Lunch passed without a fuss. Claire had accepted the food Alycia bought without asking questions, though her curious glance lingered a little too long, while Rhea, as expected, had nodded along with his plan. Now that everyone had gone back to work, Viktor sat alone in the mess hall of the Guild, sipping at a mug of apple juice while his eyes wandered lazily across the room.

  Most of the crowd had filtered out already, but a few lingered. A group of adventurers bickered over a game in the corner, dice clattering against the table amid groans and curses. Three red-faced men slouched over mugs of something that was definitely not juice. A tired-looking woman, who had just arrived, sat down and unpacked her lunch.

  His gaze stopped at two men by the window. Didn’t I pass them in the street earlier?

  One was a wall of a man, packed with slabs of muscle across his arms and chest. His face was creased, eyes hawk-like and piercing, jaw square beneath a neatly trimmed moustache. His black hair was shaved down to the scalp at the sides, but the top was braided and tied back into a tail. Leaning against his chair, as casually as a walking stick, sat a monstrous blade. Broad, curved, and heavy.

  The other man was tall and lean, skin black as coal, stretching tight over a wiry frame. There was not a hint of fat on him, just taut muscle and long, sinewy limbs. His head was shaved bare, polished smooth, and his face was all angles with high cheekbones and a pointed chin. He wore a simple robe. No armor, no weapons in sight. A mage, probably.

  There were a lot of dishes on their table, but they remained untouched. Were they waiting for someone?

  [Master, you said you have solved the mystery surrounding Brynhildr and Dagnar?]

  Celeste’s voice pulled him out of his idle people-watching and back to the matter at hand.

  “Yes,” Viktor said with a smug grin, his gaze dropping to the mug on the table. “Sure, none of this is going to help us kill them. Not directly, at least. But now we know who they really are, where they came from, why they left, and who is after them. Everything.”

  He rocked his chair back, resting it on just the back legs. “The key piece here is that letter. We can safely assume that it’s sent to Brynhildr from her sister Lif. It mentioned Brynhildr’s oath to the Crown, which means she was probably some sort of royal knight, someone who answered directly to the King of Lyndor.”

  That aligned with his earlier observations about the warrior woman’s manners. She could not just be some run-of-the-mill mercenary. No, she had the polish of someone who had once been important. If she was a knight serving in a king’s palace, then it made perfect sense.

  “Lif got pregnant by the king,” Viktor continued. “She left the palace, gave birth, and lived quietly with her son in a small, remote village. That explains why that man acts like a peasant. Because, well, he is one.”

  [You mean... the Duncan mentioned in the letter is Dagnar?]

  “Yes,” Viktor said with a grin. He took a slow swig of his juice, savoring the sweet tang as it bit lightly at his tongue. “I was wrong. It turned out that they were indeed aunt and nephew. Dagnar is Lif’s son, born Duncan, now using a fake name to hide his origins.”

  The letter stated the affair between Lif and the king happened sixteen years ago, which meant Dagnar was fifteen when it was written. He was twenty now. So five years had passed since the day his mother died and he came to Brynhildr with that letter.

  Viktor could imagine how the story began. Over twenty years ago, the two sisters, Brynhildr and Lif, left Brefjord. Like many other warriors from the North, they wandered south looking to sell their steel to the highest bidder. They arrived in Lyndor, and somehow, these foreign mercenaries made a name for themselves, rising to become the king’s knights. The letter didn’t say what Lif’s role was, but if she ended up warming the king’s bed, chances were she worked in the palace as well.

  There was no way he could have figured all this out without that letter. It was indeed the most important piece of the puzzle. And that also meant Brynhildr had made a grave mistake. She should have destroyed it. Burned it. Ripped it to pieces the moment she finished reading. At least, that was what he would have done if he had been in her place.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  But he could understand why she hadn’t. After sixteen years of silence, sixteen years without any word from her sister, that letter was probably all she had left. No wonder she clung to that scrap of ink on yellowing parchment.

  [I see. So Dagnar is the son of Brynhildr’s dying sister, who asked her to help him and protect him.]

  From what he had known of the warrior woman, Viktor guessed she had tried to shape Dagnar into something better. Maybe even into a knight like herself.

  And she had failed spectacularly.

