For the first time since I'd started running, I finally slowed down enough to let some semblance of planning take hold. I had Dillon in sight and he was safe. That was what mattered more than anything. If I rushed him now and tried to pull him out by the collar, I'd light up every alarm in the place. The good news was that he was nearly finished with his bowl even if he was staring at me like I'd stepped out of a story. I tipped my head towards the door in the universal signal for meeting outside. He blinked, collected himself, and gave the smallest nod. A few heads had begun to take note of me blocking the threshold, so I retreated back outside and found a sliver of shadow that let me watch the exit without being watched in return. Even a few seconds of waiting had me anxiously worrying that something had gone wrong. Fortunately I did not have to wait long before he slipped out with nerves written all over his face, eyes skimming corners and doorways the way I'd taught him when we were younger, and pride rose in me despite everything to see he hadn't become lax in my absence.

A soft whistle brought his gaze my way and he quickly walked over, careful to ensure he wasn't looking overly suspicious, and when we stepped into a recess that hid us from the main passage I couldn't help greeting him.

"Hello, Dillon," I said, and the smile that hit my mouth felt too big for my face.

"Brandon?" he breathed, as if the word might break if he spoke it too loud. "I thought you were dead."

"Yet here I am," I said, spreading my arms as if to prove there was flesh and bone where rumors had put a grave.

He snorted despite himself. A familiar action from so many years of friendship that helped heal my heart a little more.

"We should have known you'd have some tricks up your sleeve," he said, more comfortable with my presence now but still eyeing me up and down.

If he knew the half of what I'd been through but I knew then wasn't the time for a long story.

"What are you doing here? Are you a soldier now? Is that how you got away? They let you sign to fight?" His questions were almost hopeful, as though they were more wishes than likely possibilities.

"I'm here for you of course," I said, feeling my brow pull tight. I was a little confused as to why he wouldn't think I would be but then put it down to the lateness and then felt some shame at what I had let him live through in my absence.

"I came as soon as I heard. I'm sorry it's so late though. I know what this place does," I apologised to him. My eyes unable to meet his own as I confessed my inadequacy.

As always with Dillon, questions crowded behind his eyes. He was a boy—no, a man now—whose thirst for information had always outpaced my own, so there were a dozen things he wanted to ask but the only thing I was sure of was that none of them were what reached his mouth.

"It's been hard. I thought…" He blew out a breath and let his shoulder fall against the wall. "I thought I was going to die those first few days. Fuck, even yesterday I thought I was a dead man. Especially when we realised Sebastian wasn't there to give orders. A commander missing when the enemy is at the gates? It was hell, Brandon. Hell. I guess even the king thought so because word spread we'd be getting reinforcements from the other Houses, and then suddenly we were getting proper meals again and we weren't the front line anymore. From what the lads inside are saying, we'll have the whole thing cleared up tonight." He looked at me as if daring me to believe it. "Isn't that amazing? We'll clear the Challenge early."

It was amazing. Clearing any Challenge ahead of time is the sort of thing that gets pressed into songs and taught in the history books.

"Makes you wonder why they've never done it before," I mused, thinking of the plight of the rebels. The timing reeked of the prison. If the king had caught wind of what I'd set off, he would want this front quieted fast so he could turn the city's weight toward the rebellion brewing behind him. The fact that he had the ability to do so made me wonder what the hell was really going on when it came to the Challenges.

Dillon saw the way my gaze went distant and pulled me back with the same simple question. "Why are you here, Brandon?" he asked again.

"To get you. To make sure you're safe."

"I'm fine," he said, tension tightening his voice. "Especially if it all ends tonight."

"That's right. Which is why it'll be the perfect time to slip out. Everyone will be celebrating."

"Why would we need to slip out?" His eyes hardened. "I'm a conscript. The Challenge is nearly over. I've done what's required." His stare flicked over my armour and came back sharper. "What have you done, Brandon? Why are you armed and wearing armour when you're meant to be dead? No—why are you wearing steel when you're meant to be a prisoner?"

