YAN
THE DOOR CREAKED SHUT BEHIND YANICK. No guards. No eyes. Just the low hiss of wind leaking through the cracks in the shutters and the soft crackle of fire. Nemeth didn’t turn to greet him.
Just sat there, hunched forward in the chair like a lion gone half to seed, watching the flame from the candle dance on the wall.
“Why did you do it?” Yanick didn’t wait, went straight to the questions.
For a moment he felt like the man with white gloves, reading them from the surface of the Spy’s Mirror.
“Did what?” Nemeth parred with his question, not moving.
It seemed like there will be another interrogation game. They both knew how to play it, so it would not be an easy conversation. Yanick had to get to the point, ask simple questions, lead the old man into giving straight answers.
Only he wasn’t prepared. Did not have prompts in front.
“All of it,” Yanick said, trying to put his thoughts into words best he could. “The killing. The whole Black Moon thing.”
A dry laugh came in response. No humour in it. Just dust. Nemeth’s shadow danced with the flames on the wall.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said after he stopped laughing. “Your brain wouldn’t comprehend it.”
“Try me.” Yanick felt the frustration growing.
Nemeth tilted his head back, looked at the ceiling like it might offer a better conversation partner.
“Listen, kid,” he said, tone of his voice changing. Shifting towards muzzled anger. “I don’t know what you want from me. You are the leader of his armies now, you proved yourself on the battlefield. I’m not going to be a pain in your side, I will obey. You can leave me alone.”
“I want the truth.”
Yanick walked closer. Stood just two feet from Nemeth, maybe closer. He looked less like a great warrior and a cruel, merciless leader that when Yanick first saw him earlier that day. There was something in him though, some ancient flame, flickering weakly deep down. Barely, but still alive.
“Your god tells me you killed my son,” Nemeth growled.
He turned his head and Yanick could see that flame rising behind those grey eyes, so different than his daughter’s. Different eyes, different flame. Same blood.
“Is it true?” Nemeth put his hands on the armrest of his chair. “Or is that just more of their old-wolf-new-wolf bullshit? They like that, you know. Playing us against each other.”
Yanick stood still, weighing the answer in his mind. He was deeply indebted to Ademund, but he had no obligations to his father.
Nemeth remained seated, fingers curling around the armrests as he tensed like a cat coiled and ready to strike. Yanick felt a chill tighten along his spine, the air between them suddenly charged, like just before a storm breaks.
Then Nemeth moved.
Too fast for a man his age. A blur of grey muscle and predator instinct. Before Yanick could brace, the old wolf had him by the cloak, slammed him hard against the cold stone wall. Pain spiked through his broken wrist. White heat, black stars.
No fire surged in his blood. No instinct with a mind of its own like before, out there on the battlefield. Just pain. The stink of sweat and smoke and age.
And the moon laughing from up there, mocking.
The old wolf was stronger. Older. Meaner. And he knew it.
“So before I kill you,” he said, voice a true growl of an animal. Hand closing on Yanick’s neck. “I want to know if I have a reason to.”
“I love your daughter,” Yanick gasped for air.
A pause. The wolf sensed a familiar smell. The grip loosened.
“Do you think I could do that?” Yanick said, voice low, raw.
Nemeth let him go. Stepped back, wiping a hand over his face like he could scrub years off it. Cover the greys on his beard with Yanick’s youth.
“If you want the truth,” he said, descending back into the chair. “I’d have to show you.”
“I’m up for it.”
The danger gone. Rivalry of the generations non existent.
“But in order to do that, we’ll have to run,” the old wolf said.
Yanick scoffed.
“Seems like something you like to do.”
Nemeth’s head turned fast. The flame still burning high in his eyes.
“It’s something I have to do,” he said. No attack this time. The beast is tamed. Won’t bite. “If I want to survive. I got used to it.”
Yanick rubbed his gauntlet as if this could ease the pain waking up underneath. It couldn’t. Only vodka had that power.
“If we leave this place, he’ll hunt us. Have us hunted to the edges of the world.”
“I know,” Nemeth said. “But he’s not who you think he is.”
