Chapter Text
“Must you complain about everything?” Damian’s voice carried across the field, voice just underneath the clang of steel and the shouted cadence of drills.
“Must everything be so goddamn boring?” Jason shot back without slowing, his tone dry, bitten thin at the edges.
He wasn’t wrong.
The midday sun sat heavy and merciless above them, pressing heat down into the packed earth until it bled through leather and linen alike. Damian could feel sweat pooling beneath his armor, even with it being lighter than the dozens of knights around him. The layer of dried salt itched at his collar, and the straps bit too tightly no matter how often he adjusted them. The air rang with noise—blunted blades striking shields, the barked corrections of captains, squires laughing too loudly to hide their nerves. It all scraped against his skull.
A knight stumbled nearby, shield dipping too low. Damian’s gaze snapped to it on instinct.
“Guard higher,” he called, sharp and immediate. The knight startled, corrected, flushed.
Jason huffed a quiet laugh. “See? You hate it, and yet you can’t help yourself.”
“This is not hatred,” Damian said, eyes never leaving the field. “This is incompetence being loud.”
They crested the small rise overlooking the main yard. From here, the banners of their house gleamed in the daylight, the embroidered sigil of a bat cleaned well and often.
Jason rolled his shoulder, armor creaking. “You know, most highborn our age would be hiding in the shade. Drinking. Gambling.”
“Most highborn are useless,” Damian replied flatly, “and your not exactly highborn.”
“Haha,” Jason mocked, voice flat, then stopped entirely, planting his feet in the dirt. “You don’t get extra honor points for being high and mighty.”
Damian turned on him then, dark eyes sharp. “And you do not get them for being miserable louder than I.”
For a moment, the noise of the yard seemed to dim. Jason studied him—really studied him—like he was trying to decide whether to argue or concede.
Finally, he sighed. “You’re going to burn yourself out.”
“Better than letting others bleed for my comfort.”
Jason shook his head, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth despite himself. Then he turned and began his slow circuit of the courtyard, boots crunching against packed earth as he left the young man standing alone beneath the unrelenting sun.
Damian did not follow.
Truth be told, he wanted to be among them—not as a knight, he knew his duties where beyond that, but, selfishly, with a blade in his hand and dirt under his nails. Training. Real training. The kind that burned the weakness out of your muscles and left you shaking with it.
He trained twice a day already—once at daybreak, when the air was sharp and clean and the world had not yet learned how to hurt, and once again at nightfall, when shadows stretched long and exhaustion became another enemy to master. Six days a week. Privately. Controlled.
It wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
He had to be better. He had to be the best. Anything less meant someone else paid the price. His mind gnawed at the thought the way it always did, restless, unsatisfied.
And then his attention snagged.
A squire- not quite. Too tall for it. Too broad in the shoulders, too sure in his movements. Older than Damian by several years at least, riding the thin, dangerous line between squirehood and knighthood. The kind of man who would be forced to prove himself soon, one way or another.
The man’s eyes were set forward, sharp and unyielding, locked on his opponent with a focus so complete it bordered on reverence. Every movement was precise. Economical. No wasted motion.
Damian found he could not look away.
There was something there. A kind of hunger, perhaps. Or resolve. The kind that didn’t waver under heat or noise or the weight of expectation. The kind Damian recognized intimately.
So focused was the squire that he didn’t notice the younger boy sprinting across the yard until it was far too late.
They collided hard.
The squire went down in a sprawl of limbs and clattering gear, dust bursting up around him. A ripple of laughter broke out nearby. Against his better judgment, Damian felt his mouth curve—just slightly.
Then the man looked up.
Their eyes met.
And in that exact moment, the world narrowed to a single, blinding point. The clangor of the courtyard fell away. The heat vanished. Damian’s breath caught sharp in his chest, stolen clean from him like a blade between the ribs.
The squire’s gaze held his—steady, surprised, unreadable.
Something in Damian’s chest shifted.
It was as though a hidden latch had been thrown open all at once, and the world rushed in too fast to make sense of. The courtyard slammed back into place around him, edges blurred and swimming, sound dulled like he’d gone briefly underwater.
There was nothing but the man thirty paces ahead of him.
Damian became acutely, unbearably aware of himself—the twitch of his fingers at his side, the tight pull in his throat, the way his breath stuttered instead of flowing, and the twitch of his fingers. He noticed details he had never once cared about before: the line of the squire’s mouth as his lips parted slightly, the dust smudged along his jaw, the way the sun caught in his dark hair and turned it the color of warm steel.
Thoughts came all at once. Too many. Too fast. They crowded his skull, unfamiliar and insistent, with no discipline to them at all.
This is dangerous. This is wrong. Do not look.
And yet he could not stop.
He had been dropped into new territory without map or warning—suffocating, intoxicating, and damning all at once. There were no lessons for this. No drills. No rules he could recite to regain control. His chest felt too tight, his skin too thin, like something inside him had woken before he was ready to face it.
He had never been drunk, not truly—but if it felt anything like this, he understood suddenly, viscerally, why some men sought it again and again. Why they ruined themselves for the chance to feel this way one more time.
Someone was saying his name.
“Damian.”
Again. Louder.
It took all of him to tear his gaze away, to break the fragile, terrible spell before it swallowed him whole.
“Yes,” he said sharply, too sharply. “Did you need something?”
Jason stood beside him now, arms crossed, one brow arched high. His mouth twitched—not quite a smile, not quite restraint.
“Are you?” Jason asked mildly. “Because for a moment there I thought you’d been struck by a wandering enchantment. Or possessed.”
Damian bristled immediately. “Do not be ridiculous.”
Jason’s eyes flicked—brief, knowing—back toward the squire, who was just regaining his feet, laughing sheepishly as another knight clapped him on the shoulder.
Then back to Damian.
“Oh,” Jason said, far too casually. “I see.”
“There is nothing to see,” Damian snapped, heat crawling up his neck in a way he did not appreciate and could not control.
Jason leaned down slightly, voice dropping into the familiar cadence of an older brother who had discovered a secret and would never let it rest. “Sure there is. First time the armor’s looked back at you, hm?”
Damian’s jaw clenched. “You will not speak of this.”
Jason chuckled under his breath. “Relax. I’m not about to announce it to the court.” Then, softer—but no less pointed—“Doesn’t mean I didn’t notice.”
Damian folded his hands behind his back, nails biting into his palms, forcing his breathing steady. Dangerous. Forbidden in more ways than one, in a kingdom that prized lineage, alliances, and obedience above all else.
And yet—
His eyes betrayed him, drifting back to the training yard once more.
Jason followed the glance and sighed, fond and resigned. “Gods have mercy you,” he muttered. “You’re doomed.”
Damian ignored him.
In the weeks that followed, he became—regrettably—a boy.
At fifteen summers, Damian insisted that made him a man. Unfortunately, his thoughts, and most of the people that knew him, did not agree. He circled. Fixated. Latched on and refused to let go. ‘Obsession’, he decided, ‘was an inefficient state of being’.
He found himself in it anyway.
His father was lord of the land. Information was embarrassingly easy to obtain. And to call Damian thorough would be a grievous understatement. He had to know everything.
