BLOOD OF THE LAST KINGDOM

Chapter 4: The Chains I Broke

The courtyard still smelled of smoke the next morning when Gad went looking for Old Bellan.

He found him near the water trough, scrubbing blood out of a torn shirt sleeve, hands unsteady from age rather than fear.

Bellan had fought in the war too, though nobody spoke of which side he'd started on before Solenne recruited him in the final years.

"You were at the eastern wall," Gad said. "The night it fell."

Bellan didn't look up. "Long time ago."

"I need you to remember something for me."

"Some things are better left buried, boy."

Gad crouched beside him anyway, lowering his voice. "Doran. Was he there? At the wall, before the retreat?"

Bellan's hands stopped moving. The silence stretched long enough that Gad thought he wouldn't answer at all.

"He was there," Bellan finally said. "Fighting beside us for the first hour. Then he vanished. No order given, no explanation. One minute he was holding the line, next he was gone, and the wall fell twenty minutes later."

"You're certain it was him."

"I watched the man take a blade meant for my shoulder that night. You don't forget a face after that." Bellan's eyes finally met his, sharp despite the years. "Why does it matter now?"

"Because he's alive. He's the one holding us."

Bellan's face went pale under the dirt and sun damage. "Impossible."

"I've seen him myself."

The old man set the shirt down slowly, hands trembling for a different reason now. "Then whatever happened to him that night wasn't desertion. Men don't vanish mid-battle and resurface as lords unless something traded for it."

Gad's heart beat grew faster. "That's exactly what he told me."

He didn't get the chance to process it. A horn sounded from the manor's watchtower, sharp and repeating, the signal for household assembly.

Guards moved through the slave quarters within minutes, herding everyone toward the training yard where Doran stood on the raised platform usually reserved for punishments.

Rennick stood beside him, expression unreadable. Mira found her way to Gad's side in the crowd, tension radiating off her.

"This isn't a normal assembly," she said.

"I know."

Doran raised a hand, and the yard fell into uneasy silence.

"Last night, several of you took up arms against this household," Doran announced, voice sounding across the yard without needing to shout. "Property was destroyed. A guard was injured. I could execute every man involved in that riot right now, and no court in Vantrell would question it."

Murmurs aroused from the crowd. Kestrel stood near the back, jaw set, watching Doran with open hatred.

"Instead," Doran continued, "I'm offering one chance. The men responsible step forward now, face judgment individually, and the rest of you walk away untouched."

Nobody moved.

Doran's eyes found Gad in the crowd. "Or I let my chief slave decide who among you burned my storage shed. He was there. He knows the faces."

The crowd's attention shifted to Gad instantly, dozens of eyes weighing him, waiting for a response.

"I won't do that," Gad said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"You will, or I select ten men at random and execute them instead." Doran's voice stayed level, cruelly patient. "Your choice determines how many die today. Choose wisely."

Gad's hands curled into fists. The current stirred beneath his skin immediately, responding to the pressure building in his chest, faster than it had ever come before.

"This isn't justice," Gad said. "This is a performance."

"Call it whatever you want. The outcome remains the same."

Kestrel stepped forward from the crowd before Gad could respond, chin raised. "I organized it, punish me. Leave the rest alone."

"Noble," Doran said, unimpressed. "But insufficient. You didn't act alone, and I want names."

"You'll get mine and nothing else."

Doran nodded to the guards flanking the platform. Two moved toward Kestrel immediately, chains ready.

The current inside Gad's chest surged without warning, faster and hotter than the pit, faster than the study, spreading through his arms and down into his fingertips.

His vision sharpened at the edges, sound dropping away except for his own pulse hammering.

He didn't decide to move. His body simply did.

Gad closed the distance to the platform in seconds, faster than any guard reacted to, and grabbed the chain meant for Kestrel's wrists before it closed, ripping it clean out of the guard's grip with a force that sent the man stumbling backward into the dirt.

The yard erupted into shouting.

Rennick's sword cleared its sheath. Doran's expression shifted from authority into something closer to alarm as he watched Gad standing between Kestrel and the guards.

Chain still clenched in a fist that had begun to glow faintly at the knuckles, pale light bleeding out from beneath his skin like something underneath was trying to break through the surface.

"Gad," Mira's voice, somewhere behind him, thin with fear. "Your hands—"

He looked down. The light wasn't fading. If anything, it was spreading, crawling up past his wrist toward his forearm, and for the first time since the pit, Gad realized he had no idea how to make it stop.