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“Oh, believe me,” Yanick replied, “I know exactly who he is.”
Silence. Heavy and long. Then Nemeth looked up, patiently waiting for the answer.
“His name is Luc,” Yanick gave it finally.
Nemeth chuckled once, bitter and cold.
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got, boy?”
Embarrassment. Yanick felt the urge to give something more, everything he knew. But it wasn’t much.
“I was a prisoner in this place. Strange building. Not made of wood. Or metal. Something else…”
Nemeth’s eyes lit with something close to recognition.
“Plastic,” he said.
“What?”
“That material. It’s called plastic. Go on.”
“I was there too. They treated my wound and my broken arm.”
“Looks like they didn’t do well in that matter.” Nemeth smiled. It was cruel and almost fond. “But don’t worry, boy. They always do.”
“I helped him escape,” Yanick said.
Nemeth leaned back. Something unreadable passing across his face.
“Then,” he said, voice low and steady as a loaded crossbow, “you really don’t know a fucking thing.”
“I know he’s not a god,” Yanick responded. “He’s just a man.”
That earned a long silence. Nemeth didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stared, the lines in his face carved deeper by the flickering candlelight.
Yanick waited.
Nemeth exhaled slow, like something dying.
“If you’re brave enough to learn the truth,” he said at last, voice rough, hollow, “we need to do as I said.”
“Leave this place?”
Nemeth nodded once. Grim. Like a soldier acknowledging a sentence.
Yanick felt the words before he said them. Heavy on the tongue. Bitter in the throat.
“And go where?”
*
Everyone was asleep. Either tired from the road, exhausted from the battle or simply drunk. The fortress held its breath. The corridor thick with silence. And cold.
Even the moon had gone dull. No leering, no laughter. Just a pale ghost behind clouds. Sleeping, maybe. Or waiting.
Yanick walked first, his boots soft on the stone. Nemeth followed, one step behind. Two wolves moving through the dark. No words between them. No more need. Whatever hatred was between them, they buried for now under heavier things.
Around the curve of the hall, Yanick saw a shape ahead.
Not a shadow. Not a man. A god.
Luc walked towards him. Barefoot. Silent. His white nightgown loose and flowing, sleeves like drifting smoke. He looked like something half-alive. Or too alive. A wild spirit pretending to wear a man’s skin. The firelight flickered along his jaw, his eyes unreadable.
Seemed that alcohol had no effect on him. Or the coldness of the stone floor.
Yanick stopped short, one foot still raised. He hoped Nemeth would take the hint and stay hidden around the bend.
Luc’s voice came soft and syrupy from the shadows ahead.
“Oh, Yan,” he said, like greeting a friend at a tavern. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing, Luc.”
But the lie tasted thin, even to him. And for the second time that night, the instinct that had kept him alive on the battlefield failed him. Maybe it was tired too. And asleep.
Luc grabbed Yanick by the collar and slammed him against the stone wall.
Pain shot up his broken wrist, white and hot. A gasp, teeth clenched. No divine surge this time. No godfire roaring through his limbs. No miracle hiding in his marrow. Just pain. And the iron stink of fear.
Luc leaned close. His breath was warm, no alcohol in it, though he’s been drinking with other at the feast.
“It’s Ari,” he hissed through his teeth. “I am your god. Don’t ever forget.”
He wagged his finger in front of Yanick’s face as if scolding disobedient child.
Yanick’s eyes didn’t flinch, but they shifted, just a flick. And they caught a movement over Luc’s shoulder. Nemeth. Barefoot, slipping past in silence. Not to help. Just to get clear. To keep moving. Like always.
Then his eyes noticed one more thing. Something that was always there.
Inside Luc’s wrist, half-covered by the drooping sleeve of his nightgown. A symbol. Clean, deliberate. Geometric.
“The tattoo,” Yanick muttered. “On your wrist. It’s the same as—”
“I know,” Luc cut him off. “The ones who kept us prisoners.”
But Yanick had never seen tattoos on any of them. The wardens in the strange place. Long sleeves, gloves. Hidden. Always hidden. Same as the interrogator, though he seemed intrigued when Yanick mentioned it.
