“He came for *you*,” Zbyhneva said, her voice dropping hard. “He knows.”
Leslav stood by the great hearth, orange light cutting across the hollows of his gaunt face. He had retreated there after the transformation, a silent sentinel nursing a mug of bitter herb tea. He flinched, the ceramic clinking against his teeth. “Knows what, guard?” His tone was sharp, a brittle defense against the truth she now carried.
Iron greaves clanked against the flagstones as she crossed the floor. Through the broken embrasure, the black specks of Borislav’s vanguard crawled up the lower ridge. “He knows you live. He knows you are a witness. He knows *everything*.” She halted before him. “I read your journals. I saw his banners. There is no other reason for a Komtur of the Royal Guard to lead a column to this forgotten spire, not unless he means to silence you forever.”
Leslav’s gaze fell, fixed on the swirling contents of his mug. The fire crackled, the only other sound for a long moment. He looked so fragile in the warmth, a stark contrast to the hulking terror of the previous night. “It was an ambush,” he began, his voice barely a whisper, ragged around the edges. “Two years ago. I was returning from the Skarven Wilds, a diplomatic mission gone sour. The Voron lands bordered the territory of the Urska clan – brutal, isolationist folk. Borislav, as my commander, had mapped the route. He insisted on a particular mountain pass, said it was the quickest, safest. He was wrong.”
Zbyhneva watched him, every line of her body tense, absorbing his words. His fingers shook around the earthenware rim, his teeth set hard.
“The pass was a trap,” Leslav continued, his voice gaining a strained strength. “Urska raiders, accompanied by a shaman—one of their Blood Weavers. They didn’t want plunder; they wanted… something else. They had a ritual prepared. Borislav knew. He led me into it.” He raised his chin, his mouth drawn tight against an old humiliation. “The shaman… she cursed me. Said my bloodline was tied to the land, that I would become the hunger of the northern wastes, an unending winter within my own flesh, preying on life itself.”
Borislav had not simply plotted treason; he had bartered an officer to blood magic.
“I escaped, barely,” Leslav went on, his voice hoarse, “dragged myself back here. Borislav reported me dead, killed by Urska raiders. He blamed the ‘Knight of the Crimson Winter’ – a phantom warrior whose name he invented – for failing to secure the pass. He used it to consolidate his power, seized my lands, my standing. And when the truth started to fester, when rumors of a monstrous beast roaming the Perch began to spread, he knew he couldn’t let me live.” He paused, a bitter laugh escaping him. “And you were too stubborn. You asked too many questions about that phantom warrior, about the dates of my supposed death. He needed a scapegoat—an officer of the Guard to take the blame for his failure to protect me. You fit perfectly.”
Borislav had turned her own record into the rope to hang her with. This went beyond her restored rank; the Komtur had rotted the Guard from the crown down.
The beast she had fought in the courtyard had been peeled away, leaving only an exiled noble with an empty title and a ruined hearth.
“He will not take this hall,” she said. She stepped back toward the draft. She dragged a gauntleted palm across the embrasure, scraping dry mortar into flakes. “This citadel… it is a fortress, yes, but it is also a tomb. The defenses are failing.”
She turned back to Leslav, her gaze sweeping over the great hall. “We need to secure the gates, shore up the walls. There are archers, I saw them. We need vantage points, clear fields of fire. Where are the armaments? The siege engines from generations past?”
Leslav set his mug on the mantle, unsettled by her sudden inventory. “There is an armory. Stryh led you to it. And the wall walks… they are mostly intact, but the main gate is old, splintered wood, sealed by a single, rusted bar.” “You intend to fight?” he asked.
“I intend to survive,” Zbyhneva retorted, already assessing the great hall’s sturdy, if neglected, timbers. “And you are the only hope of justice in this frozen land. Your survival is my survival, Lord Leslav.” She strode towards a sagging section of the wall near the secondary door, testing the stone with a forceful boot. “Show me your strongest points. Your weakest. Every secret this place holds.”
Leslav pushed himself from the hearth. “There is one secret,” he said, his voice lower, drawing her closer. “The warmth of this hall, the conduits throughout the citadel… they are fed by a Heartstone. Deep in the catacombs, beneath the mountain. An ancient relic. My ancestors believed it was the heart of the mountain itself, the source of its vitality. And… my journals spoke of it, how it might be connected to my bloodline. To the curse.”
Her chin came up. “A Heartstone? An old heat-conduit beneath the foundation? If it fuels the warmth in this rock, it holds the masonry together against the frost.”
Before she could press him, a screech tore down the chimney. Stryh, perched on a high, crumbling gargoyle, let out a sound like grinding stone and tearing metal. Its small body vibrated with frantic urgency, its stony hide bristling.
From the lower yard, a dull, rhythmic shock vibrated through the floorstones. An iron-shod timber had struck the outer postern.