Garrian pulled his superior up from the chair her was sitting in by his collar. The pompously dressed man, with no athleticism to speak of, only just managed to keep his footing when Garrian pushed against his chest.

Though the heavy kick to his gut sent him sprawling across the ground, rolling limply up against the filthy cellar’s stone floors.

“Garrian–” The other man in the room, the one who had so easily twisted Illias’ allegiances piped up to speak, but Garrian wouldn’t have it. He turned a set of blazing eyes on the man, even Garrian himself was surprised at just how enraged he was.

“Shut up.” Garrian’s eyes connected with Maximilian’s for a moment, and while he hardly seemed all that perturbed by the command, he sit back slightly honouring the command.

“Garrian, what are you doing?” The whelp of a man on the floor gasped, scrabbling backwards from Garrian’s own much taller and much more muscled form.

“You want to betray the Empire, Traniel? After all you’ve done to me?” Illias recoiled on the ground, as if he were burnt by the burning words. Garrian looked down on Illias, watching as the beautiful robes and clothing were smeared with grime, the man’s lily-white skin marred with an angry scrape on his chin, and his blonde hair thrown into disarray as dirt and other detritus had tangled themselves in it.

“Done to you?” The man asked back incredulously, though he wilted as he saw the explosion of rage on Garrian’s face.

“Don’t play a fool Illias, you bought me! You could have let me live my life in that damn cell, and in ten years I could leave, but you bought me, you bastard!”

“You were going to be bought anyways! Lucky it was me rather than–” The strike against Illias’ face was so viscerally satisfying to Garrian. He’d had to follow this dreg of a human being, cutting apart far too many people for political convenience. He was a warrior of Daylight, not a mercenary. Or at least he used to be.

“Don’t you dare.” The words were cold, a different kind of anger filling Garrian as he found that his hand had wandered onto his sword’s hilt as was pulling it out of its sheath.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have committed your crimes then, Garrian!” Illias snarled, though the remark came off as weak. Garrian could feel any symbol of rage leaving his expression, instead filling it with a stone-cold heart.

“You have no idea what my ‘crimes’ were, do you? You know all the merits and the training, like a product description, but you still haven’t bothered to even look into it have you?” The look of terror on the man’s face as Garrian slowly revealed his metal almost seemed to leech power into Garrian’s bones, goading him into lording over the man who’d done as much to him.

“Of course I did!” Illias said, his eyes fixed on the blade in Garrian’s grip as he tried to press himself into the wall, “What am I supposed to do when the Church tells me that it’s a matter of ‘internal importance’?”

Garrian let the two words roll over his tongue idly as his mind delved into the deep and dark memories, the memory of a particularly cold night and an extended hand he’d rejected.

“A matter of internal importance.” He repeated finally, cold eyes boring into the man in front of him, “To reject a Shadow Walker’s training would be sufficient, don’t you think?”

Illias’ expression paled even further, going an ashy grey that you could only truly see on a man when they knew they were going to die.

“What? I–”

“You didn’t know. Of course you didn’t, because you’re an imbecile and everyone thinks so.” Garrian laughed harshly, his hands shaking with the want to plunge his sword into the man’s chest, “Your father sent you out here because he thought you’d manage to get yourself assassinated if you stayed in the Empire, and you think the ‘bandits’ we encountered on the way to this cesspool were a coincidence? It was your brothers, you fool.”

Each new word was a decisive drum against which Garrian beat, the noise echoing throughout the room as he bellowed into the man’s face. The words that had been hanging over his heart for so long were finally vocalised.

“Good Gods, is he really that dull?” A new voice cut in, reminding Garrian that the room had another inhabitant with a start. Garrian turned his cold fury on the other man looking him over intently.

Maximilian Avenforth still sat just as he had not minutes before, totally undisturbed by the sight of a man about ready to slit another’s throat. The man was dressed elegantly with clothing almost reminiscent of Garrian’s own military garb, though far finer than what the military would give to any but the highest of ranking personnel. His slightly longer brown hair coincided with his similarly brown eyes, and the slight dusting of facial hair was directly dichotomous with the formality of his dress.

Maximilian raised an eyebrow amusedly at the enraged Garrian, “What? Is a man not allowed to interrupt a murder when he sees the beginning of one?”

The simple words almost shocked Garrian with their starkness. The man almost seemed entirely detached from the situation itself. It was then the Garrian realised that they were being played like an instrument.

“You.” Garrian said, his words boiling with the heat of his anger at once again being used as a tool, just another pawn.

“Me.” The man replied easily, but once again with little respect to the gravity of the situation around him. “You know that you can’t kill him, right?” Garrian stopped, hand clenching around his sword’s hilt more powerfully than it ever had before.

Of course, the flippant man was right. Killing Illias Traniel would be a disaster in the making. The news of his death would come fast, especially with how frequently he and the Bel-Far Conglomerate communicated. With confirmation of his death, the clear culprit would be his subordinate, and they would hardly care to investigate too hard, especially not when his death would come with so little political importance to the rest of the Conglomerate.

Garrian would be made an example of, and Illias’ death would be a spectacle used to dissuade an uprising. Garrian wouldn’t even be surprised if the cold and callous Rayfar Traniel would send a Shadow Walker just to slaughter him, to send another important political message to the world.

