Splinters Beneath the Skin

Location: Dain's Estate, Northern Borderlands of Oslo

Time: Day 375 After Alec's Arrival

The rain fell like ash.

Gray. Heavy. Relentless. It pattered against the high glass of the solar windows, obscuring the ridgelines beyond the hills in a wet haze.

Dain stood still in the dim chamber, arms crossed, gaze locked on the windowpane as though he could will the clouds to part — as though staring hard enough might reveal the dark stone silhouette of Oslo Keep through the veil of storm.

And her.

Elira.

He clenched his jaw.

She had looked him in the eye and dismissed him without raising her voice. No fanfare. No retinue. No spectacle. Just a single, brutal sentence.

"He built a new one."

No blade ever cut so clean.

That man — that interloper — had stood at her side like he belonged there. No crest. No sigil. Not a drop of blooded nobility. Just a flat stare, words carved from iron, and a presence that bent the room without trying.

Dain had seen many kinds of men. Opportunists. Pretenders. Lords with their titles half-won by birth and half-bought with silver.

This one was different.

He didn't wear power.

He exhaled it.

The door creaked.

Harn entered, wrapped in a rain-drenched cloak. The steward set down a tray of bread, cold meat, and wine. The goblet clinked faintly, a hollow sound in a room thick with silence.

"They've returned," Harn said. "The riders from the Sundridge route."

Dain didn't turn. "And?"

Harn approached, laying a scroll on the nearby table. "They tracked the man's movements from the eastern border. Merchants in three towns recall him. No noble markings. Paid in minted Midgard coin, direct from the duchy's vaults. They call him 'Lord Alec' or 'Master Alenia.' No surname of record. No inheritance."

Dain's voice was tight. "Then he's a bastard."

"Not formally, my lord. No rumors of illicit birth. But no household claims him. No brothers. No sisters. No traceable lineage. He appeared sometime near the Year Turn, attached to Duchess Elira's court. Elevated quickly."

Dain turned now. Slow. Deliberate.

"Trained where?"

Harn hesitated. "No school we know. Not knighted. Not guild-registered. Those who've met him say he speaks like a learned man, but not in the courtly way. More like a builder. A surveyor. One merchant described his tone as… 'the voice of someone used to being obeyed before being heard.'"

Dain narrowed his eyes.

"And what does he do?"

"He oversees the rebuilding. Not just walls. Grain lanes. Barracks. Canals. The duchess has granted him authority across several domains — trade, defense, even treasury oversight in some corners. He drafts new methods. Insists on counting everything. Metals. Meals. Manpower."

Dain's mouth twitched. "So he counts beans."

"No, my lord," Harn said, unusually firm. "He counts people."

The fire behind them cracked, spitting sap.

Dain stepped closer, picked up the goblet, and poured the wine with too much force. The red splash echoed against the silver rim.

"He's what… twenty-two? Twenty-three?"

"Unknown. He looks mid-twenties. But the eyes — the men said his eyes make him seem older. As if he's seen more than his years should allow."

Dain scoffed. "So what? A quiet clerk with a few clever thoughts and clean hands?"

Harn hesitated again. "They said he speaks little in public. Never raises his voice. But when he does, people stop walking. Even the guards."

Dain drank. Hard.

"Where's his sword?"

"He doesn't carry one."

"No personal guard?"

"None. Just scribes. Surveyors. Engineers."

"Who protects him?"

"He does, apparently."

The silence stretched long and bitter.

Dain moved to the hearth, one hand resting against the mantel's edge. He stared into the flames, watching them flicker against soot-darkened stone.

"What does he want?"

Harn answered without hesitation. "A better duchy. His words, not mine. He speaks of longevity. Balance. Order."

Dain barked a laugh, low and cold. "No one wants those things without price."

"Perhaps Elira is the price," Harn said softly.

Dain's hand tensed on the stone.

The implication curled into the room like smoke.

She had once sat beside him in feasts. She had once touched his shoulder and smiled like he was more than a bitter man in waiting.

And now this stranger — with no name, no birthright, no sword — shared her counsel. Her trust.

Perhaps her bed.

The thought clawed something loose in his chest.

"A boy," Dain said bitterly. "She's taken in a boy and made him her architect."

"He's no boy, my lord," Harn said. "At least not in the ways that matter."

Dain turned, slowly.

"What are you saying?"

"He doesn't react like others. Doesn't court favor. Doesn't posture. He listens. He learns. Then he acts. Without ceremony. Without hesitation. Men rally to that kind of quiet."

Dain's hands clenched into fists.

He had outlasted rivals before. Outmaneuvered older lords. Undercut alliances. But this — this wasn't a political rival. It was something else.

A displacement.

As if the very ground beneath him had begun to shift.

"If Elira lets him build," Dain muttered, "the people will forget us."

"They'll remember who filled the grain silos," Harn agreed. "Not who made them fear winter."

Dain's jaw tightened.

"Then we'll remind them. Quietly. Relentlessly."

He turned away from the fire and strode to the table.

"Find me someone inside the keep," he ordered. "A chambermaid. A stable boy. A cook's assistant. I want to know what he eats. What he drinks. How often he walks past her door."

Harn bowed slightly. "Already in motion."

Dain stared again at the rain-smeared window.

The storm had softened, but the cold crept in like a second skin.

He placed a hand on the sill.

The stone was damp from a leak in the corner — a reminder that even walls crumble when left unwatched.

"This Alenia," Dain murmured. "If he means to replace the bones of Oslo—"

He tapped the sill.

"Then I'll make sure he bleeds for every brick he dares to lay."

Behind him, the fire dimmed.

Outside, the dogs whined again.

And in the distance, beyond the hills and the rain, the first seeds of quiet betrayal began to take root — not with steel, but with whispers.

Not from hate.

But from envy sharpened by fear.