The feeling as he stepped outside was better than he had imagined.
The air was crisp and fresh, so clean it felt as if his lungs might burst from joy alone. He drew in a deep breath, and another—each one sharper, colder, more alive than anything he had known in months. The filtered sunlight of the setting sun bathed his tattered body in gold, warming skin that had only known stone and pain.
Birds chirped in the distance, their voices light and careless, as if they wanted to join the distant music drifting from the castle halls.
For a brief moment, Sam allowed himself to exist.
Just breathe.
Just feel.
He stood there, barefoot on smooth stone, the world impossibly wide around him.
Guards slept slumped against pillars and walls, wine cups overturned beside them. Laughter and music echoed faintly from inside the castle.
Sam's eyes hardened.
This was not his moment to disappear.
He quietly closed the dungeon door behind him, careful not to let it creak. Then he moved—low and fast—toward the entrance hall.
At the edge of the courtyard, he slipped behind a tall marble statue depicting a wyvern crushing a kneeling figure beneath its claws. From there, he could see the main path clearly.
Servants hurried by with trays. Drunken adventurers laughed in clusters. Guards rotated lazily, their movements sloppy and uncoordinated.
Sam pressed his back against the cold stone, heart steady. But he needed to wait first, and he waited a while. He observed the progressiv more drunken guards and servants in front of the castle.
And when the night was in full effect he dared to step out of his hide. First he sneaked inside, jumping from behind one pillar to the other.
He counted breaths. Listened.
When two servants passed laughing, arms wrapped around each other, Sam slipped from behind the pillar and moved with them for three steps before peeling away into the shadows of a column. His bare feet made no sound against the stone. His body flowed low and close to walls, every movement precise.
He reached the main entrance hall.
Light flooded the space from high chandeliers and floating mana-lamps. Old Stone pillars stretched toward the vaulted ceiling, their surfaces engraved with conquest and monsters slain long ago. The banners of Tarakan hung proudly—black and crimson, wyverns roaring in stitched thread.
Sam stopped at the edge of the hall.
And observed.
Nicely dressed guests gathered in loose circles, flushed with drink and self-importance. Their laughter echoed too loudly. Servants wove between them like ghosts, heads lowered, eyes averted. Guards leaned against pillars, hands loose on weapons, posture lazy.
At the far end of the hall, raised slightly above the rest, sat Henry Tarakan.
Sam's fingers twitched.
Henry lounged in his chair, coat open, goblet in hand, his face flushed with wine and arrogance. Infront of him sat Anika of Torrs' End.
She was rigid.
Her posture was composed, but Sam saw it—the tension in her shoulders, the way her eyes scanned the room, when she turned around, instead of resting on Henry. She smiled when spoken to, but it never reached her eyes.
He leaned close to Anika, said something Sam couldn't hear. Her jaw tightened. After a brief pause, she nodded and chuckled.
Sam memorized everything, but knew he had to wait more. So he looked for a good spot where he could see the gate and the leaving persons in it.
A lot of time passed and around the time the moon stood right up at the sky he felt some kind of moving again. He looked behind his statue and saw right at Henry's and Anika's leaving posture.
His ash brown hair, looked like raven black in the dark of the hall.
Sam did not follow immediately. He first dared to go into the hall and took the first knife he found. It wasn't that sharp but he shrugged and hurried back, still seeing their back.
He waited until they were halfway across the floor, until they took a small turn. Then he moved, slipping into the wake they left behind.
Henry's voice echoed faintly ahead, casual and confident. Sam followed at a distance, never directly behind, always offset—using reflections in polished stone and metal to track their position.
They turned down a narrower corridor.
Fewer lamps. Thicker shadows.
Sam slowed further.
He saw Henry gesture toward the heavy door at the end of the passage.
Saw Anika hesitate—just a fraction of a second—before stepping inside.
Sam heard her voice then, polite and restrained, likely thanking him for the evening or something. She reached for the door—and Henry's hand shot out, slamming it back open.
Everything happened too fast after that.
Sam caught only fragments of her words. A sharp intake of breath. The scrape of boots. Then Henry's arm moved, brutal and efficient, fingers closing around her throat as he hurled her backward into the room.
She hit the floor hard. Henry followed with slow and heavy steps, as if nothing could hinder him and slammed the door behind him.
Sam stopped ten paces away.
His heart thundered so loudly he was sure it would give him away, but he forced himself still—head tilted, listening.
Muffled voices.
A sudden shift in tone.
His jaw clenched.
He couldn't go through the door. He knew that instinctively. The wood was hard, he couldn't destroy it with one clean hit— he would lose the surprise moment. And Henry… Henry was an earth mage. Sam had felt that strength before. Felt it in crushed bones and shattered walls.
A frontal attack would be suicide.
Sam's eyes flicked downward, scanning the corridor.
And then he saw A narrow window, half-hidden by ivy and stonework.
He moved Fast and Silent.
The latch gave with a soft click. Cold air rushed in as he swung himself through, catching the thick branch of an old tree that grew close to the castle wall. The bark bit into his palms as he climbed, muscles burning, breath controlled.
The branch stretched outward—left, then right—ending just before the window of
Anika's room.
Sam crept along it, every movement deliberate, until he could peer inside.
Henry stood over her.
Anika was pressed against the floor on the far side of the room, trembling, cornered. Her dress was torn, her hands clenched tight as if holding herself together by force alone. Henry loomed above her, relaxed, possessive—already certain of his control.
Sam's vision narrowed, wanting to find the perfect moment to kill him.
Then— Anika's eyes lifted.
Crystal Green and Wide like a frightened rabbit. They met his through the glass.
A jolt went through Sam's spine.
„Fuck."
She turned back toward Henry, her mouth opening just slightly—
And Sam didn't think. Didn't hesitate.
He launched himself forward, dagger first, bursting through the window in a rain of glass and fury.