The Final
The world should have been loud when we walked back into the lounge, but instead it felt like drifting through the hollowed-out ribcage of something ancient and long dead. Warm lights burned across the patterned floor, flickering in their sconces as though unsure whether to welcome us or recoil. The velvet sofas, the polished wooden tables, the fine rugs that had been cleaned earlier in the evening, all of it looked untouched, serene, almost proud in that noble Alderian way of pretending violence hadn’t just soaked the foundations underneath.
My tail swayed behind me, low and slow, brushing his leg every time the two of us crossed a patch of shadow. He walked like a man who had left a piece of himself back in the captain’s quarters where the steel-clad corpse still cooled. I matched his stride with the obsessive attention of something feral and devoted, curling close, brushing against him, arms coiled around his like a predator refusing to surrender prey.
He was detached again. My master was always detached after killing. Even victory only carved him farther inward.
The room held five House Serrean clerks, all in pristine pale-blue tabards, all standing stiff behind the long counter near the job board. They looked like they had been waiting too long, and the smell of their fear soured the air. One of them stepped forward, a woman with charcoal ink stains on her hands, hair pinned back so tightly it must have hurt. She held a ledger against her ribs like a shield.
“My lord,” she said, though she didn’t know what he was. Only that he terrified her. “The payment has been authorised by Commander Veynar. Three vault-sealed gold bars, one sack of cut gold, fifty silver marks, and… and a discretionary bonus for… efficiency.”
Efficiency. She had no idea just how efficient.
I pressed closer to him, tail looping around his waist possessively, claws slipping lightly at his side through the cloth as she set the payment down on the table. The weight of the gold made the wood creak. My ears twitched at the sound, soft, metallic, the unmistakable music of wealth bought with blood.
The clerks had arranged everything neatly, too neatly, like they thought aesthetic precision might hide the fact they had spent the last hour trying not to vomit as the legion cleared the building of bodies. The rich blue chairs were even straightened in a perfect line. A pathetic attempt at order.
My master didn’t reach for the gold. He didn’t even look directly at it. He poured himself tea instead, tea from a delicate kettle the guild used for formal negotiations with people they thought mattered more than us. His hands moved with that exacting, noir calm of someone who’d long since erased warmth from his habits.
Only when he lifted the cup did he glance at the clerks.
“Put it in the satchels,” he said, voice carrying that flat, cold edge that cuts long before a blade does.
The clerks hurried. Three vault bars clinked as they were wrapped in oilcloth, then again as they vanished into the reinforced leather bags. The sack of cut gold was knotted with trembling fingers. The silver marks were stacked in bundles of five, tied neatly, placed atop the gold like a garnish.
One of the clerks risked a glance at me.
I bared my teeth.
She looked away so quickly her neck cracked.
Good.
My master sipped his tea, staring through the room like he was watching dust settle in a cathedral, and not the aftermath of a sanctioned guild purge.
“You’re overpaid,” he murmured, mostly to himself.
He hated this sort of thing, getting rich off corpses. He never said it, but I felt it in the psychic drift between us, the faint echo of emotion he tried to bury. Detached, but not blind. Pragmatic, but not untouched.
I curled tighter around him, nuzzling his collar, breathing in the quiet exhaustion on his skin. My claws grazed his chest lightly, enough to remind him I was there, always there, always ready to tear down anything that dared drag him deeper into that cold inward spiral.
He didn’t push me away.
The goblins came in then, Gresha leading them, all swagger and battered armour and grins sharp enough to bite. They carried sacks of their own, lighter than ours but still heavy. Payment for the Black Fang slaughter. Payment for keeping Grey Hollow’s streets neat and tidy and free of competition.
“Master!” Gresha barked, chest swelling like a proud hound reporting a successful hunt. “They counted it twice. Not a copper missing. And, hah! Serrean’s scribes even apologised.”
Her laughter boomed through the lounge.
The clerks flinched.
My tail whipped in amusement against my master’s thigh.
He gave Gresha a nod, small, solemn, the kind that meant well done but we’re not celebrating.
The goblins didn’t care. They were already celebrating for him.
They spread out across the lounge, filling the velvet sofas, slamming their short legs onto the cushioned footrests, grabbing up snacks from unattended platters, tearing chunks of bread with the ravenous delight of soldiers who’d survived another night doing things no civilised Alderian ever wanted to witness.
But my master?
