The night was thick with the scent of iron and sweat, moonlight spilling pallid upon the trampled earth. Cedric staggered, his blade still drawn though his side bled heavily, each drop of crimson soaking into the soil like a covenant of pain. Across from him, Samuel stood with that infernal smirk, his obsidian eyes gleaming like coals half-buried in ash. His hand remained fastened cruelly upon Stellan's arm, as though he held not a man but a broken relic that once belonged to him.
And yet, Stellan—trembling, pale, lips pressed thin—found a sudden heat rising within his chest. The old terror surged, yes, but alongside it something fiercer, something that no cruelty of Samuel's could quench. He looked to Cedric—his Cedric—who swayed yet unyielding, like a lion wounded but unbroken.
"You," Stellan whispered, his voice breaking but steadying again, "you will not stand a chance against my Montrose."
Before Samuel could respond, before that smile of mockery could deepen, Stellan's knee drove upward in a sudden, desperate strike. His boot connected with a place no armour could guard.
Samuel gasped—a harsh, strangled sound torn from his throat—his body folding for an instant under the assault. His grip loosened, his dark poise broken, and in that sliver of reprieve Stellan tore himself free. His chest heaved, lungs burning, yet he wasted no breath; in one swift motion, he seized his fallen blade from the earth and stumbled towards Cedric.
"Are you—are you well, Montrose?" he cried, his eyes wide, his hands trembling as he reached Cedric's side.
Cedric, pale though resolute, met him with that familiar steel gaze. "I am… good enough," he muttered, though the blood soaking his doublet belied the claim. "But you must stay here. I will fight."
"No," Stellan answered, his voice quivering with both fear and resolve. "No, you will not order me again."
Cedric's brows furrowed, a coldness rising in his tone. "You speak as though I command you cruelly. I only wish to protect you.
He nearly—" But he faltered, silencing the words before they could spill into humiliation. His jaw tightened, his eyes softened against his will.
Stellan's gaze glistened, tears pooling despite his desperate effort to hold them back. "Always you hide behind that mask, always you command with that stern face of yours. And now—when you are bleeding, when you may not stand long—you would still deny me the right to stand beside you."
Cedric's chest rose with a heavy sigh. For an instant, something in his expression—always tempered by iron—wavered. He saw not a spy nor a fragile creature to be shielded, but his beloved, trembling yet defiant, willing to endure anything—even humiliation—if it meant sparing him.
From across the clearing came Samuel's hiss, sharp and venomous. "You dare?" His voice was a lash in the night. He straightened from his stagger, clutching his weapon with renewed fury, his eyes dark with wrath.
Stellan, heart thundering, turned his head toward him. He stepped before Cedric with trembling limbs and burning resolve. "If you dare to lay a finger on him again," Stellan said, his voice rising in sudden clarity, "I swear I will—"
But the vow was never finished. Samuel surged forward, swifter than sight. His hand shot out, fingers like iron, fastening around Stellan's throat.
The world collapsed into a choking gasp. Stellan's breath was stolen, his body lifted as though weightless, his boots scraping for purchase upon the earth. Samuel's lips curved in cruel delight. "So is this your bravery," he murmured. "A fragile dove pretending to be a hawk."
With a vicious motion he hurled Stellan backward. The boy's body struck the carriage wall with a sound that split Cedric's heart in two. His skull cracked against the wood, the force so great that pain burst white behind his eyes. A line of red traced swiftly down his pale forehead, glistening in the dim light.
"Stellan!" Cedric's voice tore through the night, raw with anguish. He lunged forward, only to stagger as blood loss threatened to bring him to his knees. His eyes, usually unflinching, widened in horror as he saw his beloved slide down the carriage wood.
Stellan's blade clattered from his fingers, forgotten. His body crumpled, delicate as porcelain fractured. Yet even as his consciousness slipped away, his hand stretched feebly outward, reaching for Cedric with all the devotion his failing strength could muster.
"no!" Cedric roared, his voice breaking into a desperation he had never known. His sword arm shook, not from fear but from grief too great for his frame to hold.
