The Reforged king

Chapter 2 : The East Hall

POV : Draven Korr

I did not feel like sleeping that night. I lay on the stone floor of the slave quarters, looking at the ceiling, remembering the sound of the staff chattering in my hand.

Kade’s warning kept coming back to me. Men like you don't get miracles. You get chains.

He was not wrong to be scared. I had understood long ago that whatever unusual in this house turns into a weapon in Vane’s hand, never a gift in mine.

Before dawn, Torvun came for me himself, which never happened. He mostly sent lesser guards to gather slaves for labor. His presence alone told me something had changed.

He did not say anything as he led me through the courtyard, past the well where Mira Thoss was drawing water into the kitchens.

She looked up as I passed, with questions I could not answer in her eyes.

I gave her the smallest shake of my head, warning her to stay quiet, stay small, stay unseen.

It was the only way I knew to keep her safe.

Torvun took me to the east hall again, but this time Vane was not alone.

Lady Orinne stood beside her brother, arms folded, studying me the way one studies livestock before a sale.

So this is the one, she said. Word travels fast in this house.

Vane was not satisfied by her presence. Whatever plans he was forming, he clearly had not intended to tell his sister yet.

I brought him here to discuss with him, Vane said. Not to be paraded.

Orinne ignored him and came closer to me. You broke a soldier’s staff with your bare hand, she said.

That is not something men without gifts manage to do, no matter how strong they are.

I kept my gaze down, the posture of six years of survival.

I do not know what happened, my lady, I said. It will not happen again.

She laughed, short and sharp. Oh, I hope it does. For your sake and mine.

Vane's jaw clenched. He left his sister with a wave, though she did not leave without one last glance at me, calculating the same look I had seen on men buying horses in the market.

After she left, Vane focused on me fully.

I want to know what is happening within you, he said.

And I want it to be clearly understood before my sister finds a way to use it against me.

He explained, in fewer words than I expected from a man who loved the sound of his own voice, that he was determined to have me examined by a healer from the old faith, someone who might know the signs of whatever power had surfaced.

He did not believe priests, he said, but he believed results even less when he did not understand them.

I did not ask who this healer was. I did not need to. Only one person in this house still practiced the old rites in secret, hidden from Vane's notice until now.

Oracle Vessa.

I was brought to a small chamber not far from the chapel ruins that evening, where Vessa was waiting with Corwen Ashe standing quietly at her side.

Corwen’s presence surprised me. I had not known that the two women spoke, let alone that Corwen trusted her enough to be here.

Vessa studied me the moment I entered, her eyes sharper than any blade Torvun had ever swung at me.

You felt it like waking up, she said. Not asking. Stating.

I did not answer at first, but something about her voice, calm and certain, made lies feel pointless.

Yes, I finally said.

She nodded gently, as if confirming something she had already known for years.

The gods did not die in the war, she said. They went silent. There is a difference.

And silence, given enough suffering, given enough time, can be broken.

Corwen moved closer to me, her hand brushing mine briefly, grounding me the way she always did without needing words.

Vessa proceeded, her voice lowering as the walls themselves might carry her words to Vane.

There is a prophecy, old and mostly forgotten, of a soldier broken beyond recognition who becomes the vessel for the god of judgement to return to Vareth.

I dismissed it as superstition for years.

Until this morning when I felt the shift in the air the moment your power surfaced.

I wanted to laugh, to tell her prophecies were stories told to scared men, exactly as Vane had said.

But the memory of the staff breaking on my hand silenced the lies before it left my mouth.

I said, if this is true, then why now? Why after six years of nothing?

Vessa’s expression darkened.

Because suffering alone does not awaken a god, she said. Sacrifice does.

Something happened recently that the old power recognized as worthy of answering.

Before I could ask what she meant, the door opened without alarm and Torvun entered, his eyes immediately narrowing at the appearance of the three of us together.

Vessa's eyes met mine one final time before I was dragged from the room and in that brief look, I saw something I had not expected from a woman who had just talked about gods and prophecy.

She looked frightened, not because of me but for me.

As Torvun marched me back through the corridors, I could not shake the feeling that any sacrifice Vessa had spoken about, it was still coming and that when it arrived, it would take something I was not prepared to lose.