The squire was eighteen. Old enough, then. On the cusp of knighthood, his vigil to be taken with the turning of the next season. Common-born, but distinguished—House El, a name spoken with respect even in the higher halls. Their sigil was the sun, chosen not for poetry but for promise, when the squire’s father had earned his renown blade-first and bleeding.
A hero. A savior, if the villages were to be believed.
Two sons. Both following in his wake.
And his name.
Jonathan.
Damian stared at the parchment longer than strictly necessary.
It was extraordinarily ordinary. He did not know whether that bothered him or made it worse.
The more Damian learned, the more he wanted to learn. The more often he found reasons-excuses-to linger at the training yards reserved for squires and knights. He appeared there under the pretense of inspections, observations, or fulfilling one of the many rotating duties assigned to the royal brood.
Sometimes he had no excuse at all.
He watched footwork. Guard positions. Timing. He told himself this was education. Discipline. Improvement.
It was a lie.
Because his eyes always found Jonathan first.
And once they did, Damian stayed—standing too long in the sun, forgetting entirely why he’d come, heart tripping foolishly over itself every time Jonathan laughed, or swore under his breath, or looked his way like the world was not so neatly divided into noble and commoner.
Jason noticed.
All of his many siblings had begun to notice, truth be told, but Jason was the worst of them. Or perhaps the best.
One afternoon, as Damian lingered yet again at the edge of the yard, Jason came to stand beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed.
“They say if you make a face long enough, it’ll get stuck that way,” Jason said mildly.
“I am fine,” Damian replied, eyes still locked forward. Any other time he would’ve glared. At least.
He was wholly, truly, screwed.
“Mmh.” Jason watched the yard for a moment, then added, far too casually, “You know, if you keep staring like that, people are going to start thinking you’re planning to knight him yourself.”
Damian stiffened. “Do not be absurd.”
Jason’s mouth curved. “Just observing. You’ve got the look.”
“What look?”
“The one where your brain’s left the room and your body’s forgotten how to breathe.”
Damian finally turned on him, scowling. “Stop it.”
Jason held up a hand in surrender, amusement softening, but not disappearing, from his expression. “Hey. I get it.” Then, quieter: “First crush always hits like a mace.”
Damian’s stomach dropped. “You do not know-”
“I do,” Jason said gently, eyes still on the training yard. “Because I remember when mine did.”
That shut Damian up.
Jason let the silence stretch before speaking again, his tone shifting, still warm, but edged now with something harder. “I also remember the world we live in.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“This isn’t a ballad,” Jason went on. “And it isn’t safe. Not for you. Not for him. People forgive a nobility many things—but this isn’t one of them.”
“I am… aware,” Damian said stiffly.
“Are you?” Jason glanced at him then, searching. “Because you don’t just wear your heart on your sleeve. You wear it on your face.”
Damian looked away.
Jason exhaled slowly. “I’m not telling you to stop feeling. Gods know that never works.” A beat. “I am telling you to be careful. You already carry enough secrets that could get you killed.”
Damian’s eyes snapped back to him. “I don’t need you-”
Jason met his gaze evenly, teasing gone now. “Clearly, you do.”
For a moment, the noise of the yard seemed to fade.
Then Jason straightened, clapping Damian lightly on the shoulder, the familiar grin sliding back into place like armor. “Just… don’t give them more weapons than they already have, little brother.”
And with that, he walked off- leaving Damian alone with the sun, the training yard, and the dangerous, traitorous pull of Jonathan El.
Jason’s words marinated in Damian’s mind long after the yard had emptied. They followed him through the slow fade of afternoon, through his evening drills, through the ritual of washing dust and sweat from his hands. By the time the bells rang for supper, they had settled deep in his chest, heavy and unwelcome.
The great hall of the castle could have held hundreds. Tonight, it held nine.
Their voices echoed anyway.
They took their accustomed places along the long table, age-old and unchanging, flanking the patriarch like opposing ranks. Lord Wayne sat at the head, draped in black silks reinforced with leaden steel- armor worked so seamlessly into his attire that it barely registered as such. He refused, at any hour, to be caught unprepared. It was a trait he had passed on with ruthless efficiency.
Each of his children bore it differently.
A dagger at the hip. A sword within reach. A bracer hiding steel. A ring that was not only a ring. Histories written in scars and habits and quiet vigilance, even here, even now.
Even at supper.
Servants moved soundlessly, laying out dishes Damian barely noticed. His thoughts kept drifting, traitorous and persistent, back to the training yard—to sunlit dust and steady hands and a pair of focused eyes that had looked at him with painful neutrality.
Jason dropped into his seat across from him, expression unreadable. When their gazes met, Jason’s brow lifted just slightly.
‘Careful’, the look said. ‘You’re not invisible.’
Damian straightened at once.
Lord Wayne surveyed them all in silence, dark eyes sharp and assessing. Whatever the world believed of him—benevolent, malevolent—this was his family, and the way his gaze softened by a fraction when it lingered on each of them betrayed it. That most of them had been chosen rather than born of him remained a point of contention in the wider realm. Lord Wayne had never cared. He loved them fiercely, deliberately, the love itself was an act of defiance.
“Report,” he said at last.
They went in order, voices overlapping only when interrupted. Border patrols first—movements along the northern pass, a skirmish put down before it grew teeth. Trade routes next—grain flowing, iron delayed, rumors of tariffs disguised as diplomacy. Whispers of unrest followed, spoken more carefully, as though naming them might give them form.
Damian listened. When his turn came, he spoke clearly, concisely. No wasted words. No visible hesitation. His posture was immaculate, his expression composed.
He was very good at this.
He had been trained to be.
Still, Jason’s warning pressed at him like a brand beneath the skin.
This isn’t safe.
You already carry enough secrets.
Damian curled his fingers around his goblet, grounding himself in the cool metal, the weight of it solid and real. He focused on the bite of the wine, the faint bitterness lingering on his tongue.
But didn’t they all?
Across the table, laughter broke out—Stephanie leaning across her plate to murmur something to Cass, who ducked her head, the corner of her mouth lifting despite herself. Someone else snorted. Jason smiled, just a little.
Damian forced his shoulders to loosen.
This room was safe.
The world beyond these walls was sharp and waiting and cruel—but here, in the long shadow of the table and the banners overhead, he was known. Seen. Whatever he was, whatever he carried, they loved him all the more for it.
Lord Wayne’s gaze shifted, settling briefly on Damian. It was not unkind. It was not interrogating.
It was measuring.
“Tomorrow,” Lord Wayne said, breaking the moment, “the eastern yards will host the start of this season’s tournament for those seeking knighthood.”
The words landed heavier than they should have.
Damian kept his face carefully neutral, chin lifted, gaze steady. Inside, something tightened—an instinctive, traitorous spark he did not allow to show.
“You are all expected to attend,” Lord Wayne continued, his eyes lingering on Damian a heartbeat longer than necessary.
The announcement was met with a chorus of groans, complaints blooming immediately around the table.
“Oh, joy,”
“Eight hours in the sun,”
“I’d rather be stabbed,”
Beside Damian, Tim shifted in his seat, already reaching for his cup. “And the bitching continues,” he whispered under his breath, just loud enough to be heard.
Damian didn’t look at him, but the corner of his mouth twitched despite himself.
