Dawn Walker

—

“Because if he collapses before the meeting place, it will be even more embarrassing.”

Bat Bat considered this and nodded gravely. “That is good logic.”

Kess wished very briefly for death. Ahead of them, the camp lights came into view.

Not hidden.

That was not Mihos’s style.

Displayed, but with curated restraint. A man of old blood did not need gaudy noise when wealth itself could perform the boast for him.

The camp sat on a controlled stretch of ground just off the western merchant road, where high-grade traffic passed close enough to be useful but not so close that dust and noise could insult noble temperaments. From the outside it looked like a luxury pavilion made for an heir who liked pretending he was merely traveling with taste rather than descending on a lesser city like a private court.

Silver-gray fabric reinforced with dark chaos-thread lines.

Tall anchored poles.

Layered banners worked with old Dawn symbols subtle enough to look elegant and obvious enough to remind everyone who sat inside.

Around it stood guards. Many guards.

More than necessary for comfort. Exactly enough for Mihos’s ego.

Not in simple rows.

In layered fields.

Some on foot in polished armor, spears upright under lantern light. Others mounted on beasts whose silhouettes alone did most of the intimidation work. Nearer one side of the camp rested the black plated lizard beast Kess remembered too well, its body like a low armored hill covered in spikes, one golden eye half open even at rest. On another side, perched on a reinforced beam, stood the two white griffin-like birds in jeweled restraint armor, motionless in that terrible way predatory birds became motionless before violence.

Carriages waited nearby too. Fine ones. Status on wheels.

Kess’s stomach tightened again. There it was. Mihos’s chosen ground. His chosen stage.

And Kess was arriving on foot, dusted by the road, with lower Dawn behind him in a carriage like he was a hound sent ahead to announce the wolves.

Back inside the camp, a scout saw the movement first.

He had been posted just inside the outer reception line, high enough to watch the road and low enough to run important news directly inward. When the carriage shape appeared under the road lanterns and the runner before it resolved into Kess, the scout stiffened immediately.

Kess.

Running.

In front of a Dawn-marked carriage. Not the main house symbol. The lower / banished one.

That alone was enough to turn the scout around at once.

Mihos was in one of the inner receiving spaces of the camp, dressed for a meeting he had already decided he would control. His mood had been worsening by quiet degrees for the last hour. Not explosively. That would have been easier for the servants. Mihos in a shouting rage was at least obvious. Mihos in a calm rage was a colder thing. A quieter one. The kind that made trays shake in stable hands and made lesser men start apologizing for mistakes they had not yet made.

Stephen was not present at Mihos’s side.

That was not because he had gone elsewhere.

That was because he was currently occupied receiving and speaking with an important guest under proper inner-camp courtesy. A woman Mihos did not dare neglect and did not especially enjoy being forced to accommodate.

It was lady Seraphiel. She arrived today. She was discussing something with the head butler of the main Dawn house.

The old pressure of that name was enough to keep half the camp from breathing too loudly in the wrong direction. Mihos hated that her presence complicated the timing of the night, because if Stephen had not been tied up in that conversation, then several matters would already have been arranged more cleanly.

The scout entered, bowed hard, and delivered the report.

“Young Master. Kess has returned.”

That caught Mihos’s eyes at once.

Then the scout added, “He is running in front of a carriage.”

The room changed.

Mihos straightened from where he had been seated.

“What?”

The scout kept his head lowered. “By the symbol, it appears to be the banished Dawn house. Sekhmet Dawn’s carriage.”

For one second, Mihos said nothing at all.

Then his face hardened so quickly the nearest servant forgot how to breathe quietly.

Kess… Running… In front of a lower-branch carriage.

Not returned yesterday. Not sent word. Not brought a proper answer. And now coming in like a punished courier before Sekhmet Dawn’s wheels.

Humiliation. A big humiliation.

That was what Mihos saw first. Not an explanation. An insult.

His voice, when it came, was cold enough to cut.

“That low-born bastard dares to mock me.”

The scout remained bowed.

Mihos stood fully now.

His robes shifted cleanly. His jaw tightened. Every line of him sharpened around the offense.

“Kess should have returned yesterday,” he said, more to the room than to the scout. “He sent no message. No signal. No explanation.”

His eyes went toward the outer wall of the pavilion, though he was clearly seeing through it to the road beyond. “And now he arrives running before a carriage.”

The sentence itself seemed to disgust him.

A servant near the back lowered his eyes farther.

Mihos took one step and stopped.

He wanted to say he would kill Kess immediately. He still might. But Stephen was occupied with Lady Seraphiel, which meant any public ugliness at the wrong moment could travel inward faster than he liked. That restrained him just enough to keep the murder as intention rather than immediate order.

“For now,” Mihos said, and that was worse than a shout, “he lives long enough to explain.”

No one in the room reacted visibly.

That was training.

Inside, several people definitely reacted.

The scout swallowed once and kept his head down because there was no profit in being the man who reminded the heir that lower-branch insult, camp appearances, and Lady Seraphiel’s presence in the same night made everything more delicate than Mihos preferred.

Outside, the carriage slowed.

Kess, breathing now harder and chest burning under the accumulated insult of the road, came near the window one final time and said, “We are here.”

Sekhmet looked past him.