When I reached Draymoor Hall, I was…somehow unsurprised to find that there was an entire procession outside the gates. A large, incredibly expensive-looking carriage had parked before them, with two of the biggest, poshest-looking black horses I had ever seen lashed to it. I was a little bit familiar with horses by this point, and if I didn’t know any better, these two beats were outright looking down on the world. It was as if they were nobility themselves.

  From what I’ve heard of Wenzel…I’m guessing these were his.

  I exchanged a polite nod with the driver still up on the bench, and creaked open the black iron gate of the manor. Just inside the property lines, the entire walkway was lined with Herztalian soldiers in gear that was much higher quality than the grunt plate and weaponry I’d seen so often during the war. I felt the back of my neck tingle as they straightened up at the sight of me, as I walked down the short path toward Grey’s house.

  I think they were half a second away from saluting me, which was just weird.

  Thankfully, a familiar Mithril hand cracked open the door at my approach, and an equally familiar sapphire eye peeked out to stare at the guards suspiciously for a moment. It switched over to me, and the visible hand waved me in quickly, opening the door just enough for me to slip in. Once inside, Sylvia shut the door firmly behind me and engaged three different locks on it before she turned to meet my gaze. She flushed a little at my confused stare.

  “I…still don’t care much for them,” Sylvia admitted. “I know the war is over, but…”

  “Forgiveness can be hard,” I finished for her quietly. She nodded reluctantly at my words.

  That was…probably a common sentiment in Herztal. The war was finally officially over, but hard feelings would remain for some time. Especially among the Sculpted, considering one of the initial inciting incidents had come from their fight for freedom and recognition.

  While I was talking to Sylvia, I noticed another Herztalian soldier lingering at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the second floor. He was doing his best to pretend he didn’t notice Sylvia and me, but not doing a very good job of it, from how he immediately looked away when my eyes met his. Sylvia leaned in closer to me and spoke in a lower tone. “Father is upstairs meeting with him,” She whispered to me. “The Regent Lord had business with him. They’re waiting on you.”

  I nodded shallowly at her words. “And the others?” I murmured back.

  “Liora and Renauld had business, while Azarus is out back,” Sylvia returned quietly. “He’s minding Aveline and Fade while they play together.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to you later,” I said in a louder tone, causing the armor-clad soldier to straighten up. Sylvia nodded in acknowledgement and slipped away through the dining room, while I walked over and up the staircase, exchanging a nod with the guard. Once on the second floor, it only took me a moment to reach Grey’s study, where even more guards were waiting just outside the room. They straightened up at the sight of me.

  The one on the right nodded respectfully at me. “Sir Hart, they’re expecting you.” I waited patiently while he knocked on the door he was guarding, causing the murmuring voices inside to stop for a moment. I heard a faint, recognizable voice inside respond, and then the guard opened the door for me.

  Inside, I found exactly who I was expecting. Grey sat behind his desk, the top of it cleared to make space for a large, unrolled scroll. He looked up from his inspection of the parchment to greet me with a smile and a nod, which I returned. With that out of the way, I met the cool eyes of the other occupant.

  Regent Lord Wenzel von Steinmark didn’t look to have made any changes upon his assumption of his new office. Still in plain black clothes, he’d bound his long hair back with a leather thong, and upon his brow now sat a simple silver circlet. No gems were inset into the ring, and the only artistic embellishment was a stylized knot wrought from the silver in the center of the crown. Interestingly, I did notice that he was now bearing a sword at his waist. Nothing complicated, gaudy, or even ceremonial looking. Short, too, much shorter than most Herztalian arms I’d seen. It looked to be about the length of a gladius, I’d say.

  I inclined my head to the man. “Lord von Steinmark.”

  “Sir Hart,” Wenzel acknowledged, gesturing with one hand to the chair next to him. “Sit. We have business to conclude.” I nodded and did as he asked. Once I was settled in the chair, Wenzel wasted no time in getting down to his business. “Once again, thank you both for your efforts in convincing Oskar. I do not know what arguments you used to do so, but now that matters have been finished, we can see to the restoration of Herztal.”

  I exchanged a glance with Grey before looking back at Wenzel. “It was…mostly Isolde, to be honest. I think she swayed him more than we did.”

