Chapter 2

England – Years Later

The years did not pass softly for Henri. They carved him into something leaner, sharper—something honed by loss rather than time. Jerusalem’s dust had barely settled on Sora’s grave before he felt himself hollowing out, piece by piece, as if grief were a sculptor determined to reshape him. Brother Mathieu’s blood had dried on the stones long ago, washed away by rains Henri never saw. Yet the memories clung like old scars: bandits in the dark, metal flashing, Sora’s last breath trembling against his ear.

England was colder. Cleaner. Quieter. But the quiet did nothing to soothe him. Fate—or irony—delivered him into the hands of Lord Ducard, who welcomed him into his household as a ward, never knowing he had taken in his own bastard son. Henri performed his duties as a physician with quiet competence; the castle’s sick and wounded came to trust his hands, though they never knew how steady those hands had once been while spilling blood rather than saving life.

When the apothecary’s work was done and the infirmary grew still, Henri turned to Lord Ducard with an unusual request: Train me.

At first, Ducard had laughed, amused at the idea of a soft-spoken surgeon wielding a blade. But Henri’s victory over the bandit Nazeem—relayed in whispers throughout the household—had become the stuff of tense admiration. Ducard agreed.

What followed shocked the entire domain. Henri learned quickly, absorbing every lesson like a man parched for purpose. Swordwork, archery, the rhythm of shield and axe. The brutal precision of spears. The bone-grinding language of armor, the weight and sweat and breath it demanded. He learned the grappling arts medieval knights kept closely guarded—joint locks, throws, the savage efficiency of armored fists. He learned, and then he surpassed.

Some of Ducard’s kin welcomed him. Others eyed him as if he were a fox that had wandered into the dovecote. His presence unsettled the household in ways no one could quite articulate. Perhaps it was how quiet he was. Or how fiercely he trained. Or perhaps it was how he collapsed eagerly into studying ancient texts, bribing monks and scribes to gain access to hidden archives, digging through forbidden tomes and musty scrolls.

Immortality. Resurrection. The fountain of youth. The very topics that made priests pale. Some of Ducard’s kin whispered witchcraft. Others argued scholarly curiosity. But Lord Ducard simply watched him—deeply, curiously, as though trying to see into a locked room.

And on one gray afternoon, with clouds rolling like bruises across the sky, he watched Henri again. Lord Ducard cut an imposing figure on the stone steps overlooking the training yard. Tall, broad-shouldered, his cloak of dark wool clasped with a falcon-shaped brooch that glinted dully in the waning light. Strands of silver threaded through his beard; his eyes—flint-gray and shrewd—missed nothing. He was a man carved from cold justice and colder winters, a commander whose presence forced silence from anyone foolish enough to linger in his shadow.

Below, in the churned mud of the yard, Henri moved like a storm given human shape. Three sparring partners—full-grown, well-trained squires—closed in on him, swords raised. Their training gear clattered as they circled, disciplined but wary. Henri’s chest rose and fell, not from exhaustion but anticipation.

The first man lunged. Henri sidestepped, blade turning just enough to deflect the strike without effort. His elbow crashed into the man’s helmeted head, sending him stumbling. Before the squire could recover, Henri swept his leg out and drove him into the mud with a thud that forced the breath from his lungs.

The second charged with a roar, bringing his sword down in a brutal arc. Henri caught it on his own blade, twisted smoothly, and stepped inside the man’s guard. One armored fist shot forward, burying itself in the squire’s gut. The man folded, and Henri used his momentum to flip him over his hip, slamming him onto the ground beside the first.

The third hesitated—a flicker of fear betraying him. Henri pounced. Their swords clashed, sparks spitting. Henri drove him backward with relentless strikes, each one precise, each one punishing. A feint to the right, a pivot, then Henri’s boot caught the man behind the knee. The squire toppled. Henri planted a knee on his chest and tapped the man’s throat with his blade. It was not gentle. Mud and groans filled the courtyard.

Henri stood over them, breathing hard, eyes bright with something halfway between fury and hunger. “Get up!” he barked.

None of the squires moved.

“Again!”

No response came other than moans and pleas for mercy.

Henri snarled, frustration edging into desperation. “Get up, I say!”

“Henri.” Lord Ducard’s voice rolled across the yard like distant thunder.

