The mist clung thick to the lowlands, curling in the hollows of Y Tír like a beast settling into its den. Dinadan rode through it, Bracken's breath steaming in the cold air, the steady rhythm of hooves muffled by the damp.

  Ahead, the dark shape of Castell Raglan loomed against the gray sky. High walls, thick stone, built to withstand siege. Its banners should have been flying. Its gates should have stood open.

  Instead—nothing.

  The gates of Castell Raglan were shut. Not barred. Not chained. Just... closed.

  Dinadan swung from the saddle, boots striking hard against the frost-laced earth. No challenge came from the walls. No guard called his name. That was wrong.

  Dinadan dragged a hand down Bracken’s neck, fingers brushing over the tight cord of muscle beneath the coarse mane. The mule was rigid, ears pinned, nostrils flaring—sensing what Dinadan had not yet named.

  The beast knew before the man.

  "Aye, I feel it too."

  He stepped forward and pressed a palm against the gate. The wood was cold, and slick with mist.

  It should have groaned when he pushed. Should have resisted. Instead—it swung open without a sound.

  He stepped inside.

  A lord’s keep is never quiet.

  There should have been the clang of iron from the forge, the chatter of stable hands, the bark of hounds waiting for the morning scraps.

  There was nothing.

  A single torch burned near the entrance to the great hall, its flame guttering in the still air.

  Still. Not windless. Not dead.

  Just... waiting.

  Dinadan’s fingers hovered near the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw it.

  Steel was for men. Silence required different answers.

  "Well then," he said under his breath, tugging his cloak tighter. "Let’s see if the lord of this hall keeps to the old ways—hospitality first, or steel at the door."

  He climbed the steps to the great hall, boots echoing against the stone.

  He pushed the heavy doors open and stepped into silence.

  Dim firelight flickered against the high beams, stretching shadows too far. The hearth burned low, embers pulsing in the half-light. The high table stood untouched. Trenchers still set. Wine cups half-drunk. A loaf of bread gone hard at the edges. It had been left in the middle of a meal. Not abandoned in panic.

  Just left.

  A breath of wind stirred the flames in the sconces, making them gutter. Shadows rippled against the walls.

  And then he saw them.

  Figures.

  Not standing. Not sitting. Just there.

  At the edges of the hall, in the alcoves near the pillars. Men and women in their cloaks, their hoods drawn, their faces hidden.

  Watching.

  Dinadan did not move.

  Neither did they.

  The torchlight flickered again, stretching their shadows, turning them taller, longer, wrong.

  "I would have words with Lord Morys," he said, though the heavy stillness drank his voice whole.

  No one answered.

  But in the stillness of the hall, the quiet bent, stretched—not empty, but expectant.

  As if it had been holding its breath.

  No one moved.

  The fire popped in the hearth, sending up a brief lick of flame before settling again. The air in the hall did not stir. No whispers. No breath of wind. Only silence, dense and unyielding, pressed against the stone.

  Dinadan’s eyes swept over the figures—hooded, cloaked, standing too still.

  Not fearful. Not hesitant.

  Waiting.

  Dinadan, patience fraying like a blade honed to its limit, tried again. His voice laden with expectation. "Lord Morys. I’ve not the time nor the mood for shadows—where is he?"

  A shift. A stir, so slight he might have imagined it.

  Then, movement.

  One of the figures—a woman, by the shape of her shoulders—stepped forward. Slow. Deliberate.

  But she did not lift her hood.

  She did not speak.

  Instead, she raised a hand and pointed.

  Not at him. Past him.

  Dinadan did not turn.

  Because that would have been too easy.

  "Ye were expected," the woman said, her voice thin as breath.

  A breath passed.

  Another.

  The woman’s words still hung in the air, too thin, too certain.

  He tilted his head. "Expected, was I?"

  The woman did not answer.

  Neither did the others.

  That was answer enough.

  He had heard men lie before. Heard them stumble over their tongues, grasping for words that would not condemn them.

  This was not that. This was certainty.

  Dinadan rubbed the back of his neck. The shard of Y Tír was pressing against him now, heavy against the folds beneath his cloak.

  Dinadan’s eyes flicked over the dim hall, carrying the weariness of a man long used to disappointment. "Would I be askin’ too much for a scrap of bread while I linger? A draught of ale, mayhap? No? Only hard eyes and silence. A welcome fit for a cursed man."

  Nothing.

  "Right, then." His voice held its usual wry edge, but his eyes were keen. "If I was expected, I’d wager Lord Morys knew it too. And yet, here I stand, talkin’ to shadows."

  Silence.

  Then—another shift.

  Not from the woman.

  From somewhere beyond the hall. A slow creak of wood.

  A door opening.

  Dinadan turned his head, just enough to catch the movement.

  The woman lowered her hand.

  "You should see him."