Tim was four years his senior and infuriatingly perceptive. They were more alike than Damian would ever openly admit—both quiet observers, both collectors of information, both just as dangerous in thought as in display. Tim leaned closer now, voice low.
“Try not to stare tomorrow,” he added mildly.
Damian’s grip tightened around his goblet. “I do not stare.”
Tim hummed. “Lie to Jason if you want but you can’t lie to me.”
Across the table, Jason caught the exchange and grinned into his wine.
Lord Wayne raised a hand, silencing the noise without effort. “This tournament matters,” he said. “The realm is watching. Who we elevate reflects who we are.”
His gaze swept the table once more. “You will conduct yourselves accordingly.”
“Yes, Father,” came Damian’s mumbled response. The others had similar concessions.
The meal resumed, conversation drifting to safer ground, but Damian found it difficult to focus. His thoughts had already fled ahead of him—to dust and steel and sunlight, to the eastern yards, to a particular squire standing on the edge of something new.
Tomorrow, Jonathan El would fight to earn his spurs. And Damian would be there to watch. He told himself it was duty.
He did not believe it for a moment.
His reverie was broken when a knight approached the high table—an actual one, fully sworn and bearing the sigil upon his chest. He bent low and murmured something into Lord Wayne’s ear, urgent enough that their father rose at once, black silks whispering as he turned away from the table.
“Continue without me,” Lord Wayne said, already half-gone.
The moment his back was turned, the hall changed.
Damian barely had time to breathe before his siblings descended.
Jason was first, leaning back in his chair with a grin sharp enough to draw blood. “So,” he drawled, “tournament tomorrow.”
Stephanie didn’t bother with subtlety. “Oh, this is wonderful,” she said brightly. “I’ve been dying to know—who’s your favorite?”
“I do not have one,” Damian snapped.
Tim, traitor that he was, folded his hands and regarded Damian over steepled fingers, “Unlikely and untrue.”
Cass tilted her head, eyes thoughtful. “You look… different,” she said quietly.
Damian felt heat creep up his neck. “You are all imagining things.”
Jason laughed outright. “Sure we are. And the sun rises in the west.”
Stephanie leaned closer, stage-whispering, “Is he tall?”
Damian pushed his chair back an inch, affronted. “That is irrelevant.”
“Ah,” Jason said, delighted. “So he is.”
Jason and Stephanie made an unholy alliance when the mood struck them-and tonight was no exception.
“Wait-”
The interruption came from the far end of the table, loud and sincere. His eldest brother, heir apparent, and-by some miracle-silent for longer than anyone had thought possible.
“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” Dick asked.
Several heads turned.
They were all faintly proud of him for holding out as long as he had.
Dick sat beside his wife, Barbara—newly House Wayne, still wearing the change like armor that had not yet been properly fitted. The two of them looked content in a way that made the hall feel fuller than it was. Since moving to their own estate, Dick had missed things—small moments, inside jokes, the quiet undercurrents that shaped the family. It weighed on him more than he let on.
None of them admitted how much they missed him.
Jason grinned like a man about to commit a crime. “Our demon spawn over here has a crush—”
“Hey!” Stephanie snapped immediately. “We talked about this. You can’t call him that.”
Jason waved her off. “Yes, yes, fine, whatever. Point is—” he leaned back, gesturing lazily toward Damian, “—he’s very invested in the outcome of this week’s tournament.”
Damian stared at him, mortified. “That is a gross misrepresentation.”
Tim sipped his wine. “It’s accurate.”
Cass nodded once.
Dick blinked. Then smiled slowly, understanding dawning. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”
Barbara’s eyes flicked from Damian to the others, amused. “How bad?”
“Historic,” Stephanie said cheerfully.
Dick laughed, warm and genuine, and Damian felt something in his chest loosen despite himself. “Well,” Dick said, tone gentler now, “that explains why you’ve been staring at the training schedules like they’re battle maps.”
“I do not stare,” Damian insisted.
Jason raised a brow. “You chart.”
Damian groaned, dropping his face into his hands for a brief, traitorous moment. The table erupted.
For all the danger, all the warnings, all the secrets pressing at his ribs—this, at least, was familiar. Loud. Loving. Unforgiving.
Family.
And tomorrow, whether he wished it or not, the tournament would begin.
“Still,” Duke said thoughtfully, finally chiming in from halfway down the table.
They all turned. Duke Thomas- now Wayne, and older than Damian. He was broad-shouldered, sun-darkened, and still new enough to the family that he chose his moments carefully. He had been watching the exchange with open amusement, elbows braced on the table like he belonged there now. Because he did.
“Still,” Duke repeated, nodding toward Damian, “you might want to remember where you are. And who.”
Damian stiffened. Jason’s grin sharpened.
“Oh, don’t start being responsible now,” Jason said. “It’s unsettling.”
Duke ignored him, gaze steady on Damian. “I’m serious. Whoever this hopeful knight is—if he knew what you really were—”
Damian’s stomach dropped.
“—he’d probably run his sword straight through you,” Duke finished calmly.
The table went quiet for half a heartbeat. Stephanie opened her mouth.
Jason beat her to it.
“Oh, come on,” Jason said breezily. “Let’s not pretend that’s a threat.”
Stephanie followed up right behind him. “From the way he’s been staring, that sounds more like a request.”
Dick choked on his drink.
Barbara coughed, valiantly trying to maintain dignity.
Tim muttered something about decency and dropped his head into his hand.
Damian surged to his feet. “That is not— I would never—”
Jason wiped a tear from his eye. “Relax. If swords start getting involved, we’ll make sure it’s metaphorical.”
The edge of Cass’s lip lifted, “your obvious, baby bat.”
Damian dropped back into his chair with a wounded scowl. “I hate all of you.”
Duke’s smile softened, teasing ebbing just enough to let the warning through. “We’re joking,” he said quietly. “Because it’s easier than saying the other part.”
Damian looked at him. He was connected to Duke through their shared secret, and it was something not lost on either of them.
“The world isn’t kind to things it doesn’t understand,” Duke went on. “And it understands what you are even less than knights.”
Jason raised his cup. “Which is why,” he said lightly, “we tease you here. So no one does it out there.”
Silence settled again—brief, warm, heavy with care.
Then Stephanie clapped her hands. “Anyway! Tomorrow’s tournament. I’m taking bets.”
Damian groaned.
But he didn’t miss the way Duke’s warning lingered beneath the laughter—sharp as steel, careful as family.
Tomorrow was coming.
And Jonathan El would step into the ring with a sword in his hand, unaware that his Lord’s youngest son would be watching him like fate itself had taught him how to breathe.
Time, irritatingly, refused to hurry on anyone’s behalf.
The hours dragged despite Damian’s protests—silent, internal, useless—and before he quite realized how he’d arrived there, dawn had broken and he was already making his rounds of the tourney grounds.
The day was perfect for it.
Warm sunlight spilled over the eastern yards, bright but not yet cruel, softened by a cool breeze that stirred banners and carried the clean scent of cut grass and oiled steel. If Damian dared to tilt his head back and breathe it in fully, he suspected he might actually enjoy himself.
He did not dare.
And yet—despite all his insistence otherwise—he did enjoy the knight tournaments. They mattered. These were the men who would stand between the realm and its enemies, who would bleed for borders and villages and names carved into stone. Knowing them—measuring them—was not indulgence. It was responsibility.
