Chapter 5: The Serpent and The Lion
The last of the guests departed Adrael Keep under a sky awash with stars, leaving behind the lingering ghosts of music and laughter. Within the walls, however, the night was far from over. In a small, torchlit salon, Caria and Leinara now sat opposite each other, a silver tray of untouched pastries between them. Don had insisted his friend see the castle's healers for her "headache," a gentle command that was really a request for Caria to offer her company.
"His concern for you is profound," Caria began, her voice a quiet murmur. She studied the intricate patterns on her teacup. "It is a rare thing, to see such loyalty between a lord and his people."
Leinara's hands were clasped tightly in her lap. "He is not my lord. He is... Don. He has been since we were children." The admission was a risk, a crack in the formal armor she had worn all night.
Caria looked up, her gaze direct but kind. The silver light of her aura-sight softened, allowing her to see the person, not just the emotional colors. "I know. The bond you share is a rare and powerful thing. It is something I hope to earn, not replace."
Leinara was taken aback by the frankness, the utter lack of malice. "My lady, I..."
"You love him," Caria stated, not as an accusation, but as a simple, painful fact. "And you fear that I will be the storm that washes away the world you knew." She leaned forward slightly. "Let me be clear, Leinara Veyeb. I have come to build an alliance, not to conquer a heart. But if Don's heart is part of this house, then all that he values—including you—is what I am now sworn to protect. I would have you as a sister-in-arms, not an enemy in the shadows."
Tears pricked at Leinara's eyes, hot and unwelcome. They were not tears of sadness, but of shock and a strange, burgeoning respect. In that moment, she understood that the woman before her was more formidable and far more compassionate than she could have ever imagined.
Meanwhile, Don stood with his closest friend, Dvrik Ogaffer, on the battlements overlooking the silent city. Dvrik, broad-shouldered and steady as the stone beneath them, grinned.
"You always did have a knack for finding trouble, my friend," he rumbled, clapping Don on the shoulder. "But this time, the trouble is a lightning-wielding beauty with the eyes of a hawk. You've outdone yourself."
Don smiled, a genuine expression of relief. "Her name is Caria, Dvrik. And she is... more than I expected."
"Good," Dvrik said, his humor fading into seriousness. "Because the world is about to expect more from you. An alliance with Thornf, a war with Tidor on the horizon... The games are over." He looked out towards the south. "I just hope we're ready to play."
***
Hundreds of miles to the south, the game was one of pure survival.
The Serpent's Spine Pass was not a road; it was a wound carved into the mountains, a place of razor-sharp rock and bone-chilling fog. Here, Earl Dornel Hailch and the tattered remnants of his army fought a losing war against nature itself.
They had been forced to abandon their mounts at the entrance, the crumbling ledges and sheer drops impassable for any beast. Now, on foot, their exhaustion was a palpable poison. Men stumbled, their armor a leaden weight, their resolve fraying with every harrowing step. The path was a litany of horrors: scree fields that slid away into nothingness, camouflaged crevices that swallowed the unwary, and a silence so profound it felt like being buried alive.
Worse still were the pass's natives. Gaunt Grave-Beak Gryphons, with feathers like dead leaves and beaks like shards of flint, circled in the mists above. Their shrieks were the only warning before they dove, talons extended, to snatch the wounded or a soldier who had lagged too far behind.
On the third day, as they huddled in a shallow cave to escape a freezing gale, a scout stumbled back into their midst, his face white with terror.
"My lord," he gasped to Earl Dornel, "pursuers. At the mouth of the pass."
Dornel's son, Ghodal, gripped the hilt of his sword. "How many?"
"A small detachment. But... they are not preparing to enter," the scout stammered. "They are led by Earl Tidor himself. He... he is simply watching. And gathering our abandoned mounts."
Dornel staggered to his feet and peered out from the cave's entrance. He could see nothing through the swirling snow, but he could feel it—the smug, patient malevolence of his enemy. Tidor wasn't chasing them. He knew he didn't have to. He was waiting for the pass to kill them for him.
"He's mocking us," Dornel rasped, his voice raw with hatred and despair. "He leaves us to die in this frozen hell while he reaps the spoils."
The Earl looked at the faces of his remaining men—fewer than two hundred, half of them wounded, all of them broken. Their hope, which had flickered like a dying candle, was finally extinguished by the cold, dismissive cruelty of their foe.
They were not being hunted. They were being discarded. Forgotten. And in the Serpent's Spine Pass, to be forgotten was to be dead.