Chapter 17: Blood on the Ledger
The hall stank of sweat, parchment, and rust.
I stood near the back of the line, cloak drawn tight, my weight balanced on the balls of my feet, breathing slow and steady.
The others shifted and muttered around me.
Nobles' sons in shining mail, mercenaries with scars like brands across their faces, farm boys clutching cheap swords too big for their hands.
The desperation in the air was almost sweet.
---
Ahead, the clerks scratched names into battered scrolls, dipped cracked quills into inkpots, shoved numbered iron tags across splintered tables without a second glance.
Not a soul looked anyone in the eye.
We were cattle here.
Meat on the hoof, waiting for the slaughter.
---
The line shuffled forward.
Steel clattered against stone.
A girl three spaces ahead burst into tears when they called her name, clutching the iron tag to her chest like it could save her.
Nobody moved to comfort her.
Nobody even looked away.
---
"Next!" the clerk barked.
A huge man stepped forward—arms like tree trunks, eyes small and mean.
He scrawled something ugly across the ledger, snatched his tag — 721 — and swaggered off, pushing others aside without care.
---
My turn.
---
I stepped forward.
The clerk barely glanced up, his face oily with sweat.
"Name?"
"Atlas Westenra," I said.
---
The pen froze for a fraction of a heartbeat.
The whisper rippled through the hall like an invisible blade.
*Westenra.*
*The fallen house.*
*The Golden Tiger, broken and chained.*
---
The clerk's hand trembled slightly as he dipped into the bin of iron tags and shoved one toward me.
877.
No ceremony.
No comment.
Just a number shoved into my hand like a death sentence.
---
I took it without blinking.
Slipped it around my neck, feeling the cold iron settle against my chest.
A dead man's collar.
---
The muster yard beyond the registration hall was a wound split wide in the city's side.
Broken pillars leaned drunkenly against cracked walls.
Muddy fighting pits clawed into the earth by too many desperate boots.
Makeshift tents of oiled canvas sagged under the weight of the coming storm.
---
Swordsmen sprawled across the stones, cleaning weapons, sharpening knives, dicing for coin.
Some already fought — quick, ugly matches that ended in blood and roars of laughter.
No healers rushed to help.
If you bled here, you bled alone.
---
I moved through the chaos like a ghost.
Senses wide open.
Breathing slow and deep.
Tasting the iron in the air.
Smelling the sour fear hiding under the sweat and bravado.
---
They hated me.
I could feel it already.
Not openly — not yet.
But in the sideways glances.
The murmured insults half-swallowed.
*Westenra trash.*
*Golden tiger cub, lost and starving.*
*Should have died with the rest.*
---
Good.
Hate made people stupid.
Stupid enemies died faster.
---
I found a spot near a shattered pillar and leaned against it, surveying the field.
Faces blurred together, but a few cut sharp through the haze.
---
A boy with hair white as salt, lounging against a broken wall, flipping a dagger between his fingers lazily.
A girl in crimson armor kneeling over a black-bladed spear, eyes closed, lips moving silently.
A man with tattoos crawling up his neck, smiling too wide, laughing too loud.
Predators.
Each one.
Smelling blood before the first bell even tolled.
---
A shifting in the crowd caught my eye.
A figure moving with too much grace to be a mercenary, too much control to be desperate.
---
He was tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Blond hair tied back in a soldier's knot.
Armor polished to a mirror sheen, not a dent or scratch marring its surface.
---
Our eyes met across the mud-churned ground.
His mouth curled into a smirk that didn't reach his eyes.
Challenge, pure and simple.
---
I tilted my head slightly.
Didn't smile.
Didn't blink.
Just watched him.
Like a hunter watching another circling wolf.
---
He turned first, disappearing into the crowd.
Smart.
Pick your ground before you bare your teeth.
---
I filed his face away.
We'd meet again.
And one of us wouldn't walk away.
---
The noise around me thickened.
More arrivals.
Banners flashing.
Horns sounding.
Names shouted and lost under the press of bodies.
---
And then —
a ripple through the crowd.
Different.
Not fear.
Not hate.
Respect.
Reluctant, but real.
---
Serenya.
---
She moved like cold fire through the chaos, flanked by a small knot of retainers wearing silver and blue.
She wore no colors herself, just a simple traveling cloak over a steel-gray tunic.
But the way the crowd bent around her, the way conversations faltered and died as she passed — it was a crown heavier than any metal.
---
Her silver hair caught the light, braided back into a warrior's tail.
Her gaze sliced through the yard like a blade — precise, pitiless.
Searching.
Measuring.
Weighing.
---
For a heartbeat, her eyes found mine.
Held.
---
A thousand memories flickered between us.
The cold training fields.
The long nights of silence and bruised hands.
The brief, rare moments when her lips almost smiled.
---
She approached.
Not fast.
Not hesitant.
Measured.
Controlled.
---
I pushed off the pillar, standing straight.
Didn't reach for my sword.
Didn't lower my guard either.
---
She stopped two paces away.
The noise of the muster yard seemed to fade, like the world itself held its breath.
---
"Atlas," she said simply.
No warmth.
No hate.
Just acknowledgment.
---
"Serenya," I answered, inclining my head slightly.
---
A pause.
Long enough to sharpen a blade on.
---
"You're here," she said.
Not a question.
An observation.
Maybe a judgment.
---
"Where else would I be?" I said, voice low.
---
Her lips twitched.
Not a smile.
Something sharper.
Colder.
---
"Dead," she said.
Softly.
Almost kindly.
---
I shrugged.
"Not today."
---
Another pause.
A breath between knives.
---
"Stay alive," she said finally.
Not an order.
Not a plea.
A simple fact spoken into the broken bones of the world.
---
Then she turned and walked away, her retainers falling in silently behind her.
The crowd swallowed her.
The world roared back to life.
---
I stood there a moment longer.
Breathing.
Remembering.
Forgetting.
---
The bell above the tower tolled once.
A heavy, ugly sound that shook the marrow.
---
A herald in black iron stepped onto the platform, unrolling a scroll.
His voice cracked across the yard like a whip.
---
"All registered competitors to muster grounds! First duels begin at second bell! Fail to appear, and you forfeit your place!"
---
Murmurs surged.
Weapons were checked.
Armor tightened.
Prayers muttered into stained hands.
---
I touched the iron tag at my neck.
877.
A number.
A grave waiting to be filled.
---
I smiled to myself.
Let the cold settle into my bones like an old friend.
---
This wasn't a tournament.
Not really.
This was the first toll of a long funeral procession.
And the dead were already walking.
---
I stepped forward.
Into the teeth of the storm.
Into blood.
Into survival.