“They’re in a mess, that’s sure.” Lord Hewlett leaned against the elaborate desk and tossed a wrinkly apple back and forth in his hands, disregarding the mud on his boots soaking into the rug. “There are too many unlikely connections. Fancy Marsden, Forrester, and Irving ending up together by chance. It’s too uncanny.”
Elric and Cassian exchanged a startled look. Elric, dressed in the green and gold of their family, pushed his seat away from the desk to better see his brother’s face.
“You said Marsden is there?” Elric asked slowly.
“Yes. Marsden and Forrester. What do you think he’s doing here, in her company? Coincidence?”
Across the room, leaning against a tapestried wall in plain brown work clothes, Cassian shook his head. “Not a chance.”
Elric whistled. “Is Irving trying to get himself killed?”
“He’s hiding something, too,” Lord Hewlett answered dryly.
He flicked his wrist and sent the apple flying across the room. Cassian caught it.
“I don’t know why I got involved in this,” he admitted under his breath. “I know better than to commit to things . . . to people.”
Cassian tossed the apple back to him. “Maybe it will be different this time.”
“Different how?”
“This time it’s not people you care for,” Elric answered softly.
Lord Hewlett looked down at his hands. “You ever wonder if we should change that? If we’ve taken it too far?”
Cassian and Elric’s eyes dropped to the floor below, jaws tense.
“We made a pact,” Elric said, low and dark. “You know why. You aren’t thinking of breaking it?”
“No.”
He wasn’t thinking about it. He knew better than to think about it. But some days . . . some days he wanted to think about it, wanted to care. Not caring was . . . lonely.
Loneliness hit hard some days.
“You don’t care about us?” Cassian asked, eyes flickering with fear.
He shook his head, a reassurance he hated. They should be able to care, to love, if only because they were family. The stupid pact . . . but it was needed. No one could hurt you if you didn’t care about anyone. He, Cassian, and Elric were a team, not a family. They helped each other because it was convenient and made the most sense. No one let themselves get close enough to the others to get them hurt.
That was the way of things.
“You need a plan,” Elric said, breaking the silence.
Lord Hewlett didn’t answer. Cassian straightened, watching him intently.
“Char?”
He let out a tense sigh. “There’s another fellow with them,” he said slowly. “A Welshman looking for freedom.”
“You didn’t mention him.” Elric again. “A serf?”
“Not exactly. His parents were house slaves.” He rubbed at his temples, a headache forming behind his eyes. “Ralph. He’s going to end up killed in the crossfire if he goes on with them.”
“Ralph Fletcher? The one you’ve been watching since he came to the marshes?”
“The same.”
Unable to stand still any longer, he began pacing the room. “I told you how he helped Aleric and the rest, and how he took Marsden under his wing. Now he’s taken Forrester and Irving. He cannot know he is aiding enemies.”
"That is none of your concern.”
“It feels like it!” he cried in frustration. He shook his hands out, trying to ease some of the tension. “I cannot stand idly by while innocent men suffer in a feud not their own.”
Cassian stopped his pacing with a hand on his arm. “Char, that’s dangerous territory.”
“I know it. I won’t get attached.” He looked down at his hands, at the hard calluses hiding their youth, and whispered, “I don’t want Ralph to be like us.”
Cassian stepped back, hurt in his eyes. “You know this is for the best.”
“I know.” He scarcely raised his voice above a whisper, quiet but decided. “But it doesn’t need to be for him—for anyone else.”
Attachment was dangerous. Brotherhood, friendship—any attachment could get people killed. But some people didn’t know that—didn’t need to know that.
Those people should be able to live in peace. Ralph should be able to live in peace. No matter what the Marsdens, the Forresters, or the Irvings were scheming—again—Char was determined that there would be no lives lost as collateral damage if he could help it.
~~~
“You will find them. Kill Irving; kill the others if you must to do so. This job ought to be done weeks ago.”
