Chapter 58: Fall into Place or Fall Apart...
The words dripped with promise, not threat.
Keiser’s lone eye narrowed. The corner of his mouth curled upward.
To anyone else, it might have looked like bravado, but inside his head, his thoughts hissed like a sprung trap. ’Gotcha.’
He could feel it... mana coiling in the air, thickening like smoke, the first threads of a curse weaving into being. The elf’s magic slithered up his spine, biting cold, pressing at his lungs.
His instincts screamed danger, but Keiser didn’t retreat. If anything, he leaned into it, ready to bite back, to burn.
But the moment shattered in an instant.
Hands clamped around him... one rough, one trembling.
Keiser’s body lurched backward, dragged sharply off balance. He barely had time to breath before realizing it wasn’t just one person.
"Muzio!"
Lenko’s grip was iron around his arm, yanking him bodily away from the elf.
And Tyron... pale-faced, eyes stretched wide in a shock that trembled on the edge of terror... clutched at his other sleeve, dragging with surprising strength for someone so frightened.
The sudden pull broke the charge between him and the elf.
Keiser stumbled back, boots scraping on damp stone. For the barest instant, his vision blurred... one eye useless, the other straining in the half-dark.
His knees nearly buckled.
But the old men caught him.
They stepped forward in sync, steadying him with gnarled hands that had seen too much already for their age to let anyone fall easily.
They guided him back a pace, away from the elf, away from the curse that still prickled in the air. Tyron slipped closer, bracing Keiser’s side, holding him upright with trembling arms as if sheer determination alone would keep the himself from collapsing.
And between him and the elf now... standing firm, broad shoulders squared, jaw set... was Lenko.
Lenko had pushed him back into the hands of safety, only to plant himself in danger’s path.
Keiser’s face of shock faded into a grimace as he straightened, breath ragged but steady.
His good eye locked onto the stubborn line of Lenko’s back, and for a fleeting second, he couldn’t decide if he wanted to strangle the boy for his stupidity... or trust him.
The air grew heavier.
The curse was still there, unfinished, circling like a snake denied its strike.
"What did you say?"
Lenko’s voice rang sharper than it ever had before, cutting through the stale dungeon air like a drawn blade.
His glare was unflinching as he tilted his chin up to meet the elf’s gaze. Standing so close, the difference in stature was almost absurd.
Lenko barely reached the level of the elf’s chest. And yet... because the elf was still bent low, lips peeled back in that sneer... their faces were almost level, eye to eye.
The elf hissed again, the sound slippery and venomous, a warning that slid into the marrow of the onlookers. "Back off, human. If you don’t want to be cursed as well, get out of the way." The words slithered, carrying the weight of mana, like an unseen claw scraping at the back of one’s skull.
’Shit,’ Keiser thought. His stomach lurched as if someone had driven a fist into his gut.
Without thinking, he tore himself free from the steadying hands of the old men and Tyron, his muscles tensing to step in. He knew... he knew... the plan would crumble if Lenko threw himself into the fire now.
The elf wasn’t just any foe, baiting it was playing dice with death.
But Lenko didn’t flinch. He didn’t stumble. He simply stood there, broad-shouldered though still boyish, eyes fixed like iron on emerald flame.
His voice came low, even, laced with a conviction that made even Keiser’s pulse stutter.
"Try me," Lenko said. "Nobody gets to ’his highness’ from now on... before me."
Keiser almost groaned aloud. ’Gods above,’ if he could have, he would’ve slapped Lenko’s thick head down before the words even left his mouth.
This was suicide, plain and simple. A loyal, stupid, infuriating kind of suicide.
The elf’s expression shifted.
That earlier menace drained away in an instant, as if it had only ever been a mask worn for amusement. In its place bloomed something softer... sickeningly sweet.
Their lips curved upward, eyes gleaming like dew-green glass catching firelight. Slowly, almost indulgently, they leaned even closer to Lenko, until their nose was nearly brushing his.
"Is that a deal?" the elf purred again, voice dripping honey, though the air around it burned like poison.
The sound slithered through the air, making the old men’s knees weaken and Tyron’s throat seize in a half-swallowed whimper.
Keiser’s smirk faltered into a grimace. He had seen predators bait prey before... but this time, the fool standing between the jaws was Lenko.
"Should I make it that you’ll die along with him?" The words landed like a physical thing, soft and cold, and Keiser felt the tremor run from his arm down into Lenko’s shoulder where his hand is now gripping.
For the first time since the bartered key, Muzio’s body betrayed him, his fingers, pressed against Lenko’s shoulder, went slightly numb.
The elf’s lips curved as if pleased by the effect. Eyes glittering, as if savoring the tableau.
One boy planted between iron and fate, another hauled back into safety by trembling hands.
The predator’s amusement was obvious... an artist admiring the slow burn of terror in his work.
But.
Keiser forced his jaw steady.
’Is it working?’ he thought, the question sharp and private.
His pulse hammered in his ear. He watched the elf’s gaze flick from him back to Lenko... slow, deliberate... and did not know if the motion that followed was caused by the elf’s taunt or by Keiser’s own fingers tightening in answer.
Lenko’s face went brittle.
The boy’s jaw clenched until a pale line appeared at his throat, his fist balled at his side like stone.
Then Keiser’s chest tightened fractionally.
This was the moment Keiser had been planning for...
From the very first time he heard the broker’s voice, all the way to the exchange of the keys.
Everything hinged on this.
It was the point where his plan would either fall into place... or fall apart.