Henri stiffened, then turned and bowed, jaw tight. “My Lord.”

“They cannot get up,” Ducard said softly, descending the steps one measured tread at a time. “You should be more merciful with your peers.”

Henri swallowed the fire boiling in his chest. “Are there any more, my Lord?”

Ducard shook his head, his expression a strange mix of awe and pity. “No, lad. The other squires are too injured from the last session.”

Henri trembled—not with fatigue, but with barely restrained frustration—before mastering himself. He bowed again. “Forgive me, my Lord. If you require my services, I shall be in the library ... with your permission.”

Ducard studied him a moment longer, as though trying to decipher a puzzle carved from flesh. “Granted.”

Henri sheathed his sword and strode off, boots splashing through the mud. The squires groaned and pushed themselves upright, dazed and bruised.

Jonathan, Ducard’s eldest son, approached, wiping rain from his brow. Taller than most men in the keep and built with the solid, work-hardened strength of a lifelong rider, Jonathan carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone raised to command. His hair—dark like his father’s—fell in damp curls against his brow, and his clean-shaven face bore the earnest, thoughtful look of a young lord still learning the harsher edges of leadership. He watched Henri’s retreating figure with a frown.

“I sometimes wonder if he does it all to impress you, Father. Perhaps he hopes you will officially adopt him into the household.”

Ducard’s gaze remained fixed on Henri, disappearing beneath the archway. He slowly shook his head. “No. That man ... he could care less what others think of him. It’s not prestige he’s after.”

His voice darkened, almost troubled. “It’s something else entirely.”

The afternoon light hung gray over the courtyard, the sky swollen with clouds that threatened rain. Lord Ducard stood at the stone balustrade overlooking the training yard, cloak stirring faintly in the wind as he watched where Henri had vanished beneath the archway. The mud still churned where the young man had stood moments before, the squires limping off like wounded animals who had escaped a predator’s jaws.

A muscle twitched in Ducard’s jaw. Henri troubled him in ways he could not name—too polished for a commoner, too intense for a physician, too relentless for a man with nothing left to prove. Something else entirely, he had said, and the thought still gnawed at him. Footsteps pattered up behind him. A servant, thin and breathless, bowed deeply.

“My Lord,” he said, voice trembling slightly. “A man at the gates wishes to speak with you.”

Ducard did not look away from the courtyard. “Who is he?”

“The Lord Vandal Savage, sire. A wealthy landowner and advisor to the king.”

Ducard turned sharply. A frown carved itself across his face. Vandal Savage. That viper had no reason to visit him—no political ties, no social alliances, no shared interests beyond their ongoing struggle over grain monopolies. In truth, Ducard considered Savage a rival—if not an outright enemy—in all matters concerning the king’s purse.

“What on earth,” Ducard murmured. “Could that man want with me?”

But refusing an audience with someone of Savage’s prestige would carry its own dangers. Ducard exhaled and rolled his shoulders back.

“Very well. Admit him.”

Moments later, the enormous steel gates groaned open. Chains rattled as the drawbridge descended over the castle’s moat, splashing water as it met the earth. The courtyard fell into an uneasy hush.

Vandal Savage rode in atop a monstrous black horse—broad-chested, fiery-eyed, with a coat so dark it seemed to swallow the daylight. The beast’s hooves struck the ground like war drums, and the servants shrank back from it. But the rider was even more fearsome.

Savage sat tall in the saddle, shoulders like carved stone beneath a cloak of deep scarlet trimmed in black fur. His hair—long, thick, and dark—fell past his shoulders, streaked here and there with threads of iron-gray that only sharpened his severity. His beard was neatly trimmed, framing a jaw that looked forged rather than born. His eyes were the most unsettling of all—sharp, ancient, a predator’s gaze contained behind the manners of a nobleman.

His clothing spoke of wealth and culture: embroidered doublet, polished leather boots, rings of gold and obsidian on both hands. Yet despite the refinement, something primal clung to him. He looked less like a lord and more like a king from some forgotten age—one accustomed to bowing from lesser men ... and taking what he wished.

Savage dismounted with unnerving grace. His horse snorted and pawed the earth as servants rushed to lead it away, none daring to meet its rider’s eyes. Lord Ducard, with Jonathan at his side, stepped forward and offered a stiff, respectful bow.