  Wenzel regarded me evenly for a moment before nodding shortly. “I shall remember that. Now, I have already spoken to the Headmaster on what he requires for restitution,” He said, dark eyes briefly flickering over to a placidly waiting Grey. “It is now time for yours, Sir Hart. First and foremost, your formal knighting.”

  I restrained a sigh at those words. I’d already resigned myself to such a thing months ago, to be honest. I’m sure some people would wonder just why I considered a knighthood such a burden, but frankly, I had to wonder if they were aware of the demands such a station demanded. Knights in Herztal, from what I’d learned, were expected to do a number of things. You had to maintain a respectable household, for one, which meant you needed one in the first place. You were expected to either participate in important military conflicts, in defense of your domain or the Kingdom as a whole, or at least contribute to it. You were expected to maintain a level of decorum that was a bit…antithetical to my previous occupation as a literal assassin. You were expected to administer justice in a fief if it lacked an official Crown-appointed judge. You were heavily encouraged to continue seeking levels to better serve the crown.

  Not really an issue for me, considering what I was already going to do that. But I had heard rumors about knighthoods being outright rescinded if they were lax in seeking strength.

  And…you weren’t exactly considered nobility if you were a knight. But you were way, way closer to the Lords and Ladies of the realm than your average peasant or merchant if you became one.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  After all, you were expected to defend them in times of crisis.

  All that to say, becoming an officially recognized Knight of Herztal was to take on a level of duty I was…wary of. I wasn’t keen on possibly being given responsibility over a village in the middle of nowhere when there was no way I would be able to directly oversee it. I had no intention of giving up my plans of attending the Academy here in the capital. I didn’t have much flexibility in refusing a knighthood, when it was already widely known I was one. It would jeopardize the life I hoped to build with Aveline and my friends to turn it down. Not to mention, I would be directly humiliating and antagonizing the Throne.

  It just wasn’t a good idea.

  So.

  I was going to be a Knight.

  “Alright,” I said evenly, meeting Wenzel’s eyes. “Are we doing this here?”

  “I have offered the use of my personal chapel,” Grey said, butting in and drawing my gaze. At my raised brow, my mentor smiled wryly. “I’m not particularly religious, of course, but such a thing is expected for a man of my station. However, there is one matter we must settle on before we do so. Please, take a look at this, Nathan,” He said, gesturing towards the scroll on his desk. I leaned forward at his direction as Grey continued speaking. “This is the proclamation that I…workshopped, shall we say, with the Regent Lord’s input. It details our support of his reign.”

  My eyes flickered over toward said Regent, to which he raised a thin black eyebrow at me. I looked away and studied the wording of the proclamation.

  We, the undersigned blah blah blah do hereby affirm our blah blah blah. To whit we vow blah blah blah…

  Ugh.

  It went on like that for a while. As far as I could tell, there didn’t appear to be any traps in the wording. Neither my Core nor I could see anything that extended any implicit promises, or implied a level of devotion beyond general approval of the current administration of Herztal. There was some talk about the affirmation of Sculpted rights, a bit of likely necessary glazing of the nobility, and expression of admiration for ‘Lord von Steinmark’s surely stable reign’. Near the end it did mention how we had expressly gotten Oskar’s approval for the entire business. Everything looked above board to me. Near the bottom, I could see a spot where Grey had already signed the scroll with a remarkably loopy signature. That made me realize I had never actually seen it before, but I could easily see that as being his.

  I picked up the fountain pen sitting patiently for me to the right of the scroll, dipped it in the inkwell, and carefully signed the proclamation. Next to Grey’s signature, mine looked distinctly…spiky, in comparison.

  When I was done, Wenzel wordlessly extended a hand toward me, and I handed him the pen. In moments, all three parties had signed, and the ink had dried. The new Regent of Herztal rolled the scroll up and nodded at the two of us. “I shall have my criers read it forth in suitable spots around the city.”

  “Excellent,” Grey said, standing from his chair. “Then, if you gentlemen will follow me? I shall lead you to the chapel.”

  I withheld a sigh as I stood up from the chair I had only just sat down in, following after Grey and Wenzel as he did the same. Idly, I noticed that all of the guards we passed were trailing in our wake as well. Once all three of us were out the door, Grey led us down the staircase and around the back of the house, passing the large wall spanning windows at the back of the house as we did so.

