CHAPTER 36: MASKS AND DAGGERS (1)

Dawn seeped through the barracks windows like watered wine, too weak to properly warm but strong enough to wake every recruit. Soren rolled his stiff neck, the whiskey from last night’s conversation with Veyr Velrane still clinging to the back of his throat.

His muscles ached from yesterday’s training, a dull throb that had become as familiar as breathing.

The barracks hummed with unusual activity. Whispers cut through the typical morning grunts and complaints, recruits hunched in small clusters, glancing in Soren’s direction before returning to their hushed conversations.

"Now it’s Ayren," he caught from a pair of wide-eyed boys folding their blankets with unusual precision. "First Veyr takes him for special training, now his brother wants a turn."

"Wonder what’s left when they’re done," another muttered.

Soren ignored them, focusing on lacing his boots. The shard against his chest pulsed once, warm through his shirt. Valenna remained silent, but he felt her presence sharpening, like a blade being honed.

Tavren’s shadow fell across him, blocking the weak sunlight. The recruit’s face was twisted into his customary sneer, though something new lurked behind his eyes, something that might have been fear if Tavren were capable of admitting such weakness.

"Enjoy your new masters, gutter-rat," he spat, voice pitched to carry across the barracks. "They’ll use you up and toss what’s left to the dogs."

Soren continued tying his boot, not bothering to look up. "At least they found a use for me," he replied, keeping his voice level. "Still waiting to hear what yours might be."

Tavren’s face flushed red, but before he could respond, Dane’s massive form appeared behind him.

The big recruit didn’t speak, just stood there like a mountain contemplating whether an avalanche was worth the effort. Tavren muttered something under his breath and stalked away.

Dane settled onto the cot beside Soren, the wooden frame creaking in protest under his weight. "Careful with Ayren," he said quietly, his voice low enough that only Soren could hear. "His tongue cuts deeper than his sword."

Soren glanced up, surprised at the warning. "You’ve met him?"

"Seen him work," Dane replied, running a callused thumb along a scar on his palm. "He doesn’t need to draw blood to leave a mark."

Before Soren could ask more, the barracks door swung open. A page entered, not the round-faced boy who usually carried Veyr’s messages, but a thin, sharp-featured youth with the pinched expression of someone who’d spent his life delivering bad news to important people. His eyes scanned the room with clinical efficiency before settling on Soren.

"Thorne," he said, voice clipped and precise. "Lord Ayren requires your presence."

The barracks fell silent, all pretense of disinterest abandoned as every recruit turned to watch. Soren stood, straightening his tunic and checking that the shard was securely hidden beneath. He felt their stares like physical things, pressing against his skin.

’Another test,’ he thought. ’Another chance to fail or climb.’

He followed the page through the door, leaving the whispers to bloom in his wake.

The corridor stretched before them, different from the route he’d taken to Veyr’s chambers the night before. Where that path had been lined with battle maps and weapons, this one felt colder, more austere.

The floor beneath his boots was polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the tapestries that hung at precise intervals along the walls.

Soren studied them as he passed. Each displayed not battles or hunts, but intricate genealogical trees, branches spreading across the fabric in silver and gold thread, names woven in script so perfect it seemed impossible that human hands had created it.

Between the tapestries hung portraits, severe-faced men and women with Velrane features, their eyes following him as he passed.

No trophies adorned these walls, no captured banners or mounted weapons. Just bloodline and legacy, stretching back generations, each face a reminder of what Soren was not and could never be.

The page stopped before a set of doors carved from pale wood so light it was almost white. Unlike the heavy oak of Veyr’s chambers, these were delicate, inlaid with mother-of-pearl that caught the light from wall sconces.

"Lord Ayren awaits," the page said, opening the door without knocking. He gestured Soren through, then pulled the door closed behind him with a soft click that felt somehow final.

The chamber beyond was flooded with morning light, streaming through windows that stretched from floor to ceiling along the eastern wall.

The glass was so perfectly clear it seemed almost nonexistent, as if the wall itself had been cut away to reveal the sky beyond. The light spilled across polished tables arranged in a precise grid, each surface gleaming like still water.

Unlike Veyr’s chaotic space, with its scattered maps and half-finished projects, this chamber breathed order.

Shelves lined the walls, stacked with scrolls arranged by size, ledgers organized by color, wax stamps sorted in trays, and sealed letters bundled with silk ribbon. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was unnecessary.

At the center of the room, seated at a long table of polished ebony, Ayren Velrane worked.

His quill moved across parchment with fluid precision, the scratch of nib on paper the only sound in the otherwise silent chamber. He didn’t look up when Soren entered, didn’t acknowledge him in any way.

Soren stood just inside the doorway, uncertain whether to announce himself or wait to be recognized. The shard pulsed against his chest, a single beat that felt like a warning.