It was also, if he were honest, a little bit thrilling.
The grounds were already alive with motion. Squires checked straps and adjusted armor with shaking hands. Knights moved with practiced ease, murmuring advice or correction. Steel rang softly as blades were tested, the sound sharp and promising.
Damian walked slowly, hands clasped behind his back, observing.
He took note of the favorites easily enough.
Batson—dark-haired, broad, bearing a name almost sickeningly perfect. He was reliable. Strong. Smiled a little too much. Jason’s pick, if Damian had to guess.
Wilkes—the redhead. Common-born and stubborn, someone Damian had crossed paths with years ago when they were both younger and angrier. He had grown into his skill instead of out of it. That alone earned respect.
He catalogued footwork, posture, awareness. Who listened. Who postured. Who wasted energy trying to look fearless.
If he searched long enough, he was certain he could find Jason somewhere along the edge of the grounds, leaning against a post and talking to his favorite—an archer who’d earned his spurs years ago and could split an apple at fifty paces without blinking.
But that wasn’t what Damian was looking for.
Not really.
His gaze kept drifting—sliding over faces and armor and banners—drawn toward something just out of sight. Toward a familiar shape he had learned too quickly to recognize. Toward the sun-bright sigil stitched into a surcoat. Toward a presence he had no business seeking and could not seem to stop.
Jonathan El.
Damian told himself it was coincidence. Curiosity. Strategy.
It was a lie.
Damian’s thoughts betrayed him all the same.
Jonathan El moved through the yard like someone who belonged to it—easy in his body, attentive without being rigid, laughing once with another squire before settling back into focus. There was confidence there, earned rather than assumed, and it tugged at Damian in a way that felt both fascinating and deeply inconvenient.
Intriguing, his mind supplied, traitorously.
And useless.
He could never act on it. He knew that. Jason’s voice echoed, dry and fond and warning all at once. Not safe. Duke’s steadier tone followed, quieter but sharper. The world isn’t kind to things it doesn’t understand.
A Wayne did not indulge foolishness. A Wayne did not look twice. A Wayne did not—
Damian’s thoughts tangled, ran too fast, tripped over themselves. He wondered, briefly and stupidly, what Jonathan thought of the tournament. Whether he felt fear or only hunger. Whether—
Crack.
The world snapped sideways.
Pain bloomed sharp and bright across Damian’s face as something solid struck his cheekbone. His head jerked with the impact, vision flashing white, boots skidding half a step in the dust.
For a stunned heartbeat, there was only ringing.
Then chaos.
“Oh- Gods- I-”
A training staff clattered to the ground at Damian’s feet.
Jonathan El froze, horror flooding his features as realization hit him like a second blow. He went pale beneath the dust and sun, eyes wide, breath stuttering.
“My lord- I didn’t- I swear I didn’t see you-”
He dropped to his knees so fast it sent up a puff of dirt, head bowing low enough that his hair brushed the ground. One hand pressed flat to the earth, the other hovering uselessly as if he might reach out and feared the attempt.
“I beg your pardon,” Jonathan said, voice tight with panic. “I was drilling- I lost the line- I would never- Please-”
The yard had gone deathly quiet.
Every eye turned.
Damian stood very still, face burning where he’d been struck, pulse thundering in his ears. He tasted copper and swallowed it down, lifting a hand to touch his cheek. It would bruise. He could already feel it.
Across the yard, Jason straightened sharply. Barbra at his side tensing every muscle in his body.
Duke, half the field in the other direction could be heard swearing.
Jonathan bowed lower, trembling now. “Punish me as you see fit, I can take it,” he said hoarsely. “But I meant no disrespect.”
Damian looked down at him.
At the man he had been thinking about—too much, too openly—now kneeling in the dirt, terrified he had just ruined his own life.
The irony would have been funny, if it hadn’t hurt.
Slowly, deliberately, Damian lowered his hand.
“Enough,” he said.
His voice carried.
Jonathan stilled, breath caught.
Damian bent, retrieved the fallen staff, and held it out—not as an accusation, but as a return. His expression was composed once more, princely and unreadable, though his heart had not yet slowed.
“You were drilling,” Damian said evenly. “It was an easy mistake, it will be an easy correction.”
Jonathan looked up despite himself, disbelief flickering across his face.
“Stand,” Damian added.
For a moment, Jonathan hesitated—then obeyed, rising shakily to his feet.
The world exhaled.
Jason, somewhere behind Damian, let out a low whistle. Duke muttered, “Well. That’s one way to meet him.”
Damian did not turn around.
His eyes remained on Jonathan El, steady now, sharp with something dangerously like interest.
“Next time,” Damian said calmly, “mind your spacing.”
Jonathan swallowed hard. “Yes, my lord.”
The words should have been the end of it. Dismissal. Distance. Safety.
And yet.
Damian felt the weight of Jason’s warning like a hand at his back, felt Duke’s quiet caution pressing at his ribs. Careful. Not here. Not like this.
He ignored them.
Gods help him—this might be his only chance.
“Do not let this shake you,” Damian said, voice still even, still princely. “I expect to see you in a knight’s armor by the end of the week.”
The squire went silent all over again. Damian’s voice hadn’t carried, he was sure, no one else could’ve heard him.
Jonathan stared at him, stunned. “My lord— I—”
“You have skill,” Damian continued, as if this were nothing more than an assessment. “And discipline. The rest is nerve.” His gaze held Jonathan’s, unflinching. “Do not waste it on fear.”
For a heartbeat, Jonathan looked like he might forget how to breathe.
Then he bowed—not in terror this time, but in something closer to reverence. “I will not,” he said firmly.
Around them, the world resumed let back in like light through a window-steel ringing again, murmurs rising-but something irrevocable had shifted.
He could feel eyes on him but Damian did not dare turn. His pulse was too loud for that.
Jonathan took a step back, clutching the staff like an anchor, then another, retreating to rejoin the line. But before he turned away completely, his eyes flicked up once more—quick, searching, unreadable.
Damian held the look.
Then Jonathan was gone, swallowed by the press of bodies and banners.
Damian released a breath he had not realized he was holding.
He had crossed a line.
Whether it would cost him-or earn him something he could not yet name-remained to be seen.
An hour passed before the trumpets sounded.
Their call rang sharp and bright across the grounds, cutting through the clash of practice steel and murmured speculation. Damian turned at once, schooling his expression as he made his way toward the raised podium set between the rows of spectators.
The walk felt longer than it was.
He ascended the steps two at a time, the murmur of the crowd rising and falling around him like surf. From the height of the dais, the tourney grounds stretched wide—dusty, sunlit, alive with color and movement. Banners snapped in the breeze. Armor gleamed. Hope and ambition stood shoulder to shoulder below.
At the high table, his family waited.
Lord Wayne stood at its center.
His father wore his coronet and the sigil of their House, iron-dark and unmistakable. He towered over Damian not just in stature but in presence—dark hair pulled back, pale skin stark against black silks reinforced with hidden steel. There was no color to him. No softness. No warmth for the public eye.
A lord. A weapon. A legend.
His gaze fell to Damian’s face at once.
To the bruise.
Damian felt it then- the deep ache beneath the skin, purple and ugly where the training staff had struck him. He had known it would show. He had no way to hide and even if he had it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
Lord Wayne did not ask a question.