  Her voice was quieter now. But not softer.

  He sucked in the silence, slow and deep, before stepping deeper into it. He did not look at the spectral figures again.

  They did not follow.

  They did not need to.

  His boots scuffed against the floor as he walked, each step a quiet intrusion into the hush. This was not the emptiness of an abandoned place.

  This was silence waiting to be broken.

  A final turn.

  A heavy wooden door.

  Not locked. Not barred. But closed.

  Dinadan reached for the handle, fingers curling over the worn iron and pushed the door open.

  And there, in the dim firelight, sat Lord Morys, unmoving in the high-backed chair. Not slouched. Not stiff. Just… placed. His hands rested on the armrests, fingers unfurled, as though he hadn’t quite decided whether to hold on or let go.

  His eyes were open.

  Watching.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Waiting.

  Morys was not dead.

  But he did not move like a man alive.

  Dinadan’s eyes swept the chamber—not searching, but gathering. There were no signs of struggle, no overturned chairs, no shattered goblets. Nothing to suggest a man was taken or trapped.

  And yet—he had been kept.

  His clothes were neat, his beard trimmed. Someone had tended to him. Someone had made sure he remained.

  Dinadan pushed off the door frame and crossed the room in slow, measured strides, letting his boots scuff against the stone. A sound. A reminder that noise still had a place in the world.

  He pulled a chair forward, dragging the legs over the floor.

  He did not sit. Not yet.

  Instead, he leaned against the back of the chair, studying the lord as the lord studied him.

  "I was sent to listen, my lord." His voice was low, even. Measured. "But a man cannot heed what is never spoken."

  A pause.

  And Morys blinked.

  Once.

  It was such a small thing. A simple thing.

  And yet, it should not have made Dinadan’s stomach coil the way it did.

  He tilted his head, letting out a long, careful sigh. "Ah. Well. That sets the wyrm’s teeth on edge."

  Another blink.

  And, beyond the hall, footsteps.

  Slow. Measured. Approaching.

  Not hurried. Not hesitant.

  Just… coming.

  Dinadan did not move.

  But Morys’ gaze flicked past him.

  Toward the door.

  A change flickered in the lord’s eyes—brief, but unmistakable.

  A glimmer of fear, sharp and unbidden.

  Dinadan did not turn. He had learned long ago those who wished to be feared often demanded to be seen.

  Better to let them close the distance on their terms. Let them reveal themselves before offering the courtesy of acknowledgment.

  Morys had no such patience.

  His fingers—motionless until now—curled against the chair’s armrest. His throat worked, but no sound came.

  A man caught between speaking and swallowing the same words that might save him.

  The footsteps stopped. Only then did Dinadan turn.

  A man stood in the doorway. No banners marked his station. No sigil stitched into his cloak. But he carried himself like one who had not been denied in years. His eyes, however, were untouched by age—sharp, pale, unwavering.

  Dinadan did not move. But the lord of Castell Raglan pressed himself deeper into the chair, as though the wood could shield him.

  "Morys," the man said.

  Morys flinched.

  Dinadan tapped his fingers against the chair. "I’d ask for an introduction, but it seems the two of you have already shared more than a passing word."

  "Aye."

  The fire burned low.

  Then, it flickered.

  Morys moved.

  Not to rise. Not to greet.

  To pull away.

  The newcomer had not offered a name.

  And that, more than his presence, was what put Dinadan on guard. A man without a name was either a fool or far worse.

  Well. That was unfortunate. Because Dinadan had never been fond of fools, and he had no patience for the latter.

  Dinadan lounged against the chair, all easy arrogance. "Since names are scarce, let’s play a game."

  He clicked his tongue. "Too polished for a steward, too fed for a monk, too fine for a lost wanderer. Not a swordsman. Not a scribe." A slow, measured exhale. "Yet here you stand, and Morys looks fit to bolt."

  Silence. Morys’ knuckles whitened.

  That was enough.

  Dinadan tapped the chair. "Not a knight. Not a scholar. Not a servant."

  He gave a long, exaggerated sigh. "That leaves the most interesting kind of man."

  The man tilted his head. "Ye talk too much."

  "Aye, well." Dinadan stretched. "Some of us still have tongues to use."

  Morys flinched.

  A full-body recoil, like a man who had been struck—though no hand had touched him.

  Dinadan did not miss it.

  The man sighed, shaking his head. Not angered. Not amused. Just… conceding.

  "Ye may call me Anwir."

  Dinadan’s smile did not fade.

  But inside, he did not like that name.

  It fit too well in the mouth. Slid into place with ease.

  A name given, but not a name true.

  He leaned back just so, letting the weight of the moment shift. “Well, Anwir. Shall I take it Lord Morys is your honored guest?”

  Morys’ breath caught.