’Power play,’ he thought, recognizing the tactic from the streets. ’Make them wait. Make them uncomfortable. Show them who controls the time.’

He settled his weight evenly between his feet, relaxed his shoulders, and waited. One breath. Two. Three. The silence stretched, but Soren refused to break it. He’d waited out worse than noble arrogance before.

Finally, after what felt like minutes but was likely only seconds, Ayren set down his quill. He looked up, violet eyes assessing Soren with the clinical detachment of a merchant appraising livestock.

"You are on time," he said, his voice smooth and cultured, each word precisely shaped.

"That’s the least I expected." There was an undercurrent of amusement in his tone, as if Soren had performed a simple trick that was mildly entertaining.

Ayren gestured to the chair opposite his own. "Sit. We will begin."

Soren crossed to the indicated chair, noting how even his footsteps seemed too loud in this pristine space. He sat, keeping his back straight, hands resting on his thighs rather than the immaculate table surface.

Ayren studied him for a moment longer, then reached for a stack of parchments to his right. Each sheet was marked with a different sigil, house crests rendered in precise detail with colored ink.

"My brother believes in teaching through the sword," Ayren said, his elegant fingers sorting through the parchments. "A useful approach, for certain lessons. But there are battlefields where steel is useless, Thorne. Battlefields where the only weapons are words, glances, and the careful application of silence."

He selected a parchment marked with a blue wolf’s head, House Kaldris, and slid it across the table.

"The northern mountain lords," Ayren said, tapping the sigil with one perfectly manicured finger. "They fly frost banners and claim their keeps were carved from glacier ice by the hands of gods. They think themselves unbreakable." His eyes fixed on Soren’s. "What happens to stone pressed too hard?"

Soren considered the question, aware that this was not about geology but politics. "It... resists?" he ventured, knowing even as he spoke that the answer was insufficient.

Ayren’s mouth curved in a smile that held no warmth. "It shatters," he corrected, the words precise as a knife between ribs.

"Apply enough pressure to the right point, and even the mightiest fortress crumbles to dust. Remember that when dealing with those who believe themselves invincible."

He set the Kaldris parchment aside and drew out another, this one marked with golden scales on a green field.

"House Deymar," he continued. "Trade and coin. Their vaults run deeper than their loyalty, and their daughters are bartered like cattle at market. They sell family as currency and call it heritage." He raised an eyebrow at Soren. "To deal with them effectively, what currency would you offer?"

Soren thought of the merchants he’d known, their greedy eyes always calculating profit. "Gold?" he suggested, though something in Ayren’s tone suggested this was too obvious an answer.

"Never pay with gold," Ayren corrected, his voice sharp with disapproval. "Pay with rumor. A whisper in the right ear about an untapped market, a suggestion of a rival’s weakness, the hint of a secret others would pay to know." His smile returned, thin as a blade. "Their coin can buy armies, but information buys their souls."

Another parchment, this one bearing a crimson axe crossed with a black arrow.

"House Relvarn, border warlords," Ayren explained. "Too eager to draw blades, not eager enough to count coin. What does that make them in the game of houses?"

Soren studied the sigil, thinking of the warriors he’d seen in Nordhav, all muscle and no subtlety. "Dangerous," he said. "But predictable."

Ayren nodded, the first sign of approval he’d shown. "Yes. And that makes them useful hounds, provided you hold the leash. A simple enemy is a gift, Thorne. Remember that when you’re surrounded by complicated ones."

Finally, Ayren drew out a parchment bearing the Velrane crest, the sun-cut gold and streak of red on white that Soren had seen flying above the estate.

"And what of House Velrane?" Ayren asked, his tone softer now, almost intimate. "What is our greatest weapon in this game of thrones and shadows?"

Soren thought of Veyr’s words from the night before, of the flames Kaelen had commanded in the courtyard, of the wealth evident in every corner of the estate.

"Fire," he suggested. "Or wealth."

Ayren’s expression didn’t change, but disappointment radiated from him like a physical chill. "No," he said quietly. "We rule not with flame, not with coin. We rule with silence." He leaned forward slightly, eyes locked on Soren’s. "Silence makes men imagine...and fear imagination more than steel."

Soren nodded, filing the lesson away with the others. Each correction felt like a small cut, precise and stinging, a reminder that this room was as much a battlefield as any practice yard.

"You’re not unintelligent," Ayren said after a moment, gathering the parchments back into a neat stack. "But you think like a soldier...direct, linear, concerned with immediate threats rather than distant consequences."

He tapped the stack against the table, aligning the edges perfectly. "That will change. It must, if you’re to be of use to this house."

Soren kept his face carefully neutral, though he felt Valenna stir beneath his skin, her presence alert and watchful.