Godred's blade hovered over Evan's nape, its rain-slick edge reflecting moonlight was keen enough even to split the dark should its master wish so. A single tremor from the baron's wrist would end the last thread binding Evan to the living world.
Evan's vision tunneled to Godred. In this acute stress of making a quick choice and his life flashing across his eyes, he had all but lost his peripheral vision.
In that cramped aperture, Evan saw only the steel, his half-brother's impassive mask, and the mushy ground where he would fall.
He forced his pulse to mirror Godred's stillness, matching his every breath for the baron's measured inhales.
Godred watched Evan impassively as he waited for his dying words. The last honor he was willing to present for the disavowed.
Evan reached the stage where even his heartbeat had become a metronome for Godred's breaths. He had stepped into the rhythm.
Slowly, deliberately, Evan lowered his gaze. Tradition dictated a man fell on their left knee before a superior, signaling humility and submission while keeping the sword hand free.
But he kept both hands visible, trembling uselessly as he went down bit by bit to submit to the greater will. Devoid of choices, unable to avenge his friends, and losing the right to die with honor had consumed Evan with grief.
"Brother… I beg you," he croaked, voice raw enough to rasp blood. Distress was no counterfeit; the pain in his ribs sang a descant to every syllable. He appeared vulnerable, at the mercy of authority.
People instinctively lean toward suffering; their focus telescopes on the wounds, evoking pity.
Goldred too found himself drawn to his state.
But, Godred only answered with silence, the sort that pinches oxygen from the air. The only sound was of rain tapping on his steel.
"HaHaHaHa…," hearing no word from Godred Evan laughed hysterically in defeat.
Evan's knees buckled. His battered cuirass rang dully against the wet loam as he slumped, palms sprawled in the mud, fragrant with rotting fruit.
Across the gulf of a single heartbeat, the sword point pulled outward, tracing a lethal arc away only to be swung back towards his exposed neck killing him swiftly.
Evan's last breath, now unburdened with life and death, became a heavy sob. He clawed forward, fingers gouging earth, dragging his ribs across bark shards until he reached the hem of Godred's cloak.
Desperate and greedy, his arms weaving around Godred's calves.
"Mercy!" Evan gasped. "I stand loyal to the Concord—to you—since the day we sparred at dawn beneath Head Mother's balcony. Remember? Say you remember!" Memories are a valuable commodity for manipulation evoking desired emotions, perhaps a shared past might save his skin? So he hoped.
Godred's balance rocked half a fingerbreadth backward, weight shifting to his rear foot as if startled by the sudden proximity.
That infinitesimal lean loosened the cloak's line and with it the heavy chain that ran under the mantle to the signet tucked near the heart. A noble signet, an ovoid sard laced with gold. Its face was engraved with the Drakos dragon, a must to seal edicts and military orders since the nation's founding.
Though the ring could summon vassals, tonight its runic core mattered more.
Evan's left arm stayed in plain sight, his bloodied knuckles dying Godred's cloak with crimson. But his right hand vanished into cloak folds, moving under cover, unnoticed, distracted by Evan's antics of begging and groveling.
Sweat—cold despite the rain that drenched his wrist; gloves long since lost, every fingertip was a tactile antenna. \
He mapped cloth layers: outer wool, silk lining, the ridge of sword baldric, cooler metal of belt clip, then—pulse quickening—the round contour of waxed-thread necklace suspending the signet.
Godred gripped his sword holding it stable in the air despite the slight imbalance in his body.
"Compose yourself," he ordered, voice so toneless it rang like a bell struck in a vacuum. "You soil my robe with your theatrics," his voice laced with a tinge of annoyance.
And it was precisely the cue Evan needed. It signified distraction even if ever so slightly. But it was still far from enough.
He amplified his trembling into a full-bodied sob, forehead pressing against the polished leather of his scabbard.
His fingers pinched twin strands of the necklace from either side of the ring—never pull the ring directly; tension transfers. Instead, you break the cord's tension near the clasp. Evan twisted it, the friction heating the thread; moisture helped, rain lubricating the fibers until, with a whisper softer than the orchard rain, the necklace parted.
He timed the break to coincide with a hiccupped wail of cry.
The ring settled into his palm—heavy, warm with baronial body heat.
For the first time, the kneeling posture threatened to betray him; his muscles screamed in pain, as relief washed over him to have completed the first and most difficult step.
'Patience,' he bore the pain, 'A single misstep could mean life or death.'
He had rehearsed this in the gallows countless times… obtain, conceal, then disengage. His thumb pressed the signet into the shelf between wrist-bones, an anatomical hideaway to conceal the obtained treasure.
Now he only had to disengage. And he didn't have to wait long for it.
Godred, driven by his continued annoyance dealing with a dead man, pushed his boot into Evan's sternum. The kick exploded against his chest crashing Evan at the edge of the dome; blood flooded into his mouth.
He let the momentum roll him onto his side, arms flailing in apparent agony while, in truth, the signet slid up his sleeve. Mud coated the gold, muting its gleam.
"Enough whimpering," Godred hissed. "If you are loyal, yield your life for the kingdom's proof."
Godred was soon to realize the emptiness across his necklace. His gaze flicked down at last—checking for the emblem that should dangle against his chest.
Evan saw the widening of Godred's pupils, the sharpened inhale. Recognition.
In the blink of an eye, Baron von Drakos realized two truths: the signet was gone, and within it lay control of the ward whose shimmering confines shielded and trapped them.