In the morning, Jace woke up to a delicious smell of fried meat. Weird. He lived alone. No one would break into his apartment to cook meat.

  Blinking his eyes open, he promptly closed them again. It was so bright. So blue and green. He wasn’t in his bed. Aside from the wonderful smell of food, the air was crisp and fresh. Under him, the ground was solid and cold.

  It wasn’t a dream.

  Smiling, Jace opened his eyes once again. The endless stretch of lush pins and verdant trees welcomed him, birds chirping and insects buzzing in the low grass he had made into his bed. The morning sun rose in the bluest, cloudless sky, its warmth teasing Jace’s face, gently warming his skin.

  He hated camping, but, damn, maybe that was what enticed people to suffer through ck of proper accommodations? Waking up to the sight of virgin nature living and breathing life was indeed a glorious experience.

  Groggily, Jace picked himself up on his elbows. The cloak was his bnket, now pooling around him as the hood slid to his shoulders. Still unused to how long his hair was, the tickling over his nape felt foreign; some strands fell over his eye, obstructing the view with a silvery veil. Jace blew the stray lock away, the silk of it brushing his cheek.

  Over the fire, two skinned squirrels were cooking—or something dangerously close to them. Liut was polishing a dagger with a cloth.

  With a terrible, embarrassingly loud growl, Jace’s stomach reminded him that he had no luxury to question local means of sustenance. At least, he didn’t see the process beforehand, only the deliciously smelling result.

  “Slept well?” Liut gnced up with an easy smile. Jace could get used to hearing “slept well” every time he woke up. He shouldn’t, but he could.

  Returning the smile, he nodded. By all sense of propriety, he should pretend to be crestfallen that Liut hadn’t woken him up so he could help with breakfast. The bloodied cloth swishing over the steel quickly helped him to discard the idea.

  “Smells good,” Jace said instead and sat up, wrapping his cloak around himself. It was still a bit chilly in the morning, and he had just woken up.

  “There isn’t much to hunt here,” Liut admitted.

  There was a huge forest just a short horse ride away. But Jace was not the type to bite the protagonist’s hand that fed him. If Liut was too zy, then rodents it was.

  “What was the biggest thing you hunted?” Jace wondered. The meat still looked undercooked, so he figured he had some time before they could eat.

  Sheathing the dagger, Liut discarded the dirty cloth and wiped his hands over his cloak. He got up to turn the sticks holding the poor squirrels and then ambled around the fire to sit by Jace’s side. The heat from his body made Jace unconsciously lean closer.

  “A mountain gryffon, I think,” Liut replied.

  A mountain gryffon!? That was one of Jace’s favorite monster-fighting chapters! It was earlier in the novel, when Liut was still a disciple in the Dark Brotherhood.

  Excited to hear the story directly from Liut’s lips, Jace snuggled up to him.

  “How did you kill it?” he questioned, voice bordering on a squeal.

  “With a sword.”

  Ugh! He was so well-spoken when retelling legends, but that was all he had to say about his own epic battle?

  “And?” Jace probed, gently knocking their shoulders together.

  Liut gnced at him with an arched eyebrow.

  “Is that something you’re interested in?”

  The hell!? Of course, he was! He could admit that he enjoyed convoluted political plots more, but he had his appreciation for a good monster fight.

  “Do I not look like it?” Jace shot back.

  Liut’s eyes held Jace’s gaze, long and hard.

  “No.”

  Punching Liut’s shoulder in earnest, Jace felt thoroughly insulted.

  “Are you making fun of my beautiful face?” he fumed, raining hits wherever he could reach. “Think I’m a weakling?”

  Laughter was his response.

  “Have you ever even held a sword?” Liut asked through chuckles. “Even your punches tickle.”

  Not like Jace honestly tried to make them hurt! But now he was determined to leave sting damage, if only to prove a point.

