Katek didn't make a sound until they were out of sight of the stones.

  He'd held himself like a man in the ring — chin up, shoulders square — but the moment the crowd thinned and the drum's thunder faded to a distant pulse, his legs started to betray him. Marlek got under his arm without asking, gripped hard and practically, and kept him moving. Each step sent fresh fire across Katek's back.

  Raku trailed behind, eyes wide and furious, like he wanted to fight the world and didn't know where to swing.

  "Don't," Teshar said over his shoulder, not breaking stride.

  Raku's mouth opened anyway.

  Teshar stopped walking. Just stopped. The sudden stillness made Raku check himself like he'd hit a wall.

  "You want to help?" Teshar asked quietly, his voice carrying an edge that cut deeper than a shout. "Then don't make another scene out of him."

  Raku swallowed, jaw working. He looked past Teshar at Katek's back — at the way his friend's shoulders hunched against the pain — as if he could will the marks away.

  Katek tried to laugh — a reflex, a shield — and it came out as a breathy little cough instead. He flinched at his own sound, embarrassed by the weakness of it.

  "I'm fine," he muttered, too quickly. The lie hung in the air between them.

  "No, you're not," Teshar said, and guided him away from the main lane, toward their windbreaks and the lower fires where the light was gentler.

  Siramae saw them coming and was already moving, her hands efficient as she cleared space. She didn't ask what happened. Her eyes did one fast sweep — Katek's posture, Marlek's set jaw, the way Raku's hands wouldn't settle — and she knew.

  "Sit," she said, and pointed at a folded hide near the fire's warmth.

  Katek hesitated, as if sitting meant admitting it hurt.

  Marlek didn't give him that choice. He pressed him down with a firm hand on the shoulder, then held a waterskin out without softening his face. The leather was still cool from the evening air.

  Katek drank, hands shaking, and that water ran down his chin. When he tried to hand it back, Siramae caught his wrist, her fingers gentle but firm.

  "Hold still," she said, voice calm as a healer's should be. "Let me see."

  She peeled the back of his tunic away with practised fingers. The fabric stuck where sweat and blood had begun to dry. The marks from the cane had already risen — five red lines with angry edges that looked like they'd been painted across his skin with a cruel brush. Katek's breath hitched when cold air touched them.

  Teshar crouched beside him, so Katek didn't have to tilt his head up to meet his eyes. Close enough that Katek could see the controlled fury there, held tight as a clenched fist.

  "You're going to be all right," Teshar said, making it sound like an order, not comfort. "You hear me?"

  Katek stared at the ground, then nodded once. The nod looked like it cost him every scrap of pride he had left.

  "I didn't mean it," Katek said, voice rough and small. "I— I was… I was stupid."

  "You were drunk," Teshar replied. Not cruel. Just accurate. "And you walked where you shouldn't."

  Katek's mouth tightened, shame colouring his features darker than the firelight.

  Teshar didn't let him spiral. He kept it simple, the way you'd speak to a wounded man who needed clarity more than sympathy. "You're alive. It's five, not twenty. You can live with shame. You can't live with twenty."

  Katek's eyes flicked up at that, wet and furious with himself. Furious that Teshar was right.

  Siramae pressed a warm cloth to the welts — wet and steaming from the pot she'd heated. Katek sucked in a breath through his teeth and forced it out slowly, like he was trying to remember how to be a man again.

  Raku shifted behind them, his shadow dancing against the windbreak. "It should've been me," he blurted, the words spilling out like he'd been holding them back since the stones.

  Teshar didn't even turn his head. "Go and bring more water," he said, his tone brooking no argument. "Two skins. And don't argue."

  Raku stood there for a heartbeat, offended by being given a task instead of permission to suffer alongside his friend.

  Then he went, disappearing into the growing dusk.

  The camp had quieted into that post-violence hush: people moved softly, voices were low, and they pretended they hadn't been shaken by what they'd witnessed. A couple of boys glanced over and looked away too late, caught staring. Yarla gave them a look as sharp as a blade edge that sent them scattering like startled birds.

  She came to stand near Siramae, arms folded, watching Katek with a tight mouth. Her gaze softened for half a second, then hardened again as if she resented herself for the weakness.

  Katek noticed. "I'm sorry," he said to her, small as a child's voice.

  Yarla's jaw worked, muscle jumping beneath the skin. She didn't give him comfort. She didn't give him cruelty either.

