Page 17 of The King’s Man #5

L ykos and Zenon spare a few moments to say goodbye.

We’re still on the docks, waiting for the envoy to transfer into carriages and onto horseback.

Lykos clasps my shoulder and presses a chain into my hand.

Not a regular chain—one with unique symbols, through which braided thread is knotted.

“If you ever need help, show this, and...” he murmurs in my ear.

I raise a brow and run the chain between my fingers. “What if it requires saving someone with active meridians?”

Lykos grumbles, and Zenon steps before him, bowing. “I’ll make sure your favour is returned.”

He’s so earnest, I can’t help but fondly scrub his hair. We might have been forced together by circumstance, might have started out on the wrong foot, but I’ve come to like my companions. “You can promise that?”

He blows at the hair that’s flicked into his eyes, and Lykos speaks over his shoulder. “He can. Zenon is the son of the chief. ”

Megaera doesn’t jerk in surprise at this as I do, and I wonder if she’s suspected. Or known. I shut my mouth and stare at the chief crusader’s heir—and his hair I mucked up.

Lykos speaks, “Not knowing who we were, you risked your life to save us. And now you’ve set us free again. We trust you.”

“What if my favour is your promise never to harm the king?”

Lykos meets my eyes. “I’ve observed you. Should our king reclaim the throne... I believe you may have a profound influence on him and his rule. I believe with you at his side, he will seek to improve the lives of those without magic.”

I step forward and hold his gaze with urgency. “Spread that word. Get your chief to back the true king. Make real progress for the people.”

Lykos clasps his hands solemnly and bows, and when he rises, Megaera swishes her red skirts between us and produces a bundle of books for Zenon. “Become wise. Keep practicing.”

For once Zenon doesn’t groan at the mention of study. He takes the bundle and gratefully holds it to his chest.

Lykos looks wistfully at her. “Are you sure you’ll not come with us?”

She hesitates and shakes her head. “Cael needs to form a team to compete. I owe him this.”

I look at her sharply and she returns it with a sharp brow. But she’s right. Of course I can’t enter a team competition on my own.

“You’re not a healer,” I say.

“I can cook. I’ll follow any recipe precisely. All you have to do is give me good ones.”

Indeed, she is exceptionally meticulous when it comes to measuring ingredients and following methods.

To the point that, even if a ridiculous amount of hogwart is requested, she’ll not question it and forge on.

She should have no problem applying that same philosophy to my scriptions.

However, anyone who joins my team... “You have to know, King Yngvarr will have our heads if we fail.”

She keeps her chin high. “We’d better not fail then.”

Lykos’s large frame tenses, as if he’s holding himself back from whisking her away to safety. Megaera catches this, laughs lightly, and steps close to him. With a wicked smile, she leans in and brushes a kiss over his lips.

Kjartan’s voice cuts through the chill, a sharp command to move along. The carriages rattle closer, their wheels groaning on the uneven road as we leave Lykos and Zenon behind.

“For the duration of our stay,” Kjartan says, stepping ahead, “the king orders us to wear these masks.”

I’d been hoping to continue wearing my veil.

I touch the soft feathered mask and am grateful to see Megaera holding hers against her face.

It doesn’t cover the mouth but the feathers fan down one side of her jaw and the rest of the mask around her eyes does enough to conceal her nose. She’s difficult to recognise.

Captain Kjartan ties a feathered mask to his own face. “The king doesn’t want the allure to draw unwanted attention. And these are feathers from—”

I recognise them and understand. “From a Celestial Seraph,” I murmur. “The divine bird of the healing goddess.”

I’m only just used to the ticklish feel of the mask by the time our carriages clatter into Hinsard. Around us, soaked in the midday sun, the lavish city sprawls—the constabulary teeming with uniformed men; Prince Nicostratus’s glorious manor; the river that winds to Thinking Hall...

The familiar sights of Hinsard rush past, each landmark pulling at threads—the loss of magic, unravelling a murder mystery, the sting of Nicostratus’s heartbreak, the wild rhythm of my own heart.

Finding my soldad inside the giant violet oak.

The realisation it had been Quin all along...

The carriage halts.

We disembark and with stiff cordiality a dozen decorated redcloaks pass on a welcome message: the regent has agreed to King Yngvarr’s request, allowing us to take part in the Medicus Contest. Rooms are being readied for us close to the event, but first we are to formally sign in to the competition .

