Chapter five: Daggers in the Dark

The palace at night was never truly silent.

Somewhere beyond the windows, owls called to one another from the gardens. The guards’ armor clinked faintly as they patrolled the corridors. Servants whispered like ghosts as they cleared the remnants of the banquet.

Ethan lay awake on the vast velvet bed, staring up at the golden constellations painted across the ceiling. Sleep wouldn’t come. His body was exhausted, but his mind refused to rest.

How long can I keep this up?

Every smile, every carefully chosen word, felt like walking across a tightrope above a pit. One slip, and he’d fall. And Lucian was always there, watching with sharp eyes that seemed to cut through every pretense.

He doesn’t trust me. And why should he? Ethan thought bitterly. I’m wearing the face of the brother he despises most.

He rubbed his temples. His stomach still knotted from the banquet. Yet underneath the exhaustion was something else a strange, stubborn determination.

If I’m trapped here, then I’ll fight to survive. I won’t be Adrian. I’ll be something better.

That thought, small but fierce, was the only thing keeping him steady.

The first sign of danger was the flicker of shadow across the balcony.

Ethan frowned. The curtains stirred as if touched by wind, though the night was still. Slowly, carefully, he slid from the bed, his bare feet silent against the cold floor.

He didn’t have a sword. He didn’t even know how to use one. But he grabbed the nearest thing a brass candlestick from the bedside table and held it tight.

The balcony doors creaked.

A figure slipped inside, cloaked in black. The gleam of steel flashed in the intruder’s hand.

Ethan’s blood ran cold. A dagger.

He wanted to freeze, to scream but his body moved. Heart pounding, he swung the candlestick hard. It connected with a sickening crack against the assassin’s forearm. The dagger clattered to the floor.

“Damn it!” the intruder hissed, stumbling back.

Ethan swung again wildly, but the assassin caught the candlestick, wrenching it from his grasp. Ethan staggered back, pulse hammering.

I’m going to die.

The thought blazed through him like fire. His body screamed to flee, to hide, but something deeper held him rooted.

“No,” Ethan growled through clenched teeth. “Not like this.”

He lunged forward, ramming his shoulder into the assassin’s chest. The two of them crashed into the balcony doors, wood splintering with the impact. The night air rushed in, cold and sharp.

The assassin shoved him back, snarling. Another blade appeared shorter, thinner. Poison glistened on its edge.

Ethan’s heart stopped. One cut, and I’m finished.

The assassin slashed

And a sword clanged against the dagger, knocking it aside.

Ethan stumbled backward, gasping, as another figure stepped into the room.

Tall. Black-clad. Eyes like sharpened steel.

Lucian.

His sword gleamed as he pressed the assassin back with a flurry of swift, precise strikes. The intruder faltered, clearly outmatched. With one final motion, Lucian disarmed him, the poisoned blade spinning across the floor.

Guards burst into the chamber a heartbeat later, summoned by the clash. They seized the assassin, who struggled briefly before being forced to his knees.

Lucian didn’t look away from Ethan.

The room was a wreck splintered balcony doors, overturned furniture, the acrid smell of sweat and steel in the air. Ethan’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His hands trembled.

Lucian stepped closer, sword still in hand. His gaze swept the room, then fixed sharply on Ethan.

“You fought him.”

It wasn’t a question.

Ethan swallowed hard. “I… I tried.” His voice was hoarse. “I wasn’t going to just” He broke off, forcing himself to stand straighter. “I wasn’t going to die cowering.”

Lucian studied him for a long, heavy moment. Then, to Ethan’s shock, he sheathed his sword.

“Not the Adrian I know,” Lucian murmured.

The words were soft, but they cut through the air like another blade.

Ethan’s mouth went dry. He wanted to look away, but Lucian’s gaze pinned him, dark and unreadable. Suspicion still lingered there but beneath it, something else. Curiosity. Maybe even respect.

The guards dragged the assassin out, leaving the chamber in uneasy silence.

Lucian finally stepped closer, close enough that Ethan could see the faint sheen of sweat on his temples, the deadly precision in the way he moved.

“You’ll need better than candlesticks,” Lucian said quietly. “Tomorrow, you’ll report to the training grounds.”

Ethan blinked. “Training? You mean”

“I mean if you insist on surviving,” Lucian interrupted, his tone firm, “then learn how.”

For the first time since Ethan had woken in this cursed body, he felt something shift inside him. Not relief, not safety. But a chance.

Lucian turned away, his cloak swirling behind him as he strode toward the door.

“Rest, brother,” he said without looking back. “The next attempt may not be so clumsy.”

The doors closed with a quiet thud.

Ethan stood alone amid the wreckage, his pulse still racing. He pressed a trembling hand to his chest.

His life here wasn’t just a matter of words anymore.

If he wanted to live, he would have to fight.