Samuel only watched, smirking, wiping the last trace of pain from his earlier blow with the back of his hand. His obsidian eyes gleamed in triumph, cruel and unrepentant.
But Cedric saw only Stellan—the fragile, fallen form at his feet, blood marking his brow like some tragic coronation. He had been chosen as a spy, trained not for battle but for secrets, for whispers and shadows. And now, forced into a war he was never meant to fight, he had fallen not because he was weak, but because he had dared to love.
Cedric's hands tightened upon his sword. His breath burned in his chest. He would not let this be the end.
Not for Stellan.
Cedric could no longer master the tempest within him. The moment his gaze fell upon Stellan—broken, pale, his hand still outstretched in a final gesture of devotion—the iron of his discipline shattered. Rage, vast and ungovernable, surged through his veins like fire through dry heather. The weight of his wounds, the searing pain in his side—these were forgotten. All that remained was the blazing oath that no hand would lay claim to Stellan's ruin whilst he still drew breath.
His fingers tightened with such violence upon the hilt of his blade that the leather groaned in protest. His shoulders squared, his chest heaved, and with a cry torn from the very marrow of his being, Cedric surged forward. Each step was agony, yet he strode as though pain were but smoke in the wind, unworthy of notice.
Steel met moonlight, flaring white as he struck. It was not the measured arc of a practiced duelist but the desperate blow of a lion fighting for the last of his pride. His sword hissed through the night air, a promise of death.
But Samuel, ever the serpent clothed in shadow, bent away with unholy grace. His body seemed less of flesh and more of smoke—unseizable, untouchable. With a mocking laugh he let Cedric's blade pass harmlessly through the space where he had stood a breath before.
"Tch," Samuel murmured, disdain curling his lip. "Predictable."
Cedric's teeth ground together, his chest a furnace of fury. He wheeled about, his stance ragged but unyielding, his eyes afire with a wrath that could not be doused. "You dare strike him down before me," he rasped, his voice jagged with grief and rage. "By heaven and hell alike, I swear—you shall not leave this ground unscathed."
Samuel's smirk only deepened, his obsidian eyes glimmering like coals beneath ash. "Strike again, little lion," he purred, tilting his head as if to welcome Cedric's wrath. "Let me watch you burn yourself into embers."
And Cedric did not hesitate; he raised his sword anew, the fury of love and vengeance igniting every ragged breath.
Samuel's movements blurred, faster than thought, faster than Cedric's blade could ever hope to catch. The assassin's lips curled with irritation, his eyes burning with cruel amusement as he grew weary of the contest. "Pathetic," he muttered, and in a heartbeat his fist drove deep into Cedric's stomach.
The air was stolen from Cedric's lungs, a savage cough bursting forth with blood that stained his lips crimson. His body buckled, collapsing to one knee, the sword trembling within his grasp. Yet even through the veil of agony, his eyes lifted—not to his foe, but to the pale figure of Stellan. His beloved lay strewn upon the earth, a thin river of blood trickling from his temple, fragile as porcelain
Samuel's shadow loomed nearer, his tone mocking, unrelenting. "Hmph. You could not even keep pace with me. A lion in name, yet a crippled lamb in truth."
Cedric's gaze dropped, his shoulders heaving with ragged breath. To Samuel it looked like surrender—until the faintest chuckle slipped past Cedric's lips. Low at first, then rising with grim amusement, it hung sharp in the silence of the night.
Samuel's frown cut across his face. "What is there to laugh at?" he snapped, disdain heavy in his voice.
Cedric's head lifted slowly, his olive eyes meeting the obsidian glare without flinching. His words fell like steel despite his bloodied frame. "You tried—tried so hard to break him. And yet… you could never earn his heart.
Do you know why?" He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a rasp. "Because kindness is what he cherishes. Not the brutality you mistake for strength. That, alone, why you shall always remain empty."
For the first time, rage truly shadowed Samuel's features. His brows knotted, his lips bared in a snarl. "You son of a—" He drew his blade with a hiss of steel, the point glinting with promised death.
Samuel, chest rising and falling like a beast restrained, hissed through his teeth. His blade, moments ago an instrument of certain doom, now lay discarded—wrenched from his grasp by the sudden arrival of the figure whose presence carried more dread than a tempest on the sea.
