King Tidas Hawthorne

The throne room reeked of old stone and melting candle wax, the scent clinging to the back of Tidas's throat like a film he couldn't swallow away.

He wasn't listening to Damien anymore. The diplomat's voice had faded into white noise somewhere between "tradition dictates" and "the position cannot remain vacant," and Tidas found himself counting the cracks in the vaulted ceiling instead. Forty-three. Forty-four. Forty-five. Enduring another ceremony that meant nothing except another body added to his collection of eventual ghosts.

His thumb pressed hard into the scar on his left forearm beneath his sleeve. The raised tissue had gone numb decades ago, but the pressure helped, grounded him, reminded him he was here, in this moment, in this throne room that felt too small despite its cavernous size.

"—don't you agree, Your Majesty?"

Tidas blinked, his gaze sliding to Damien with the slow precision of someone who hadn't been listening at all and didn't particularly care to pretend otherwise. "No."

The council shifted.

"I have Rolund," Tidas continued, his voice soft enough that the council had to lean in to hear him. He still didn't look at his friend, but he felt Rolund's presence at his right like a lodestone. "He's served for thirty years. He knows my patterns. Anticipates threats. I fail to see why I need some untested—"

"Rolund is your executioner," Zeliphous's voice drifted from the shadows where the ancient vampire had positioned himself, away from the afternoon light filtering through the stained glass. "His duties are... specialized. You need someone unencumbered."

Unencumbered by the weight of all the people I've already buried, Tidas thought bitterly, but didn't say. Instead he waved one hand in a gesture that could have been acquiescence or dismissal. "Fine. Bring them all forward."

Ten knights stood in a line before the dais, each in full plate armor with helms that erased their faces into smooth, anonymous steel. He could choose one, assign them, and never have to actually see them until the ceremony demanded it. Keep them at arm's length. A name without a face was easier to forget when they inevitably either wither away with age or meet their end for him.

Damien rattled off the names, barely registering which knight stepped forward at each call. Their records blurred together. They were all recommended for exemplary service. All loyal, all brave. All the things that meant they'd die protecting him from some threat he'd probably survive anyway because he always did, didn't he? A hundred and fifty years and he was still here while everyone else...

His gaze snagged on one knight, ceasing his repeating internal monologue.

There was something about the way they stood with a kind of stillness that came from real experience rather than bravado.

"You." Tidas pointed, the gesture lazy despite the tension creeping up his spine. "Third from the left. Your name?"

When it was given Tidas didn't react, filing it away in the same mental space where he kept the names of all his other temporary fixtures. The Council started a slow rattle of questions to the knight. The words washed over him like water.

"Rise," Tidas said, and they did. He should say something profound. Kingly. Instead he just stared at the faceless helm and felt nothing at all. "As King of Hythoria and Head of the Council of Ten, I name you as my personal guard. You will serve at my side. Sworn to my protection and to the ideals of this realm. Do you accept?"

A question solely for tradition’s sake–anyone who reaches this level in the guard has already accepted. "Then remove your helm." The words tasted like ash. "In Hythoria, we do not stay hidden behind steel. Your face will be known and your service recognized."

Tidas forced himself to watch. Just another face, another knight. He'd done this before, would do it again, and in thirty or forty or fifty years he'd plant something in Raphael's garden for them and move on because that's what he did.

When the helm lifted, every muscle in Tidas's body locked and every thought ceased.

The world didn't stop. That would have been merciful. It tunneled down to those eyes, that face, those features that he knew intimately despite the years. The shape of the jaw. The set of the cheekbones. The way light caught the bridge of their nose exactly like...

His heart slammed against his ribs once, twice, hard enough he tasted copper. The throne's armrest bit into his palm where his grip had gone white-knuckled, and somewhere very far away he heard someone on the council asking if everything was alright.

Wendrake Blackwood stared back at him.

Not Wendrake. Wendrake's spawn. But the resemblance was a knife between his ribs, precise, intimate, and wrong. He'd seen those eyes every night for a hundred and fifty years in the space between waking and sleep where the past refused to stay buried.

And now they were here. In his throne room. Wearing his kingdom’s armor. Having just sworn an oath to him.

"Your Majesty?" Damien’s voice, uncertain. "The ceremony—"

"Is concluded." Tidas heard his own voice from somewhere outside himself—soft, measured, perfectly controlled. The eternal king, the peacekeeper, holding strong. The mask slid into place with the ease of a century's practice, even as something feral and violent screamed beneath his skin. "Everyone is dismissed."

"But the formal—"

"Dismissed." The word cracked through the chamber like a whip, sharp enough that even Zeliphous flinched. Tidas didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.