Throngs of people are gathered in the square on three sides, facing the city’s grand luminarium, cheering for teams of four and five as they ink their names into a book set atop a mosaic-covered stand.

A flash of a peacock robe ahead stops me short. My heart stumbles. I push forward, trying to coax the envoy to a quicker pace, but the stormblades close ranks with a sharp glare. The figures vanish into the crowd, leaving only murmurs rising like smoke around us.

Megaera’s lips set in a tight line; I urge her to ignore it and steer her through our parting stormblades as they flank a path to the book of registration.

Behind the podium, unseen from my earlier limited angles, is a man in deep violet robes. I almost trip over my feet. Skriniaris Evander! He’s here. He’s in Hinsard. He’s involved somehow in this. Perhaps, like in my first examinations, he’s one of the judges.

He looks over at us with a warm, welcoming smile.

And I’m so grateful for it. When everything else feels daunting and everyone else is against me, his unjudgmental approval lifts my spirits.

He takes Megaera and me in with a small bow, and hands us the crude ink set aside for non-linea.

He smiles again, but I can see he hasn’t recognised me. Doesn’t even suspect.

That’s good. I need that to be the case.

But . . .

I wish I could talk to him again. Ask him for advice; have an ally on my side.

As I scrawl our names into the book, I hear the sneers and whispered insults coming from the crowd pressing around us.

I straighten my back against it. It’s not my pride on the line—it’s Quin’s life. “Thank you,” I say, handing back the quill. “Would you be kind enough to tell me if we’re able to access the libraries?”

“I’ll look into that for you.” Skriniaris Evander glances between us. “Are you sure you don’t have another member to join your team? Most teams have four. I’m afraid you’ll be at a disadvantage with only two.”

“We’re the only ones under the age limit. Unless we’re allowed to recruit a Lumin?”

“That wouldn’t violate the new decree,” he says. “‘Teams of two to five under twenty-five, regardless of background or blood’.” He pauses, his gaze steady. “But finding someone willing to join a Skeldar team... that’s another matter.”

He’s straightforward about this, and I approve.

Most in Lumin are against our participation, wary of our being in their land and even involved in their contest. And of those that do not harbour fears or resentment, most will at least believe us sadly disadvantaged.

Who would be willing to join a team that will surely suffer humiliating defeat in the first trial?

Even if there was someone willing, would they be willing to be pegged as a possible traitor to Lumin? Would they be willing to be sneered at by Skeldars?

“We are here to prove exceptional healing without magic. ”

Skriniaris Evander accepts this, and Megaera and I are once more swept up by stormblades and brought to our temporary accommodations: Prince Nicostratus’s manor.

The grand facade and vibrant murals remain unchanged, but the life within has dimmed. Pinched-faced redcloaks haunt the halls, and the prince is conspicuously absent.

When Petros shows me to my room, he’s limping, and when I offer help, he looks around skittishly and declines as if he’s being watched.

As I set myself up in my allocated chambers—under the same murals of Lumin’s greatest vitalian, in the same chambers the prince had given me—I pick up worrying whispers from aklos and aklas.

They don’t know where the prince is, or how he’s faring.

After the showdown with Eparch Valerius at the drakopagon game, after the royal brothers left for the south, the regent’s men swept into the manor, dragged out anyone wearing the prince’s symbol and beat them into submission. Since then, this place has been theirs.

I’ll need a space free of eyes in which to study in the days before the contest begins.

Prins Lief agrees to this and Megaera and I move to my grandfather’s cabin in the forest to practice.

Megaera proves herself a quick study, cooking my scriptions over and over until her hands are stained green, and when she asks for space without my constant critiques, I take my grandfather’s books and slink through the woods, to that tree .

The violet oak’s branches sway gently, waving like an old friend welcoming me home.

I press my palm to its bark, cool and rough beneath my skin, and breathe deeply—crisp, earthy, familiar.

The scent carries both comfort and the weight of everything that’s passed.

Here—under its canopy, in the hollowed base of the trunk—is where my fate with him began.

It’s also where we once parted. Now, I’m here again, carrying the deepest wish to free him.

The tree hums faintly under my fingertips—as if it understands. As if to offer me luck.

But I’ll need more than luck.

I’ll need skill, and the confidence not to falter.