Castle Blackfyre felt different after a celebration. Not quieter—quieter was a luxury the Blackfyres didn't buy—but emptier, as if the servants had scrubbed the laughter out of the stone along with the spilled wine.
Ezra's shoes clicked too loud on marble polished into a mirror. He moved between adults like a small, important parcel that had learned to walk under its own power.
Aerwyna kept pace beside him, one hand hovering near his shoulder—not touching, not guiding, just there, ready to catch him if he tried anything clever. Reitz walked ahead, cloak unfastened, the last of his public smile gone.
Evan shadowed the left flank. Hearth stayed close enough to be useful but far enough not to crowd Ezra. Caspian drifted behind with that twitchy, over-alert energy he got when the air itself felt wrong.
They didn't go to the Great Hall.
They went to a private solar.
In the spirit of Ezra's second birthday—an acknowledgement of a milestone—Reitz had included him in the discussion. The plan was simple: receive the Demon Hunter, learn what he wanted, and then proceed with the tour of Bren. Reitz had judged the request would be narrow. If it were something large enough to threaten the whole domain, he would have heard of it already.
A pair of guards opened a set of inner doors that didn't lead to any public chamber—no banners, no musicians, no echoing crowd to soak up uncomfortable words. The room beyond was a private reception hall: high-ceilinged and formal, but built for small councils, not feasts.
A long table of dark wood dominated the center. Shelves of ledgers and maps lined one wall; the other held a low fireplace that burned steady. Two tall windows admitted washed-out late-day light that didn't quite manage to warm the stone.
A place meant to look civilized while decisions were made.
A man entered, escorted by two Castle Blackfyre guards. He moved like someone who had spent years walking into rooms that wanted him dead.
He wore black leather armor over most of his body—tight enough to move, thick enough to turn a knife. Steel armguards wrapped his forearms, scuffed and scratched. Over it all sat something like a sleeveless trench coat, split at the back for riding, the hem worn from travel.
Weapons sat on him the way jewelry sat on nobles.
Two hand crossbows at his sides.
Two daggers.
A coiled whip on his left hip.
His face was hard in that blunt, fierce way veteran fighters got, and he carried a tired aura of danger— not old, exactly. Just… used.
"This is Sir Deimos," the escorting guard announced, voice too loud in the quiet hall. "A knight of the Order of the Demon Hunters."
Reitz's eyes narrowed, recognizing the cut of the gear.
Ezra's eyes narrowed too.
That doesn't look like a knight, Ezra thought.
Back on Earth, "knight" meant plate. Shield. Lance.
This man looked like a professional problem.
Deimos stopped at the center of the hall. He made a peculiar salute that wasn't an Imperial salute—hand to fist, then a brief bow.
"Thank you for seeing me, Earl Blackfyre," he said. His voice was calm, but urgency sat beneath it like a blade under cloth. "I am Sir Deimos—Hellspawn Slayer of the Order of the Demon Hunters. I have come to ask for aid. Urgently."
A ripple went through the room—sharp breaths, metal creaking as knights shifted.
Even those who had never seen the Order up close knew the ladder. Apprentice. Initiate. Master. Above them the Hellmaster, the shadow ranks—Binders, Blades. And higher still, the Hellspawn tiers: Slayer, Assassin, Destroyer.
Deimos was high on that ladder.
He didn't bow like a courtier. His head dipped once, nothing more. Demon Hunters didn't kneel to anyone but their Hellmaster, and even that was more tradition than worship.
Ezra felt Aerwyna's annoyance beside Reitz—a subtle tightening of shoulders, a slightly shallower breath. His own body mirrored it without asking permission, like his nerves had decided to copy hers.
"I am Sir Deimos, Hellspawn Slayer," he repeated, controlled and even, as if each word had been weighed before leaving his tongue. "I come to ask for aid."
Reitz's face didn't change, but Ezra saw the alertness sharpen in his eyes. Titles mattered to him. So did what they implied.
"You are far from the Border, Slayer," Reitz said, polite, neutral. "What brings the Order to Bren?"
"I need reinforcements," Deimos replied. "My party was ambushed in the southern woodlands. We were tracking a cell of Arcanists. We were separated. I cannot confirm survival for any of my team—save, perhaps, another Slayer."
"Arcanists?" Reitz's brows drew together.
The Imperium's favorite insult: every mage beyond its borders dumped into one ugly bucket and labeled Arcanist, like that explained anything. Ezra hated the word. It hid all the interesting differences. It meant foreigner—but sharpened into a slur. And in this case, it sounded like the slur had real faces behind it.
"This deep in Fulmen?" Reitz said. "That is… bold."
Ezra's attention sharpened.
"We were escorting a merchant caravan," Deimos said. "It was a trap. They separated us with illusions. They took the merchant's son."
"Kidnapping?" Aerwyna asked quietly.
Her tone was soft, but the air around her went tight. Ezra didn't need magic to feel what she remembered—roofs and knives and almost losing him once already.
Deimos' jaw tightened.
"No, my lady," he said. "Sacrifice."
The word bounced around the room and came back heavier.
"We found the boy an hour later," Deimos went on. His face stayed hardened, but something flickered under it. "His chest had been opened. He was staked to a tree covered in carvings—runes. We're not sure what they were."
The room cooled. Torchlight seemed to flatten, shadows thickening in the corners.
"We engaged them," Deimos said. "There were three. Shadow Walkers. We killed two, but the third escaped. As we pursued, we were hit by a second wave. I took two more down before I was separated from my squad. I escaped three days ago and came straight here."
