"Your shoulders are still a bit tense when you release," Alessio said, appearing beside again like so elegant ghost.
"...I am tense," I muttered.
"Why?"
Because you keep standing too close and looking at like I’m soone important!
"...No reason," I said, not eting his eyes.
He studied for a beat too long, then gently placed a hand on my shoulder.
"You’re doing well. Don’t let your thoughts undo that."
My chest tightened, caught sowhere between embarrassnt and warmth I didn’t know how to na.
"Thanks," I murmured.
He gave the faintest of smiles and walked off to correct Emir’s laughably crooked stance.
I stared at his back for a mont. It was weird, how natural this was starting to feel.
’But it’s all temporary,’ I reminded myself. ’This is just until we solve everything.’
Still... when I turned back to the target, sothing in felt a little steadier.
A few more arrows flew, hitting bullseyes or landing close, each one t with Alessio’s calm feedback and occasional smirks.
Eventually, he stepped back and nodded.
"That’s enough for today."
I exhaled. "Perfect timing. My arms were starting to consider mutiny."
He walked over to collect the last batch of arrows.
"We’ll begin dagger work tomorrow. Throws, feints, disarms."
I blinked. "That’s the real stuff, huh?"
He smiled faintly. "You’re ready."
Emir jogged over, panting slightly. "I, uh... accidentally did a jumping squat instead of a lunge."
"You scread while doing it," Amira added helpfully.
"It was a battle cry!"
"You fell over after."
"I was dramatically collapsing! It’s part of the aesthetic!"
We all laughed, the sound echoing under the bright sky. Even Alessio’s smile lingered a little longer than usual.
* * *
anwhile, on the other side of the kingdom, Khan had been quietly tracking illegal activity festering in the shadows of Yelvanti. Piece by piece, the puzzle was beginning to form. After weeks of chasing leads in the dark, Alessio’s most recent ssage revealed sothing bigger. Count Belmont, and possibly even Marius, might be in contact with the Sultan’s inner circle.
Alessio had inford him that Belmont had t with a man known to be acting under direct orders from the Sultan himself. That detail changed everything.
The deeper Khan dug, the more certain he beca. This was not ordinary corruption. Sothing far more dangerous was rotting at the very heart of the kingdom.
It was more than just whispers of black-market dealings. Between his own investigation and the intel guild’s network, Khan had uncovered signs of trafficking, of restricted substances missing from every official registry, and of stolen goods disappearing from guarded storage rooms, only to reappear in the hands of rcenaries and outlaws.
In ti, all the paths began to lead in the sa direction.
Toward the palace.
Khan stood atop a ridge overlooking the city below, his cloak pulled tight against the wind. The lights of Yelvanti glittered faintly in the distance, as deceptive as stars.
He let out a slow breath.
"So in the end, I really have to go back there again."
There was no real warmth in his voice, only reluctant resignation. It was the kind of tone soone used when they knew they were about to walk back into everything they thought they’d left behind.
To understand why it weighed so heavily on him... one would have to go back.
Back to the beginning.
Khan was born within the sprawling gold-tipped walls of the Yelvanti palace, but he had never belonged there.
His mother was a concubine. One of many. She had no noble blood to protect her and no political ties to lean on. Quiet, intelligent, and gentle, she was everything they overlooked. In a place like that, it was never enough.
The Sultan barely rembered her na.
She bore him a son. The twelfth child, if Khan rembered right. Maybe thirteenth. With so many, who could keep count?
The other concubines whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear, about how his mother’s beauty had faded too soon, how she had no patrons, no favor, no protection.
And when Khan turned five, the Sultan stopped visiting her wing altogether.
He was raised in a corner of the palace far from the grand halls and silk-draped courts. No tutors ca for him. No ceremonies welcod his birthdays. While his half-brothers trained with swords gilded in gold and rode stallions through the training fields, he ran barefoot in the servant corridors, learning more from the kitchen staff and guards than from any ntor.
