"Get lost, we're closed!" A low growl came from the man manning the counter of the tavern. He looked like the kind who had quite the temper.
Thorne—as the village knew him—stood behind the scarred oak bar. His beard was a thick, grey thicket, mirroring the hair on his head, and his eyes, usually narrowed against the smoke of the fireplace, were wide and fierce.
In front of him stood three men who didn't belong in a mud-caked border town. They wore platinum-grade plate armor, polished to such a high sheen that the flickering candles reflected off their breastplates like stars. They looked like gods descended into a pigsty.
In other words, they didn't belong here.
"We seek the man who runs this establishment," the lead knight said, his voice echoing inside his helmet. "We have word of a traveler—"
"I don't care if you have word from the Heavens," Thorne interrupted, slamming a heavy pewter mug onto the counter, the sound was like a hammer on an anvil. "Sun's down. Bar's shut. Get out before I personally toss you into the trough."
The knights bristled, hands hovered over his sword's hilts that cost more than the tavern itself. It looked like they wanted to draw their sword, condemning him for his insolence, but there was something about the way Thorne held his stance—legs braced, eyes tracking all three of them at once and arms folded—that made them hesitate.
They eventually turned, the clank of their retreat sounding like a funeral march.
"Tut, just more riffraff come to stir up trouble," Thorn spat out, his face grimacing as he watched them match out.
He looked at the rest of the customers who were looking quite puzzled and he yelled.
"If you're done with your drinks, get your asses out of here before I kick you out as well!"
His words slammed heavily on them and they turned to mind their business.
Behind the kegs, tucked away in the narrow space between the pantry and the cellar stairs, fourteen-year-old Elian watched the entire exchange with a racing heart. He had blonde hair and blue eyes that were bright with curiosity.
'Riffraff,' his father had called them. But Elian wasn't a fool.
He looked at the dust empty entrance where the knights had come and gone. He had spent his life cleaning this bar, scrubbing the grime left behind by mercenaries and farmers, and even that of street thugs that came to make trouble. He knew what 'riffraff' looked like—they didn't wear metal that looked like it would cost a kingdom's ransom.
'Why is he lying?' Elian thought, his fingers tracing the rough grain of a wooden crate. 'And why are his hands shaking?'
It was subtle—almost invisible—but as Thorne turned away from the door, Elian saw it. His father's fingers were trembling. Not with fear, but with a suppressed, violent energy he couldn't make sense of.
Thorne's gaze suddenly snapped to the corner as if he had sensed Elian without needing his eyes.
"Boy. Out, now."
The boy stepped into the light, trying to keep his face a mask of boredom. Thorne walked over, the heavy thud of his boots feeling more ominous than usual. He placed his calloused hand on Elian's shoulder.
"If you see those men again," Thorne said, his voice dropping to a whisper that chilled the boy's blood, "...you don't speak. You don't look them in the eye. You come to me. I'll toss 'em out before they bring the kind of trouble this roof can't hold."
"They had swords, Da," Elian said, his voice cracking slightly. "Swords with white hilts. I've never seen steel like that around here."
Thorne's grip tightened on his shoulder for a second.
"Just do what I tell ya, boy. Do not cross paths with 'em."
He said these last few words before he let go and walked toward the stairs, heading up for his back study.
Elian watched his father's back and then back to the lingering dust in the air of the entrance.
He couldn't make sense of his father's actions or why he felt so tense.
It couldn't be that his father was actually a criminal who was in hiding, could it?
He always wondered why his father had so many sword marks over his body, like he had been born as the king of mercenaries and not one that manned a bar.
As the draw grew thin and Elian was left alone in the dimming bar, he felt a strange heat rising in his chest. It wasn't just curiosity battling in his mind anymore, it was a physical pull.
He looked at the door and then up at the study where his father had disappeared.
'Bread on the table. Soup in the bowl. Shelter for the winter.'
