📍 Chapter 83 – The Man Who Asked to See the Boy
Three days passed.
No more attacks.
No shadow carts.
No scouts spotted at the borders.
But the silence was worse than siege.
It felt like breath held too long.
Auren warned, "He's waiting for something."
Cress said, "No. He's planning something."
They were both wrong.
Malrik had already moved.
---
The letter arrived by hawk.
Not a raven. Not a royal courier.
Just a plain black hawk with a gold ribbon tied to its leg.
Zaire removed the scroll.
No seal.
Just a name.
**Malrik.**
And a message:
> "Meet me. One day from now.
> At the old amphitheater beyond Black Hollow.
> No guards.
> No armor.
> Bring the boy.
>
> Or bring your sword.
> I will come alone."
---
They debated for hours.
Zaire pounded his fist.
"This is a trap."
Leva's eyes burned. "We should kill him before he even opens his mouth."
Cress shook her head. "If he wanted to kill her, he would've done it already."
Zara stood in silence.
Then whispered:
> "He doesn't want to kill me.
>
> He wants to *convert* me."
---
The next morning, just before dawn, Zara rode alone.
Kaelen strapped to her chest in a sling of fur.
No sword.
No shield.
Only a blade hidden in her boot.
The old amphitheater sat in a cracked field of weeds and ghost-grass.
Once, it held 10,000 voices.
Now it held only two.
---
Malrik was already there.
No armor.
No weapon.
Just a tattered black coat and a carved wooden staff.
He looked older.
Not weaker.
His beard was streaked with gray.
His eyes had not changed.
---
Zara dismounted.
Unstrapped Kaelen.
Held him close.
Malrik didn't move.
Didn't smile.
Didn't kneel.
Just said:
> "He looks like her."
Zara didn't ask who.
She knew.
Her mother.
The queen Malrik once swore to protect — and ultimately betrayed.
---
They stood in silence for a while.
Kaelen cooed softly, one hand grabbing Zara's braid.
Malrik watched.
Not cruelly.
Not coldly.
Almost… sadly.
Zara finally spoke.
"Why are you really here?"
Malrik didn't answer immediately.
He sat on the stone ledge of the ruined stage.
Looked up at the sky.
Then said:
> "Because the kingdoms you fear…
> Are already dead inside.
>
> They just haven't fallen yet.
>
> But your boy? He might rebuild what we couldn't."
---
Zara frowned.
"You tried to kill me five years ago."
Malrik nodded.
"And I regret failing."
She stiffened.
But he held up a hand.
"Because if I had succeeded… none of this would have been possible."
---
He gestured to Kaelen.
"To unite the old houses. To bring the Hollow into the light. To challenge Venmire's chains. The boy's blood is rebellion itself."
Zara stepped back.
"He's not your banner."
Malrik stood.
"No. He's *everyone's* banner. That's why they'll keep coming for him. That's why you need help."
She narrowed her eyes.
"From you?"
"No," he replied. "From *me and everyone like me*. The ghosts. The outlaws. The forgotten. Let me raise him. Let me protect him."
Zara laughed once.
"You want to *take* him?"
"No," he said again, firmer. "I want to *train* him."
---
The wind picked up.
Kaelen yawned.
Zara shifted her stance.
"You poisoned my food."
"I stopped your mother from being assassinated four times," Malrik shot back. "You remember my crime. You forget my service."
"I was seventeen."
"You were a child queen in a kingdom full of wolves."
He stepped forward.
"And now you're the wolf."
---
Zara gripped Kaelen tighter.
"He stays with me."
Malrik nodded.
"I thought you'd say that."
He pulled something from his coat.
A journal.
Worn, leather-bound.
Handwritten.
"My notes. From the wars. From the poisoners. From the treaties your father never signed. Everything they won't teach your son in the palace."
He extended it.
Zara didn't take it.
Until Kaelen reached out and touched the cover.
Only then did she accept.
---
They stood in silence again.
Then Malrik said something that made the air still.
> "You have five months.
> Then they'll send someone worse than me.
> Someone who won't ask.
> Someone who *won't leave without the boy*."
Zara met his eyes.
"Then they'll die."
Malrik smiled faintly.
"You sound like her again."
---
He turned.
Began to walk away.
But stopped after ten steps.
Without turning around, he said:
> "I don't hate you, Zara.
> I envy you.
>
> You became the queen I thought I could be."
Then vanished into the morning mist.
---
Zara stood still for a long time.
Kaelen nuzzled her chest, half-asleep.
She looked down at him.
Then at the journal in her hand.
And whispered,
> "I won't let them take you.
> I won't even let them try."
---
That evening, she returned to the palace.
Told the council nothing.
Told the guards nothing.
Only Leva and Zaire knew where she had been.
And as the sun set, she gave Auren the journal.
"Copy every page," she said. "Hide three versions in three cities."
He nodded.
"And burn the original?"
She looked at Kaelen.
"No," she whispered. "He'll read it. One day."
---
And somewhere, across the sea, a letter was written.
Stamped with Venmire's broken seal.
Carried by ship.
Carried by coin.
And in its last line, it read:
> "If Malrik failed…
>
> Send *her* next."