  She just breathed out once, sharp through her nose. "Not again."

  The words hung there — not quite forgiveness, not quite threat. Just a boundary, clearly marked.

  Marlek's eyes lifted to Teshar, warning sitting in his face without being spoken. This wasn't only about Katek. This was about eyes watching, stories being told, and power being measured. Vekarn had made a show, and shows had consequences.

  Teshar straightened and looked over the camp. Arulan's fires were still ordered, still calm. But the meadow beyond them was loud again — cheers and laughter carrying on the wind — and the sound felt wrong now. Like a celebration over fresh blood.

  A shout rose — a duel ring cheer, maybe, or drunken laughter that didn't care who'd bled today.

  The Council pretending it hadn't just bared its teeth.

  Raisa appeared from the far side of the windbreak, walking like she meant to be obeyed without raising her voice. Torek followed behind her, quiet and solid as stone, and Varek came last, his face already twisted with anger that looked for a target. Siramae's shoulders lifted a fraction as her husband arrived — not fear, not flinching. Recognition. Support. The silent language of those long married.

  Arulan stepped in with them, staff in hand, his gaze scanning Katek first, then the camp, then settling on Teshar with the weight of leadership behind it.

  "The poor boy," Arulan said, voice heavy. "Teshar, see to it that he has no cuts or infected wounds from the cane."

  Teshar dipped his head once, accepting the charge. "Siramae's on it."

  Siramae didn't look up from Katek's back, her hands never pausing in their work. "He'll keep his skin," she said, dabbing again with a cloth that came away pink. "If he stops moving."

  Katek held still like he'd been ordered by an elder, every muscle locked.

  Varek spat to the side, disgusted. He looked at Katek, then past him, as if his anger needed a bigger target than one foolish boy.

  "That lousy brat," Varek growled, though whether he meant Katek or someone else wasn't clear. "He needs to lay off that liquor. And who does Vekarn think he is?"

  Siramae's hands didn't stop working, but her voice sharpened as she answered him, eyes lifting now to meet her husband's gaze. "Varek is right. Vekarn needs to be put in his place and shown that he is just an elder like us."

  Raisa made a small sound — not quite a laugh, not quite approval. "Careful," she said, more to the air than to them, her voice carrying the practised caution of someone who'd survived politics longer than most. "Walls have ears at Council."

  Teshar glanced toward the meadow. Even here, you could feel it: eyes drifting, people listening for the next story to carry from fire to fire.

  Marlek stepped closer, voice low. He wasn't angry like Varek. He was worse — controlled, thinking three moves ahead.

  "I believe this is only the start of something more," Marlek said, measuring each word. "That man is too ambitious. We need to be ready and prepared for anything that could happen to us."

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Teshar nodded once, slow and deliberate. That was the shape of it. Vekarn wasn't done making his mark on Council.

  Then he said it, because if he didn't, they'd all dance around it until someone said something stupid and loud enough to get them all in trouble.

  "Listen, I'm telling you — have you not noticed the elders surrounding and boot-licking Vekarn? We can't let him amass power. I will not let that happen."

  Raisa's eyes slid to Arulan, checking him before she spoke — not fear, just respect for who held their camp together, who'd earned the right to lead.

  Arulan's reply was measured, but it carried the weight of someone used to being listened to. "He's showing the meadow he can punish and spare in the same breath," Arulan said, his staff tapping once against the ground. "That's all this was. Theatre."

  "That's enough," Varek snapped, his voice rising.

  Varek leaned forward as the fire itself had offended him. "He thinks he can stand there and decide who bleeds and who doesn't. Five strokes today — who's to say it won't be twenty tomorrow?"

  Teshar kept his voice steady, a counterweight to Varek's heat. "He can. That's what you need to understand. He has the power now."

  Varek's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you on about Laith and Aena?"

  Marlek didn't hesitate, his tone flat as a knife's edge.

  "And you're forgetting Waltar and Gismund. Which other elder do you know of that has four elders to do his bidding?"

  That landed.

  Even Raisa went still for a beat, letting the names sit in the air like stones dropped into still water.

  Arulan didn't argue the count. He only exhaled once, slow and through his nose. "Four elders," he repeated, as if tasting what that meant for winter, for survival, for the balance of power at Council.

  Siramae finished tying a strip of clean cloth across Katek's back, pulling it snug but not cruel. Katek flinched at the pull and forced his face blank, jaw clenched against the pain.