He simply raised one eyebrow.
The smallest of gestures. A blade’s edge of inquiry.
‘Explain,’ those eyes said, ‘Now, or later.’
Damian straightened, meeting his father’s eyes without flinching.
‘Later’, he promised silently.
Lord Wayne held the look for a heartbeat longer, measuring, weighing, then inclined his head a fraction and turned back to the grounds.
Judgment deferred.
For now.
Damian took his place beside his siblings, pulse finally slowing, as the herald stepped forward to announce the opening bouts.
Below them, the hopeful knights assembled.
And somewhere in the press of steel and dust, Jonathan El waited, unaware that the bruise on the young noble’s face had already been counted, noted, and quietly forgiven.
The tournament would last five days.
Each day tested a different measure of worth, each one stripping away pretense until only skill, discipline, and nerve remained. This was no single bout to crown a champion for spectacle’s sake; it was a proving ground, deliberate and merciless.
The first day belonged to endurance.
All day hopefuls ran the perimeter of the grounds in armor, sparred in rotating matches, and held formation under the sun until their arms shook. Many failed here, not from lack of strength, but from lack of patience.
The second day tested precision.
Archery at distance. Blunted blades in narrow lanes where a single misstep cost the bout. Damian watched closely, eyes sharp, cataloging who learned from mistakes and who repeated them.
The third day was for tactics.
Small-unit drills. Simulated ambushes. Commands given and deliberately misunderstood to see who adapted and who broke. It was here that pride ruined more men than steel ever could.
The fourth day was combat.
Real bouts now, blades dulled but unforgiving, shields cracked and tempers shorter than they had been at the start of the week. Blood was drawn. Bones were bruised. By nightfall, the list of hopefuls had been cut nearly in half.
And then there would be the final day.
The jousts.
The last and most visible test—pageantry layered over danger, speed and balance measured in heartbeats. One mistake at full gallop could shatter more than pride. It was the trial the crowds loved most, and the one Lord Wayne trusted least to spectacle.
All the while, the royal family would watch.
Not as ornament, but as judgment.
At the end of each day, there was a feast—long tables set for knights sworn and not yet sworn alike. Wine flowed. Injuries were compared like trophies. Victories were exaggerated, defeats softened by laughter and song. It was tradition as old as the tournament itself, meant to remind the hopefuls what they fought for as much as what they fought through.
The entire ordeal was one of the most expensive undertakings of the year—coin poured into armor, horses, food, and healers, without restraint. Most found it worth its weight in gold.
Day one, however, was always the slowest. The tests meant less to entertain than to exhaust. The stands were quieter, the crowd restless. There was too much time to think and too little distraction from pain.
It was a day designed to strip men down to themselves.
Damian knew that better than most.
And with so much time stretched thin, his thoughts betrayed him—wandering back again and again to the training yard, to steady hands and stubborn resolve, to the man who endured without complaint.
Jonathan El did not falter.
He did not waver when the drills ran long or when the sun climbed higher and heavier in the sky. He ran the perimeter in full gear, breath measured, then turned seamlessly into one-on-one bouts, only to be sent back out again without pause. Steel rang, boots struck dust, commands were barked and obeyed.
From Damian’s vantage, high above the grounds, he could track Jonathan without effort—could almost feel the rhythm of him. The flex of muscle beneath sweat-darkened fabric peaking just below the line of armor. The line of his neck, damp where sweat trailed down and vanished beneath his collar. The way he rolled his shoulders once between rounds, not in complaint but calculation.
Damian forced himself to look elsewhere.
It did not last.
“What happened to your face?”
Stephanie had leaned in close, elbow braced on her knees, eyes bright with boredom and curiosity in equal measure. Of all of them, she loathed the first day most—too slow, too methodical, too much repetition without spectacle. If nothing caught her attention, she bounced from subject to subject like a loose spring.
This year, it seemed, something had.
Damian did not turn. “An accident,” he said shortly.
Stephanie hummed. “Uh-huh.”
She followed his line of sight, then grinned. “Oh.”
“There is nothing to ‘oh’ about.”
“Sure there is.” She squinted thoughtfully at the yard. “You know, he is cute. In a very ‘would probably die for the realm’ sort of way.”
Damian felt heat creep up his neck. “You will refrain from commentary.”
“No, no I really won’t,” Stephanie replied cheerfully. “If it helps, he’s doing well. Like—really well.”
Damian already knew.
Below them, the drillmaster shouted, and Jonathan broke into a sprint without hesitation, posture tight, pace steady. Several others lagged behind. One stumbled. Jonathan did not look back.
Stephanie leaned closer, lowering her voice. “You know,” she added lightly, “if he makes it through today without collapsing, he’ll be one of maybe six.”
Damian’s fingers curled against the stone railing.
Jonathan did not collapse.
And somehow, that felt like both relief—and a problem.
“So,” Stephanie drawled, dragging the word out until it bordered on cruel, “did you actually speak to him, or did you just let him hit you across the face?”
Damian exhaled through his nose, irritation sharp and immediate. “I did not let him do anything,” he snapped, jaw tightening.
“But?” she pressed, delight already sparking in her eyes.
“—But,” Damian conceded stiffly, “some words were exchanged.”
Stephanie shrieked.
An honest-to-God shriek—high, piercing, utterly unrepentant.
Heads snapped toward them. Conversations faltered. Even a few knights below glanced up, distracted mid-drill.
Stephanie clapped a hand over her mouth and turned, flashing a grin that tried—and failed—to look innocent. “Sorry,” she called lightly, eyes darting to Lord Wayne.
His father regarded her in silence, one dark eyebrow lifting a fraction.
The weight of it settled over the podium like a held breath.
Stephanie subsided at once, ducking her head and leaning back against her chair, chastened but still vibrating with barely-contained triumph. She waited a respectable three heartbeats before leaning back toward Damian.
“You talked,” she whispered fiercely. “To a knight.”
“A squire,” Damian corrected, automatically.
“Ooooh, even better.”
Damian shot her a warning look. “You will lower your voice.”
She smirked. “Or what? You’ll have him challenge me?”
His gaze flicked, traitorously, back to the yard below.
Jonathan El was wiping sweat from his brow, listening intently as an instructor barked orders. His stance was relaxed but ready, attention sharp, as though the world might demand something of him at any moment—and he would answer.
Stephanie followed the look and softened, just a little. “You know,” she said, quieter now, “Jason and Duke were right to warn you.”
Damian stiffened.
“It’s dangerous,” she continued, tone careful, “to be noticed. To notice back.”
“I am aware,” Damian said flatly.
She studied him for a moment, then sighed. “Still,” she added, glancing down again, “if you were going to risk it for anyone… at least you picked someone who looks like he might survive the week.”
Below them, the horn sounded again, sharp and commanding.
Jonathan stepped forward without hesitation.
And Damian, against all reason, leaned in to watch.
Jonathan was paired with another hopeful—not Batson, not Wilkes, just a squire with dark clothes and a practiced scowl. They stripped off their chest pieces and heavier armor under the watchful eye of the presiding knight, favoring speed over protection. Linen and leather replaced steel. Mobility over pride.
It was routine. Another bout in a long day of them.
