“If they try to take you, I’ll gut all of them.” Theresa whispered, her grip tightening on both blades.

“Whoa, whoa, now,” Alex whispered back, glancing around the room.

Their group was off to one side and thankfully, no one else was in earshot.

“Let’s try not to gut the Heroes today, okay?” Alex suggested. “…not right away, at least. I’d say not at all, but like your father told me: ‘the foundation of any good relationship is conversation and compromise’. And hey, I’ll compromise…you can gut them later. Aren’t I a good boyfriend?”

“Alex, this isn’t funny.” Theresa glared at the teleportation circle. A line of teams stood waiting in front of it, each group was ushered through in thirty second intervals which allowed time for those already teleported, to clear the receiving circle in Greymoor.

The teams had drawn lots to decide the order each would go through, and Alex and Theresa’s team had drawn last place. He could see that she was becoming more and more impatient.

“I’ll fight all of Thameland if I have to. No one had better try and take you,” she snarled.

Alex gave her a look. He was both amazed by how determined she was to protect him and touched.

“You’re right, it isn’t funny. I’ll stop with the jokes,” Alex whispered. “But, if they detect the ‘you know what’…and decide to take me, I don’t want you fighting them: I want you to stay as far away from me as possible.

“What?” Theresa looked at him, startled.

“They’re the Heroes,” He whispered. “As much as it's fun to joke around, I don’t think we could beat them.”

“We’ve been spending this entire time fighting, getting stronger, gathering magic…I’ve been improving my life enforcement,” Theresa said. “I’m pretty sure I could break that hive-queen over my knee if we fought her again. I think I could hold some of them off long enough for you to get away.”

“Theresa…” he leaned in even closer. “Remember what we saw outside the Cave of the Traveller? All those dead silence-spiders?”

She sniffed. “You’re going to talk about how Cedric did that all by himself? Yeah, well I’m not impressed. Claygon could do that too. Hells, I could probably take a bunch of them all by myself now. I could crack their armour with my pommels, or get in-between those gaps in their shells with my blades.”

Alex imagined her fighting a silence-spider horde, tearing them apart with both blades. He knew she could handle them now, he could see her demolishing their numbers by the dozens. After the Games, she and Grimloch had upped their life enforcement and combat practising—motivated by the demon summoner’s attack—and both of them were stronger and even more skilled than just a few months ago.

He wouldn’t want to fight either of them, not even if the Mark magically disappeared, but still…

“The thing is,” he spoke softly. “Cedric did that a year ago, when he first got his powers. Now he and the other Heroes have had an entire year…actually, a bit more now, of fighting monsters and honing their power and skill. I trust you, Theresa. I trust your strength, but without knowing exactly what they’re capable of, no one I know should be picking a fight against that kinda power unless their name starts with ‘Bae’ and ends with ‘lin’.”

Her lips tightened. “Am I supposed to just let them take you?”

“Look, I’ll do my best to get away if it comes to that, but I don’t want you getting caught between me and angry Heroes. You could get hurt.” She started to object. “Just hear me out.” He said and continued. “Or thrown into a dungeon, or both…” He shuddered as a grim image passed through his head. “…or worse. Best thing to do is for me to just try and avoid getting found out. There’s no priests to detect me so one of us would really have to screw up for them to know who I am. If they do find me, then I’ll just have to get away. I’ve got a few plans for that if it comes down to it, but…if they take me, then…”

He paused. “It might not be so bad,” he said, trying to keep his girlfriend from getting even more agitated. “Maybe they’ll throw me in a dungeon for desertion of duty or maybe they’ll make me accompany the Heroes everywhere, but I’ll survive that. I’ll have Claygon with me and I can deal with monsters myself now, thanks to my potions and summon spells.”

He shrugged. “A year ago getting caught would have been a death sentence, now it would just really, really suck. It’s not worth taking a risk to fight them like that, as touched as I am. Think of yourself, think of your parents, your brothers and Selina. The king could make things rough on all of them if you fight the Heroes. If I get taken, just let me go. I’ll find my way back to you.”

Theresa gave him a sharp look, and didn’t say anything at first. “You’d better come back,” she finally said.