  Raisa looked down at him, then away, as if the sight made her uncomfortable. "If Vekarn is building a ring around himself," she said carefully, "we don't break our hands punching it."

  Varek scoffed, the sound dismissive and sharp. "So we do nothing?"

  Marlek answered before Teshar could, his voice cutting through the tension. "We don't do nothing," he said. "We do something that lasts. Something that makes people come to our fires for more than laughter and spears."

  He glanced at the stacked goods by Arulan's windbreak — the careful order of packs and hides, the organisation that spoke of planning beyond the next meal.

  "Pottery," Marlek said, the word landing like a proposal. "And tools. And anything else the others don't have. If Council is a place where people trade, then give them something they can't get from Vekarn."

  Raisa's mouth tightened like she was weighing the idea on scales only she could see. "That takes time," she said.

  "And hands," Arulan added, ever practical. "And you can't eat clay."

  Marlek didn't blink, didn't waver. "You can store grain. You can carry water without losing half of it. You can keep broth hot longer through the cold nights. You can make a band look like it's thinking past tomorrow — like it has a future worth joining."

  Teshar watched Arulan's face. Arulan didn't dismiss it. That alone mattered more than agreement.

  Torek had been quiet, listening the way he always did — like every word was something to be sorted and filed away for later use. When he finally spoke, his voice cut through without effort, calm as deep water.

  "No one is more skilled in archery than our bandsmen," Torek said, stating fact, not boasting. "Especially Naro. That boy has an eye like an eagle's."

  Raisa blinked at the sudden shift in direction.

  Teshar understood it immediately. Torek didn't argue with talk. He argued with outcomes, with what could be measured and proven.

  Torek continued, his calm unwavering. "We already have what scares men like Vekarn," he said. "Distance. Discipline. The ability to kill without stepping close enough to be admired for it."

  Varek snorted. "So we should shoot him?"

  Torek gave him a look that said: Don't be an idiot. Then he spoke to Arulan, not to Varek, directing his words to the only person whose opinion would shape what came next.

  "We don't have to stay here and feed his stories," Torek said simply. "We can leave early. Set up our summer camp while the ground's still hard enough to travel without mud dragging at the wagons. Get our people out before winter bites again."

  Siramae glanced up at that, her hands pausing. The idea appealed to her the way practical plans always did. Less crowd. Less trouble. Less drink flows like water.

  Raisa's eyes narrowed, thinking through implications. "Leaving early makes us look—"

  "Like we have a plan," Torek said simply, finishing her thought with a different ending. "Like we're not scrambling. Like we know where we're going."

  Arulan's staff tapped once against the ground. Not a command. A decision maker. The sound cut through the conversation like a blade.

  Raisa looked at him. Siramae looked at him. Even Varek held still, waiting for the word that would shape their next days.

  Arulan took a breath and said, "We don't pick a fight at Council unless we can finish it. We can't finish it here — not with eyes everywhere and boys drinking like fools who've never tasted liquor before."

  Varek's lips curled. "So we swallow it."

  "We move," Arulan corrected, his voice firm. "We keep our people alive. We pick our ground. We fight when and where we choose, not when Vekarn decides to make another example."

  Raisa nodded once, decisive. "I agree."

  Siramae's gaze flicked to Katek, then to Varek, then back to Arulan. "I agree," she said as well, her tone firm — supporting her husband's anger, but choosing the plan that kept their camp intact and their people breathing.

  That made it three.

  Varek opened his mouth like he might fight the verdict, challenge the consensus. Raisa's stare shut him down before he could speak, her eyes carrying the weight of too many years watching men make stupid choices.

  Marlek dipped his head, accepting the majority. "Then we start packing tonight," he said. "Quietly. No bragging. No talking about it by other fires where loose tongues can carry tales."

  Teshar felt the tension in his chest ease and sharpen at the same time. Leaving early solved one problem and created another: it admitted that Council belonged to Vekarn's story for now, that they were yielding ground.

  But it also meant they'd be gone before the story could grow teeth. Before Vekarn could use them for another demonstration.

  Arulan looked at Teshar, his gaze direct. "You keep the boys sober," he said. "And you keep them off the stones. No more mistakes."

  Teshar nodded. "I will."

  Varek muttered under his breath, still seething like coals that wouldn't cool. "He's going to think he won."