No one else paused for it. The yard rang with overlapping clangs of wood and dulled steel, shouted corrections, the scrape of boots against packed dirt. To anyone else, it was background noise.
To Damian, it was everything.
Jonathan rolled his shoulders once, loosening them, staff held easy in his hands. Too easy. The other squire charged first—overcommitted, aggressive, eager to prove something.
Damian’s breath caught.
For half a heartbeat he imagined it going wrong. A misstep. A cracked rib. A fall that did not end cleanly. He had seen men carried from this yard before, ruining worse things than their pride. He had watched blood soak into the dirt like it belonged there.
‘You do not care’, he told himself sharply.
Jonathan pivoted.
The movement was clean—beautiful, infuriatingly so. He let the charge pass him, staff snapping out in a controlled arc that caught his opponent behind the knee. The squire stumbled, swore, barely kept his footing.
Damian’s grip tightened on the stone.
Relief flared first—hot and unwelcome—followed immediately by something worse.
Satisfaction.
Jonathan pressed the advantage without cruelty. He stayed close, forcing his opponent back, driving him toward the edge of the marked ring. Every strike was measured, every feint deliberate. He wasn’t fighting to humiliate. He was fighting to win.
Stephanie let out a low whistle. “Oh,” she murmured. “He’s good.”
Damian did not answer.
The other squire tried again—sloppy now, frustrated. Jonathan blocked, twisted, and disarmed him in one fluid motion. The staff clattered to the ground. The match ended with a sharp bark from the judging knight.
Jonathan stepped back at once, breathing hard, sweat darkening his hair at the temples. He bowed his head, respectful, composed.
Alive. Unhurt.
Damian exhaled only when he realized he’d been holding his breath.
“That,” Stephanie said thoughtfully, leaning her elbows on the railing, “is not beginner’s luck.”
“No,” Damian said quietly, before he could stop himself.
Jonathan glanced up then—just briefly, just enough.
His gaze found the podium.
Found Damian.
The moment was gone almost as soon as it existed, swallowed by noise and motion and the next call to arms. Jonathan turned away, summoned elsewhere.
Damian remained where he was, pulse too fast, pride he had no right to burning hot in his chest.
He caught himself smiling—small, unguarded, entirely unbecoming—and did not stop it.
The squire Jonathan had faced was good. One of the best in the yard, by any honest measure. Damian knew skill when he saw it; he had been raised on it, trained to recognize it, taught to weigh it like coin in his palm. And Jonathan had been better. Not merely survived the bout, he had controlled it.
That knowledge settled into Damian like a victory of his own.
The relief was vast, all-encompassing. It carried him through the rest of the afternoon, buoyed him through the dust and clangor and shouted names. Each time the horn sounded again, each time Jonathan stepped forward and walked away unbroken, Damian’s shoulders loosened another fraction.
He did not notice when Stephanie stopped joking.
Did not register when her easy grin faded, replaced by something sharper, more watchful. She leaned closer, eyes flicking not to the yard but to Damian himself—taking in the way his attention never wavered, the way his hands stayed clenched on the stone, the way he followed one man and one man only.
“Hey,” she said lightly, testing. “You’re smiling again.”
Damian didn’t look at her, eyes trained. “Am I?”
“Mmhmm.” A pause. Then, quieter, “You know you’re not subtle, right?”
That, at least, pulled his gaze from the yard. He shot her an offended look. “I am exceptionally subtle.”
Stephanie couldn’t even bring herself to make a joke at that one. She nudged his arm with her elbow, gentler this time. “Just—be careful, okay?”
Damian stiffened. “I am careful.”
Her eyes flicked back to the ring, where Jonathan was already being called forward once more. Damian followed her gaze, jaw setting.
“Then be more careful.”
Jonathan stepped into the dust again, staff in hand, unaware of the weight being placed upon him. Unaware of the quiet, dangerous way a noble boy was beginning to hope.
Damian looked away first.
He told himself it was discipline, an exercise in restraint, the same kind drilled into him since he could first hold a blade. Control your gaze. Control your breath. Control your wants.
He did not believe it any more than he had believed it was duty.
By the tail end of the day, the structure of the trials shifted. The running drills ended. The endless circuits around the yard ceased. The horns called a different rhythm now—shorter, sharper.
The squires formed a loose ring, and the rules were simple: lose, and you were replaced. Win, and you stayed. One bout flowed into the next without pause, bodies traded out like spent pieces on a board, until only one remained standing.
Head to head. Again and again. No time to recover. No chance to hide weakness. The only prize for the winner was another fight.
Damian’s attention snapped back despite himself.
Jonathan fought efficiently, wasting nothing—no step, no breath. Each opponent came at him fresh and hungry, and each left grimacing or breathless or flat on their backs in the dust.
Once, Jonathan stumbled.
Damian’s fingers dug into the stone railing hard enough to ache.
Then Jonathan recovered, twisting out of the strike and turning it aside with a sharp crack of wood against wood. The crowd roared. Damian did not join them. He did not breathe until it was over.
When the next squire stepped in, Jonathan lifted his staff again, shoulders squared, jaw set. He was 5 people in. Sweat darkened his collar. Dust clung to his boots and the hem of his tunic.
Still, he did not falter.
This was the problem. Admiration was one thing. Respect, even. Those could be justified, excused, neatly folded away as a highborn interest in the caliber of men who would defend his lands.
But the tight coil of fear every time Jonathan took a hit? The sick, disgustung rush of adrenaline that left Damian light-headed and sharp with it?
That was far less defensible.
That was personal.
Jonathan lasted longer than most.
One opponent fell. Then another. Each bout ground him down in small, incremental ways—his breath coming harder, his grip shifting, the precision of his strikes growing tighter, more economical. He fought like a man who refused to give ground even when his body begged for it.
By the time the ring narrowed to three, the sun hung low and red, bleeding light across the yard. The dust clung to Jonathan’s skin, streaked his arms and jaw. His chest rose and fell in heavy, measured pulls of air.
Damian barely noticed the crowd anymore.
The final rotation came too fast.
Jonathan faced a fresh opponent—one who had been spared the worst of the gauntlet, one whose arms were steady, whose stance was clean. Damian saw it immediately, the imbalance of it, the way fatigue tilted the field before the first strike was ever thrown.
The first exchange was brutal.
Jonathan parried, countered, pressed forward—but he was half a second slower now. Just enough. The second blow slipped past his guard, cracking against his shoulder. He hissed, recovered, struck back with a force that sent the other squire stumbling.
Damian leaned forward, heart in his throat.
The third strike ended it.
A clean sweep, well-executed, the staff hooking behind Jonathan’s ankle and yanking. Jonathan hit the ground hard, the breath knocked clean out of him. His head bounced against the dirt floor. The horn sounded immediately—sharp, final.
Third place.
The crowd erupted anyway.
Damian did not join them.
Jonathan stayed down for a heartbeat too long, then rolled to his knees, head bowed, breathing hard. When he stood, it was with visible effort. He accepted the nod from the judging knight, the brief clasp of forearms from his opponent.
He had lost one fight.
Only one.
And that single loss rang through Damian like a struck bell.
Relief warred with disappointment, pride tangled painfully with grief. Third place was an honor—one many would never touch. It meant recognition. It meant he would be remembered.
It also meant Jonathan was done for the day.
Safe.