He haven’t notice that tattoo on Lucs hand before. He hadn’t looked.
He’d been too entranced. Too busy worshipping. Luc had distracted him like a street magician: watch the eyes, not the hands. And it worked. It worked so well he wanted to punch himself for it. He deserved all the mockery, he felt just stupid.
“I know someone else who has it,” Yanick said. “Big Mike.”
Luc laughed. Loud, open-mouthed.
“Big Mike? Hah! I see where they got the idea. Guy’s huge, right? Built like a siege engine.”
“You know him?”
Luc’s smile twisted.
“None of your business.”
“You said I need to earn my right to the answers. I did capture that fortress didn’t I? This should earn me a big answer.”
Luc tilted his head.
“Maybe it should, but you disrespected me tonight.”
Something kindled in Yanick’s chest. As if Nemeth’s flame dropped a spark into his own eyes, and that spark just started a fire.
Luc must’ve seen it too. He smirked.
“Mike wanted to be Ari,” Luc said. “Before i got that job. Did you know that?”
“What?” Yanick blinked.
“He wanted to play the role,” Luc continued. “Be the god. But they didn’t go for it. Said it wouldn’t sell. That the Nordlings wouldn’t believe it.”
He chuckled again. Shook his head, like it was all some great joke only he was allowed to laugh at.
“Mike’s got the skin, sure, but you’ve seen his face. His features. You know, what I’m talking about. What the hell were they thinking even considering that? What was he thinking?”
Luc laughed hard. And long. To the point it got annoying.
“I don’t understand,” Yanick said.
“You don’t have to.” Luc’s voice was already cooling.
“Please,” Yanick tried again. “Just explain it. I want to know.”
Luc stopped smiling. His face hardened, eyes went flat.
“This is all you are getting tonight.” He said. Shirt and cold like stone wall. “Now say thank you my lord.”
Yanick stared in his eyes, holding a furnace blower ready to ignite that flame inside.
Luc moved even closer.
“Say it,” he said, gently now. A coax. A threat wrapped in velvet.
Yanick glanced sideways. Around the bend, Nemeth peeked out and gave him a little wave. He didn’t run away. He waited.
Yanick looked back at Luc.
“Thank you, my lord.”
Luc patted his cheek.
“Good dog,” he said, then turned and walked off.
*
Yanick walked the same path as yesterday, only in the opposite direction.
From the heart of the fortress, where he sat fat on victory, to the innards where screams still echoed in the stone. Through the ruined great hall. Past the tapestries ripped and stained. Through the inner gates, black with soot and old blood.
Down the stairs. Still wet. Still sticky. Still reeking of what used to be men.
He stepped over a severed boot, toe still inside. A trail of handprints marked the wall beside him. Deep red smears, fingernails gouging stone in their final plea. No one had cleaned it. Maybe no one ever would.
He walked on, boots quiet, cloak low.
He feared that the warlord with jum at him with the axe ready to swing. But there was no one.
There were no guards posted. No patrols. No questions. Everyone was still asleep—drunk or dreaming, or pretending not to notice that the victor was bleeding from the inside.
Ari was too sure. Too full of himself. Didn’t fear the attack. And this wasn’t one.
Only the moon saw them sneaking out.
Two wolves.
And the moon laughed.
Not through the gate. No. Even as the one Divine Hound who’d claimed the fortress, Yanick could not leave through the gate.
They stood the only guards posted that night. And they might notice if they didn’t fall asleep. The moon would expose them, pointing them out like a silent betrayer.
So he didn’t try this way.
Instead, he led the old wolf the other way—along the edge, through the cracked belly of the wall where a trebuchet had shattered centuries of arrogance. Over rubble still warm from flame. Past broken catapults twisted like rusted ribs.
Nemeth followed in silence.
Together they moved like a pack. A pack of two wolves. One young, one ancient. One with something to prove, the other with nothing left but what was buried.
The fortress faded behind them. Its towers shrunk into shadow. Not one horn blew. Not one footfall echoed after them.
Only the wind whispered in their ears. And the moon laughed.