He stayed seated on the far side of the room, tea cupped in both hands, eyes unfocused, tracing patterns in the carpet or maybe in his mind. The gold meant nothing to him. The victory meant nothing. The bloodshed meant nothing beyond the cold logic of necessity.
He looked like a man who’d returned from a war no one else saw.
So I curled around him fully, sliding across his lap like a living barricade, pressing my cheek to his ribcage, tail wrapping his leg in a slow possessive coil. My purr rumbled against him, soft, low, a steady heartbeat made of claws and devotion.
I could feel the sadness in him.
Not the human kind. Not guilt. Not fear.
Just detachment so deep it brushed loneliness, like he’d stepped outside the world and hadn’t decided yet whether to step back in. My claws slipped around his back, holding him close.
He didn’t stop me. He never stopped me. He just exhaled, long and slow, steam drifting from his tea into the lamplight.
Gresha barked something across the room. The goblins erupted in laughter. One of them jumped onto a velvet couch and declared it “soft as the Mother Goblin” which caused even more chaos. Another discovered that the glass decanter on the side table contained expensive wine and began pouring cups for everyone, half of it spilling before it reached their mouths.
The clerks quietly fled.
Smart. They didn’t belong here.
The lounge became a small, growing chaos of celebration, goblins shouting, wrestling, slapping each other on the back, toasting to Mire Point, to the Master, to the Cat, to the future, to everything and nothing.
But our side of the room stayed strangely still.
Just him.
Just me.
Just the echo of brutality hanging in the edges of the wallpaper like smoke.
My master stared into his tea the way other men stared into graves.
I watched him the way predators watched shadows moving near their den.
Outside, Grey Hollow continued its usual evening murmur, carriages rolling, merchants shouting, the wind brushing against shutters, but the lounge felt like a sealed pocket, a quiet chamber carved out of noise.
A sanctuary built from violence.
A hollow carved by his loneliness.
I pressed my forehead into the side of his chest and breathed him in again, deeper this time, letting his scent settle through me like a warmth no one else in the world would ever feel again. His heartbeat was steady. Calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that comes not from peace, but from exhaustion carved into bone.
I curled tighter. Held him harder.
Kept my claws gentle because I wanted to feel him, not harm him. Because the way he lifted his cup with quiet grace made something tender ache beneath my ribs. Because he was everything, and if the whole world vanished outside that lounge, I would not have moved.
He drank his tea. I watched him like he was the only source of light in a room full of flickering candles. And even as the goblins celebrated our riches, our survival, their future…
We sat in the quietest place in the room. Side by side. Yet both miles away from it all.Both alone. Both trying not to show it. My tail draped across his lap, warm and slow. My ears flicked at every sound, but my eyes stayed locked on him. His expression never changed. Not once.
Not even as the weight of our new fortune settled into the satchels at his feet like anchors pulling us deeper into a life neither of us ever planned to live. The lounge was full. But the two of us were the only ones sitting in the cold centre of an unspoken truth:
Victories like this always cost something. And the bill always came later.
The lounge was bursting by the time the clerks fled. The goblins owned the room now, their voices ricocheting off the expensive panelled walls like riot drums in a cathedral. Lamps flickered from the pressure of their movement, their rough boots scuffing the overly polished floor, their laughter rolling like a storm.
Yet the two of us remained in our private hollow, just beyond the circle of their celebration. My arms stayed wrapped around my master’s torso, my legs tucked under me, tail curled across his lap in a slow guarding coil. His tea cooled in his hands, untouched since the last sip, steam dying like a breath held too long.
Gresha swaggered through the maze of velvet settees with a cup of stolen wine in one hand and a pair of silver marks in the other, tossing them in the air like a juggler. She was bellowing something about how the Fighters Guild didn’t even put up a decent fight compared to the beastmasters back in Marshgate.
Around her, the ten Black Fang goblins sprawled across every available couch and chair, drinking, shouting, trading stories, arguing about who killed who, who stabbed who, who slipped in blood and pretended it was intentional. One of them, little Bregg, was standing on the table, reenacting my master’s sword swing with a candlestick, wildly inaccurate but proud.
The room smelled like wine, sweat, and damp leather.
But beneath it all, there was an undercurrent of… something quietly triumphant. This was their reward. Their moment. Their proof that following the Master meant power, food, shelter, glory, upgrades to gear, a place in Mire Point that no other clan would ever give them.