He smiled then kissed her. “I will.”

“Heads up,” Thundar whispered. “Meikara’s back, careful what you say.”

Their healer had gone to fetch something earlier and was waving to them as she returned to the line. “Hi, how’s the line going?”

Khalik gestured to the portal. “We are still cueing.”

He’d tried to make his movements look casual, but Alex could see he was tense. The prince wasn’t the only one who seemed nervous. Thundar chewed on his lip, Isolde was outright pacing back and forth, while Svenia and Hogarth watched her. Brutus was looking at Alex and whining, and even Najyah was as stiff as a statue on Khalik’s arm.

And Grimloch…

Crunch.

A large hunk of tuna disappeared down his throat; he was contentedly finishing breakfast. Well, at least oneof his friends wasn’t nervous.

Meikara smiled politely at him. “Well that’s new,” she said, looking up at the sharkman.

“Good winners get good prizes,” he grinned.

Clink.

He stood taller, showing off new thick steel armour that was encrusted with bronze designs and pearls: a day earlier he’d picked up the armour—which had finally been resized and reshaped to fit the giant sharkman—that he’d won in the Great Water Hunt. It gleamed as he turned in place, showing it off.

“And that’s not all,” Grimloch growled, reaching over and picking up a beast of a weapon. With his prize voucher from the Grand Melee, he’d ordered an enchanted weapon from Stark’s Armour and Weapons and he, unsurprisingly, had chosen to go big.

The weapon was a giant lead maul—its head was as big as a blacksmith’s anvil—with spikes protruding from the hammer’s ‘faces’. Its enchantment strengthened the hammer to be stronger than steel, and also stopped the lead from poisoning its wielder and anyone else who came in casual contact with it.

Alex gulped and eyed the spikes: the enchantment also sped and increased any enemy’s poisoning who was unfortunate enough to get bashed with the weapon. That’s, if anything could actually survive a blow from the thing: Alex doubted that even a castle gate could survive Grimloch swinging that thing at it.

It was a fearsome weapon, but he wouldn’t have expected anything different from the sharkman.

“Good winners get good prizes is right,” Thundar said, also holding up his new weapon: a bronze mace forged in the shape of two snarling bulls backing each other. Their heads made up the mace’s…head, and their horns served as its flanges. Its enchantment increased its relative mass when it struck an adversary, and it was designed to work with Blows of Lead, enhancing the blow’s power tremendously.

Alex had watched Thundar testing it, and the blows it dealt were absolutely devastating; he was pretty sure that if he were hit with it, there wouldn’t be much of him left to speak of, even if he had force armour cast on himself.

And speaking of force armour…

Alex looked at his girlfriend again, which was one of his favourite things to do, but this time, his excuse for doing it was to check out her armour.

Theresa had gone for defence rather than offence: she had her hunting knife, her poniard from Isolde, her great-grandfather’s swords, and the bow Alex had given her for her birthday which was now strung with the enchanted bowstring from the archery contest. She owned more than enough weapons—she only had so many hands, after all—but she’d never really owned any armour.

So, she’d fixed that.

Stark’s armoury had crafted a chainmail shirt for her with links so fine and light, they looked more like threads of steel woven together like cloth, rather than the links in regular chains. An enchantment surrounded each thread in its own force shield, forming a lattice of force over the armour to cushion the impact of enemy blows, and to vastly increase the shirt’s level of protection.

The force coating also dulled the clinking sound the links made when the wearer moved: it was exactly what she needed, it was protective, light, quiet and flexible; the perfect armour for her fighting style.

The team was better equipped than they’d ever been before. With luck, they wouldn't have to test their new equipment on the Heroes of Thameland today.

‘Remember: remain undetected,’ Alex thought, rotating his right shoulder. He’d already cast illusionary patch over the Mark. ‘Try to keep out of their way. Watch them come in—don’t avoid them outright, that’ll look super suspicious if everyone else is watching them and you’re not—and then let them do their own thing. That’s the plan…even though having Baelin around would’ve been an even better one.’

The chancellor, unfortunately, couldn't be in Greymoor for the first part of the Heroes’ visit, but he’d be arriving in a couple of days.

