⌌⊱⇱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰⌍

nineteen

Nobody knew anything about the assassin himself. They didn't know where he was from, or what his strange name meant. They didn't know why he rarely spoke, or where he went when he disappeared for months at a time.

But they knew his work. Throats slit in the dead of night. Knights cut down where they stood. Entire groups of bandits or soldiers found slaughtered, not a single enemy casualty among them. There was only one assassin in Albion who worked with that kind of deadly efficiency.

He had magic, but that wasn't the scariest thing about him. The scariest thing about him was how he wielded a blade as though it were weightless, as though it were another limb. That was what most people called him, actually. The Blade.

If you were brave enough to ask the man himself, he might have told you he found the moniker a little silly. But it gave him an air of mystery that only increased demand for his services. So Technoblade didn't correct people, and he rarely gave them his full name. He just sharpened his weapons, tended to his small farm, and waited for the next job.

He had helped the Circle at various times over the last few years. He supposed it should have mattered that the Circle was allegedly on his side, making it less risky to be a magic user, but he didn't really care. Mainly, he kept helping the Circle because they had the most interesting assignments: noblemen whose deaths needed finessing, or knights who could put up an actual fight. They were always much more challenging than the usual, boring requests he got, kills without honor or difficulty.

Techno didn't care about who was in charge, as long as the person in charge left him alone. He only cared about being the best at what he did.

And the job Minx had been dropping hints about for months, the job that was allegedly bigger than anything he'd done yet... that had real potential.

So on the day Minx arrived at the doorstep of the Blade's little farmhouse, walking in just as he was pulling off his mud-caked boots from a day in the fields, he could see by the peculiar glint in her eye that the moment had arrived.

"They both need to die at the same time," Minx said, lounging on the chair across from Techno. "Can't be room for either of them to mount a defense."

"Tricky, but not impossible," Techno mused. He absent-mindedly tied back his long, straw-colored hair into a ponytail as the gears in his head started to work over the details Minx had provided.

"Do you have someone you can ask for help?"

"Don't need it."

"Love the confidence, but you are infiltrating a heavily fortified castle to kill two simultaneous targets," Minx reminded him. "Backup wouldn't be the worst idea."

Techno huffed, but dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Fair enough. I'll ask around." That was... an exaggeration. Techno wasn't especially social. He would ask Phil, and Phil would say yes.

"Good," Minx said, flashing a grin. "They won't have a clue what's coming."

Techno hummed. "I sorta hope they do, actually," he said, pulling his favorite knife from its leather sheath and flipping it over in his hands. "That would make things much more interestin'."

As a slow grin spread across his face, Minx caught a glimpse of the sharpened canine teeth that had led many people to speculate that the Blade wasn't fully human. Even though she knew better, it was still enough to send a shiver down her spine. Not for the first time, she counted herself lucky that Technoblade was working for her.

That night, Techno went to see Phil, and in the morning, they set their sights on Camelot.

The village of Blackwell was smoldering to ash. Every building had burned down, the village's crops reduced to scorched earth. A group of villagers huddled together on a nearby hill, some of them weeping softly as they watched their home burn to the ground. Several of them had not escaped.

"We got here too late," Clay muttered. "Again." He watched the grim sight from his saddle, clenching his horse's reins in tightly closed fists. It was the second village to burn to the ground that month. The sixth this year. Like each of the other attacks, Clay had raced here as soon as he had heard the news. Like each of the others, he was too late to do anything but watch the village crumble.

"Who the hell is doing this?" Sapnap muttered. The shorter, stockier knight had come with him. His face was disturbed.

"Pillagers, I guess," Clay said, unconvinced. Pillagers had been the official answer for months, but it didn't sit right with him. These attacks were more extreme, more frequent, and more focused on total destruction than any pillager attacks he had ever seen. Clay had his own suspicions, but they hadn't been popular with those he had shared them with. Especially his father.

"They weren't pillagers," came a voice, and the two men turned to see an older woman approaching them. She was dressed in common garb, her face lined with age, and she looked desperate. "At least, they didn't look like it."

"What did they look like?" Clay asked, turning his horse to better face her.

"They were so many of them, and they barely spoke," she said, her voice hoarse from smoke. "They had these... these weapons. Spread fire, lightning fast."

"Magic?" Sapnap asked urgently.

"Don't know what else it could've been," she said.

Clay sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"All our crops were destroyed," the woman was murmuring, her gaze tracking over the burning village. "Our livestock killed. I don't know what we'll do ..."

"Don't worry about that," Clay said immediately. "We're going to ride back to Camelot now and send people back with horses and carts. We'll bring you all into the city and give you a place to stay, food to eat. We'll take care of you."

The relief on the woman's face was palpable, and she bowed shallowly, her hand clutching at her heart. "Thank you, Prince Clay," she said.

As Clay and Sapnap raced back to Camelot, Sapnap shouted over the sound of galloping hooves: "Daniel's not gonna like this."

