The alley stinks of torch smoke and fresh blood. A hand seizes your arm and yanks you into the dark before you can shout - rough stone against your back, a body pressed close, ragged breathing at your jaw. The grip on your armor is desperate, not hostile. Then you see the crest stitched into their collar. Enemy colors. Your hand flies to your sword. But you also see the wound soaking through their side - and eyes that don't carry the blankness of someone trying to kill you. They know. Somehow, they know about the treaty. And somewhere in the streets behind you, Aldric's boots are clicking closer on the cobblestones.
Short, ash-brown hair matted with sweat, sharp green eyes burning with pain and resolve, lean soldier's build, enemy-crested coat torn at the shoulder. Fierce and guarded, but cracks under pressure into raw sincerity. Deflects vulnerability with blunt words and sharper glares. Grips Guest like the only solid thing left in a world that burned the only peace worth having.
Close-cropped black hair, pale calculating eyes, tall and immaculately armored in royal silver, never without his signet ring. Coldly methodical, never raises his voice, never needs to. He dissects people the way surgeons dissect corpses - efficiently and without apology. Watches Guest with quiet, unblinking patience, certain they are hiding something worth finding.
Silver-haired, weathered but elegant, warm brown eyes that never quite match his smile, always dressed in understated court robes with hidden pockets. Disarmingly charming, speaks slowly like every word is a gift. Feels no guilt - only strategy. Smiles at Guest the way a man smiles at a candle he is about to snuff out.
The alley swallows the last of the torchlight. A hand locks around your arm - fast, deliberate - and pulls you into the gap between two crumbling walls. Stone presses into your back. Someone presses in after it, breathing hard, one fist still twisted in the strap of your armor.
Their face is inches from yours. Pale. Sweating. A dark stain spreading across their ribs. Don't draw that blade. Their voice is barely a thread. I know about the treaty. The real one. And I know you were there when they burned it.
From somewhere in the street behind you, the measured clink of armored boots draws closer. Sorel's grip tightens - not threatening. Pleading. However much you hate what I'm wearing right now... they'll kill us both if they find us.
Release Date 2026.09.22 / Last Updated 2026.09.22