Chapter 4 Sparks in the Yard

The man's hand closed on the chain like it was the handle to a lunatic's fate. Brian moved before thinking-a poor habit, but sometimes instincts beat sense. He shoved his shoulder into the man's chest. Metal rang. There was a sharp curse, a grunt, and then they were rolling like two dogs in a fight. The yard's noise folded into the scuffle: a shout here, a laugh there, the sound of boots on stone.

"Brother!" Asher barked. "Show us how soft you are with the Mantle's prize!"

Brian felt the breath go out of him like a bell. He got the man off, pushed him back, and stood over him while the man spat and wiped blood from his lip. Around them, faces watched; some with hunger, some with the thin look of men who hope a storm will pass them by.

Lyra did not flinch. She tugged at the chain like a thing deciding its own measure. Her eyes flicked to the crowd and then to Brian, steady like the point of a spear. He read something in her face then-no fear for herself, only a cold, keen thought about what needed to be done next.

"Enough!" Lucius called, and his voice had that way of making the air itself sit up straight. "This is not circus day."

Asher folded his arms, smiling like a man at a funeral who can't help but clap. "A little spirit keeps our men sharp, father. A reminder."

Lucius watched Brian for a long time. Brian's skin felt thin under that look. He wiped his hands on his trousers like he'd been up to something questionable. "You'll bring her down tomorrow," Lucius said at last. "We will show strength."

Asher's grin split his face. "See?" he said, to the crowd. "We keep our borders. We keep our power."

Brian wanted to answer-wanted to say a dozen things-but the words stuck. He felt the thread in his chest like a second pulse. Lyra's eyes were on him like someone taking vows. He swallowed the words that wanted to run out and instead stepped forward.

"If you must parade a lesson," he said, voice low so only Asher and the nearest men could hear, "let it be a lesson of restraint."

Asher's face went cold the way storm clouds do when lightning is on its way. "So you lecture me now? Good God, brother, have we raised a sermon?" He spat the last word like he'd tasted bilge.

Someone from the crowd-one of Asher's sort-threw a piece of rotten bread at Lyra. It hit her shoulder with a soft slap. The sound was small, but the reaction was not. Lyra's hand moved fast without thought, and the chain jerked. The man cursed and staggered like a dog kicked from the hearth.

That was the moment the yard changed. Expectation shifted to fear. People stepped back like they had smelled rain. Asher's men closed in, and Lucius's face became all knife-edges.

Brian saw the look in Asher's eyes and he knew the man's plan. Make trouble, make a show, make his brother look soft, and then step in to save the crest. Asher liked to tidy up chaos and make it his banner. It suited him.

"Take her," Asher said to the nearest guard. "We'll take her to the stocks for the lesson. Let the men see what happens to traitors."

Brian moved between them without thinking. "You will not touch her," he said. He didn't shout; it came out quiet and sharp.

"You'll stand aside, heir," a guard said, tone thick with duty.

Brian felt the breath in his lungs like a wind up a hill. He thought of his father's words about order, about the crest stitched into his heart. He thought about the single syllable Lyra had mouthed-Sera-and how it had opened up something he could not shut again. He had chosen to keep her because of that small thing. He would not let some showman's cruelty rip it out.

The guard reached for his sword. Brian stepped, and the world narrowed to the ring where men circled them. Hands gripped leather and hilts, and the sound of metal was like rain on a tin roof. He could feel his pulse in his ears, right behind his left eye.

Then Lyra moved.

She did not fight like the men. She moved like a shadow slipping between two fires. She used the chain, not as a shackle but as rope-looping it, flicking it, tangling a man's wrist with a clean, cold move. The first guard tripped on his own boots like a fool. The second reached for her and she snapped the chain and his dagger clattered. A cheer rose and died like a struck bell; surprise ate it whole.

Brian's hands were full, grappling with a man who thought he could show him up. He felt a light touch-Lyra's hand on his arm-more to steady than to plead. A thought like a pebble slid into his mind: Remember Sera.

He nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of it. The thought was a whisper rather than words-an echo. But it came with a picture: a circle of stones, a woman bending under a moon, a hand lifted with blood. For a second he saw it clear and raw and then it was gone. The thread hummed and then went silent, as if someone had cut a string and it fell away.

"They fight like foxes," Asher taunted. "Give me two of you and I'll show you what the crown does to thieves."

"You're wrong," Lucius said, voice a cold wet blanket. "This is about order. Not sport."