  Anwir smiled, the expression easy but unreadable. “Ye’re free to assume as you will, Sir Dinadan.”

  Dinadan let his eyes drag back, slow and deliberate. “I am beginning to wonder,” he murmured, “if this silence is not of Morys’ own making.”

  Anwir did not answer.

  He did not have to.

  Because Morys had pushed himself back, hands now gripping the chair like a man grasping the edge of a sheer drop.

  "What is it you've wrought?" Dinadan asked, though his words were not for Morys.

  Anwir did not answer. But he did tilt his head, as if considering the weight of the question.

  "A kingdom does not hold its tongue."

  But Morys did.

  And his silence was not the absence of words.

  It was pressed into the man.

  There was a time for questions. A time for dragging the truth out of a man’s throat, no matter how raw it left him.

  This was not that time.

  He turned back to Anwir.

  "It seems my lord Morys has taken a sudden vow of silence." Dinadan dusted off his hands, his tone light, almost amused. "Which means, I suppose, I’ll have to find my answers elsewhere."

  A pause.

  Then Anwir smiled.

  “Then by all means, Sir Dinadan,” Anwir said, his tone smooth as still water, offering nothing and everything at once.

  He stepped aside, just enough to clear the doorway.

  "Listen well."

  The gates of Castell Raglan closed behind him with no fanfare. The doors swung shut, silent and smooth as if the castle itself had grown weary of his presence.

  Dinadan let out a slow breath, letting the rhythm of the road settle in his bones. He had two more halls to visit, two more lords to hear, two more silences to break.

  The wind bore the ghost of old fire as Dinadan rode on, Bracken’s hooves striking hard against the road. The trees thinned, the land yawned wide, and there, etched against the slate-gray sky—stood Cwmbran.

  The palisade had been devoured by flame. Some beams stood in jagged defiance, too burned to collapse, too broken to hold. Others had crumbled to blackened heaps. The gates were open.

  Not shattered. Not forced.

  Just… open.

  Dinadan reined in at the threshold. No guards. No bodies. No movement.

  Not like Castell Raglan. That keep had been silent, but whole. This was different. A place stripped bare, left to settle into its ruin.

  He walked forward, leaving Bracken at the gate. The wind coiled through the courtyard, curling through broken beams and hollow doorways.

  The great doors of the keep stood open, warped by heat but not broken. He stepped through them without hesitation.

  The fire had touched the rafters, left soot clinging to the stone, but the hall still stood. Unmanned. Unmended. Unclaimed.

  The long tables remained, not overturned, not abandoned mid-meal—just left.

  There had been no effort to restore anything. No servants clearing wreckage, no signs of a struggle fought and lost.

  Just absence.

  And then—a sound. Soft. Not more than the shift of weight against wood.

  Dinadan turned his head.

  At the far end of the hall, in the high-backed chair beneath the scorched crest of his house, sat Lord Cadoc.

  He was not like Morys.

  He was not waiting.

  He was not watching.

  He was just there.

  A man who had not left, but had been left behind.

  "My lord," Dinadan said.

  No response.

  No twitch of the fingers. No shift in the shoulders. As still as the ruined hall around him.

  Dinadan sighed, tilting his head. "If you're set on ignoring me, fair warning—I’ve a talent for wearing down men who'd rather be left in peace."

  Still, nothing.

  He stepped closer. Close enough to see the man’s hollowed eyes, the deep lines carved into his face. His clothes were neat, his hair unshorn, but only because grief does not unmake a man the way hunger does.

  It unravels him slower.

  "The fire did not take you." Dinadan let his gaze sweep the ruined hall. "Did it take the others?"

  A breath. Shallow. Uneven.

  Cadoc’s fingers twitched, then clenched—not in anger, but as if trying to catch the fragments of a fading memory.

  Dinadan frowned, his tone edged with quiet warning. "If you will not speak, I’ll be left to draw my own conclusions. And I’ve a knack for finding the most unpleasant ones."

  Cadoc’s breath left him in a shudder. His throat worked. Still, no words.

  Just a low, cracking sound.

  Dinadan stilled.

  His breath hitched—a sharp, broken sound, not meant for another man’s ears.

  And —he broke.

  He folded inward, shoulders shaking, hands gripping the arms of his chair as though he could steady himself against the weight of his own despair. The sound he made was not a word, not a name—just raw, cracking grief.

  Dinadan's jaw tightened.

  He had spoken to men who feared for their lives, their families, their honor. To men who had faced the ruin of everything they’d built.

  But he had never spoken to a man who had already lost.

  And he did not know what to do with it.

  "Right, then," he murmured. Not to Cadoc. To himself.

  He had come for answers. But what was left of Lord Cadoc had none to give.

  Dinadan lingered.

  It was not hesitation. Hesitation implied there was a choice to be made, a right course of action waiting to be taken.

  There wasn’t one.