Clay clenched his jaw and urged his horse on a little faster.

The candlelight cast flickering shadows over the pages as George scanned another page of the book, one hand in his hair. The library was slightly cold and damp, retaining some of the winter chill that the spring was only beginning to thaw.

It had been several months since Cecily had escaped Camelot, and George had spent a significant portion of that time in the library, hunched over old manuscripts and scrolls in desperate search for ideas. His grandmother's tomes had only taken him so far, and he had needed to migrate to the castle's collections as he continued his search for something – anything – he could use against the impending threat of the Circle.

It was a danger that was growing more and more real by the day. King Daniel was chalking up the attacks on villages as raids from bandits or pillagers, but George knew better. They were coordinated – starting far from the castle and encroaching ever closer. The Circle was amassing a growing army of sorcerers, and probably using Mercian troops, too, and George was the only one who knew it - though, with no small amount of pride, he had watched Dream start to catch on to the clues the Circle had been leaving with each new attack.

Still, Daniel hadn't seen the truth. So George was searching desperately for something that could help their situation: a spell, or a weapon, or the source of the golden light he had been unable to summon again.

But after months of research, George was starting to feel slightly helpless. He had found nothing useful, nothing remotely. Even this book, which had seemed promising, written in the Old Language and full of accounts of mystic weapons, was starting to blur together, as George scanned through another list of arrow enchantments that he couldn't use without being discovered.

That is, until he turned the page to see a section titled in large, capital letters:

"ABIRON RIHTCYNN SOJJEYNING"

The One True King.

This pulled George's attention razor-sharp, and his eyes quickly scanned the page, soaking in everything in the language that had quickly become second-nature to him. The words filled him with excitement, and he cast a cursive glance around to make sure he was alone before carefully ripping out the relevant pages from the book, apologizing silently to the kind librarian who had helped him. He stuffed the pages into the inner pocket of his jacket and pushed away from the table.

"George?" came a voice from behind him, and he turned around, startled. Behind him stood a younger servant who George had asked for help. "Prince Clay is back."

Perfect timing. "Thanks," George said and ruffled the boy's hair as he left the library. This was something Dream needed to see.

Clay and Sapnap entered the Great Hall expecting to see King Daniel gathered around the table with the Knights, discussing the problem at hand. But they didn't expect half of the knights to be nursing serious wounds, or to see a tall, familiar man standing at the table as well.

"Bad," Clay said in surprise, and Sapnap rushed forward to embrace their friend, who grinned when he saw them, despite the fact that he was obviously injured. He had a fresh red cut running down the side of his face, and he was favoring his right leg.

"It's good to see you two," Bad said with genuine affection. He looked different – more grown up. Ever since his father had died, Bad had been tasked with the responsibility of governing his inherited territory, Frisia, and the three had rarely seen each other. He held himself with the posture of a young man who had been given serious responsibility, and was shouldering it well.

"What happened here?" Clay asked as he joined the Knights.

"Lord Bad sent a messenger this morning informing us of an impending attack on Frisia," King Daniel responded from the head of the table, barely looking at Clay. "I sent a group of knights to assist him."

"Why wasn't I aware of this?" Clay asked in frustration, setting his helmet down on the table with a thump.

"You weren't needed," Daniel said shortly. "Sir Eret was a capable leader."

Eret? Clay bit his tongue as he glanced at Eret sharply, but the knight avoided his gaze. It's not that Eret wasn't a good knight. But Clay had been the one agonizing over the increased attacks on villages, clearly desperate to take direct action. And Clay was supposed to be the prince, if that meant anything at all.

"What happened in the fight?" Clay asked, turning towards Bad.

His friend's face fell. "We couldn't defend ourselves," he said, shaking his head. "The knights fought well, but the people who attacked us – there's no way they're pillagers."

Clay shot a look at his father, who didn't meet his gaze. This was what Clay had been saying for months. His father had refused to listen.

"That's what the people in Blackwell were saying, too," Sapnap jumped in. "They said these men are far more organized. And... and that they're using magic," he finished somewhat hesitantly.

But clearly, he wasn't saying anything new to the injured men around him.

"We could tell," Bad said grimly. "They had axes that set fire to anything they touched. Swords that cleaved straight through our own, straight through the iron. We were trying to get creative with how we were fighting back, but it was too much. They set fire to the castle, and we were forced to flee."

"Sir Punz was caught in the flames," Eret added. "He died valiantly, defending his kingdom."

Clay felt the loss like a punch to his stomach and set his hands on the table, dropping his head. There was a second of solemn silence around the circle.

A noise from behind Clay broke the silence. He turned his head to see the door sliding open. George slipped through the opening in the door, and then fell back against the wall.

While he was normally happy to see George, this time, Clay flinched, and turned to see Daniel's gaze narrowing at the servant's conspicuous entrance.