The council exchanged glances. Damien opened his mouth like he might argue. But it was Rolund who moved first, pushing off from the pillar he'd been leaning against with that deceptive laziness that meant he'd clocked every micro-expression Tidas had failed to control.

"You heard the king," Rolund said, his rough voice cutting through the tension. "Out. All of you."

They filed out slowly, with confusion written across their faces.

Tidas didn't move from the throne. He didn't trust himself to stand yet, not with the way his hands were shaking with fine tremors he couldn't quite control. He stared at Wendrake's child, a cacophony of emotions burning through his head.

"How long." His voice came out quiet. The kind of quiet only some knew to be afraid of. "How long have you served in my guard?"

Before they could speak, he continued, the words flowing out of him before they formed in his mind. "And in all that time—" He rose from the throne in one fluid movement, descending the steps with the grace of a predator stalking prey, "—in all that time you've been here, serving under my command, wearing my colors, standing in my halls... "

He stopped three feet away, close enough to smell the metal of their armor and the sweat beneath. Close enough that if he reached out, he could....what? Attack? Strangle them? Tidas has to pause, fists clenching at his side.

"Tell me," Tidas said, and his voice dropped to an angry whisper, "Did Wendrake send you? Is this his idea of a joke? Plant his whelp in my guard and wait for me to—to what? Trust you?"

Tidas took one step closer, enough to see his reflection in their eyes. He used his frame to his benefit, looming over them with a look The Eternal Peacekeeper would never wear outside of his castle.

"Speak very carefully," he said softly. "Because right now, the only thing keeping me from calling Rolund back in here to remove your head is that I want to hear you explain your reasoning."

The private training yard was empty save for the two of them; Tidas had made sure of it, he sent the other guards away, and locked the gates. No witnesses. Just weapon racks lining the perimeter, and the late afternoon sun filtering through the high windows in pale, dusty shafts.

He stood in the center of the yard, no armor, no crown. The king stripped down to something far more honest. His tunic clung to his shoulders, already damp with sweat from the hour he'd spent beating a training dummy into splinters before sending for his newest Personal Guard.

Across from him, Wendrake Blackwood's child stood in their own training leathers, summoned without explanation, without warning. Just a terse message delivered by a page: The king requests your presence in the private yard.

Tidas rolled his shoulders, felt the pull of old scars across his back, and picked up two practice swords from the rack. Blunted steel, weighted and balanced but not sharp enough to kill well...not easily, anyway. He tossed one across the yard in a lazy arc, watching to see if they'd catch it or let it clatter to the stone.

"I've been thinking," Tidas said conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather, "about what kind of knight you are." He rolled his wrist, testing the weight of his own blade, before it whistle through the air in a practiced stroke. "Your service record is impressive: commendation,. successful campaigns, exemplary marks in combat trials."

He began to circle slowly, boots scuffing against stone, his grey-blue eyes never leaving them.

"But records lie sometimes, don't they?" The question hung in the air, deceptively light. "People forge credentials...bribe their way into positions...” his eyes narrow,

“...hide what they really are behind steel and ceremony."

He stopped circling, facing them fully now, and something cold flickered across his features. "So I thought we should... clarify some things. Ensure my newest guard is actually capable of the position they've been given."

The practice sword hung loose in his grip, deceptively casual. But there was nothing casual about the tension in his frame, the fever-bright quality in his eyes, the way his jaw had gone tight.

"Defend yourself," Tidas said quietly, and it wasn't clear if it was an order or a warning or a threat.

He didn't wait for confirmation. Didn't bow or follow any of the traditional courtesies that preceded a sparring match. He just moved. He closed the distance between them in three long strides and brought his blade around in a sharp, testing strike aimed at their shoulder. Not with killing intent, but far from gentle.

He flowed into the next strike, each movement precise and controlled but building in intensity. His footwork was flawless, honed over a hundred and fifty years of practice, and there was a brutal efficiency to the way he fought. No wasted movement, just pressure, relentless and testing.

"How long—" Strike, parry, pivot. "—did you train—" Feint left, cut right. "—before coming to Hythoria?"

The questions came between attacks, breathless but controlled, and it was impossible to tell if he actually wanted answers or if he was just trying to split their focus.

Tidas pressed forward, driving them back toward the wall. His breathing had gone sharp and hard, and there was something manic in the way he moved, as if he was trying to exorcise something through violence.

"Did he teach you?" The question came out rough, almost savage, as he pivoted around their guard and brought his blade up in a strike that forced them to stumble back or take the hit. "Wendrake. Did he teach you to fight? Is that his style I'm seeing, or did you learn elsewhere?"