The realization loosened something ugly and tight in Damian’s chest, even as another part of him ached at the unfairness of it. He had wanted—gods help him—to see how far Jonathan could go. He had wanted to watch him win.
That thought scared him more than the loss ever could.
As Jonathan left the ring, limping only slightly, Damian forced himself to sit back, to smooth his expression into something cold and reserved and-above all-appropriate.
It did very little good.
He barely registered the final bout. His attention lingered stubbornly on the edges of the yard, on the paths leading away from the ring, searching for a flash of midnight hair or the ever-growing-familiar set of shoulders. Jonathan was gone, swallowed by the press of squires and knights, armor and noise.
When Damian finally deigned to look back, it was only to see the man who had beaten Jonathan strike down the remaining contender with brutal efficiency.
The horn sounded.
A winner was declared.
Damian scowled at him like this was somehow his fault.
Something sharp jabbed into his upper arm. Hard.
“Come on,” his eldest brother said cheerfully, the words already laughing. “Try not to look like you’re planning regicide over third place. Let’s go eat.”
Damian glared at him. “I was not—”
“You absolutely were.”
He was bodily steered from the stands before he could protest further, swept along with the rest of his family toward the feast hall. The space had been erected just beyond the yard—an enormous pavilion of timber and banners, open on all sides to let the heat and noise escape.
It was already chaos.
Long tables filled in moments, men collapsing onto benches with the boneless relief of those who had been on their feet since dawn. Wine flowed freely. Greasy turkey legs disappeared at alarming speed. Someone overturned a pitcher within seconds of sitting down and laughed like it was a personal triumph.
Damian couldn’t even bring himself to judge them.
They had earned it.
The royal table, of course, sat apart—raised, removed, carefully arranged. His father took the center seat, presiding over the hall like a shadow cast in silk and steel. Damian, the youngest, found himself at the far end, tucked away with at least three siblings forming a buffer between him and their father’s all-seeing gaze.
A mercy.
Jason was nowhere to be found. No surprise there. He’d slipped into the crowd the moment the fighting ended, drawn like a moth to noise and ale and people who swore creatively. Damian caught sight of him briefly—laughing with a cluster of archers, one in particular standing far too close.
Ah.
Damian’s mouth twitched despite himself. He could absolutely torment him about that later. It was practically another of his many duties.
“Stop craning your neck,” Stephanie said, dropping into the seat beside him with a plate piled obscenely high. “You’re going to pull something.”
“I am not craning,” Damian replied stiffly.
“You’re scanning,” Duke added from across the table, entirely too amused. “Like a hunting hawk.”
Damian shot him a look. “Mind your business.”
Duke grinned.
Damian reached for his goblet with exaggerated calm. “It’s insignificant.”
“Uh-huh,” Stephanie said. “And how many other third-place finishers have you memorized?”
Damian took a long drink.
Across the hall, laughter rose, music struck up, and the feast surged into full life. Damian sat among it all—surrounded by family, noise, and warmth—and wondered, not for the first time that day, how a single squire had managed to unbalance him so thoroughly.
“Okay, okay,” Duke cut in, clearly sensing the dangerous drift of Damian’s thoughts. He leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs like someone who had never once feared Lord Wayne’s disapproval. “Hypothetically. If someone were to have accidentally set fire to the western granary—”
“It was the only time,” Stephanie said immediately. “And it was barely a fire.”
“It was a controlled blaze,” Dick added helpfully from farther down the table, in his nosy way, “Very controlled. You could tell because we all survived.”
Damian blinked. “Why is this a discussion?”
“Because,” Duke said solemnly, “Your Father is still convinced it was a rebel force.”
Stephanie waved a turkey leg dismissively. “Please. Rebels are organized. This was… enthusiastic incompetence.”
“I was twelve,” Dick protested. “And unsupervised.”
“That explains a great deal,” Damian muttered, “and you are still unsupervised a great deal.”
Duke pointed at him. “See? He agrees with me.”
Damian frowned. “That is not what I said.”
“Oh, don’t pretend you weren’t impressed,” Stephanie said. “Half the castle smelled like smoke for a week. And when you found out, you followed him around asking how he did it for another week.”
“That was for educational purposes.”
“Of course it was.”
Duke grinned. “So anyway, next week Bruce wants a full inventory of the armory, the granaries, and the rookery. Which means—” he winced theatrically, “—a lot of walking.”
“Walking builds character,” Damian said primly.
Stephanie snorted wine through her nose. “You’ve never walked anywhere you didn’t absolutely have to.”
“That is patently false.”
“Name one time,” Duke challenged.
Damian opened his mouth, closed it, and scowled. “This conversation is beneath me.”
“Ah,” Stephanie said, satisfied. “He’s back to normal.”
Laughter rippled down the table. Someone struck a wrong note on a lute. A knight cheered too loudly and nearly fell off his bench.
Damian let the noise wash over him, the weight in his chest easing just enough to breathe.
“Shit-” Duke cursed under his breath, his eyes pulled in the Lord’s direction. Damian followed Duke’s gaze on instinct. Stephanie did too, the three of them turning in unison toward the center of the high table.
And there—
“Hey, D,” Duke said, far too casually for the damage he was doing, “why is your pet squire talking to Bruce?”
Damian’s heart leapt straight into his throat.
Ten feet away, to the right of Lord Wayne’s seat, Jonathan El stood rigid as a drawn bowstring. He looked painfully out of place among silk and steel, hands clasped behind his back, posture impeccable in the way only someone trying very hard not to be noticed ever was.
His father even seated, managed to tower over him, dark and imposing.
Damian stopped breathing.
“That is not my—” he hissed, then cut himself off as Stephanie’s elbow drove sharply into his ribs.
“Shh,” she whispered. “Do not finish that sentence unless you want to die of irony.”
Jonathan said something Damian couldn’t hear. Lord Wayne inclined his head—just barely. A knight stepped aside to let Jonathan closer.
Closer.
Damian’s fingers dug into the edge of the table.
He ran through possibilities at lightning speed. A reprimand? A commendation? Some obscure breach of protocol he’d missed? Had Jonathan mentioned the training yard? The staff? The bruise?
His bruise.
“Oh gods,” Damian muttered. “He’s dead.”
Stephanie squinted. “No, he usually makes people cry first.”
Duke leaned forward, delighted in the worst possible way. “Wow. Removing yourself from the killing altogether. That’s growth. In a way.”
Damian shot him a murderous look. “If he is punished—”
“For placing third?” Stephanie said. “Relax. If anything, he’s probably being recruited.”
That did absolutely nothing to calm Damian.
Across the table, Lord Wayne lifted a hand.
Jonathan El knelt.
Damian’s pulse roared in his ears.
This—this—was too much. He half-rose from his seat before Stephanie grabbed his sleeve.
“Sit,” she hissed. “You are not a panicking maiden.”
“I am not panicking.”
“You are vibrating.”
At the center of the hall, Lord Wayne spoke—low, measured, the kind of voice meant to be obeyed rather than overheard. Whatever words passed between them were lost to the din of the feast, but Damian felt their weight all the same.
Whatever was being decided, he knew one thing with sudden, awful clarity:
Jonathan El was no longer just a squire in the dust.
He was in his father’s sight.
Which made this whole thing horrifyingly real.