An eye for your life, a tooth for your family’s.

That didn’t mean that Garrian’s hate wouldn’t spend itself on trying to bore a hole through the flippant man’s head, however.

“As soon as you jam a sword into his just, your life may as well be over, Garrian. You need a better solution.” Garrian growled at the man deeply, the powerful muscles in his jaw bulging with intensity.

“And you’re here to give me one?” Maximilian shrugged off the man’s accusatory words, smiling casually at the seething man.

“I wasn’t. In fact, I was only here for information about the Shadow Walkers. I could have cared less about Illias, aside from his inevitable involvement in what I have in the works. But now the plan has changed, if you want a part in it that is.”

Garrian snorted derisively, teeth grinding, “You just want me to court death under another master.”

“That isn’t fair, Garrian.” The other man’s voice went flat, his eyes warning, “I’m not offering you slavery under another master, I’m offering you a part in a plan that might just earn you a little freedom from your bonds.”

“And by doing so I’ll be putting myself in more danger than just dying.” Maximilian nodded, his hair swaying gently as his did so.

“Indeed you will.” The man rose from his seat, showing off his almost impressive height, one that Garrian only just managed to rival within a few inches. The man didn’t walk so close to Garrian for it to be a challenge, but as his tasteful leather shoes clicked across the filthy stone of the cellar’s floor, Garrian found a strange intimidation in the man’s form. He walked like a warrior, talked like a politician, dressed like his military superiors, and held a secret power, one that even Garrian could feel gently radiating off of him like warmth from a campfire.

“I’m sure that it will be one of the more dangerous endeavours you’ll participate in throughout your life. If you stop with this, that is.” Maximilian stood just a metre away from Garrian now, his brown eyes searching Garrian’s own for something.

“On with it, then.” Garrian said after a long moment of semi-lucid contemplation through the haze of anger and injustice. The man nodded, looking over to Illias who was still sprawled out on the floor and letting his gaze travel between the two that now inadvertently held his fate in their hands.

“Simply, you’ll be my contact and Illias will be a puppet.” Illias squawked with the start of an indignant tirade, but Garrian shut him up with a glare.

“And how, exactly, do you think I’ll even be able to pull that off?”

“You’re standing right next to the man however many hours of the day, you have all the dirty secrets you could get, you even seem to have an actual understanding of the politics around his family, at least one that’s better than whatever he’s got.” Maximilian waved a hand dismissively to the man who now laid on the ground, covered in grime instead of on his little high horse.

“I said that I’d do what you want!” Illias managed to squeak, though the layer of cold sweat reappeared as soon as both Maximilian and Garrian turned to stare at him.

“And I don’t trust you. I’d sooner trust a man who has somehow managed to restrain himself from killing you for Gods know how long.” Maximilian ignored the drivel that Illias began to spout, turning back to Garrian.

“Other than that, I’ll be backing you any way that I can. I’ll hold on to any sensitive information, and if I can’t get a hold of you, then it all somehow finds its way to the public eye. I don’t have much of a framework set up just yet, but it won’t take long, I assure you.”

“And why should I trust you?” Garrian said pointedly, his face morphing into one confused between anger and dubiousness.

“Good question.” Maximilian said easily, but shrugged, “No earth-shattering reason, really. Other than you actually managing to live a few days after this little incident. That is, unless the clown is satisfied with mutual suicide.”

Garrian’s mind began to whir furiously, trying to both find reasons to ally himself with the man, and also reasons not to do so. If he did, he’d be risking everything, but just having this conversation was damning enough so he was already in the thick of it. He could run away, but that had never ended well for any of the others that’d done so. The Conglomerate weren’t kind to runaways, and they’d use their reach and their money to incentivise his ‘return’.

The verdict was coming up clear, but even so, Garrian was hesitant. He might be angry, and have every inclination to be his damnable superior’s handler, knowing the good that he could do with the sort of power and influence that Illias and his family name held, even within the Empire itself.

But what would that influence be used for?

“You’re hesitant.” The other man said calmly, reading into Garrian’s expression explicitly, “You have every right to be. Your life as you know it is going to change so severely that you might just get swept up under the tide and never resurface. But I think that will be the same for many others, very soon.” Garrian looked into the other man’s eyes and found a small fleck of fire in them, enchantingly captivating in the way it moved within the great pools of his eyes.

“There are things peering over the horizon that will only get closer and closer until it’s upon us. Between now and then, things have to change, and it begins with us.” Maximilian Avenforth shifted forwards slightly, placing a warm and heavy hand on Gillian’s shoulder, pulling in right next to his ear and whispering a little collection of words.

“It all begins with an unavoidable insurrection.”

When Maximilian pulled back, Garrian managed to catch a single glimpse of his eyes as he did, glowing strongly with a power so definite that it found its own place within Garrian’s memories for what would be forever.

The glow disappeared in a moment, leaving Garrian wondering if it had merely been a trick of the light, yet Maximilian smiled a knowing one as he caught Garrian’s confused gaze.

Garrian sighed, wondering what thread of fate he’d pulled on to have his life fall down such an odd and mysterious path, but as he stood in front of what he could only assume was a truly blessed man, he found himself unable to resist from saying his next words.

“Let’s do it, sir.”