He laid on his back, a hollowed-out shell of what he once was, staring up at the vault of the night sky. He was tired in a way that sleep couldn’t reach, hungry enough that his stomach had stopped growling and started to ache with a cold, rhythmic pulse, and thirsty enough that his tongue felt like a piece of dry leather in his mouth.

He tried to force his mind into a void. He tried not to think of anything at all.

How long has it been? A week? A week and a few days since the world ended on the march?

No. Don’t think about it.

Don’t think about Cleo’s face as the steel found him, a face you couldn’t see. Don’t think about Noros and the way his bodie rattled against the dirt. Don’t think of your father, sitting in his high hall, waiting for a son that will never sail home.

Don’t think about the army you left behind to rot in the mud, or how utterly powerless you were when the Hounds fell upon you. Don’t think of the Yarzats, don’t think of how little they made you feel, or how small you truly mattered in the Great Game they all played.

You’ll be dead soon. Food for the worm and the dust.

Just... look at the stars.

And so, he looked. He focused on the distant, cold flickers of light to drown out the memory of how his feet burned every time his raw soles touched the earth. The night was strangely beautiful. He wondered, with a detached sort of irony, if it was because he was so close to the end that he could finally appreciate the things he had spent a lifetime passing over.

He was bound for his cousin, Merelao. He knew it in his bones.The Hounds will tell him nothing but he didn’t take a genius to know the price of the alliance the fox struck with the Mad Bull.

Knowing the man, he would probably offer Latio a "fair" fight. There was no logic to the thought, but somehow deep inside him, he knew that was to come.

Since they were children, they had played with wooden swords, dreaming of being heroes. Now that they were men, they would finally settle the score with iron.

Latio knew who would die.

He had heard the tales of his cousin’s savage grace on the field. Latio was passable with a blade, a decent enough student of the yard, but against his own blood, he knew he would be powerless.

Don’t think of the future that is to come... or better yet, the one that is not. Just look at the night.

The moon was a thin, crescent piece of cheese hanging in the black, and the stars were so numerous they seemed to crowd the sky, more than he had ever seen from the balcony of a palace. How could something so simple, something he had seen a thousand times, be so breathtaking?

He huddled under the low, sweeping foliage of a lone pine tree. He didn’t know if the clouds would break and weep, but he had nothing else to offer him refuge. He pressed his back against the rough bark of the trunk, letting it shield him from the biting edge of the wind that swept across the plains.

He had never been a man of great faith, though these past few days had seen him pestering the gods with more requests than a lifetime of worship. One would think a lesson had to be learned there, but Latio was a slow learner. So, he whispered another prayer.

He didn’t pray for salvation this time. He didn’t pray for retribution or for the Hounds to choke on their own laughter.

He just prayed it wouldn’t rain.

Under the sheltering pine, he traced the constellations with his eyes: the lone, shimmering Weaver spinning the threads of fate; the open Book of the All-Knower; and the Trident of the Sea-God. The other two, sword of the Warrior and hand of the Protector, were hidden from his view by the heavy branches, or perhaps they were simply tired of looking at him.

He let his eyes close at last. Tomorrow was another day. It would likely be worse than the one before , it could be the day he finally met the axe or the rope, but as sleep finally pulled him under, a tiny, foolish spark of his old self remained.

Who knew? Perhaps It could even get better.

The next morning, Latio awoke not to the sun, but to the abrasive friction of voices scraping over him like flint on steel.

"Is that truly him?" a cold, precise voice asked, cutting through the damp morning mist.

"Hard to recognize a princeling when he’s been gift-wrapped in soot and road-grime?" the Hound-helmeted demon replied, his tone thick with a lazy mocking amusement.

Latio roused himself from the hollow of the pine needles, blinking away the crust of sleep. He looked up just in time to see a face framed by golden curls the color of a rich, fading sun. But it was the eyes that froze him, two lake-like orbs, eerily similar to his cousin’s, staring down at him with a clinical, unnerving stillness. They bore no warmth, only the detached interest of a scholar examining a broken specimen.

Before he could pull away, a set of firm hands began checking every inch of him. They patted down his filthy tunic, felt the line of his jaw, and peeled back his eyelids with practiced efficiency.

"Don’t bite," the golden-haired man commanded.

"Wha—"

Two fingers forced their way into Latio’s mouth, prying his jaws apart. The man peered inside, checking his gums and teeth as if he were inspecting a horse at a common market. Latio’s pulse hammered against his ribs; he was tempted to snap his teeth down, to taste the blood of one of his tormentors, but the old, familiar weight of fear kept his jaw slack.

When the man finally released him, Latio fell back into the dirt, gasping. The blue eyes shifted away from him, settling instead on Rykio.

"Was all of that truly necessary?" the newcomer asked, his voice dropping an octave into a dangerous chill. "Your task was to secure the princeling and bring him to the rendezvous. I do not recall the order including instructions to torture him along the road."

Rykio, the mastiff-wearer, let out a short, braying laugh. He leaned back in his saddle, looking utterly unbothered. "If this qualifies as torture, then I must be the Lightbringer himself, which is more apt than you would think, fighting demon and monsters off. Only difference gods anointed him, for me it was a Prince.

