BLOOD OF THE LAST KINGDOM

Chapter 8: Whose Son You Really Are

"Answer me," Gad said. "What does it mean, whose son I really am?"

Doran didn't move. Smoke curled through the broken wall behind him, the courtyard silent except for the distant sound of fighting near the outer gate, guards and stragglers still finding their way to the tunnels.

"We don't have time for this," Doran said.

"Make time."

"Vantrell's soldiers will be here within the hour. Whoever sent that entity's presence into motion tonight will have felt it from miles away. We need to move."

Gad grabbed Doran's collar, the same current from earlier stirring beneath his skin, quieter now but present, waiting. "You're not leaving this yard until you tell me what it meant."

Doran's eyes dropped to Gad's hand on his collar, then back up. "Not here."

"Here. Now."

A horn sounded from beyond the estate walls, distant but unmistakable, followed by a second closer to the main gate. Doran's head snapped toward the sound.

"That's a Vantrell patrol horn," he said. "They're already coming."

"Then talk fast."

Doran pulled free of Gad's grip, casting one look toward the gate before turning back, resignation settling over him. "Your father wasn't a soldier who died on the eastern wall like you were told."

"I was there. I watched men die on that wall."

"You watched men you believed were your countrymen die on that wall. That doesn't mean your father was among them."

Gad's pulse increased. "Then who was he."

Before Doran could answer, the gate at the far end of the courtyard shuddered under impact, wood splintering as something heavy struck it from outside.

"They're breaching," Doran said. "We need to move, now, or this conversation won't matter because we'll both be dead."

Gad hesitated only a second before grabbing Doran's arm and pulling him toward the eastern passage, the same route Rennick had used to evacuate the others.

They ran through the smoke-choked courtyard, past overturned carts and abandoned weapons, the gate behind them buckling further with each impact.

"Faster," Doran said, pushing ahead toward the grain store entrance.

The passage door hung open, revealing the narrow stone stairwell leading below.

Gad shoved Doran through first, following close behind, pulling the door shut just as the main gate finally gave way behind them, the sound of splintering wood and shouting voices muffled by stone and distance.

They descended in near darkness, Doran leading by memory alone, one hand trailing along the damp wall.

"You still owe me an answer," Gad said, voice echoing off close stone.

"I know."

"Then give it to me."

Doran stopped walking, forcing Gad to stop behind him in the cramped passage, torchlight from somewhere further ahead casting weak shadows across his face.

"The night Solenne fell," Doran said, "I wasn't the only officer who made a deal that week."

"Meaning what."

"Meaning your father came to the same crossroads I did, years earlier, during a border skirmish nobody remembers now. He made a different choice than I did. He refused the entity's offer completely, the same way you refused it tonight in that courtyard."

"Then how does that connect to me."

"Because refusal has a cost too. The entity marked him for it, the same way it just marked you." Doran's voice dropped lower, barely above the sound of dripping water somewhere in the passage. "It doesn't disappear when you say no. It waits. It follows the bloodline until someone finally says yes, or until someone strong enough forces it to stay contained."

Gad felt the ground shift under him, though this time nothing physical moved. "You're saying my father knew about this thing before I was even born."

"I'm saying your father spent years fighting the same battle you're fighting now, and he died trying to make sure it never reached you."

"Died how?"

Doran hesitated, and in that hesitation, Gad understood the answer before it came.

"He wasn't killed by Rebellion Surd soldiers," Doran said. "He was killed sealing something. The same kind of ritual Bellan mentioned, if he ever gets the chance to explain it to you properly. Your father died holding a containment site, the same way I watched men die holding a wall I'd already betrayed."

Voices echoed from somewhere above them, muffled but growing louder, boots against stone growing closer through the passage entrance they'd sealed behind them.

"They're already inside," Doran said, glancing back toward the stairwell. "We need to keep moving."

"Not until you tell me the rest."

"There isn't time for the rest."

"Make time."

Doran turned fully to face him, torchlight catching the exhaustion carved into every line of his face, years of secrets finally coming out in the space of a single night. "Your power isn't something the entity gave you in that pit. It's something you inherited the moment you were born, dormant until suffering woke it. Everything happening to you now was always going to happen eventually. I didn't create it."

"But you knew."

"I suspected the moment I saw your surname on the slave registry. Kraken wasn't common even before the war." Doran's voice broke slightly. "I bought you specifically because I needed to know if my suspicion was correct."

The passage entrance above them burst open, torchlight flooding down the stairwell along with shouted orders in Vantrell's military accent.

"Down there! Someone sealed this door from inside!"

Doran grabbed Gad's sleeve, pulling him deeper into the tunnel. "We finish this conversation somewhere safer, or we don't finish it at all."

They ran, boots splashing through shallow water pooled along the passage floor, shouts growing louder behind them as soldiers poured down the stairwell in pursuit.

The tunnel narrowed ahead, forcing them into single file, Doran leading with one hand still trailing the wall for guidance in the dark.

"There's an exit near the river road," Doran said between breaths. "If we reach it before they catch up—"

The tunnel shook suddenly, dust raining from the ceiling, and for one terrible second Gad thought the entity had followed them underground.

Then he heard it clearly, an explosion somewhere behind them, followed by screaming that cut off far too fast.

"What was that," Gad said.

Doran's face, lit weakly by distant torchlight, went pale in a way Gad hadn't seen even in front of the entity itself.

"That wasn't Vantrell soldiers," Doran said quietly. "That was something else entirely."

A voice called out from the darkness behind them, calm and familiar, cutting through the chaos like it belonged there.

"Doran," the voice said. "It's been a long time."

Doran froze completely, torchlight revealing something close to terror spreading across his face.

"That's not possible," Doran whispered.

"Who is that," Gad said, reaching for whatever strength remained in him after tonight.

Doran turned to him, voice barely audible. "That's Commander Vesk. The man who burned Solenne to the ground. And he shouldn't know we're down here at all.”