Word travels faster than horses, and faster still than truth. By the time Kaelen reached the delegation's quarters, three different versions of what had happened in the First Layer were already circulating through the tournament grounds.
In one version, he had slain a hydra with his bare hands. In another, he had spoken to the dungeon itself and it had begged for mercy. In the third, the one that unsettled Roland the most because it was the one closest to true, the monsters of the First Layer had simply stopped, all at once, and knelt.
Roland was waiting outside Kaelen's door when he arrived. He didn't ask how the walk had gone. He didn't need to. He'd seen the look on Captain Edwin's face when the knights came stumbling back out into daylight an hour after the rest of the delegation.
"Sit," Roland said.
Kaelen sat.
"Tell me what you can."
