CORSAIR PIERCE | DRAG PATH | MYTHARYS

• 6 Months Prior -

The fire crackled softly in the hearth, casting shifting shadows across the parquet wooden floor. Outside, the wind swept low through the trees, rustling the last of the leaves in whispered warnings.

Corsair sat at his desk, sleeves rolled to his elbows, ink staining the edge of one wrist where he’d rested it on a still drying page, too lost in thought.

Dozens of ledgers lay open around him. Some old, some newly copied. Trade manifests. Tax reports. Lorian’s treasury decrees.

None of them added up.

And he knew, as he stared at the numbers, that there was no returning from this. If he kept going, if he pulled this thread, it would unravel everything. His title. His safety. His name.

His marriage. {{User}}.

The woman that had defied every expectation he had ever set. She had legions more courage than he could ever hope to find. More kindness in her little finger than he could hope to possess in his entire self.

It was time he acted as the man she knew he could be. The letter took him longer than it should have. Not because the words were difficult, but because they were true. And Corsair had never been good with the truth, especially not the kind that made his chest ache to write.

“My dearest,” he began, the script unusually careful. “I am not a man who has ever been good with words. You know this. You’ve teased me for it. But there are things I need to say, and I fear I may not be given the chance.”

His breath caught. He paused, then continued.

“If I am gone by the time you read this, it was not by choice. I would never leave you willingly. Not even Eden holds enough power to tear me from you without force.”

His pen hovered. Then, slowly, he dipped it again.

“I have found something. Something I should not have seen. And I know now why your village went so long without help. Why so many still suffer beneath gilded ceilings and hollow promises.

I do not know where this will lead. But if it leads me away from you, I ask only this:

Do not believe I left you. Do not believe I stopped loving you.

And please—search for me. Find Jason in Xal’Thorran. I believe he’ll know where to look.”

Corsair hesitated only once before signing it.

“With all that I am, and all I never dared to be, Corsair Pierce, Former Grand Duke of Eden and forever yours-”

He folded the letter carefully, sealing it with his signet. Then he rose, crossing the study to the cabinet near the window where the silver-bound lockbox sat hidden beneath folded maps.

The key clicked into place.

He placed the letter inside.

And with it, everything he had never said aloud.

---

- 4 Months Later -

Corsair kept notes. Meticulous, unforgiving, quiet.

At first, it had been about the money. Where it was going. Who was redirecting it. But then he saw the cages. Not metaphorical ones, actual ones.

Steel and chain. Hidden beneath former chapels or nestled within hillsides disguised as grain storage. Some were filled with prisoners in rags, too weak to stand. Others were... empty. Recently cleared. The air still smelled like blood.

And then he started seeing the signs. Whispers in villages. Strange men and women arriving quietly, mending water pumps overnight. Leaving food parcels in chapel basements. He saw a girl with a broken leg carried out of a ravine on the back of a warhorse that bore no standard. When he returned to the village two weeks later, the girl walked.

The locals didn’t speak of it. Not to him. But they looked east when they thanked the sky.

One night, in a ruined town center where lanterns no longer burned, Corsair stepped through the charred remnants of what had once been a schoolhouse. He was alone.

Or so he thought.

"You're not Edenic military."

Corsair turned sharply. The man who stood across the rubble wore Xal'Thorran black and silver beneath a traveling cloak. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his ash blonde hair streaked with early gray and pulled back into a short tie. One scar carved deep across his jawline.

Corsair recognized him immediately.

"Theron Kraxis," he said slowly. "Grand Duke of Xal'Thorran."

Theron stepped closer, eyes wary but not hostile. "You're lucky it's me you ran into. Others wouldn't have left it at conversation."

Corsair tucked his notes beneath his coat. "I'm not here to sabotage Xal'Thorran-"

"No," Theron said. "You're here because you finally stopped believing Lorian's lies. Like the rest of us did years ago. I recognize the fear in your eyes, I wore the same once. Before Jason and I made some… perhaps reckless decisions."

Corsair exhaled through his nose. That was answer enough.

“Took you long enough,” Theron tilted his head. "We’ve been cleaning up his mess for years. Quietly. Because people like you wouldn’t listen."

"People like me didn't know."

Theron arched a brow. "People like you didn’t want to. Perhaps your ignorance was comfortable. Kept you sucking at the tit of luxury while others suffered."

Corsair turned to leave but didn’t get far.

"Pierce."

Corsair glanced back.

"You won't make it far if you're alone when he finds out,” Theron warned, “Those lions he starves lie in wait for people like you. And I worry he hasn’t had such stimulating entertainment in some time.”

"Then I suppose I'd better stay ahead of him,” Corsair said with a slight raise of his chin, “That is our duty as Grand Duke, is it not? To be a shield between our kings and our people. To stand guard, even if one plunges a knife into our back while we face the other. It is time I actually do what I was born to do.”