  Raisa answered him without turning her head, her voice carrying hard-earned wisdom. "Let him think."

  The fire popped, sending sparks spiralling into the darkening sky. The group began to disperse — Raisa to organise the packing, Torek toward the archers' corner to find Naro, Arulan to check supplies. Siramae gathered her medicines, her work with Katek done for now.

  Teshar watched Katek try to straighten again, pain flickering across his face before he masked it, trying to find some scrap of dignity in the wreckage of the day.

  Teshar crouched beside him once more, lowering his voice so only Katek heard, creating a bubble of privacy in the busy camp.

  "You're not finished," Teshar said. "You're embarrassed. That's different."

  Katek's eyes shone, angry and ashamed in equal measure. "I ruined—"

  "You got punished," Teshar cut in, not letting him spiral into self-pity. "And you lived. Now you learn. When the drink comes round again, you remember the cane before you remember the laugh."

  Katek nodded, small and fierce, the gesture of someone trying to rebuild themselves from broken pieces. "I will."

  Teshar stood, about to turn away, but something made him stay. The firelight caught the side of Katek's face, making him look younger than his years, and Teshar felt the weight of responsibility settle heavier on his shoulders.

  The camp had mostly cleared now, people moving to their tasks with purpose. It was just the two of them in this small pocket of space.

  Teshar sat back down, closer this time. When he spoke, his voice carried something different — not the authority of moments before, but something rawer, more personal.

  "Don't take this as me giving you another earful," Teshar began, his words careful, chosen with weight. "I see you as my little brother, Katek. Honestly." He paused, swallowing against the tightness in his throat. "And it pained me to see that man cane you five times, and all I could do was just stand by and watch."

  Katek's head came up sharply, surprise flickering across his features.

  Teshar pressed on, needing him to understand. "Men like Vekarn — you only encounter once in a lifetime. People like him are full of arrogance and see themselves above men. Above all of us."

  "I'm sorry," Katek said, his voice cracking slightly. "I just let go of myself without thinking about you guys. I... I don't know, Teshar." He looked down at his hands, fingers twisting together. "Vekarn was being merciful. He could've caned me twenty times. Who knows if I could have made it out able to walk?"

  Teshar's jaw tightened, anger flashing hot and quick. "He played you for a fool," he said, the words coming out harder than he'd intended. He softened his tone, but not the truth. "He was not being merciful at all. He used you for a show of power. Made an example so everyone would see what happens when you cross him — but kept you alive and walking so no one could say he was cruel."

  Katek stared at him, processing this.

  "Don't worry," Teshar continued, his voice dropping to something that carried the weight of a promise. "I won't let this man ruin our lives." He glanced toward the meadow, where Vekarn's fires burned brightest. "It's natural that people tend to gravitate towards charming leaders such as him."

  He turned back to Katek, eyes hard.

  "If only they knew."

  The words hung in the air between them, carrying all the things Teshar couldn't say outright — the dangers he saw coming, the careful game being played, the price of Vekarn's charm.

  Katek nodded slowly, understanding settling into his features alongside the pain and shame. "Thank you," he said quietly. "For... for seeing me that way. As your brother."

  Teshar clasped his shoulder, careful of the wounds beneath the cloth. "Always," he said simply.

  Outside the windbreak, the meadow noise rolled on — singing, cheering, the slap of feet in dance circles, the hunger for distraction from harder truths. The sound felt hollow now, knowing what fed it.

  Teshar stood and looked toward the stones in the distance. He couldn't see Vekarn from here, but he could feel the pull of that man's name, the way people would repeat it for warmth tonight, how the story would grow in the telling.

  Then he looked back at Arulan's ordered packs, at Siramae moving with quiet efficiency, at Raisa already barking instructions to two boys to start sorting loads, at Torek walking with purpose toward the archers' corner to find Naro.

  This was power, too.

  It just didn't clap for itself. Didn't need an audience. Didn't require blood on stone to prove its worth.

  Teshar helped Katek to his feet, steadying him when his legs wavered. "Come on," he said. "Let's get you somewhere you can lie on your stomach. You'll heal better that way."

  As they walked slowly toward the sleeping area, Teshar kept one hand ready to catch Katek if he stumbled. Behind them, the camp continued its quiet preparation for departure — a different kind of power moving in the shadows, patient and purposeful.

  The drums from the meadow beat on, but Teshar no longer heard them.

  He had work to do.