The grey-eyed knight did not reply, his eyes fixed on the flickering flames of the fire. He had no desire to answer. He despised his companion—his employer—as much as he did himself now. How had he fallen so far as to join hands with an assassin? The youth he’d faced had been right. He dishonored his station, his name, everything he once was, by this work.
“Don’t be so silent, Graves,” his boss snarled.
“I will speak when I will.”
“Answer me,” the other snapped back.
How the man could speak around the bandages on his face, the knight did not know. He had felt sorely inclined to abandon him to his fate when the squire’s hawk had attacked, but what remained of his honor would not allow it. He had used the chance to break off the attack, however, chastened by the words of the hot-headed young swordsman.
A fiery youth, easily angered. Like himself when he was young. There was something . . . something almost familiar about him. They could not have met before. Irving, however . . . he carried on a fallen legacy of deception, betrayal, and murder. But did he deserve to die?
A knife spun into the woodwork above the fireplace, and he flinched. He cast a dark look at his employer.
“Do not test me,” he said, low and dangerous.
The man smirked, shining another blade against his blanket. “You will not kill me—not while your payment is in the balance. Or are you having second thoughts?”
“Second thoughts, aye. And more than that.” Graves stood and turned. “I have had enough of this work. I will have my pay now and take my leave.”
“The job is not finished. The agreement was that you would be paid on completion.”
His eye flashed, and he fisted his hand to keep from reaching for his sword. Blades would resolve nothing. “That was before I saved your life and, in turn, you threatened mine.”
“I want my money as much as you want yours.” The oily tones that had persuaded him to take this job at first had returned. He clenched his teeth as he listened. “Without you, there is no success. Without Irving dead, neither of us gets paid. We are mercenaries, Graves. We do not have the luxury of choosing morals above our work.”
Mercenaries, yes. But at one time, he was more than that. Once, he would have been in the place of the youth with the familiar eyes, coming to the defense of a stranger because it was the honorable thing to do, throwing his lot in even to death to uphold the creeds he lived by. Had he become so callous that he would punish the son for the father’s misdeeds?
“Luxury?” he mused softly. “Nay, but the freedom to choose a hovel in honor above riches in disgrace. I will not do your work. Besides the innocent you seek to kill, you have cost three men their lives already, and mine would have been among them did I not have the skill to hold my own against Irving and his companions.”
One long stride took him to the corner of the room where his few things lay in a neat pile on top of his saddle—the only real thing of value beside his sword that he kept with him and was loath to yield to a stablehand at an inn. A worn piece of olden days, when he wore gilded spurs and his own crest, not the trappings of a wandering free lance.
What might he have been now had he returned to his friends then rather than turning his back on them? A grave, perhaps, but an honorable one. His life would be one that would have gladdened his wife’s heart even in her grief had she still lived, rather than the degeneracy he had followed for so many years since his return.
But that time was over now. He picked up the saddle and turned to speak to his employer just as the man’s knife whizzed past his ear, narrowly missing striking him.
He hardened his gaze on the wounded man. “Do not try such with me again. If you do not allow me to leave in peace, I will see to it that not only will you not have my aid, but I will also expose your purpose to the man you seek.”
Rage mottled the man’s face, but the knight turned his back, gathering his things and slipping outside. A weight seemed to slide off his back as he closed the door, like he was leaving burdens he’d forgotten he carried in the room behind.
He was free once more to go where he willed. But where was that after all this time? There was no hearth waiting for him if he returned to the place he once called home.
A Note from the Author
Long time no see! I’m back, dear readers and fellow Substackians. 2026 is just around the corner (and has already begun for some of you), and what better way to say farewell to 2025 than to finally release the long-awaited next chapter of Crumbling Castles? I fear this marks the beginning of the end of this serial novel. How long it will stick around, I cannot say, but our story begins to draw to a close from this point onward. Don’t mourn too much—there will be other tales to follow.
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Until next time,
Blessings!
~Lexi