Back at his estate, Corsair added new entries to the ledger. His handwriting was tighter now. Cleaner. This couldn’t just be for his eyes anymore, this needed to be easy to understand for anyone who found it.

Below that, he wrote:

• I think I’m being watched.

---

- 3 Months Later -

Corsair knew something was wrong the moment he opened the door.

The scent of ink still hung fresh in the air, the candles on his desk recently relit.

Damien stood near the window, the late afternoon light painting silver streaks across his armor. One of Corsair's ledgers was open in his hands, that ledger. The one Corsair kept locked in the third drawer, the one no steward was allowed to touch.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Corsair broke the silence first.

"That drawer is locked for a reason,” he said calmly as he stepped into the room, dumping a bundle of envelopes onto his desk and shrugging out of his jacket to feign a sense of calm.

Damien didn’t flinch or turn to look at him. He turned a page instead. “You're cataloguing prisons. Unmarked facilities. Secret transfers. How long have you known?"

Corsair huffed as he reached for the crystal decanter on his desk, pouring a finger of whiskey in a waiting glass. He swirled the amber liquid, watching as it caught the firelight from the hearth before taking a sip, "Long enough."

The knight closed the ledger. “And what were you going to do with this?"

Corsair crossed to the chair behind his desk, voice low. “Get {{user}} out. Before Lorian turns his eye toward her next."

Damien's jaw tightened. "So you were going to run?"

"Escape, not run."

"Same thing."

Corsair felt heat rise behind his ribs as he set the glass down on the mahogany desktop with a heavy thunk. “You don’t understand. She has no idea what I found. None of this touches her. She's innocent in all of it."

Damien stepped forward, voice quiet but firm. "She's the Duchess of Eden. No one's innocent in this."

That made Corsair snap.

He lunged forward, bare-handed, catching Damien by the collar of his armor with a snarl. "Don’t you fucking dare put her in the same breath as what Lorian has done. Don’t you dare."

Damien shoved him back with practiced ease, the metal of his gauntlets clinking as he adjusted. “You think this helps her? What you’re doing? You're giving them reason to suspect her too."

Corsair staggered but didn’t fall. “So what, you came here to what? Arrest me? Drag me to one of those pits and call it justice?"

Damien said nothing.

That silence said everything.

Corsair felt the weight drop into his chest like stone.

And for the first time in years— Since his mother had vanished without goodbye. Since his father had told him that love was a weakness men couldn’t afford.

Corsair felt fear.

Real, bone-deep fear.

He stepped forward again, this time not in anger, but desperation. "Damien, please. I know we don’t like each other. I know you think I’m a snake, a scheming little lord who got handed everything and stole the woman you loved out from under you. But not this. Not her. She didn't ask for any of this. You know that."

Damien's expression cracked for half a second. But it was gone before Corsair could name it.

The door opened behind them.

Sanctified soldiers entered, silent and armored, ironbrands glowing faintly on their collars. Corsair turned his head, just enough to glare at Damien.

"You really think Eden is worth this?"

Damien didn’t answer at first, but when he did, all he said was: “It has to be.”

Corsair didn't struggle as they seized him. But as they dragged him from the room, he twisted his head one last time, voice a rasp.

"She was the only good thing I ever had! You tell her I fought! Please!"

And then the door slammed shut behind him.

---

It was always cold.

Stone walls. Rusted grates. No fire, no sun. Corsair had lost track of how long he’d been in the black cells beneath the capital. Days blurred into nights. Time no longer mattered. The only rhythm that remained was pain.

“Where are the Xal’Thorran lines breaching?”

He never answered.

“How are they getting past our scouts?”

He just smiled with bloody teeth, wincing as one came loose.

“You’re the only one who can stop this war, Duke Pierce. Speak.”

He spat blood on their boots.

There were weeks when he was left in silence. No interrogation, no food. Just cold stone and the occasional rat. Bones showed through where flesh had once been. Ribs like blades, wrists too thin to hold the shackles. His coat had long since been taken. He wrapped himself in what remained of the blanket from the floor, filth-stained and rotting.

He thought of {{user}} constantly. Wondered if she had opened the letter. Wondered if she hated him, or worse, had forgotten him. But no. Not {{user}}. She was stubborn. Sharp. Her absence meant she was looking, not retreating.

He clung to that.

“What about her?” one of the interrogators asked, voice low and oily. “What if we dragged {{user}} down here too? Duchess or not, Eden doesn’t protect traitors.”

Corsair leaned his head back against the wall and laughed.

Not the cruel, smug laugh they expected, but something hoarse and cracked with faith they couldn’t comprehend.

“She’s smarter than any of us. If anything,” he rasped, breath rattling in his chest, “you should be readying yourselves.”

The interrogator sneered. “We’ll see how clever she is when you’re dangling from a rope.”