Elian had learned, over the years, that these were the things his father counted as blessings. Proof of a life kept small and safe. A simple, quiet life.
But as Elian looked down at his own hands, he saw his pulse jumping at his wrists.
He didn't want to be a barkeep. And he knew, with a sudden, terrifying certainty, that his father wasn't always one either.
He had lived a violent life—whatever he was doing—warranting the scars all over his frame.
That was something that always fascinated Elian and thrilled him. He wished to live an adventurous life, but he was still too young to bring it up to his father.
He would've waited a year more when he was considered an adult to bring it up but this incident happened and his heart burned with curiosity.
Elian waited until the last customer left before he could let out the breath he was holding in.
The tavern was silent now, save for the dying hiss of the fireplace and the groan of the settling timber.
He didn't head for his room. Instead, he turned toward the study.
His father always kept that door locked, claiming it was where he kept the ledgers and the "boring business of survival." But Elian had noticed the way Thorne's eyes lingered on that door whenever the wind howled too loudly, or when a stranger lingered a bit too long at the bar.
'I can't help but feel he's hiding something interesting in there.' Elian thought. 'Maybe proof of his previous adventures.'
The lock was old, and Elian had quick fingers, a skill he picked up from one of the bigger kids he gave a steady supply of bread. With a bit of grease and a steady hand, he undid the old lock and slipped inside.
Elian stood at the door, taking in the look of the study. His father was right. There was just boring business stuff in there. Books to the right, books on the desk and books on the floor.
Thanks to that, the room smelled of old parchment, cedar, and something sharp of whetstone and oil.
He ignored the desk, his eyes drawn to the tall, narrow wardrobe in the corner that was not one of the boring business stuff. It was hidden behind a heavy wool curtain.
He stood in front of this covered wardrobe and wondered if there were more ledgers hidden in there.
When he pulled the curtain back, his breath hitched.
It wasn't a ledger. It was a suit of plate armor, mounted on a wooden frame. It wasn't the shiny, decorative platinum of the knights outside; it was darker, a tempered charcoal steel that seemed to absorb the dim light.
It was scarred with deep gouges—tales of battles that shouldn't belong to a man who sold ale for copper.
But it wasn't the sheer sight of the hammer that took Elian's breath away, it was what lay at the base of the armor that made his heart hammer against his ribs.
A long object, wrapped tightly in heavy, oil-soaked cloth.
Elian reached out almost instinctively, his fingers trembling. As he unwound the fabric, the scent of high-grade oil filled his nose. The hilt was simple but perfect, wrapped in worn black leather that felt warm to the touch. He gripped it and then, as if possessed, pulled.
The blade emerged with a faint, musical ring, a glint that made everything else around seen dirt cheap. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.
'Is this who he is?' Elian wondered, but the weight of the sword suddenly pulled his arms down.
The tip of the blade dug into the wooden floorboard but that was the least of Elian's concerns as more questions circled around him.
'Was he one of them? Or was he a man who killed them?'
His heart thumped more harder than before, adrenaline rushing through his veins at the mere feeling of holding a sword.
He didn't know what it meant, he didn't know why he was reacting to the sword.
He tried to lift the sword to his shoulder, mimicking the stance of the knights he'd seen in the square. But immediately, the reality of the steel hit him. It wasn't just heavy; it was a living burden.
His biceps squeezed in at the foreign weight, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
'How do they swing this like it's a branch?'
The tip of the blade dipped every time he tried to lift it, trembling just an inch above the floorboards.
Elian's shoulder felt like it was being pulled from its socket. He gritted his teeth, his face flushing red. He tried to adjust his posture, shifting his weight to his back leg the way he'd seen his father do when he moved heavy kegs, trying to find a center of gravity that didn't exist for him yet.
He finally stopped, letting the tip dig into the floorboard, panting and sweating already.
He let out a few huffs and then looked at his reflection in the chime of the sword.
'What else are you hiding, Da?'