Chapter 5

Aris and Kira arrive at the king’s castle for a feast, surrendering their weapons under a no-killing edict. Inside, they witness the king’s hoarded silver relics and are assigned luxurious rooms. Aris struggles with vigilance and guilt, bathing while carefully hiding her forbidden silver markings by layering clothing to conceal her throat.

In the great hall, challengers hesitate beneath walls of silver swords. The king enters—youthful, unsettling, and crowned in silver—and praises survival while announcing that at dawn a race to the gates will determine the fifty who cross. He offers the wall-hung silver swords to any challenger who swears to give him half of any magic they return with.

Starving and ill-equipped fighters rush to accept; the king theatrically summons swords to his hand. Aris, distrusting him and unwilling to bind herself, refuses, as do Raker, Zane, and others with strong blades. When the king presses her, Aris answers boldly that metal still kills when it pierces flesh, provoking tense silence before he moves on, and the feast resumes.

Afterward, still on edge, Aris chooses to guard the room while Kira sleeps, then decides to scout the halls for anything useful. Among locked doors and ceremonial silver, she overhears the king secretly instructing Harlan Raker, who vows not to return without an unspecified objective that will begin a “new age.”

Attempting to slip back, Aris hurries through the corridors and collides with a towering armored, hooded figure, leaving her in sudden peril as the night in the castle closes around her.