  Lord Cadoc sat where he had collapsed into himself, breath unsteady, grief rippling through him in silent waves. Not a man who had broken in this moment, but one who had been breaking for too long.

  Dinadan had nothing for him.

  No words. No comfort.

  No way to mend a thing already shattered.

  "I cannot help a man who does not speak," he told himself, turning away.

  The road stretched on. One hall still waited. One lord still needed to be found.

  This was why he had come.

  This was what Uther had asked of him.

  And yet, as he swung himself into the saddle, his mind did not leave Cwmbran behind in the same way his body did.

  Cadoc would still be sitting there when he was gone.

  Still lost. Still breaking.

  Dinadan gripped the reins tighter than he needed to."Fate take me, this is a cursed road."

  The path to Caerwent waited.

  And so, he rode.

  Caerwent’s gates were shut.

  Not barred. Not fortified.

  Just closed.

  Even Castell Raglan, even Cwmbran—they had let him in.

  But Caerwent had shut its doors.

  Dinadan dismounted, pressing his hand to the wood. It was whole. No cracks. No siege.

  Still, the doors did not open without effort. The hinges groaned. Not from disrepair—but as if the hall itself resisted.

  Dinadan stepped into the courtyard.

  And it was not empty.

  The horses stood in their stalls, well-fed, their coats brushed. Barrels at the well were full, not left to dry and crack in the cold. A neat stack of firewood rested beside the kitchen door, ready for a fire that had never been lit.

  Everything in its place. Except the people.

  Dinadan scanned the yard.

  The hall doors stood open. No torches burned, but the high windows let in just enough light to see inside.

  And he saw him.

  Lord Owain. Seated at the high table. Back straight. Hands folded before him.

  Not like Cadoc.

  Not collapsed.

  Not grieving.

  Just… still.

  "Twice now, I have ridden into halls unannounced and met with nothing but silence," Dinadan said. "A man might think he's lost his charm."

  Owain did not answer.

  Did not blink.

  Did not breathe. Not in the way a man should.

  Dinadan’s fingers flexed at his sides. "My lord," he said.

  And—

  Owa took a labored breath.

  Long. Slow.

  Too slow.

  And when he spoke, it came out in a whisper.

  "Too late."

  Dinadan stilled. "What is too late?"

  Owain’s lips parted again, his throat working, his chest rising—each breath a thing dragged from deep within.

  His voice rose above the hush.

  "We waited."

  The words were thin, stretched over too much time.

  "Waited for what?"

  A longer pause.

  Owain’s fingers twitched.

  His gaze drifted—not to Dinadan, but to the empty chair beside him.

  Dinadan frowned. "Whose shadow did you wait to see?"

  Owain’s lips moved. No sound.

  Then, just more than a breath—

  "Him."

  It was not the word itself, but the way he said it.

  No hesitation. No need for explanation.

  As if there was no other answer.

  Dinadan followed his gaze to the empty chair.

  "You'll have to sharpen the telling, fy arglwydd," Dinadan murmured. "Whose steps did you wait to hear?"

  Owain turned again—slow, too slow.

  And, in the same hollow voice—

  "Our brenin. Our king."

  The words did not echo.

  Dinadan’s jaw tightened. "King Uther?"

  He let the silence hang before speaking again, voice steady. "Uther sent me."

  The words should have carried weight.

  They didn’t.

  Owain’s fingers twitched—the first sign of movement since Dinadan had stepped into the hall.

  "Nay," he murmured. "He is not my king."

  Owain took a breath.

  A breath that pulled him back into himself.

  Dinadan's gaze did not falter.

  "What was done here, Owain?"

  Silence stretched between them.

  Then, the truth unwound itself, thread by thread, heavy as a noose tightening with each word.

  Owain had sent word to King Uther when the first shadows stirred along his borders—when riders vanished between one village and the next, their horses found wandering but their saddles empty.

  He had sent word when the roads grew hungry, swallowing travelers whole, leaving only the whisper of boot prints in the mud, fading like breath on glass.

  Still, no answer.

  He had sent word again when the silence came, creeping into the marches like a living thing, slithering through the hills and halls, snuffing out voices one by one.

  The torches still burned, the hearths still smoldered, but the laughter, the quarrels, the clatter of cups—gone, as if stolen in the night.

  And still, Uther had not answered.

  No messengers had come.

  No knights.

  No banners.

  Nothing.

  "You believe Uther cast you aside," Dinadan said, his voice quiet, but edged like a blade left in the cold.

  Owain did not answer.

  Because he did not need to.

  Dinadan had seen this silence before.

  Not the silence of fear.

  Not the silence of grief.

  The silence of a man who no longer believed in anything.

  And that was worse.

  "Your king has not turned from you, Owain."

  The words should have felt true.

  They didn’t.

  Because Dinadan did not know if they were.