That mask. Black and white, split down the center like the balance of night and day, with eyes that glimmered beneath its shadow as if they were not mortal orbs at all, but twin lanterns revealing the soul of any man they pierced. Samuel, for all his bloodlust, for all his unyielding cruelty, felt the cold hand of caution seize his heart. A warning whispered through marrow and sinew: do not approach not.
And though fury burned to strip that mask from the intruder's face, Samuel leapt backward instead, his boots striking the tiles of the roof above. With the prowess of a raven fleeing the hunter's snare, he vaulted from eave to eave, vanishing into the labyrinth of shadows. His departure left behind only the faint echo of his malice, dissolving into the night.
The figure in the mask did not pursue. He stood immovable, silent as an obelisk, his cloak of ash-grey stirring faintly with the breeze. His gaze lingered, not merely upon Cedric, but into him—as though peeling apart the layers of his being, measuring his worth in silence. And yet he spoke no word, for words were not permitted; his tongue was bound by a vow to his unseen master.
Cedric, breath ragged and body broken, pressed his palm against the cobblestones to force himself upright. Pain lanced through him, sharp and merciless, but his thoughts were not of himself. His olive eyes darted first to the silent stranger, then past him—searching, always searching—for Stellan.
"You—" Cedric rasped, his voice catching against the rawness of his throat. "Who are you?"
The masked man neither stirred nor answered. He merely advanced, his stride unhurried, inevitable, like the tide reclaiming the shore. Cedric braced himself, unsure if this new arrival was foe or ally, but when the figure bent to lift him—placing Cedric's wounded arm across his own broad shoulder—he felt neither malice nor intent to harm. There was only duty in the motion, a wordless command in his bearing.
Cedric clenched his jaw, pride warring with necessity. "I… I am fine," he muttered, though his body betrayed him with every faltering step. Yet his eyes betrayed where his true strength lay. They fixed upon a form crumpled upon the ground ahead—Stellan. His beloved, pale as fallen snow, blood marring his temple in a cruel crimson stream.
"Stellan," Cedric whispered, the syllables a prayer more than a name. His chest tightened, his legs stumbling forward with desperate haste, dragging himself with servant help until they reached him.
The masked man lowered Cedric gently, allowing him to gather Stellan's fragile frame into his arms. Cedric's hands, though bruised and trembling, cupped Stellan's face with reverence. "Grimshaw," he pleaded, his voice cracking. "Open your eyes. You must open your eyes." His thumb brushed the blood-streaked cheek as if touch alone might summon him back.
The servant slipped away into the carriage nearby, his movements efficient, deliberate. A moment later, he returned with a silver goblet brimming with water. Wordless, he knelt, sprinkling the cool droplets upon Stellan's face. Cedric's gaze narrowed. "What are you doing?" he demanded, suspicion curling in his chest.
But the servant gave no reply. Bound to silence, his mask was his only answer. Again, he let water fall, and this time a faint stir coursed through Stellan's body. His lashes fluttered, black as raven wings, trembling before they lifted.
Cedric's heart leapt, relief so profound it nearly unseated him. He did not care for his own gashes or bloodied ribs; they were trifles compared to the shallow breaths of the man before him. "Stellan," he breathed, clutching him as though the world itself might conspire to tear them apart again.
Stellan's lips parted, a weak murmur escaping, unfinished yet familiar: "…if you lay your finger on him… I will…" His voice was a threadbare whisper, frayed with pain, but enough to draw tears to Cedric's eyes—not of sorrow, but of release.
"Come back to your senses" Cedric urged, his forehead resting against Stellan's. His words quivered with both command and supplication.
And at last, Stellan's gaze—though blurred, though heavy with suffering—fastened upon him. The fragile shadow of a smile touched his lips as he whispered, "Montrose… you… are safe?"
Cedric tightened his hold, burying his face against the crown of that dark hair, uncaring of blood or ruin. "Yes," he vowed fiercely. "Safe… only because you breathe."
The masked servant looked on, a silent sentinel, bearing witness to a devotion so fierce that even silence could not smother it.