The Sultanah, the official wife and queen of the kingdom, had no love for the children of concubines, especially those who reminded her of the Sultan’s wandering eye. Her own son, the heir to the throne, was raised in splendor. He was draped in velvet, seated at councils, and praised for every breath he took.
Khan?
He was lucky if he wasn’t overlooked entirely.
He rembered once, when he was around eight, trying to sit near the royal garden during a festival. Just close enough to hear the music. One of the older princes saw him and laughed.
"You don’t belong here," the prince had sneered, throwing half a fig at his head. "Go back to the kitchens."
The other royals laughed.
Khan had smiled tightly and left without a word.
But he never forgot.
He didn’t grow up bitter, not at first.
He had his mother, who never lied to him about their place and never promised dreams of grandeur. She gave him love instead, quiet and constant, the kind that kept him anchored.
He’d bring her wildflowers plucked from the far side of the gardens. She’d read him old myths by candlelight. They would laugh together in whispered tones, trying not to draw attention.
But the palace had a way of eroding even the strongest bonds.
As Khan grew, so did the weight of invisibility. Servants bowed to him, but only out of protocol. Guards opened doors for him, but never looked him in the eye. When dignitaries visited, his na was never spoken, not even once.
His mother began to fall ill when he was sixteen, sothing in her chest, they said, a slow wasting disease. The court physicians gave her herbs, though never the good ones, which were always reserved for the Sultan’s favored concubines.
Khan begged, pleaded, even threatened, but nothing changed.
She died quietly, in her sleep, in a corner of the palace no one rembered.
There were no funeral rites, no procession, only a single sheik hand a hurried burial at dawn.
Khan stood alone as the first handful of dirt hit the grave. His fingers clenched at his sides.
No tears.
He’d cried them all before.
After that... nothing was left for him in the palace.
The Sultan didn’t summon him. No one asked where he went. Not even his siblings noticed when he disappeared from the corridors.
And maybe that was the final sign he needed.
He had no place in that family, no legacy to inherit, no throne to chase.
What was left but to walk away?
So he did, as unnoticed as he had lived.
At twenty, he left the capital of Yelvanti with little more than a satchel, a dagger, and the clothes on his back.
The continent had stretched before him once, unfamiliar and wild, its vastness unmoved by all he had known. He had wandered for months, drifting from city to city, taking odd jobs and learning every dialect he could along the way. So nights he slept in forests or abandoned inns. Other nights, in lavish villas where a wink and a stolen coin could open any door.
He learned to survive in the cracks between kingdoms.
He t thieves who dressed like nobles, and nobles who stole like thieves. He saw hunger, hope, and betrayal. He witnessed the worst and the best in people who wore neither crowns nor silk. Slowly, he began to see more of the world than the palace had ever shown him.
That was when sothing in him shifted.
He realized he didn’t need to be seen by royalty to be real. He could carve his own path. Na his own worth.
He beca many things.
A rchant. A ssenger. A craftsman in one region, a caravan guard in the next.
But he never forgot where he ca from.
He kept tabs on Yelvanti. Heard whispers of growing unrest in the outer provinces. Of corruption seeping from the palace like blood from a wound. Of a kingdom so obsessed with appearances, it had stopped caring about its people.
He told himself he didn’t care.
That he had left that world behind.
But deep down, he knew better.
And then... one day, after three years of wandering, he arrived at the Aurenfeld Empire.
It was late spring. The air carried the scent of lilac and smoke.
He crossed the border on horseback, his hood pulled low over his face, the sun setting behind him in a blaze of red and gold. Ahead, a city rose with tall walls, dod towers, and the distant clamor of a bustling marketplace.
He paused at the crest of the hill, staring down at it.
A slow smile touched his lips.
He adjusted the strap on his shoulder and took the first step forward.
Into the empire. Into the unknown.
Into the start of yet another journey he chose to forge on his own.
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