“Lord Savage. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Savage did not answer. Instead, his gaze slid toward Jonathan, lingering with a strange curiosity—almost insultingly direct. “Is this your eldest son, Lord Ducard?”

Jonathan stepped forward, extending a hand in polite greeting. “Jonathan. At your service, my Lord.”

Savage looked at the offered hand as though it were a curiosity he’d never seen before. He did not shake it. Instead he slowly shook his head. “No ... No, I don’t think this is your eldest son.”

Jonathan’s hand dropped. Shock flared across his face—followed swiftly by offense.

Ducard’s brows slammed together. He stepped forward, jaw tightening. “I beg to differ, my Lord. Jonathan is indeed my eldest.”

Savage looked back to him, his expression unreadable. “I wonder.”

Ducard’s politeness thinned to a razor’s edge. “Lord Savage. If you came all this way to insult me and my family, then I doubt I’d like to hear whatever proposal you have for—”

Savage cut him off with the cool ease of an emperor silencing an unimportant official. “My proposal is not for you, sir. But for one among your household.”

Jonathan stiffened. “You dare disrespect my father in his own home after he has accepted you as a guest?”

For the first time, Savage’s lips twitched—almost a smile, but colder. “No disrespect was intended,” he said, dipping his head a fraction. “But perhaps it would be best if we spoke in private, Lord Ducard.”

Ducard’s patience, already stretched taut, strained near to breaking. His voice dropped into something quiet and dangerous.

“Perhaps it would,” he conceded. “But I’d suggest you muster a shred of civility while in my domain, sir. My patience has its limits.”

Savage’s smile deepened—thin, knowing, almost pleased. As the two men turned toward the keep, the air itself seemed to tighten, as if the castle sensed that something very old and very dangerous had just crossed its threshold.

A Few Moments Later...

Lord Ducard shut the heavy oak door behind them, the iron latch falling into place with a muted thud. The fire crackled in the hearth of his private quarters, throwing long, restless shadows across stone walls and shelves crowded with maps, scrolls, and relics of a lifetime spent in war and diplomacy.

Vandal Savage stood before the flames as though they were speaking to him, motionless, hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t turn when Ducard approached—didn’t even acknowledge the shift in the room’s air. Ducard’s patience snapped first.

“Now would you kindly explain your business in my home, sir?” he demanded, his voice tight with barely contained irritation.

Savage said nothing. He simply continued to stare thoughtfully into the fire, as though the answer were hidden somewhere in the dancing embers.

Ducard exhaled sharply. “I’m sure others find your theatrics amusing, but we are both busy men, so I’d appreciate a little directness—especially since you asked for this meeting.”

Only then did Vandal Savage turn. His expression remained unreadable, but the faintest almost-smile curved his lips, a ghost of respect—or amusement. He began to pace leisurely across the room, his steps controlled, predatory.

“There’s a certain young man in your employ who has garnered my interest,” Savage said.

Something in his tone—low, velvety, edged with hunger—made Ducard straighten.

“The physician known only as Henri.”

Ducard’s eyebrows shot up. “Henri? What on earth do you want with my surgeon?”

Savage didn’t answer. His silence stretched long enough to be unnerving.

Ducard stepped forward, lifting his chin. “If it is your intention to employ him, I assure you, that is out of the question. Henri is my ward. His services are indispensable.” He cut himself off, recalibrating. “You won’t find a better physician, not even in the king’s castle. I won’t part with him for anything.”

Savage shook his head lightly. “You misunderstand me, my Lord.” He paused, and when he spoke again, there was something unsettling—ancient—in his gaze. “It is not his services as a physician that I require. It is something else entirely.”

Ducard felt a cold prick along his spine. Vandal’s knowing eyes. His omniscient stare. Ducard himself had used those exact words to describe Henri just moments earlier. It was as though Savage had reached directly into his thoughts.

Ducard clasped his hands behind his back in a display of aristocratic composure he did not fully feel. “And what is this vague mission you have for my ward? Explain yourself, sir. Stop being so cryptic.”

Savage merely shrugged. “Very well.”

He wandered a few paces, fingers trailing absently along the edge of Ducard’s desk as he spoke. “Henri first came to my attention when I was traveling in Jerusalem a few years back. I heard some knights discussing his unfortunate encounter with the bandit Nazeem.”