"All of this is way above the paygrade of average bandits," Clay said, drawing his father's attention towards him. "This has to be something else. Something more organized."

"What are you suggesting, Prince Clay?" Daniel said.

"I... I don't know, exactly. An organized group of sorcerers?"

"A group of random sorcerers who have enough men to successfully attack two villages in one day?" Daniel asked, spreading his hands out.

Clay bit his lip. "Maybe... maybe it's Mercia."

A hushed silence fell over the room.

"Do you have evidence for that accusation?" Daniel asked quietly.

Clay glanced around the room, but he saw only hesitancy on the faces of his friends. He took a deep breath. "We've all heard the rumors – that sorcery is taking hold in Mercia. If that's true, maybe they're launching an attack. Testing the waters for a full affront."

Daniel narrowed his eyes at Clay. "You would have us declare war on our neighboring kingdom on the basis of rumors?"

Embarrassment flooded through Clay, but he stuck to his argument. "No. I'm just saying, maybe we should be more proactive. Figure out if the attacks are coming from a particular place. We can't just keep sitting around, waiting for them to attack another village. And if they're using magic weapons, then we need to find something that we can use to fight back."

"Like what?" Daniel said, and the table fell quiet.

Suddenly, George cleared his throat, and suddenly the eyes of a dozen knights and the King were trained on him.

"Do you have something to say?" King Daniel said harshly. "Or are you merely eavesdropping as a means of avoiding your duties?"

Clay winced, and George blanched for a moment, but then the servant seemed to brace himself and he took a step forward. "I... I may have something that can help."

Before Daniel could say anything else, George rushed up to the group of knights and shoved a pile of papers onto the table. They were written in a strange language, paragraphs upon paragraphs of foreign, illegible words. At the end of one of the pages, Clay caught sight of an intricate illustration: a sword, lodged into a large stone, its handle pointed in the air.

"It's called Excalibur," George said as the knights peered to take a look at the pages. "A legendary sword capable of withstanding any enchantment. It's said it was forged by the fire of the last dragon. It's stronger than any weapon Albion has ever known."

"It can beat back magic?" Eret asked with interest. He leaned over to take a closer look.

"It'd put you on equal ground with whoever's using magic to attack these villages," George said with excitement.

Clay stared at him with wonder, wondering when George had worked up the courage to speak up like this in front of Daniel, who had made his distaste for the servant abundantly clear in the previous months. But the moment ran cold as Daniel stood and grabbed for the pages.

"This is written in the sorcerer's language," he hissed, his expression stormy as he flipped through them. He looked up at George. "You can read these?"

George went slightly pale. "I've... I've been learning the Old Language. As a method of research. That's all."

"This could be incredibly useful, Your Highness," Bad jumped in. "We were completely defenseless against their magic in Frisia."

"We should try to find this sword, then," Clay said, looking at George. "What's it called? Excalibur? Maybe I can -,"

"ENOUGH," Daniel exploded, slamming the pages down on the table, and Clay tensed up, gritting his teeth. "This is ridiculous. You -," and here he pointed at George, who took a small step back, "are out of line for speaking in my court. And if it weren't for my son, I'd have you thrown in prison for even knowing this language."

"That's not fair," Clay said, moving slightly in front of George. "He's just trying to help. Why can't you -,"

"Shut up, Clay," Daniel shouted, and the words hit sharply, Clay's face warming in humiliation. "I will not allow you to go off on some wild goose chase to find some weapon that only exists in myth. You should be embarrassed for even entertaining the idea. We do not live in folklore. And if none of you have any helpful ideas for protecting our kingdom, then I will take my leave so I can have some space to think, an apparently rare skill."

His outburst left the room in a tense, hostile silence, and once it became clear that nobody had anything to say in response, Daniel pushed away from the table and stalked towards his quarters.

Clay stood unmoving at the table as the other knights started to filter away, casting uncomfortable glances his way as they left. His hands were clenched into fists at his side, his gaze fixed on George's papers, which had been crumpled in Daniel's hands.

This? This was what talking to Daniel had been like ever since Cecily had escaped. Daniel hadn't found out about Clay's involvement. He hadn't even admitted to suspecting his son. But he had treated Clay with distrust and outright disrespect ever since. It was downright humiliating, being treated like this in front of the entire court. Clay was being treated like a child, and it left him filled with a deep, simmering rage every time he spoke to his father.

"Well, that was fun," Sapnap muttered, and Clay snapped out of his thoughts to see that he, George, and Bad were still lingering around the table, looking sympathetically at Clay. The prince sighed deeply, unclenching his fists and rubbing his face.

"Seriously, Clay, what's going on with you two?" Bad asked quietly.

"You don't even want to know."

"I'm sorry," George said. "I shouldn't have spoken up."

"You," Dream said, leveling his gaze at George, "did not do anything wrong." He grabbed the papers again, smoothing out the wrinkles Daniel had left. "This is the first actual idea we've had in months."