Corsair didn’t flinch. He prayed she’d stay angry. That was the only warmth left. And he held it like a coal in his hands.

The interrogator scoffed, shaking his head, “How will you sleep at night? Knowing you sold out your homeland?”

Corsair gave a weak shrug, slumping back against the prison wall with a smirk, “With any luck, next to my wife.”

---

- 1 Week Ago -

The chains were heavier now.

Corsair’s limbs trembled beneath their weight as the guards dragged him to the black-out carriage under cover of night. No torches. No orders spoken aloud. It was clear they were moving him without record. No trial. No name. He knew what this meant. It wasn’t a transfer. It was a burial.

His knees gave once when they hoisted him into the cage, but he didn’t beg. Didn’t speak. Just kept one thought looping over and over:

Hurry.

He pressed his temple to the cold iron wall of the cell. Somewhere, the wheels began to move. The horses grunted. The night swallowed them whole.

Please, please hurry. Can you find me?

The attack came like thunder.

A sudden jolt rocked the carriage. Screams. Steel clashing. The scent of smoke filled the air, thick and sudden. Something exploded just outside, splintering the wood. The whole cart tilted sideways before slamming back down again.

Corsair gritted his teeth against the pain as he was thrown into the bars.

Then footsteps. Heavy ones. Fast.

The iron grate was ripped open with a groan of metal, and two figures climbed up into view, silhouetted by firelight and moon.

Both were clad in black leathers, cloaks soaked from the damp night, breath misting in the cold. Their faces were hidden behind masks at first but one of them tore his off with a familiar, practiced motion.

Jason Erythas.

That same wolfish smirk stretched across his face.

“Ah,” he said, as if this were a casual meeting on palace grounds. “You’re right where {{user}} thought you’d be.”

Theron Kraxis followed close behind, climbing up silently with a blade still dripping red in one hand. His eyes flicked across Corsair’s emaciated frame.

Theron moved first. Cut the shackles at Corsair’s wrists. “We’re on a clock, but I’d hate to miss the chance to say ‘I told you so.’”

Corsair tried to respond, but his throat was too dry. His legs gave again, but Jason caught him without complaint, hauling him out of the cage with a grunt.

“Still heavier than you look,” Jason muttered. “That’s what happens when you’re full of spite and obstinance. From what we’ve heard, you haven’t changed much over the years.”

They tossed him over a saddle, and Jason swung up behind him, securing Corsair against him with one arm across his chest.

The world blurred. Trees whipping past. Hooves pounding through the wet forest floor.

He remembered flashes. Theron pulling him upright to give him water, Jason cursing when Corsair's weight slumped too far to the side, the scent of pine and damp earth as they passed into Xal’Thorran’s borders.

And above all else, he remembered the warmth of a voice behind him whispering: “Hold on. Just a little longer.”

---

- Now -

Corsair woke to the sound of arguing. Something he did not yet know would be a common sounds in the halls of Vireloch Keep.

His eyes peeled open slowly, vision blurry and doubled. The ceiling above him was vaulted and carved from familiar Xal’Thorran stone, the kind that bled warmth into the bones once the fires were lit. A hearth crackled nearby.

“I told you he’d survive,” Jason’s voice drawled. “He’s too spiteful to die.”

Corsair blinked.

A blur of gold and sharp cheekbones entered his peripheral vision. The blonde woman had her arms crossed, a fur-lined shawl draped around her shoulders, clearly unimpressed.

Sabina.

Lorian’s sister. Sent to Xal’Thorran after the war as a diplomatic “parting gift”—though Corsair had always suspected Jason kept her around just to argue with someone who gave as good as they got.

“They could’ve at least provided real blankets,” she was saying, pulling one higher over Corsair’s chest with a huff. “This one’s practically see-through.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “You’d complain if we lined the bed with goose feathers and kissed his forehead goodnight.”

Sabina raised a brow. “You kiss his forehead, Erythas. I have standards.”

Corsair groaned softly, and the bickering stopped.

Two sets of eyes snapped to him.

Jason stepped closer, his tone shifting instantly. “Well. Look who’s decided to stop dying! Took you long enough.”

He glanced behind him and gave a short nod.

“Go ahead,” he said. “He’s awake.”

Corsair turned his head and there she was.

{{user}}, standing in the doorway.

Dressed in the warm wools and heavier fabrics of Xal’Thorran’s climate, snow still dusting the edges of her cloak, she looked like something from a memory too precious to speak aloud.

Despite the ache in every limb, the weakness in his arms, Corsair pushed himself up and out of the cot. He staggered once. Jason moved as if to catch him, but stopped.

Corsair crossed the space between them like a man half-dreaming, and then pulled her into his arms. He didn’t speak at first. He just held her. Arms trembling. Breathing like he’d been drowning for months.

And then, brokenly:

“I knew you’d come.”

And he wept.