  Aiming and picking a better angle so the muscle control was just right, Jace jabbed his fist… into Liut’s breastpte. Fucking armor! Hissing from the pain, he decided to change his approach.

  Liut caught his wrist before another punch could nd on him, but Jace used this opportunity to turn around, jump on him and tackle him to the ground.

  With a low, throaty grunt, Liut’s back hit the grass. Unsure if he was merely lucky to catch Liut by surprise, Jace still resolved to pursue his victory.

  Straddling Liut’s sides, Jace looked down, a smirk on his lips.

  “Do you yield?” he asked, chin raised high.

  Under him, Liut simply looked up. His bck locks y spread over the grass, catching droplets of morning dew. His eyes reflected the sky, the brightest Jace had ever seen them, dazzling in myriad shades of blue.

  Lips parted on a soft exhale, not too plush but not too narrow, they were exactly perfect. Liut was too damn handsome, Jace couldn’t help but stare.

  Liut’s hands sneaked up Jace’s thighs.

  “I yield,” Liut agreed. “You are so strong and powerful, Jace. I shall be at your mercy.”

  Eye twitching, Jace pursed his lips and seethed. Handsome assholes were still assholes! Silver hair covering bck, Jace leaned down and caged Liut’s face between his hands.

  “Go on, make fun of me,” he challenged. “It’s in your interest I am not a useless baggage to drag you down.”

  The gentle caress on his thighs disappeared; instead, a firm hold captured his waist. Already trained, Jace quickly realized he was about to be manhandled like a sack.

  But not today!

  Jace cmped down his legs as hard as he could, so the corners of Liut’s armor painfully dug into his skin.

  “Don’t you dare,” Jace warned.

  Liut rexed his hold. A gleam of genuine surprise fshed through his eyes. He watched Jace with a bit of wonder, breathing out a quiet ugh. And, slowly, his lips stretched in a smile.

  “I got under its belly,” Liut said. “The mountain gryffons are rge enough, it was no struggle to slide there over the mud.”

  Oh. Jace raised his brows, blinking.

  “I was hurt badly, so I had to use a sneak attack—I had no other option, my leg was broken.”

  Jace read those words. The way young, tenacious, eager-to-prove-himself Liut clenched his teeth and fought off a monster with everything he had.

  “I plunged my sword—” Liut moved his hand to the lower part of Jace’s stomach—“here,” he murmured. Fingers going up to the sternum, Liut continued, “Then sliced all the way up—” he stopped by Jace’s heart—“here.”

  Jace swallowed, eyes glued to Liut’s, the invisible line painted over his body burned in its wake.

  “The blood and innards spilled all over me. If the gryffon didn’t tip to the side as it fell, it would’ve squashed me like a bug.”

  Liut circled his hand around Jace and pushed him down into a crushing embrace. Jace grunted. Caught off guard, he fell on top of Liut with no chance to fight back. Their faces ended up a breath away, close enough Jace managed to see the tiniest little scar over Liut’s right eye.

  “Like this?” Jace whispered.

  “Mhm,” Liut agreed. “Though you’re far prettier, you can squash me all you want,” he grinned.

  The smell of burnt meat got into their carefully crafted bubble. Jace scrunched up his nose and frowned.

  Chuckling, Liut kissed the tip of it.

  “Fancy some charcoal for breakfast?”

  ***

  “What if the Remnants are real?” Jace asked, chewing.

  Liut had already finished eating, using the tip of his dagger to clean his teeth. He looked especially cool doing that, a proper protagonist.

  “Is that what the Golden Guard told you?”

  Leaves rustled under a breeze and their shadows danced over Liut’s face, while one sneaky ray of sun gleamed over his eye.

  Swallowing his food, Jace nodded.

  “He said the Celestial Blood is dormant and needs to be reawakened.”

  With a curious tilt of his head, Liut hummed. He twirled the unsheathed dagger in his hand.

  “The king managed to do it? That would expin the ridiculous amount of effort he spends on the search.”