  Outside, I could see Aveline and Fade playing with what seemed to be a stick of all things, the much larger wolf playfully tugging at it while the little girl laughed. Fade abruptly let go, causing Aveline to skip a few steps backward. Although I couldn’t hear her through the glass, I could see her still giggling as she threw the stick as hard as she could.

  Which…wasn’t very.

  I unexpectedly felt a pang at the sight. After a moment, I was surprised to realize it was jealousy. I wanted to be out there myself and play with the two of them. But, I’d been so busy lately that my time spent with my charge and my Familiar had been limited.

  I needed to make more of an effort, I realized. Life wasn’t going to slow down for me anytime soon, and I’d been neglecting them. It had only been a couple of days, but it was best not to get into the habit. Also, I had an easy solution to that, in one of my latest Skills. But I didn’t want to demonstrate it in front of Wenzel.

  I’d keep it in mind for the next time I went out.

  On the porch, I could see Azarus relaxing in a reclining chair, idly watching the almost domestic scene and sipping on a glass of something dark and oily. He must have noticed my stare, because he raised his glass in salute. I nodded at him with a smile and followed after my mentor and the Regent Lord.

  The chapel itself wasn’t anything special. Merely a small heptagonal room with two benches, a pulpit, and a single stained glass window on the wall with the symbol of the Gyre on it. But that was apparently enough.

  “How do we do this?” I asked in the quiet of the chapel, my voice echoing in the small stone room.

  “Typically, the Knight in question swears an Oath of loyalty to both an entity and to what he personally values most,” Grey answered patiently, standing off to the side with his arms folded and hands in his robe sleeves. “In the past, I have had Knights swear to the Order, for instance. It need not explicitly be the Crown.”

  “It would likely be best not to,” Wenzel answered lowly, climbing the dais and turning to face me. “The point of this charade is not to make it seem as if I am extracting mealy-mouthed platitudes from a bondsman. It is to demonstrate the confidence of two powerful third parties in my reign. Merely choose that which matters most to you, recite the Oath, and I shall transcribe it for the records. Thereinupon they shall be aged and back dated to a time before the advent of the war.”

  I went silent for a moment, then.

  What…did I value most? What did I want to swear by, and who did I want to swear it to? Not to Grey's Order, I knew that flat out. I’d done my time in that during the war, and I had no interest in returning to it. Not the throne or the crown, either. I…had no particular loyalty to the institutions of Herztalian rule. I wasn’t a patriot like Liora. I had no problem defending the people of the country in the face of threats. After all, me and mine were part of that population these days. But that felt a bit broad for an oath.

  Likewise, I didn’t want to swear by something as trite as my friends and chosen family. I wasn’t the main character in some vapid Saturday morning cartoon, and I felt like my convictions didn’t lie in that direction.

  I…was realizing I did have a direction where they lay. It was…both surprising and not at the same time.

  “I know what I’ll swear by,” I said quietly, feeling a sense of resolve roll over me.

  Wenzel merely nodded and drew his gladius from its sheath. The dulled grey steel of the well-worn instrument reflected no light from the stained glass of the window. “Then kneel, and take your Oath.”

  I breathed deeply and reached for a weapon I kept on me at all times in response.

  One of my extendable dagger-spears.

  As the Oninite weaponry extended to its full length, Wenzel didn’t blink at the odd sight. I knelt in front of him, standing before me on the steps of the dais, outlined by the light of Tarus above and planted the butt of my spear on the stone below. Grasping the haft with both hands, and closing my eyes…

  I began.

  “I kneel not to throne nor title,” I started slowly, almost tasting the words in my mouth as I spoke. “But to the light of knowledge and the sanctity of freedom. Here I swear, unbroken by my chains:

  No yoke shall pass unbroken where I walk.

  No tyrant shall rise unopposed where I stand.

  I vow…to the Academy, whose precepts shall guide my hand:

  To seek truth, regardless of comfort.

  To uncover what was hidden, and to share what uplifts.

  To hold truth above advantage, and courage above safety.

  I take up the spear and shield - not to watch, but to act.

  The will of the innocent shall not be bent before me.

  Let tyrants tremble where I tread.

  By spear, by Spell, and by soul…

  I stand for the free.”