The gates stood crooked now.
Rust streaked the iron filigree like old tears.
Once, banners had flown here—bright gold and deep crimson, a roaring tiger snarling against the winds of the western plains.
Once, knights had stood guard in polished mail, swords gleaming at their hips.
Now?
Nothing but wind and the smell of rain-soaked earth.
---
I pushed the gates open with my uninjured arm, the hinges shrieking protest loud enough to wake the dead.
Maybe that was fitting.
House Westenra wasn't dead yet.
Not officially.
Just dying.
---
The road up to the estate wound through dry, brittle fields.
Once, there had been gardens here—orchards heavy with fruit, vineyards spreading in lazy arcs across the hills.
I remembered running through them as a boy.
Chasing shadows.
Laughing.
---
Now, nothing but thorns and broken stone walls swallowed by weeds.
The only thing chasing me was the sound of my own breathing, ragged against the quiet.
---
The manor itself was worse.
Gray stone eaten by moss.
Broken windows boarded over with cheap wood.
The roof sagging at one corner like an old man leaning on a crutch.
---
I stopped halfway up the cracked steps.
Stared at the door.
The symbol of the golden tiger, once carved proud into the oak, had faded into barely a ghost of its former self.
The wood was cracked and splitting.
Like bones after a bad winter.
---
I lifted my hand.
Paused.
For a stupid moment, I almost turned around.
Almost left.
What was there to find inside, except ghosts?
Ghosts didn't need company.
Neither did I.
---
But my fist closed and knocked once anyway.
The sound echoed inside the hollow shell of a home.
---
A long minute passed.
I heard shuffling.
Soft steps.
Metal against metal.
Finally, the door creaked open.
---
"Atlas..."
The voice was dry, cracked, but I knew it.
Old Marrin.
The steward who had once carried me on his shoulders through the gardens during festival days.
The man who taught me to ride.
Who bandaged my knees when I fell.
---
He stood there now, half his face a map of new scars, his back bent, his once-proud livery faded and stained.
But his eyes—gray and sharp—still knew me.
Or thought they did.
---
I wasn't sure he was right.
---
"You came home," Marrin whispered.
Like it was a prayer answered too late.
---
I nodded once.
The words wouldn't come.
Not yet.
---
He stepped aside, motioning me in with a trembling hand.
The halls smelled of old wood smoke and dust and something sour underneath.
The tapestries were gone from the walls.
Pawned?
Burned?
I didn't ask.
The great tiger banner was gone too.
Nothing but blank stone staring down at me like an empty eye socket.
---
Marrin led me to what had once been the dining hall.
The long table was still there.
Warped and cracked down the center.
Three chairs remained around it.
Only three.
---
I sat without waiting for an invitation.
My body moved on instinct now—fighting posture even in stillness.
Marrin poured something into a chipped cup and pushed it toward me.
Water.
Flat and cold.
---
"Your mother..." he started, then stopped.
Swallowed hard.
Looked away.
---
I nodded.
I didn't need to hear the rest.
I'd guessed long before I crossed the gates.
---
"She waited," Marrin said quietly. "Longer than she should have. She thought... maybe you'd return sooner."
He didn't say it like an accusation.
But it twisted like one in my gut anyway.
---
I sipped the water.
Tasted dust in it.
Didn't complain.
---
"You are... different," Marrin said finally, after too long a silence.
His voice was careful.
Not judging.
Not admiring.
Just... noting.
---
I smiled without showing teeth.
"I grew up," I said.
---
He laughed once.
A dry, brittle thing that cracked under its own weight.
"More than that, I think."
---
Footsteps echoed in the empty halls.
Servants, maybe.
Or what passed for them now.
Ghosts tending to a skeleton house.
---
I let my gaze wander across the cracked stones.
Felt the memories tugging at the edges of my mind.
I pushed them down.
---
Marrin cleared his throat.
"There is... news," he said.
I looked at him.
He hesitated.
Then he continued.
---
"The Kingdoms are moving. Quietly. Formations. Alliances. There are... whispers of a tournament."
I nodded.
Already knew.
He didn't need to explain further.
---
"The House will send no champions," Marrin said, his voice falling softer. "We have no one left to send."
He looked at me when he said it.
Eyes old and sad.
---
I didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
I wasn't here to represent a house.
I wasn't a banner anymore.
I was a blade.
A breath.
A warning carried on the cold wind.
---
I stood finally.
Felt the stiffness in my ribs, the bruises tightening across my side.
The blood had dried in the seams of my coat.
The weight of it dragged at my movements.
---
"Rest, my lord," Marrin said, bowing slightly. "There are still rooms prepared."
He didn't ask if I was staying.
He knew.
It would only be for a night.
Maybe less.
---
I made my way up the narrow stairs.
The steps creaked under my boots.
I found my old room.
The door hung loose on its hinges.
Inside, the bed was stripped.
The window cracked.
The hearth long dead.
---
I sat on the edge of the frame.
Stared at the empty walls.
At the outlines where banners once hung.
Where maps and swords and stupid boyhood dreams once lived.
---
I didn't feel sad.
Not really.
The sadness was too old, too distant.
More like a scar you notice sometimes when the rain makes it ache.
---
I leaned back against the wall, closed my eyes.
Listened to the wind howl against the broken eaves.
Listened to the house breathe its slow, dying breaths.
---
Tomorrow, I'd leave.
Tomorrow, I'd sail east toward the Crucible of Sothryn.
Toward the place where blood would flow like rain.
Where names would be made or erased forever.
---
I flexed my fingers once, feeling the ache deep in the bones.
The fight wasn't waiting for me there.
The fight had already begun.
It was waiting *inside* me.
It always had been.
---
And when the bells called for blood—
I'd answer.