Me and my boys took exception of how tall he was carrying his head. Look at him now. He’s much closer to the earth, wouldn’t you say? He’s learned the most important lesson a man can know: exactly where he stands."

He turned his predator’s gaze back to Latio. "You came to Yarzat as an enemy, and the Little Bull remained an enemy. Are you still our enemy, little princeling? Or have we finally beaten the fight out of you?"

Latio tried to formulate a retort, but his throat was a ruin. Only a pathetic, wet whimper escaped his lips.

The golden-haired man looked at Rykio with visible distaste. "The Prince didn’t send the Hounds out so you and your pack could have your ’fun.’ This man is a prisoner of significant value. You know how much the Prince stakes on the integrity of his captives."

Rykio shrugged, his armor creaking and clinking. "And he has all the aspects that preserve his value, doesn’t he? He has his limbs. He has his tongue. Is he disfigured?" He leaned over his pommel, leering at Latiño. "Little princeling, did we disfigure you? Did we rape you? Did we geld you? Speak up, don’t be shy.

Can your cock still get hard to pop up some brood on some whore’s womb?"

Latio just stared back with eyes that had seen the end of the world. He had no words left

"See?" Rykio said, turning back to the other. "No need for the Carrion Raven’s lot to get all fussy and bureaucratic about it. He’s got some boils on his feet and perhaps a bit of piss down his throat, but his blood is still on the inside and his name is still worth a fortune to a father who can’t look down at his own cock anymore. I’d say we delivered him in prime condition."

"A bit of piss," the Raven repeated, his voice flat. "You treat a scion of a Great House like a kennel dog and expect the Prince to thank you for it?"

"I expect the Prince to thank me for the victory,and to have captured one of the main commanders of the war. As you said he has a certain value, I do not know what intention the prince has for him, but he is whole. Which is more than many of ours can say. " Rykio spat, the humor finally vanishing from his face. "The diplomacy is not my job. Mine is to break the men who try to kill us. If the Little Bull wanted a soft bed and a polite guard, he should have stayed in his father’s nursery instead of stepping in the true world.What?Was the mud too hard for the bastard?This is my world not yours.’’ He thrusted a finger to the man’s chest ’’ Keep yourself in the fucking shadow, and don’t get yourself high to teach me anything.I know how to do my job"

Lucius maintained a long, leveled stare at Rykio. The silence between them stretched, thick with the unspoken friction of two different types of killers.

In the cold calculation of the Carrion Raven, Rykio was right, however distasteful his methods. The "Little Bull" was still breathing. His limbs were intact, his lineage was undisputed, and his value as a political pawn remained a heavy weight on the scales of the conflict. Whatever the Prince ultimately decided to do with him, the prize was secure.

But Rykio’s cruelty had been efficient in only one way: it was a waste of time.

Especially now, with the borders shifting and the stakes mounting, the commander of the Hounds should have known and done better.

"I will take custody of the prisoner now," Lucius said, his voice flat and final. "He is in our hands."

Rykio let out a sharp, mocking snort and adjusted his grip on the reins. "Will be a bit sorry to see him go, honestly. He was almost fun to have around. I’m just glad we managed to beat the fight out of him before handing him over to your soft hands.I am sure he would favor some massage on his foot, gods know how loud he complained of them’’

He gave Latio one last, leering look.

’’ Goodbyes little Bull!Hope we see each other again!" He greeted with a smile before signaling his men to wheel their horses. The Hounds retreated into the morning mist with a chorus of rough jests and the rhythmic thud of hooves.

Screw-Nose, Red eye, Lus the Pus, Maor turnip , all of them turned their horses away, away from the field and away from Latio’s life.

He watched all of them go, in their stead?A sudden, ringing silence, More loud than any war-cry more beautiful than any song.

Lucius meanwhile turned his attention back to the dirt. He stepped toward Latio, his movements fluid and precise, devoid of the aggression the Hounds radiated. To Latio’s utter shock, the golden-haired man didn’t reach for a whip or a rope. Instead, he inclined his head in a shallow, elegant bow.

"My apologies for the... lack of hospitality during your journey,there is a bit of bad blood between our crowns, so I hope you could forgive that." Lucius said, his voice smooth and devoid of the mockery Latio had grown to expect. "I am Lucius,servant of her Grace of Yarzat, and you are now in my care. From this moment, you shall be treated with the respect due to your station.And as long as you give us no trouble, you won’t find reason to be displeased."

He looked down at Latio’s ruined feet and the filth coating his tunic, his lake-like eyes betraying nothing.

"The march is over, my Lord. We have a horse prepared for you. We shall see those wounds tended to before we reach our destination."

Latio looked up at the man, he should have been happy but somehow the last part dazzled him. He wanted to ask which destination he was talking about, hoping that perhaps by some stroke of luck he wasn’t going to a certain cousin of his,but his throat was too hurt and his words too feeble, and already had the Carrion Raven turned around and set himself off.