Jonathan rose a moment later.
For one sickening heartbeat, Damian thought he was being dismissed—sent away, summoned elsewhere, dragged off for judgment or reward or something worse. Instead, Jonathan simply bowed, turned, and walked back into the body of the hall.
He took a seat at one of the long tables.
And began to eat.
Like nothing at all had happened.
Damian didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe properly. Didn’t register the taste of anything in front of him. The food might as well have been stone. He sat perfectly still, eyes fixed on the back of Jonathan’s head, on the way his shoulders shifted when he laughed at something said by the man beside him, on the faint stiffness in his movements that spoke of bruises earned honestly.
Minutes passed. Then more.
The hall slowly began to thin, the roar of voices easing as knights drifted out in clusters, full and weary. Someone said Damian’s name once—maybe twice. Hands waved in his periphery. None of it reached him.
Stephanie stopped nudging him after a while. Duke stopped trying.
Jonathan finished his meal. Rose. Stretched one arm carefully, testing it. Said his goodbyes.
Damian counted his steps as he left.
One. Two. Three.
He waited.
Five minutes—measured and deliberate. Enough time for it not to be obvious. Enough time for several others to file out ahead of him, laughing, stumbling, weaving toward the night.
Then Damian stood.
He smoothed his tunic, set his face into something passable as neutrality, and slipped away from the high table without announcement. No one stopped him.
Outside, the night air was cooler, sharp with smoke and trampled grass. Torches flickered along the stone paths, throwing long shadows across the yard.
Somewhere ahead of him, Jonathan El was walking alone.
And for better or worse, Damian followed.
Jonathan walked with the loose, tired grace of someone who had given everything his body had and was only now feeling the cost. One shoulder sat a fraction too low. His pace favored one leg, just barely. Enough that Damian noticed. Of course he noticed.
He kept his distance.
That, at least, he managed correctly.
Jonathan cut across the training yards, now empty and ghostly in the torchlight. Racks of dulled weapons stood abandoned. The dust had settled, scuffed into patterns of footprints and blood-dark stains already being trampled away by time. Jonathan slowed near the edge of it, rolling his neck once, then twice, as if shaking off the day.
He didn’t hear Damian until Damian spoke.
“El.”
The name carried farther than Damian intended. It snapped through the quiet like a drawn blade.
Jonathan turned immediately.
For half a second, his face went blank—soldier-fast, instinctive. Then recognition hit, and his eyes widened. He dropped to one knee without thinking, fist pressed to the ground, head bowed.
“My lord—”
“Don’t,” Damian said sharply.
The word came out wrong—too fast, too urgent. He corrected himself, schooling his voice into something calmer, colder. “Get up.”
Jonathan hesitated, then obeyed. He stood stiffly, gaze fixed somewhere around Damian’s boots rather than his face.
Silence stretched.
Damian became acutely aware of how close they were. Of the faint scent of sweat and iron and smoke clinging to Jonathan’s clothes. Of the bruise blooming purple across his cheek, mirroring the ache Damian imagined across Jonathan’s ribs.
“You fought well today,” Damian said at last.
Jonathan blinked, clearly not expecting that. “Thank you, my lord.”
Third place, Damian almost said.
He didn’t.
The words rose sharp and ready on his tongue, weighted with pride and something far too close to affection.
He didn’t say them.
Instead, he said, carefully, “My father spoke with you.”
“Yes,” Jonathan replied at once. Then hesitated. “Well-actually-”
Damian’s pulse kicked hard enough to be distracting. “What?” he demanded, sharper than intended. He reined it in, jaw tightening. “Speak.”
Jonathan lifted his head just enough to meet Damian’s eyes. It wasn’t much, considering he stood almost a full head taller, but it was effort all the same. The torchlight caught on his face, showing the nerves he clearly wasn’t skilled enough to hide yet—tight mouth, tense shoulders, hands clasped behind his back like he was bracing for a blow.
“I sought an audience with him,” Jonathan said.
Damian went very still.
“For what reason?” he asked.
Jonathan blinked, startled by the question, then seemed to gather himself. “It has been my experience,” he said slowly, choosing his words with care, “that striking one’s lord’s son is not… becoming of a knight. Accidental or not.”
Damian felt cold spread down his spine.
“I asked,” Jonathan continued, voice steady but quiet now, “to be excused from the remainder of the tournament.”
No.
The word roared through Damian’s mind, loud enough to drown out everything else.
Damian took a step forward before he realized he was moving. “You what?”
Jonathan flinched, just barely. “I did not wish to bring dishonor upon my House,” he said quickly. “Or to appear careless. If my presence was… uncomfortable—”
“Stop,” Damian snapped.
Jonathan cut off at once.
For a moment, Damian couldn’t trust his voice. The night felt suddenly too close, too sharp, the torches hissing like they were waiting for something to burn.
“You where in the course of training,” Damian said finally, each word deliberate. “And I was inattentive.”
Jonathan frowned. “My lord—”
“You followed the rules,” Damian pressed. “You fought as you were taught. You did not overreach.”
Jonathan hesitated. “Still—”
“Still nothing,” Damian said. His hands curled at his sides, nails biting into his palms. “Do you believe my father would knight men who flee the field at the first sign of discomfort? Let alone raise someone like that.”
Jonathan looked genuinely confused by that. “No. Of course not.”
“Then why would you remove yourself?” Damian demanded.
Jonathan held his gaze this time. “Because I thought it was expected,” he said quietly. “Because I thought it was the honorable thing to do.”
Honor. Gods.
Damian exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “You are not excused,” he said. “Not by me. And not by my father.”
Jonathan’s eyes widened. “My lord—”
“And if you withdraw now, you insult both him and the effort you bled for today.”
Silence stretched between them.
Jonathan swallowed. “Then I will remain,” he said finally. “If that is your will.”
Damian stiffened at the phrasing, at the way it settled into the space between them with a weight it had no right to carry. If that is your will. Perfectly proper. Perfectly correct. The sort of thing squires said to lords every day without a second thought.
And yet—
Something in Damian’s chest went tight and sharp all at once.
“It is,” he said after a beat—after forcing his voice into something even, controlled. “And see that you do not make apologies for striving for excellence again.”
Jonathan bowed his head, the tension in his shoulders easing like a cord finally slackened. Relief crossed his face openly before he could school it away.
“As you command, my lord.”
That did it.
Damian felt the words rather than heard them. Command. Not request. Not suggestion. Obedience given freely, without irony, without hesitation.
They stood there, staring at one another.
A moment passed.
Then another.
The night pressed in around them, torches crackling, the distant hum of voices from the hall drifting faint and indistinct. Jonathan did not move. His posture remained respectful, attentive—waiting.
Waiting.
Damian realized, with a small jolt of unease, that Jonathan would not leave until dismissed.
The knowledge sat heavy in his stomach.
“-You may go,” Damian said, sharper than necessary.
Jonathan blinked, then straightened immediately. “Yes, my lord.”
He hesitated, just for a heartbeat. “Thank you.”
For what, Damian did not ask.
Jonathan turned and walked away, boots crunching softly against the packed earth. He did not look back.
Damian watched him go, heart beating far too fast for a simple exchange of words.
‘Be careful’, Jason’s voice echoed in his mind. ‘You already carry enough secrets.'