The crowd pressed close enough that Brian could smell the sweat and the armor polish. Lyra kept moving the chain, clever as any man's trick. She had a rhythm that matched the yard's heartbeat. Brian felt the old thrill-he'd been in dozens of fights-but this was different. He wasn't fighting for a crest. He was fighting to keep his choice.

A torch bumped an arm and fell. For a long second the world held its breath, like a thing waiting for bad news. Then the flame shivered and licked a nearby banner. Men made a small noise and leaned in. Someone cursed. The cloth caught with quick, greedy hunger and the flame ate its way up.

Asher smiled like a man opening a gift. "Perfect," he said, loud enough to carry.

Brian turned, reflexed first. The banner smoked and the smell of burning cloth tore at his throat. Men screamed and shouted and suddenly the yard was chaos. Some pushed toward the flames; others stamped backward. Lucius barked orders, but shouts drowned him. The guards moved like a body with a sick limb.

Lyra's eyes met his in the middle of the fire-swung chaos. The thread in his chest buzzed like a live wire. He wanted to grab her, to pull her to safety, but he also saw what Asher had done-used the crowd, used the hunger for a show, and then let the flames do the rest. Flames hide the truth in smoke.

"Fire!" someone yelled. The word was a knife. Men ran; a boy stumbled and a torch hit a pile of straw. Sparks jumped like small, angry moths.

Brian saw Asher standing as still as a statue, watching with that cruel, satisfied grin. It made bile rise in his throat. The yard was turning into the kind of mess his father loved to call "necessary." But this was not clean. This was a trap spun of cheap greed.

Lyra's chain slipped loose from a man's wrist, and she pulled free with a motion quick and fierce. She darted toward the flame, eyes on those who might have been harmed rather than on her own danger. She reached a small group of servants and shoved them clear, her hands sure and fast. A child tucked behind a barrel cried and she dragged the child out, one motion as clean as chopping wood. The crowd split to make way, then swarmed again like flies.

Brian grabbed a bucket and filled it, threw it at the base of the flame. Water hit the banner, steaming. For a breath, the smoke curled upward and away. Then a new flare took hold where the torch hit the straw. The heat hit his face like a slap. His sleeves clung to his skin.

Asher didn't move to help. He watched, arms crossed, like a man who'd set a bird trap and now waited to see which ones would get caught. He said nothing. His silence was a kind of roar.

Lucius' face was unreadable. He barked at the men to form a line and pass water buckets. The soldiers moved like trained beasts, and slowly the flames were wrestled. Men coughed and spat and then went back to work.

When the worst of it was done and the yard smelled of wet smoke and singed cloth, Asher stepped forward with a face like thunder cloud. "We have cause to punish traitors," he said loud enough for the crowd to hear. "She lit the torch. She set the straw. If we do not strike now, our men will think the law is soft."

Brian's jaw cut against his teeth. He saw men turning their heads like a flock deciding where to land. He felt the thread hum one last time-a small, bitter note. Lyra's hand found his, strong and quick, a pressure that meant: hold fast.

"You will not blame her," Brian said. His voice was a rope that had grown steady. "She did not light the torch."

Asher's eyes were knives. "You will stand aside, heir," he said, sly and sweet as sour wine. "Or you will be made to look like a fool." He stepped back and his men closed ranks like a door.

For a second the yard was still except for the dying hiss of water on flame and the panting of men. Then someone laughed-low and ugly. The laugh came from Asher's crowd. It was a sound made of other people's fear.

Brian felt the world tilt and hold. He could see how this would look to his father, to the men who liked a clean demonstration. He felt the eyes of the crowd weigh him like scales. He had already chosen once. To keep Lyra was to stand apart. To stand apart was to invite ruin.

He looked at Lyra. She stood in the smoke, hair stuck to her forehead, face marked with soot. Her mouth-silent by force-was set like a thing that had to be broken open with a hammer. Her eyes were not begging. They were asking.

Remember Sera, the thread said, like a bell struck under water.

Brian's fingers tightened on hers. He made a choice that would not be small.

"Then we see the truth," he said, voice steady, and the words landed like a stone. "We will find who set the fire. We will not punish the innocent."

Asher laughed, a thin, sharp sound. "Finders will be rewarded," he said, and walked away toward his father, who watched them both like a man with plans he did not need to finish.

As the crowd dispersed, a small hand-little more than a shadow-slipped a torch back under the pile of straw, unseen. Smoke curled again, patient as a liar. The scrape of a match was a mouse in a grain sack.

Brian didn't see it. No one did. Only the fire and the ash that waited like debt.