"When soone saves your life, the smart move is to thank them. The smarter move is to wonder why."
***
Rhys stepped into the clearing proper. His father’s spear held at ready position. The defensive stance that allowed for both attack and retreat. The position his father had drilled into him a thousand tis during those long autumn afternoons.
The weapon felt alive in his hands. Eager for the violence that had been building in his chest for months of swallowed insults and forced subservience.
Every slight. Every condescending glance. Every whispered insult when they thought he couldn’t hear. All of it coalesced into cold, focused rage that settled his hands and steadied his breathing.
"Vance Thorne," he said. Voice flat as winter stone. "Second son of House Thorne. diocre duelist who relies on his family na to avoid real challenges. Worse human being."
"I’ll have you expelled," Vance sputtered. Backed away with steps that grew more frantic as Rhys advanced. "Arrested. Thrown in the academy dungeons until my father arrives. My father will—"
"Your father’s three days’ ride from here." Rhys advanced. The spear’s iron point tracked Vance’s movents with the easy confidence of long practice. "Your friends are down. And you’re alone in the woods with soone who’s killed goblins since he was twelve."
The truth of it seed to penetrate Vance’s panic. His hand fell away from his sword hilt. For the first ti in the conversation, he looked genuinely afraid.
Not theatrical fear. Raw terror. The kind that ca from realizing you were in actual danger.
Rhys could end it here. One thrust, and Vance Thorne would join his ancestors in whatever hell awaited n who tortured the weak for pleasure.
The borderlands had taught him that so problems only had permanent solutions. His father would have approved. A clean kill. Justified by the threat. The kind of decisive action that kept communities safe.
But this wasn’t the borderlands.
This was the academy. With its rules and consequences and political implications. Killing a noble’s son would an more than expulsion. It would an Elara’s death sentence when the treatnts stopped coming.
Instead, Rhys stepped back and lowered his spear. The iron point dropped toward the ground with deliberate slowness.
"Get out."
Vance blinked. Confusion mixed with relief flooding across his features. "What?"
"Take your friends and get out. Now. Before I change my mind."
The noble scrambled to help his groaning companions to their feet. Garrett needed support to walk. Blood trickled from his temple. Marcus clutched his throat and wheezed through damaged vocal cords.
They stumbled away through the trees like wounded animals. Vance shot venomous glares over his shoulder that promised future retribution.
"This isn’t over, Blackwood. You’ll pay for this. My family has influence you can’t imagine."
"I already am," Rhys muttered to the empty forest.
Only then did he rember Kaelen Leone.
The third son sat slumped against a tree trunk. His torn robes hung loose around his shoulders where the fabric had been pulled and stretched. He stared up at Rhys with sothing that might have been gratitude.
If gratitude could look so pathetic.
Or perhaps it was sothing else entirely. So emotion Rhys couldn’t quite identify in those grey eyes that seed oddly focused for soone who had just faced such danger.
"Thank you," Kaelen whispered. Voice rough. "I don’t know what would have happened if—"
"Nothing good." Rhys planted his spear butt in the soft earth. Leaned on the shaft. Allowed himself a mont to feel the combat rush fading into familiar exhaustion. "But it’s over. They won’t co back today."
"I owe you—"
"You owe nothing." The words ca out harsher than intended. Sharpened by the anger that still lingered from Vance’s comnts about Elara. "I didn’t do it for you."
Kaelen’s grey eyes searched his face with an intensity that seed out of place. As if cataloguing every detail for future reference.
"Then why?"
Because Vance had ntioned Elara. Had dragged her na through his filthy mouth and called her a whore when she was twelve years old and fighting for every breath.
Because so lines couldn’t be crossed without consequences.
Because the borderlands had taught him that predators who weren’t stopped beca worse predators.
But none of those reasons felt like sothing he could explain to a noble brat who’d probably never seen real violence before today.
"Get up," he said instead. Turned away from those searching grey eyes. "If you invite trouble like this, you deserve what you get."
Kaelen struggled to his feet. His movents were clumsy with shock and relief as he gathered his torn robes around himself.
He opened his mouth as if to speak again. Then seed to think better of it.
For a mont, sothing in his expression shifted. A flicker of sothing that might have been calculation. Or intelligence. Sothing that seed utterly out of place on such a pathetic face.
Then it was gone. Replaced by the trembling gratitude of a rescued victim.
Rhys turned to leave. Then paused at the clearing’s edge.
The torn page in his vest. The timing of the noble hunting party. The way Kaelen had been positioned in exactly the right place for rescue.
As if he’d walked into a scene already in progress. A play where the positions had been marked and the dialogue rehearsed.
But exhaustion and the weight of the Iron-Root in his pack made thinking difficult. The precious herb that might save his sister took precedence over any suspicions that might otherwise have demanded investigation.
"Don’t expect my help again," he said without turning around. "Next ti, learn to fight your own battles. Or learn to avoid them entirely."
He walked away through the forest. Leaves crunched beneath his boots as shadows stretched longer between the trees.
Behind him, he could hear the other boy gathering himself. Preparing for the long walk back to the academy.
Sothing about this doesn’t add up.
But the Iron-Root was heavy in his pack. Real and solid and worth more than all his suspicions combined.
He would think about it later. When Elara’s dicine was paid for. When the imdiate crisis had passed.
For now, he had what he ca for.
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