike pushed off the stone, standing slow, joints stiff but steady. His arms dragged a little under the weight of the chain, but he didn’t show it.

  The man watched him like a craftsman might watch a tool he wasn’t sure would hold.

  “You’re coming with me,” the man said.

  “Where?” Mike rasped.

  “Council wants a word.”

  A word.

  Sure.

  Mike didn’t smile. Didn’t flinch. Just nodded once, small, resigned.

  They led him out into the light.

  The city was awake, but not alive.

  A heaviness clung to the air, something raw and brittle. Smoke coiled from rooftops, not from fires of war, but smaller flames. Ritual burnings, offerings, old ways clawing back to the surface.

  Above it all, the bells rang.

  Slow. Measured. Ominous.

  Not the sound of victory.

  Not yet.

  The holy mother was gone. And the city had started praying again.

  As they marched him toward the council chamber, Big Mike knew this: They needed him.

  They led him through the winding halls, footsteps echoing in stone corridors washed in pale light. When the heavy doors swung open, the chamber greeted him like a courtroom and a tomb.

  Gabriel stood near the long table, coat stained dark where blood had soaked through at the sleeve. His jaw was tight, his lips drawn thin beneath a face scrubbed clean of mercy.

  Ademund paced by the window, armoured chest rising and falling in sharp, restless breaths. His hand kept brushing the hilt of his sword, like muscle memory, like a man who didn’t want to be here a second longer than needed. His whole body pointed toward the door, toward the walls, toward the battle outside.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  And at the far end, beneath the sigil of the Moon, the High Priest sat slumped in his chair, white robe, face equally pale with something deeper than exhaustion.

  Mike was brought forward.

  Gabriel’s gaze pinned him, cold and cutting.

  “You know why you’re here,” Gabe said. No question in it. Just expectation.

  Mike met his eyes without blinking.

  “No.”

  Gabe took a step closer.

  “The girl’s gone.”

  “I heard.”

  “How?”

  Mike’s wrists shifted in the cuffs.

  “You tell me,” he replied. “I was chained all the time.”

  “Still are.” Gabriel’s mouth twitched, not a smile.

  Gabriel’s nostrils flared.

  “And yet she’s gone.”

  “Do you know how?”

  Mike’s face stayed still as stone. “If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  Gabriel stared at him for a long moment, then snapped his fingers.

  “Bring him in.”

  The doors opened again. Two guards dragged in a man between them.

  Mike didn’t know the face. Had never seen the man before. But he knew. Of course he knew. Knew by the shape of him. The gravity around him. The way even broken and bleeding, the man carried something like a crown of invisible thorns.

  He wondered how Gabe did not realised. Was it because Ademund has not reacted at all when they brought his father in? Beaten, broken. An ounce of the man he used to be. Or was it something else? Or was Gabe so despicable to test the boy’s loyalty?

  Just like Big Mike tested Yanick’s.

  Nemeth’s head hung forward, hair matted with sweat and blood, his breath rattling in his chest. One eye swollen shut, lips split.

  Gabriel stepped toward him, looking down like at a dead thing still twitching.

  “He’s not talking,” Gabe said flatly. “Yet I saw him. Last night. A young man, leading her. Not one of ours.” His gaze swung back to Mike. “Is it him?”

  Mike looked at Nemeth. At the ruin of him.

  Gabriel’s brows furrowed.

  “Was the young man with him who I think he was?”

  Mike’s lips pressed together.

  Gabriel came closer.

  “Don’t play dumb. You know him. Who was with the girl?”

  Mike lifted his chin a fraction.

  “Yanick’s not with her,” he said. “Yanick’s out there.” He nodded toward the distant sound of bells, the faint tremor of distant cannon.

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.

  “He’s leading the siege,” Mike finished.

  A silence fell over the chamber, heavy as earth.

  Ademund swore under his breath, turning back to the window. The High Priest whispered a prayer, his hands trembling against his chest.