I knew it mattered to them. And because it mattered to him, it mattered to me. Even if he couldn’t show it.
The goblins eventually drifted to the far end of the lounge where the job board hung like a wooden totem covered in old parchment. They gathered around it with cups in hand, shouting about which bounties they’d take next, which they’d ignore, how much the Fighters Guild had been overcharging clients anyway.
Gresha slapped a hand against the wall beside it.
“Listen up, Black Fang!” she roared, voice cracking with drunken victory. “We head home tomorrow! Mire Point is waiting! Parks! Arenas! Pet district! Theatre for you artsy idiots! A whole week of no patrols!”
The goblins howled. One collapsed onto a sofa and immediately began crying with joy. Another shouted something about buying an entire roasted boar when we got back. A third raised his cup and screamed, “To the Master! To the Cat! To Mire!” The room echoed the toast.
I felt my master’s heartbeat shift under my cheek. Not softer, that wasn’t a word he ever carried. but deeper, like some weight in him acknowledged the moment. But he still didn’t move.
Still didn’t smile.
Still stayed locked inside that cold quiet where only I was allowed to curl my claws into his soul. I pressed my face against his ribs, nuzzling slowly, gently, grounding him with the warmth of my body, the low rumble in my throat, the possessive wrap of my tail. He exhaled through his nose, barely audible, but enough for me to feel the shift in his chest.
Gresha approached us then. Not loudly. Not with swagger. Just… sober. For the first time that night.
“Master,” she said, standing before him, short and solid and loyal in a way Alderian nobles would never understand. “They’re ready. They know what they earned. They know what you promised. And they know you kept your word.”
My master’s eyes lifted slightly. Only slightly. But for Gresha, that was enough. “You did well,” he said, voice as flat as stone, but her expression lit like a lantern anyway. She thumped her fist against her chest. “As long as you lead, we fight.”
Then she stepped back, giving us space again. The goblins didn’t disturb us anymore. They kept celebrating, kept drinking, kept shouting about wrestling matches, food stalls, the temple, the theatre. One even fell asleep on a velvet armchair hugging a cushion like it was treasure.
Eventually, the room began to wind down. Slowly.
Gresha herded them into a loose formation near the door, trying to gather the drunks, shake awake the sleepers, threaten the stubborn ones who refused to leave the warm furniture. “Black Fang!” she barked. “We march at dawn! Get back to the inn! Now!”
They groaned, muttered, complained but they obeyed.
One by one, they passed by my master, offering nods, bows, salutes, drunken slurred promises to make him proud in the arenas next week. Some even dared glance at me, only to look away instantly when my tail flicked.
Gresha saluted with her sword pommel. He gave her the smallest nod. And then they were gone, filtered out into the night, their voices fading down the stone corridor and into the cooling streets of Grey Hollow.
Silence slowly reclaimed the lounge. Not real silence. Lamps still crackled. The city outside still hummed. But the silence inside him, the same one I felt pulse through the bond, settled once more.
Only the two of us remained. He didn’t move. He just stared ahead, cup still in hand, tea long cold. I curled closer around him, tightening the loop of my tail, lacing my fingers into the front of his tunic. My ears lowered slightly, brushing his jaw as I leaned into him with quiet, unwavering devotion.
The room was vast without the goblins. Too vast. Too empty. As if the celebration had only been a temporary mask over the cold truth of what we were. Killers. Strangers in a city that barely tolerated us. A blade and his shadow. A master and the creature who would destroy the world to keep him alive.
The lanterns gave off a soft golden glow, warm enough to fake comfort but not enough to reach the numbness behind his eyes. I studied him for a long moment, watching every breath, every small shift of muscle, every flicker of thought behind his gaze that he thought he hid from me.
He wasn’t grieving. He wasn’t guilty. He wasn’t shaken. He was simply… distant. Detached. Withdrawn into some place no one else could reach. Except me. Always me.
I pressed my forehead into his shoulder, letting the purr rise in a low, steady swell, vibration deep and grounding. My claws hooked in his sleeve with a careful possessiveness that spoke a language older than words. I wasn’t comforting him.
I was claiming him. And anchoring him. And reminding him he wasn’t alone in that cold emptiness, even if he preferred pretending otherwise. He lifted a hand then. Slowly. Quietly. And rested it atop my head, fingers slipping behind my ears in that exact spot that melted my bones and tightened my tail around him like a vice.