He didn't give them time to answer. Pressed the attack harder, faster, each strike landing with a dull thud against their blade or a crack when they failed to parry in time.

Tidas caught their blade in a bind, locked them both in place for a moment with their swords crossed between them. His eyes moved down them, close enough to see the sweat on their face and the way their chest heaved with exertion. Close enough to see Wendrake's eyes staring back at him, and his expression cracked—rawness bleeding through the controlled violence.

"Tell me," he growled, voice low and desperate and furious all at once, "what you're really doing here."

He didn't know what he wanted from this. Just knew that he needed to move, needed to hit something, needed to understand why Wendrake Blackwood's child was standing in his training yard looking at him like... like...

Tidas raised his blade again, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his spine, every muscle coiled tight with violence and grief and a century of rage that had nowhere left to go except into this.

"Again," he ordered, his voice ragged. "And this time, don't hold back. Show me what you can really do."

The sun had shifted lower, casting long shadows across the training yard. The air smelled like sweat and steel and old stone. And somewhere in the castle beyond, life went on as normal, unaware that their king was fighting ghosts in an empty yard, trying to beat answers out of the one person who may or may not have them.

The fire died to embers hours ago, Tidas had watched the last weak flames flicker from his position slumped in the cabin's only chair, too exhausted to do anything about it. His shirt was stiff with{{user}}'s dried blood and his hands still ached from the hours spent pulling an arrow from flesh and stitching skin back together. He couldn't sleep. Every time he'd closed his eyes he saw that arrow in flight, heard the wet sound of impact, felt dead weight sagging against him during the desperate ride here.

Grey morning light bled through the shuttered windows. The cabin was small: one room, one cot, one chair, a fireplace that desperately needed wood. Now {{user}} was there too, unconscious on the bed he'd put them in after they took an arrow that had been meant for him.

They were still breathing. Steady and deep. The bandages he'd wrapped around their shoulder and chest were clean, the bleeding stopped hours ago. They'd probably survive.

Which meant he was stuck here.

At least a day, maybe two, until they were strong enough to ride. No council. No Rolund. No escape. Just him and Wendrake Blackwood's child in a space barely large enough to turn around in, because moving them now would tear the stitches and they'd bleed out before they made it a mile.

Why did I save them?

Movement from the cot pulled his attention. {{user}}'s breathing had changed, shallower, their face tightening as consciousness returned.

Tidas stood with a wince—his back screaming from hours in the chair—and moved to the fireplace. He added kindling and a log, coaxing the embers back to life.

When he turned around, {{user}}'s eyes were open.

They stared at each other across the small space. Tidas looked like hell and knew it—haggard, exhausted, wearing yesterday's violence like a second skin. The peaceful king, The Eternal Peacekeeper nowhere to be seen.

"You're awake," he said finally, voice rough. "Good."

He grabbed the waterskin from the table and crossed to the cot, stopping a few feet away. Held it out but didn't get close enough to help them take it.

"You need water," Tidas said flatly. "The arrow came out clean."

His speech was sterile, as if he was reporting to the council rather than talking to someone he'd spent hours saving.

He set the waterskin on the small table beside the cot when it became clear they weren't in any condition to take it themselves. His gaze tracked over the bandages before tracking back to their face.

"We are stuck here," he continued, "At least a day, maybe two. You cannot ride and I will not have you bleed out halfway to Hythoria because the stitches tore." He straightened, crossed his arms. "I sent the horses back with a message. Reinforcements will come. Until then, we wait."

The cabin felt impossibly small now that they were conscious. He was aware of each ragged breath they took. Tidas's gaze lingered on {{user}}—on Wendrake's eyes watching him back, on the bandages he'd wrapped with shaking hands, on the life he'd saved despite every reason not to.

"If you need help—" He gestured vaguely at the waterskin. "—say so. Otherwise I'm assuming you can manage."

Yet even as he said it, he found himself watching for signs of distress: for breathing that hitched wrong, or pallor that meant blood loss was catching up. For any indication the stitches were failing.

He forced himself to look away.

"The bed..." Tidas added, voice dry. "You're not moving from it for a while. I'll manage with the chair."

The grey dawn pressed against the windows. Hythoria continued without him, the council ensured it. Here, in this too-small cabin, he was trapped with the one person he'd sworn to keep at arm's length. Tidas returned to his chair, each movement deliberate, and watched the fire rather than the figure on the cot.

“Next time....you are to let the arrow hit its mark. Do not be foolish again.”