"It's a long story," I said, and the words came rough. "Sebastian was an evil bastard. He had me locked up as his personal torture slave." The bile rose even saying it. "He bit off more than he could chew. I killed him and got out."

If he'd been pale before, the colour left him entirely at that.

"You what?" he whispered, stepping back like the air between us had shifted. "You killed Sebastian?"

"Yeah." I glanced along the corridor for listeners and kept my voice low. "And I started a prison break that might have turned into a full rebellion. That's why I can't be seen. I don't know if word's hit this wall yet, but if anyone recognises me, I'm fucked."

Dillon's fury seemed to come out of nowhere.

"I knew it," he snapped. "I told Morgana not even prison would stop you from finding trouble. You just can't help yourself, can you. It's always something with you. We were lucky to escape the train job, a job we didn't even want to be on, by the way, but you convinced us like you always did." He scoffed, eyes hard. "Now here you are again, back in our lives and bringing more trouble with you. Serious, severe trouble."

The truth in his words stung me deep.

"Dillon—" I began, but he cut me off with a slice of his hand.

"No. I don't want to hear it. I'm getting away from you before any more trouble finds me. I'm not a bad guy, Brandon. I just want a normal life."

He turned on his heel and strode off, boots biting at the stone. I hesitated only a heartbeat before I followed.

"Dillon, wait," I said, catching up as he shrugged off my first attempt to take his sleeve. I could have overpowered him if I wanted but I didn't. I only wanted him to listen.

"Get away from me," he hissed, trying to pretend he hadn't noticed me shadowing him. He quickened to near a jog, cutting through a doorway into the conscripts' bunks. By some grace the room he chose was empty, a low-lit space of rough pallets and chests and the sour smell of too many bodies. He dropped onto a lower bed I guessed was his and braced his elbows on his knees.

"Dillon, I'm sorry. I know—"

"Shut up," he shouted, the sound cracking in the small room.

"Just shut up. Our lives are better without you, do you know that? With the gold from the job we finally got normal jobs, like normal people. No more breaking and entering, no more scams. Just good, honest work. And now here you are, back to ruin it."

A harsh sound dragged out of him, something between a laugh and a sob, and my guilt rose like bile in my throat.

"Dillon, please," I said, uselessly. He lifted his head and met my eyes.

"Me and Morgana are together," he said.

"Yeah, I know? You've always been together and you always will be. You're like brother and sister."

He exhaled in frustration. "No, you idiot. Together together. It took us so long to admit because we both saw how you looked at her, and we were scared of what you'd do if you knew."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"What?" I said. The shock landed late and crooked. Not that they were together, I could make peace with that, but that they had been afraid of me.

"I would have been okay with it." Even to my own ears it did not sound convincing. Dillon's scoff told me he agreed.

"I know you had a crush on her, Brandon, and we both know what you do to people you don't like."

"I would never hurt you," I said, defensively. "How could you say that?"

He looked at me like a man who had already counted the knives in the room and came up one short.

"I would do anything for you and Morgana," I pleaded. "You're the closest thing to family I have."

His eyebrows went up and I knew he was thinking about my father and what I had done when we encountered him.

"Look," I said, and set about proving something I couldn't seem to say cleanly. I took off my helmet and put it beside him, then unbuckled the arms and chest. Steel thudded on wool. "There's nothing I wouldn't do. You need to be safe, take my armour. I won't even need it. There are things… well, this isn't the time, but you can have it. It will keep you safe. Or sell it if you want. I don't have much else right now but I can get more and you can sell that as well. Start a business like you always wanted. It doesn't matter if you and Morgana are together. I'm happy for you, even."

The words tumbled too fast and felt thin in the air. Dillon stared at the cuirass for a beat, then pushed it off his legs with the back of his hand.

"Brandon, stop," he said, and the breastplate slid to the floor with a dull knock that seemed louder than the room could hold. "I don't want to be part of whatever trouble you're getting into next."

Guilt and sadness washed through me at the truth in his words.

"I'm sorry," I managed, my throat suddenly parched. "I don't want to complicate your life any more than I already have. I just wanted you safe. And you are. I see that now."