I shuddered. A soft, involuntary gasp left my lips. His thumb brushed that tender place behind my left ear, the one that always made me tremble, and heat flooded through me, possessive, adoring, fierce.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. That small, gentle movement was everything. The lounge was empty, carved-out, haunted by the ghosts of the night, but the two of us sat in its centre like the last survivors of a war only we understood. The goblins celebrated. The clerks fled.Serrean got what they wanted. Grey Hollow kept its order. My master got his gold. I got him. And as my tail wrapped tighter and my breath synced with his, I knew the quiet wouldn’t last.
It never did. But for now? The world outside could crumble. And I would curl tighter around him in the ruins.
The tea cooled in his hand long before his body admitted it was tired. He sat slouched in the velvet chair like a man carved out of silence, eyes fixed on nothing, jaw set in that distant, unreadable line that always appeared after nights painted in blood and duty. The lamps cast their slow golden hum across his face, soft but failing to warm him. His stare didn’t move. Didn’t blink much. Didn’t belong to the lounge or the world or even to himself.
It belonged to whatever far off place he drifted to when the weight of everything pressed too hard against his ribs. I curled around him before the emptiness could swallow him whole.
Half draped over his lap, half wrapped around the arm of the chair, my body caged his like a protective coil. My tail stretched across his thighs, rising and falling with each shallow breath he took. His fingers still rested on the cup, but his grip slackened. The porcelain nearly slipped once, and I caught the faint shift of tension in his wrist before it settled again.
He didn’t break his stare. Not once. His eyes were dry and far away. Thinking but not thinking. Watching but seeing nothing. A kind of waking sleep only humans fell into. A spiral made of exhaustion and the echo of too many responsibilities clinging to the inside of his skull.
My master didn’t sleep easily. Never had. The body could be exhausted, but the mind… his mind never let go until it forced itself to. Slowly, gently, inevitably, the tea cup dipped. His hand went slack. I lifted my head and nudged it carefully aside so it wouldn’t spill. Took it from his fingers. Set it quietly on the low table.
He didn’t react. Not even a flicker. His chest rose, fell, rose again. Slower now. Sleeper’s breathing, though his eyes were still half open, lids drooping as though the weight of the day pinned them down. The lamps blurred into faint halos in his unfocused stare, and for the first time since the massacre he seemed… small. Not weak, never weak, but human in a way that made something in my ribs tighten with ache.
I shifted higher, sliding my arms around him, tucking myself between the chair and his body, pressing my cheek against his side so I could feel the exact pattern of each breath. My tail tightened, not possessive this time, not jealous, not territorial.
Just protective.
Just holding him.
He exhaled slowly, and the breath caught at the end as if sleep finally tugged the last thread holding him upright. His eyes drifted shut. His head tilted back against the chair. A faint tremor passed through his fingers like he didn’t trust himself to stop thinking even in unconsciousness.
I lifted myself just enough to look at his face properly. He looked tired. The kind of tired that didn’t come from pain or fear or injury. The tired that comes from holding everything together with nothing but discipline and grim resolve. The tired that made him stare into nothing because looking at anything real would require caring, and caring was heavier than steel.
I lowered myself back into him, cheek pressed to his ribs, listening to the slow heartbeat that grounded me more than any bed or blanket ever could. My eyes drooped, half open, half closed, my mind drifting in a soft half sleep. But I didn’t let myself fully fall. Not when he needed me like this. Not when the world outside still breathed with uncertainty.
Every time his breath hitched, I shifted closer. Every time his muscles tightened in some involuntary dream, I curled tighter around him. My claws rested lightly against his hip, not gripping, just anchoring. My tail draped fully over him, claiming, guarding, warm. My ears twitched at every small sound, a board creaking, a lantern sputtering, distant footsteps in another corridor, but nothing came near him.
Nothing got close.
Nothing dared.
The lounge was vast and dim and empty, but he was warm beneath me, and I was the only thing between him and the cold creeping in at the edges of sleep. I stayed half awake. Breathing with him. Guarding him.
Loving him in the quiet way predators love the one person they would never devour. He fell fully asleep eventually, head tilted, breath slow, body slack in the chair. I followed him down into that soft blur of half dreams, half instincts, curled around him like armour, like a blanket, like a creature who would burn the world if anyone tried to wake him before he was ready.
