The walls of Limgrave’s castle were alive with commotion, the vibration of another victory carried through stone and steel alike. A ceremony—one of many—was unfolding in the courtyard, where fresh recruits were to be woven into the fabric of the army after weeks of training that had stripped them to their core.

For the first time, you belonged within that formation. You stood shoulder to shoulder with knights whose armor glistened like scales in the sun, the mirrored plates burning your eyes when you dared glance sideways. The heat pressed into your back until it felt as if the stone itself branded you. You willed yourself still.

Patience thinned. Every tendon in your hand screamed to stretch, to clench, to break the stillness with more than the faint twitch of a finger. The voice overhead continued—a speech like a hymn, or perhaps a dirge, ringing through your skull in monotonous cadence. Whether soothing or irritating, you could not discern. Perhaps both.

Messmer, firstborn of Marika, loomed on a balcony above. He stood like a figure painted against the sky, his gaze vast and heavy, the weight of a second sun watching over the assembled ranks. His hair caught the dying light and turned it into a banner of flame.

You shifted, just once. That was when you noticed it. A serpent had coiled itself around the stone rail at Messmer’s side. Its scales were a tapestry of dusk—dark, glinting, patient. The creature’s head tilted, and its eyes found yours without hesitation. Cold recognition burned through you.

Relief came only when you traced the serpent back to its master. Messmer’s attention remained elsewhere, bound in higher discourse, in matters you convinced yourself had nothing to do with you. And yet—the snake did not relent. Its stare persisted, long past comfort.

How strange.

The ceremony dissolved as the sun bent further toward the horizon. Half a day was consumed in ritual, and the second half devoted to what the generals named “prelusive training.” The name carried a softness that the drills themselves had never known. Weapon in your right, shield in your left, and the balcony’s eye above—always above.

Still he was there, Messmer, his silhouette angled toward another dignitary, his mouth moving with words you could not hear—

The crack of steel startled you. A blow landed. Your guard failed. Darkness bloomed in your vision. Your sparring partner lowered his blade, victorious, his smirk a silent rebuke. He shrugged as if the outcome were obvious, and guided you off the field with more amusement than malice.

You tossed shield and sword onto the bench, the clash of metal hollow against the wood. No patience left. You moved through the crowd, slipping into the inner corridors of the keep.

Footsteps echoed behind you. Not hurried—measured, deliberate, stalking your rhythm as if they had been waiting for you to break from the herd. You thought of water, of a drink, of another soldier following the same path—

“Giving up so lief?”

The voice slithered low, soft, threaded with a hiss that clung to the edges of each word.

You froze. You knew what you should not know: he was forbidden here.

At the threshold of the passage he stood. The last light of the sun stretched behind him, red and black entwined into his shadow, a tangle of flame and void. He wore no armor. Only a robe, black as midnight, pooling at his feet, consuming the stones where it trailed.

And the serpent was gone.

Or perhaps, you thought, it was no longer separate.