  Sharp, swift like a raging thunder he was, Ademund turned from the window, boots ringing sharp against the stone as he strode back toward the table.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” he said, voice low, clipped. “If it’s really him out there.”

  Gabriel’s head snapped up.

  “And how do you plan to do that?”

  The boy general pointed at the door.

  “You find the girl.” His eyes narrowed. “You find my sister. Bring her back. Alive.”

  Gabriel’s jaw worked, his lips pressing into a thin line. But he didn’t argue. He just nodded, sharp and reluctant, and stalked toward the door, his coat flaring behind him.

  Ademund turned to the guards.

  “Unchain him.”

  They hesitated.

  “I said—unchain him.”

  The guards obeyed, keys scraping metal, cuffs clattering open. The weight fell away from Mike’s wrists, leaving raw rings of skin where the steel had bit.

  Ademund stepped closer. Looked him over like a man choosing a weapon.

  “He’s coming with me,” Ademund said.

  Big Mike flexed his hands, working life back into the fingers. He looked up at the younger man, noting the tightness around his mouth, the too-bright glint in his eyes, like a blade drawn too long under strain.

  “You sure?” Mike rasped.

  Ademund’s lips curled, somewhere between a sneer and a grin.

  “I’m not walking out there alone.”

  He turned on his heel, already moving.

  “Let’s go see if your friend’s really is there,” Ademund said.

  Big Mike followed, stepping out of the palace into madness.

  The siege wasn’t a sound, it was a roar, alive and sprawling, clawing at the walls. Soldiers darted past, wild-eyed, weapons half-drawn, screaming at each other over the clamour. Officers barked orders no one seemed to follow. Somewhere a horse reared, kicking at the air before bolting through a crush of men.

  Rocks flew overhead. Big, jagged stones hurled by engines beyond the city walls. Some soared high and harmless, thudding into empty courtyards. Others struck lower, smashing roofs already gaping with ruin, sending debris raining down. The ground shuddered beneath each impact, like the city itself was bracing to fall apart.

  Abandoned buildings gaped with hollow windows, their frames scorched, their shutters torn. Smoke coiled from fires that no one had time to put out. Civilians had vanished from the streets, fled into the palace, crammed into the temple, hiding behind old stone and older prayers.

  Through it all, Ademund walked forward. Straight back, steady. Unflinching.

  Like he didn’t believe anything could touch him. Like he’d already decided he was invulnerable.

  Mike followed, his boots crunching over shattered tiles, his shoulders tensing with every fresh impact. But Ademund never ducked. Never paused. Just strode through falling dust and splintering wood, the air around him humming with the strange, fearless stillness of a man too stubborn—or too broken—to believe in death.

  At the wall’s top, they reached the parapet.

  And Big Mike saw the army.

  It stretched beyond the horizon. Of course it did.

  A black tide wrapped around the city, bristling with banners and siege towers, with engines creaking and catapults loading, with fires burning in iron baskets that threw up sparks like swarms of angry fireflies.

  Thousands. Tens of thousands.

  He hadn’t seen an army like this. Not even during the Great War.

  His breath left him slow, dragged out of his chest like a man standing at the edge of something too big to name.

  Ademund leaned on the battlement, eyes scanning the field like a hunter picking his kill.

  “There he is,” Ademund said.

  Big Mike followed his gaze.

  A lone figure on horseback had ridden to the front lines. Pale coat. Pale hair catching the light. Adorned gauntlet on his right arm, shining in the early sun. Sitting tall in the saddle, watching the walls.

  Yanick.

  Ademund’s jaw tightened.

  “Divine Wolf,” Ademund muttered, almost to himself. “Time to find out if it’s really you.”

  He turned to Big Mike. His hand clamped around Mike’s arm, not just a gesture of command, but of trust. Or maybe desperation. His eyes locked with Mike’s, hard and searching.

  “If you’re with me,” he said, voice low, “then get my father out of here.”

  A heartbeat passed. Then Ademund drew his sword, and walked toward the chaos.