Reitz's gaze sharpened.
"Shadow Walkers," he repeated slowly. "Arcanists who disappear and reappear in shadows. I haven't faced one personally—only heard reports from earlier campaigns. Fear tactics, if memory serves."
"Yes, Earl Blackfyre," Deimos replied. Distaste bled into his tone, faint but real. "A deviant sect from the Arcanist lands beyond the Border. They don't fight like normal mages. They vanish into shadow and reappear from other shadow. Behind you. Above you. They use darkness itself as a path."
Ezra forced his face into a stare.
Inside, his thoughts were much less controlled.
What in the fuck?
Disappearing.
Reappearing.
In shadows.
There was no way that was just "magic" in the framework that he had in head. Not unless the physics of mana here were much weirder than even Ezra had surmised—or unless they were using some mechanism no one in this part of the Empire understood. He had already come to terms with elemental based magic, he had started developing theories in his brain, but this threw a wrench in the works.
I want to see that, he thought, clear and unashamed. I want to see what it looks like when they vanish. I want to see the mana twist when they walk from one patch of dark to another.
Deimos kept going.
"Why kill the child?" Reitz asked, voice roughened. "Is it ransom? A message?"
"No, my lord." Deimos' mouth curled like he'd bitten into something rotten. "Theology."
The word made a few older knights' faces tighten.
In the Imperium, you could say prayers at festivals and funerals and let priests mumble in the background, but you did not let "theology" dictate your troop movements.
"They worship some Shadow God," Deimos said. "They believe sacrificing a child—especially one with talent—gives them power. If they cannot steal an enemy's child, they sacrifice their own."
A ripple went through the gathered knights. Armor creaked. Someone swore softly.
The Captain of the Guard spat on the floor and made a brisk warding gesture before catching himself.
Hearth's hands clenched at his sides until his knuckles went white. He was pale under the composed mask. For all his sullen pride, he was still a boy.
Caspian's fingers twitched, like he wanted a spell lit and ready in his palm right this second. His jaw set. The word "sacrifice" meant something different to orphans.
Ezra saw it all.
Felt a faint echo of their disgust in his own chest.
But over that, stronger, there was a different shape.
They kill their own children for power that probably doesn't work the way they think it does, he thought. They're insane. Dangerous.
And the worst part wasn't even the cruelty.
The worst part was that the ritual still did something.
Reitz went very, very still.
"They kill their own children?" he asked.
"To feed their magic," Deimos answered. "Yes."
"Arcanists," Reitz said quietly.
He didn't raise his voice, but the way he said the word stripped it of any leftover politics.
It was the same register Reitz used for certain raiders—that calm, frightening tone where the decision to kill had already been made and was now just being wrapped in words.
"Sir Deimos," Reitz said.
He rose from the throne in one fluid motion. Cloak slid down his shoulders like a spill of shadow. Firelight picked out the line of his jaw, the scar across his brow.
"You have my aid."
Relief flashed across Deimos' face—sharp and quick.
"Thank you, my lord," he said. "If you could lead the detachment—"
"No."
The word cracked through the hall.
Silence fell.
Even the whisper of the draft in the rafters seemed to pause.
Deimos blinked once, very slowly. His eyes narrowed a hair.
"I will give you five of my best knights," Reitz said, tone shifting from steel to stone—heavy, immovable. "I will give you supplies, horses, food. My smiths will tune your gear; my apothecaries will stock your arrows. But I will not leave Castle Blackfyre."
Deimos stared at him.
The Ashbringer was a story. The lord who waded into battle first. The man who had turned a canyon into a graveyard with his own mana.
Hearing him refuse a fight was like hearing a river say it would no longer flow downhill.
"My lord?" Deimos asked, careful. "Your fire would be—"
"I cannot leave," Reitz said.
His gaze flicked, just for a moment, to Ezra.
They both remembered.
Not the details.
The feeling.
The way Reitz had chased a clean victory and almost paid for it with his son.
"My duty is here," Reitz said. "My heir is here. My people are here. If I chase every horror in the woods myself, I leave them undefended for the next one. My knights are capable. Take them and hunt these butchers down. But I stay."
Deimos stared at Reitz for a long moment. Then his shoulders eased a fraction. Five of Bren's best and the Earl's full support was more than most lords would give.
"Thank you for honoring the Oath, Lord Blackfyre," he said.
Ezra recognized the Oath. He had read it in one of the books he'd come across.
By my name and seal, I recognize the Order. If you bring me true warning, you will have audience, passage, and aid. I will not shelter Hellspawn, nor hinder your hunt. Speak.
Deimos stepped forward and dropped to one knee, head bowed briefly.
It was a short, sharp gesture—one weapon acknowledging another.
"The Order remembers those who stand with it," he added.
Aerwyna spoke before Reitz could.
"Remember the boy," she said.
Deimos looked up.
"The merchant's son," she clarified. Her knuckles were white on the carved wood. "Write his name. In your reports, in your prayers. Don't let him vanish into 'acceptable losses.'"
Deimos' mouth twitched. There was something tired in the line of his shoulders.
"I will, my lady," he said.
"Go," Reitz commanded.
His voice dropped into that quiet, deadly register again.
"Find them. Make them regret ever stepping into our woods."
Deimos rose, turned on his heel, and strode from the hall. His coat whispered around his boots. The silver phials at his chest chimed softly with each step.
As he passed beneath the dragon window, red and black light striped his face.
Ezra tracked him until the doors shut.