‘I woulda felt a lot more comfortable if the ‘super invincible archwizard that likes me was there. But…well…’

He remembered something Khalik had once said:

‘Well, we shall not always be able to hide behind our chancellor’s robes. Becoming dependent on combat when safety is mostly guaranteed can only train poor habits. Instincts would dull. One would be trained to take more risks from becoming used to feeling safe. That creates a false sense of safety.’

The last thing he needed was to get careless around monsters or Heroes because Baelin was there; the chancellor had even said that—if Alex were caught—there might be little he could do.

Alex shook his head. ‘In the end, I can’t just rely on Baelin. If the Heroes find some reason to pay attention to me, then I just need to act naturally and find out whatever I can about them. ’

He had to admit that he was pretty curious about what Cedric could do now after a year of fighting monsters…and he was really curious about what the Champion and Sage were capable of.

“Team Eight! Line up!” The wizard who was directing the teams through the circle called.

Well, he’d be finding out soon enough.

Half of the encampment stood on the wall, watching as three figures rode over the hills and toward the gate. One was massive, with armour glinting in the sunlight. The next was a slight figure in a billowing cloak with a veil covering their nose and mouth.

The one leading the way was familiar.

Shirtless, his woad tattoos covered his skin, and his red hair whipped behind him in the wind.

“There he is,” Alex muttered, watching from the earthen wall.

“I hope he doesn’t recognize you,” Theresa whispered.

The Generasians on the wall had scaled it and formed a line when the Heroes approach was announced. Alex, Theresa, Khalik, and Thundar were standing close to each other so that Alex and Theresa were partially blocked by Thundar and Khalik. The Watchers, mercenaries, wizards and familiars on the wall sent a strong message that said the expedition force was very capable of taking care of itself. Claygon, Grimloch and Brutus waited below alongside Vesuvius and other wizards’ familiars.

“Here we go,” Alex muttered when the Heroes had gotten close.

The set of scales—representing the balance of combat, spellcraft and divinity—glowed gold just above Cedric’s heart, standing out even from this distance.

A golden symbol that Alex couldn’t quite make out glowed on the neck of the veiled person. He guessed they must be the one marked as the Sage, which would make the hulking warrior the Champion.

Just as expected.

“Holy shit, look at that sword.” Theresa had gone pale. “The one the Champion’s got.”

“What now?” Alex squinted.

The Champion bristled with weapons, but his sword stood out among them. It was a long, curved blade that looked better suited as a monster’s claw than a Hero’s blade.

Alex frowned.

There was something…oddly familiar about it.

“It looks like one of the hive queen’s blades,” Theresa whispered.

“Really?” Alex blinked in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah, how could I forget? That damn thing nearly cut me in half.”

“Haiiiiiiiil!” Cedric’s voice boomed as he pulled ahead of the other two Heroes. “Greetin’s, foreign friends an’ a late welcome to our lands!”

The gates were swung open to welcome the visitors while a crowd gathered below, greeting the Heroes of Thameland as they rode into Greymoor. Those atop the wall left it to join the excited crowd—who were now watching the Heroes like they were the afternoon attraction at a fair—Alex’s team made their way to the back of the crowd.

They settled in as Professor Jules and other high ranked expedition members met the Heroes with enthusiastic handshakes. Several wizards were edging toward the Sage of Thameland, itching to get a chance to talk with her.

Alex contented himself quietly watching for a while and then—when everyone seemed busy enough so his exit wouldn’t bring unwanted attention—he turned to Theresa and their other friends. “I’m going to head back to the tents, we’ll talk later, okay-”

“Oi!” Cedric’s booming voice suddenly rang out.

Alex froze.

Oh. No. This can’t be happening.

“Oi, don’t I know ya from somewhere?” The Chosen’s voice cut through the crowd.

Alex slowly turned like a rusty gate struggling against rusted hinges.

Everyone had swung around, craning their necks to see who Cedric was talking to. The Chosen was now staring directly at his fellow countryman at the back of the crowd.

Silence spread through the air.

“M-maybe?” Alex broke it.