  The only meat left was the burnt one, so Jace carefully put away his breakfast and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

  “You guessed it. The guard said he saw them, said they were strong.”

  Catching the handle with a swift move, Liut narrowed his eyes.

  “How strong?”

  Jace stretched out his arm, palm up. Understanding the request, Liut pced his dagger into Jace’s hand. In demonstration, Jace made a gesture of snapping it in half.

  “Can you break steel with your bare hands?”

  Skeptically, Liut gnced down at the bde glimmering under the sun.

  “I never tried, what’s the point?”

  He was right, aside from checking whether one could, in fact, snap metal like a twig, there was no logical reason for anyone to attempt.

  With a frown, Jace looked at the weapon in his hold. It was a simple, one-sided dagger, with a leather-wrapped handle and a few decorative strokes by the hilt.

  “If the king gets himself even a few dozen of the real Remnants, he will be untouchable,” Jace mused.

  And that was not something the protagonist needed—his goal was spelled out before the chapters hit three-digit numbers. Liut wanted to take revenge on the king for destroying the Dark Brotherhood. Since Liut was nice enough to protect and humor Jace, before they parted ways, Jace figured he should repay in kind.

  “That would be troublesome, yes. But I hardly believe he will manage.” Liut shrugged, looking unbothered by the prospects. “If it had been so simple, it would’ve happened centuries ago.”

  Oh, Liut. That’s the point of the novels—they were written to cover the time when something special happened. And not a lot of authors managed to transte the scale correctly or consider the proper flow of time. It was a fantasy book for a reason, after all. Jace could not rely on historical logic in this setting.

  “It’s not that simple. There needs to be a ritual or something called an Unfathomable Occurrence.”

  Warmly, though still oozing skepticism, Liut smiled.

  “And what is that ritual?”

  Jace bit his lip. It was one thing to ugh at the cannon fodder character as they spouted terrible lore, and it was another to don the role himself. He truly didn’t want to be a mouthpiece for this embarrassment of a plot tool.

  Bracing himself, Jace made up his resolve.

  “Killing a virgin…” he mumbled. The shame won over and he hid his chin in the colr of his cloak.

  “What?”

  Ugh.

  “Someone with the Celestial Blood needs to have a strong will and complete the ritual of killing a human of pure heart and mind, like… a virgin…”

  Risking a gnce, Jace found Liut staring at him, a tired and vacant stare.

  The grass whispered around them, the fire had long gone out, only a faint stream of smoke swirled to the sky.

  No matter how terrible or embarrassing it was, Liut’s reaction was not one of ughter. And Jace remembered, then, that for Liut this world was not a bunch of clichés, it was his life. Bloody rituals were real, demonic creatures were real, a tyrant king was real.

  The dagger in Jace’s hand felt just a tad heavier.

  If it were Liut who asked him to do the ritual, would Jace agree? The stakes would be completely different if it were something needed for the protagonist to advance through the plot. Could Jace, again, experience the sticky feeling of blood running through his fingers?

  “That expins it, then,” Liut eventually said.

  Dragged back to reality right when his thoughts were dangerously close to the most hated turn of a spiral, Jace blinked at Liut.

  “Expins what?”

  “Why I couldn’t find them.”

  Jace drew his brows together, wordlessly asking to continue.

  “I stayed in a vilge recently. The Golden Guards were also there, but I wasn’t keen on making an acquaintance, so I didn’t look into it.” Liut sighed, looking to the side. “Two people disappeared there. One man, and one young boy who tended to a temple.”

  Jace didn’t need to learn more to realize what must have happened. But… he didn’t remember reading about it. Was it not relevant enough to include? Since Liut didn’t find them, was his failure not written since it would ruin the untouchable protagonist halo? Then how many of such seemingly irrelevant things were left outside of the described plot? How much omnipresent knowledge did Jace even have at this point?