He continued working through the afternoon as the stack of blank parchment and supply of ink steadily diminished with the scratching of his quill. He didn't look up from the current page at the sound of a pair of footsteps pausing outside his cell, expecting the clerk's final return of the day.
“I see they're treating you well, margrave.”
Serovek froze in the middle of a word, quill tip leaving a spreading ink spot where it pressed against the parchment. Bryzant. One of only two people who could make him forget the cold because they made the blood run hot in his veins, and unlike Anhuset who made him run hot with desire, his steward ignited him with fury. He casually laid down the quill, brushed his hands together to wipe off any sand and slowly rose from his chair.
The reason for his current predicament stood on the other side of the cell bars, watching Serovek with a satisfied half smile that tipped toward gloating the closer the margrave came to the barrier between them. Serovek wondered what had incited him to travel to the capital. A hostile environment at High Salure? Worry the king would change his mind if Bryzant wasn't there to spin more lies? Or maybe just satisfaction at witnessing his liege's downfall and execution. All three suppositions had merit.
He hoped his voice sounded much milder than he felt inside. “I wondered if you'd stay at High Salure or come here to fill the king's ear with more poison. Couldn't resist paying me a visit to see what your plan wrought, Bryzant?” He allowed a sneer to creep into his tone and curled his top lip upward to emphasize it. “Or is this some kind of memorial to crushed hopes over the fact that Chamtivos is the one dead instead of me?” The steward's gloating expression melted away, revealing the true emotions he'd managed to hide for so long: Envy, jealousy, ambition. Three things that drove some men, like Chamtivos, to commit heinous acts of familicide, abduction, and torture and others like Bryzant to ally themselves with monsters in order to climb the ladder of power.
The steward glanced briefly at the guard nearby, listening to their conversation. A sly malice veiled his features, at odds with the injured tone he affected. “You were my liege until you turned traitor, Lord Pangion. While I'm crushed by such revelations, it seems only courteous to inquire after your health. Can we not at least converse civilly?”
“I don't have chats with treacherous lickspittles like you,” Serovek scoffed, scoring a hard hit with his contempt as Bryzant's nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. “All those years of faithful service and you were merely biding your time, making your plans, for what? Becoming margrave yourself?” Serovek snorted. “What do you know of governance or even battle?” He didn't give Bryzant a chance to answer. “Maybe, like Ogran, you were motivated by monetary gain. You're the youngest son of a lesser nobleman. Without holdings or inheritance. A generous reward from the king would buy the first and take care of the second. Blood money always helps a belly crawler stand.”
“So high and mighty, even locked in here,” Bryzant snarled, abandoning his woeful demeanor and forgetting the watchful guard. “The Beladine people might have hailed you and that pathetic monk as heroes, but you'll not die a hero's death or be remembered as such.”
Serovek had held onto his fraying temper, taking pleasure at the small cuts he delivered against his erstwhile steward. That grip slipped the moment Bryzant insulted Megiddo, a man whose boots Bryzant wasn't fit to lick. Too intent on their conversation to notice how Serovek gradually moved closer and closer to him, Bryzant gasped when Serovek suddenly shoved his hands through the gaps between the bars, grabbed the other man's tunic and yanked him forward to slam his face against unforgiving metal.
The spaces were too narrow for Serovek to get his hands through past his wrists, otherwise he would have snapped Bryzant's neck. A part of him not submerged in white-hot fury recognized that restriction was likely a good thing. He didn't need murder added to his charges. It didn't stop him from smashing Bryzant's face ever harder against the bars where he mewled and struggled in his captor's grip.
“Be grateful for the bars, little man,” Serovek said, bringing his own face against them so Bryzant could see the promise of retribution in his eyes.
It took the nearby guard and two more to finally pry Bryzant from Serovek's grip and only then after a hard rap with a sword pommel across one of Serovek's hands. He retreated from the cell door while the guards dragged Bryzant out of grabbing distance. The steward shook them off to straighten his clothes. His cheek was red with an imprint of the bars, and his glare bore a hatred fueled by the same envy and ambition that made him betray Serovek in the first place. “I'm glad I came to Timsiora,” he said between stuttered breaths. “Your death will be sweet to watch, and I will celebrate when it's done.”
Serovek gave a humorless laugh. “Do you think me the only one who'd avenge an unjust death? Enjoy your triumph while you can, Bryzant, for you'll soon see a shadow lurking in every corner and behind every tree, wondering which one of them might be an assassin with your name carved on their blade.”
Bryzant paled.
There were no vengeful assassins waiting to exact vengeance against Serovek's enemies, at least none that he knew of. It was a bluff, pure conjecture, but the steward didn't need to know that, and Serovek capitalized on the other's man fear of him and his jealousy. Judging by Bryzant's reaction, he believed every word. With a snarled epithet hurled Serovek's way, he strode