I pushed to my feet too quickly and had to steady myself, a shaky breath leaking out as I took a step back from the bed.

"I'm sorry for… well, I'm sorry," I said, the apology feeling too small for the mess behind it. "I hope Morgana's okay, and that you both get the lives you want."

I turned before I could fumble more, before the look on his face could turn into something I wouldn't be able to bear, and I walked for the door. The room seemed smaller with every pace.

"She'll be glad to know you're alive," he called as I reached the threshold.

I looked back and gave him a closed-mouth smile and a single nod. He returned it, a tiny motion that let something unclench inside my chest. Then I stepped out into the night sky and closed the door on the life I had lived.

Outside felt like walking away from my friends for real. Leaving them had always been the plan, because trouble follows me like a stray dog and I didn't want to let it find their door but saying goodbye to Dillon made that choice feel much more final than it had been in my head. And there I was, a stranger in partial armour with stolen weapons, standing in a hostile fort on the wrong side of the ports I meant to use to disappear, with no clear path out. I drifted at first, dazed and light, the world a blur of torch-smoke and clatter and shouted orders. Oddly, the emptiness steadied me. No ties. No debts owed. A man with nothing to lose moves differently. That thought straightened my spine and put a little spring in my step and only then did I notice I'd wandered toward the battlements, where heads were turning to look at the oddly dressed stranger.

A sudden sense of danger reminded me that there were still things I could lose if I wasn't careful. My life and freedom chief amongst them, and I was surrounded by people who would take it once they realised they should. So I did what had worked a hundred times before: I looked like I belonged. I set my face into the bored focus all soldiers wear and walked the wall behind the rows of archers and javelin-men and the sergeants marshalling them, the way a man on an errand threads a busy market. For a dozen steps it held. Then luck, which had been generous all morning, finally blinked.

"STOP!" The word hit like a hammer, big enough to rise above the scrape of bowstrings and the drum of distant impacts. I closed my eyes in a long blink. I knew that voice, I had heard it in my nightmares. I turned because there was no sense pretending I hadn't heard, and there he was on the parapet.

Harold, the mad chef.

I turned to face the giant, an inquisitive look pasted on like I thought he'd stopped the wrong man, though the fury burning in his eyes said there was no mistake in his command.

"Why do you have the commander's weapons?" he roared as he shouldered through the press toward me. My little masquerade was over. I gave him an exaggerated shrug, spun, and bolted the other way—straight into a row of hard stares and ready steel. Blades came up. Mine came out.

I stepped into a lunge at the nearest soldier. He parried cleanly and rocked back, which was all the space I needed. I slipped past him, jinked around two more, then met another sword square across my path. Steel hissed behind me and a cut opened the back of my shirt without finding skin. Suddenly I was fighting on both sides with half a kit and no plan, and these were people who had actually trained with swords. It was not a fight I could win straight.

Behind me Harold was a bellow and a thunder of boots, shoving men aside as if they were chairs. I didn't have a chance against him with the whole fort eager to help. I went all in on the only gap I had. I let the man in front tag my shoulder, a hot bloom of pain, and traded it for a savage slash across his chest. He staggered, arms pinwheeling, and the lane opened.

I pushed through and then locked eyes with a woman whose beauty had never failed to take my breath.

Alicia.

Like the last time I had been surprised by her, she stood framed by her men, blades out, attention fixed.

"Brandon," she said, shock thinning her voice as the noise around us fell a notch. "They said you escaped, but you're here?"

I gave her my cheekiest smile and a wink I didn't have time to earn.

"Hello," I called, buying seconds with bravado. "Fancy bumping into you again. What brings you here?"

"Someone started a prison break," she said, and there was the smallest smile on the word someone. The rest of the sentence drew gasps from the soldiers close enough to hear. "We were sent to help Brutan hold the fort and capture any… fools… who thought they could escape the king's justice. Tell me, Brandon," she asked, her grin widening, "are you a fool?"

"Oh no, not me," I said. "Nobody is cleverer than me. I'm a certified genius."