  He had only met the man briefly, but he could see that Dagnar was lazy and unmotivated, the kind of man who flinched at pain and whined when things got hard. Brynhildr might have tried to knock some manners into him as well, but clearly, the habits from his upbringing ran too deep. Now, she looked like she had given up; Viktor could still remember the resigned smile she gave that day.

  “We don’t know for sure what happened over the last five years. Maybe she pulled some strings to get him a spot in the palace as a servant. But that part doesn’t matter. What matters is—”

  [The king died.]

  “Yes,” Viktor said, swirling the juice in his mug. “Exactly.”

  The previous king of Lyndor had been a descendant of one of the Six Heroes, carrying a fragment of the power they had stolen from Viktor, and after he died, it should have been passed down to his heir.

  “We don’t know the details, but somehow, the king’s power ended up with Dagnar, his illegitimate son, not his rightful heir. If I were Dagnar’s half-brother, the current king, I would have been beyond pissed. I would have tried to have the bastard arrested. Killed, even. And that means Brynhildr, sworn to serve the Crown, was now forced to make a choice.”

  [And she chose to protect Dagnar.]

  “Yes, she fled Lyndor with her nephew. She took the gold she had earned after twenty years in service and exchanged it all for Arstenian coin on the way. She might even bring along some of the Reliquaries she was issued while she was still a royal knight.”

  [That means, their pursuers are...]

  “The king’s henchmen. Spies and assassins who were sent to drag them back, either dead or alive. And Yvonne is one of them.”

  Viktor rewarded himself with a long, satisfying gulp of apple juice. Tart, chilled, refreshing. One good job well done. Every thread untangled, every shadow dragged into the light. The mysteries around Brynhildr and Dagnar—solved.

  But... now what?

  The thing was, these answers were not exactly helping with what he was trying to achieve. The involvement of the Lyndorian spies had complicated everything. He had planned to slowly lull Brynhildr and her stupid nephew into dropping their guard, let them get comfortable, and then, when the time was right, finish them off cleanly. Now, someone else might get to them first.

  Worse still, they didn’t even need to succeed. A failed attempt would alert Brynhildr to the danger, and she would grab Dagnar and flee without hesitation. Hell, even if they did nothing, their very existence itself was problematic enough. At any moment, they could screw up. One whisper too loud, one glance too sharp, just enough to spook Brynhildr, and she and her nephew would disappear. And the longer this dragged on, the greater that risk became.

  Viktor sighed. He might have to deal with the spies first. But how? He had no idea.

  Once again, he let his gaze drift aimlessly across the mess hall. The gamblers were still hunched over their game, muttering and grumbling with each toss of the dice. The tired woman had finished her meal, stuffing what remained back into a ragged cloth. And the three drinkers were out cold now, slumped over the table, mouths open, snoring.

  Then, he saw two women entering the hall, heading straight for the table where the Easterner and the dark-skinned Southerner sat. The other members of the party, maybe? One was in her thirties, her raven hair falling in loose waves down her back. She was sharp-eyed and made even sharper by the tattoos twisting along her right cheek and spiraling down her entire left arm. The other was younger, with blonde hair styled into two big buns atop her head, who carried a long staff, steel capped at both ends. They took their seats, and the group began their lunch, talking in low voices between bites.

  [Master.]

  Viktor blinked. Just like the last time, he was pulled from his people-watching by the familiar voice of the Dungeon Core.

  “What?” he asked.

  [There is something I noticed while monitoring Brynhildr and Dagnar’s progress through the dungeon.]

  “Oh?” He arched an eyebrow. “What’s it?”

  [Right after they entered, another party followed. Three men, probably. They were all hooded, so I couldn’t see their faces.]

  “You’re suspecting those men were tailing them?”

  [Yes. They mirrored Brynhildr and Dagnar’s path almost exactly, while maintaining a fixed distance behind, never too close, never too far. And they showed no interest in anything else in the dungeon.]

  Of course. Yvonne was certainly not working alone. She had friends nearby, those who could move more openly. As soon as her targets ventured into the depths, she broke into their room to plant her Reliquary, while her accomplices stalked their path from the shadows. Very coordinated.

  Viktor’s lips curled into a smile.

  Finally, a sliver of light at the end of this damned tunnel. There was not much he could do outside, yes, but inside the dungeon? That was his domain.

  “Let’s get ready, Celeste,” he said, setting down his empty mug. “The next time Brynhildr and Dagnar come to our dungeon, those spies will probably follow. And if they do...”

  Time to squash some bugs.