She laughed, despite herself, and the sound put a spark in my chest. Then her face changed. Horror rushed in. "No!"

My shirt went tight across the shoulders and ripped. The world tilted. I was airborne, suddenly flying over the crenulations of the walls and onto a group of invaders.

I hit the ground with a crunch, bodies snapping under me, and by some small mercy my sword stayed in my hand. The pain was less than I expected, but I still sent mana through the worst of it, stitching and numbing as a set of jaws snapped shut where my head had been a heartbeat earlier. I rolled, came up in a crouch, and slashed on instinct. The blade bit into a demon's shoulder—one of the armed, hairy brutes we called demons, not a gharound—and hot blood spattered my sleeve.

This wave was nastier than the ones from my posting a year ago. Gharounds prowled low and fast while the taller things pressed with iron and bone, and they worked together with an ugly sort of sense. Luck did more work than skill in the first moments. A clumsy feint drew a lunging gharound into a demon's knee, my blind backswing found a throat instead of empty air, I was still on my feet because the chaos hadn't decided to coordinate against me yet. Then I had space, the wave too thin to fill in instantly. I took a breath and looked around. The line was ragged here, the press of bodies strangely light, and it gave me space to think.

Faces peered down from the wall. Harold scowled like he could throw me back up with his eyes; Alicia stood beside the rope line, fury bright in her face. Going up again wasn't an option. That left forward. The Fracture lay ahead, a red wound against the night sky surrounded by treacherous things underfoot, orchids that were mostly covered this late into a Challenge. If I could reach the edge, skirt along the flank, then tuck in behind the rear ranks, the soldiers back there might take me for any other leather-clad survivor and let me fall in to "retreat" with them. It wasn't a good plan, but it was a plan and that was good enough.

I gave Alicia a cheeky wink I didn't feel and pushed into the wave. The first few strides were slow and ugly as I split attention between my footing and the teeth coming for it. Then something changed. The creatures closest to me began to seize up, as if a thought had jammed in their skulls. The nearest demon stared past my shoulder, breathing hard, waiting for my blade. Another to my right swayed as if pinned to its shadow. I cut them as I came to them and for a few giddy steps bought into the idea that I had become dangerous enough to warp the world around me.

"Stop!" Alicia's voice cracked across the field. The last of her men were dropping from the ropes; she had one hand lifted toward my right where a demon hung frozen, eyes rolling. Understanding punched the breath out of my lungs. It wasn't me. It was her.

"Surrender," she called, "and I will ask for leniency on your behalf."

The creatures nearest her hand twitched, then locked again as if a net had cinched invisible tight.

"Fuck," I muttered under my breath as I realised I wasn't suddenly a sword master, then louder, "I'm not a fan of prisons, thanks. Kind of you to offer though."

She swore in frustration at my response and I turned back into the only direction that made sense. The line had thinned enough that most of the invaders were still driving inland rather than fruitlessly attacking us. Whatever magic that drove them more powerful than the prospect of a quick snack. So I kept moving, betting that Alicia and her men would give up before I would.

It wasn't to be though.

One of her soldiers caught me up before I could get away, his stance neat and low, better with a sword than I'd ever be. We traded three strokes and he knocked my weapon flying. He stepped in for the clean finish and I put both hands on his cuirass and heaved. He hit the ground hard—bad luck planting him on an uncovered patch of orchids—and another of Alicia's people dove in to drag him clear before anything could take advantage of the paralysed man. I turned and ran for the magic portal. Not intending to go through but close enough that it would scare my pursuers off.

"No!" Alicia's shout hit like a lasso. Something tightened around my joints and my body locked. I could breathe and see, but my body wouldn't do as it was told. Then she released me. I'm not sure if it was confidence or exhaustion that did it but either way I stole three more strides. Closer to the Fracture than was wise. Then I heard her boots thundering towards me and I turned towards her just as she pounced on me, forcing us backwards, a look of anger on her face as the world disappeared. For a moment the sky looked like sandstone blocks. Then the blocks shattered into light, my head rang like struck iron, and then we were here and… well, you know the rest.

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