Coated in blood half-way to each elbow, Stanton’s arms were enough to explain why there could only be found silence beyond the cavern’s open wide door, which ought to have been guarded.

Initially, Amelia couldn’t bring herself to believe Stanton’s arrival was anything more than her mind playing tricks. Too afraid to believe, she tried to cover herself with her blanket, wanting nothing more than to curl into a ball and hope she could stop her lips from turning as cold blue as the giant bruise her skin had become.

Cold and confused as to why her imaginary blanket failed to provide any warmth, Amelia remembered the existence of clothing. Knowing it wasn’t proper to do without, unless it was bath time, Amelia scanned the floor around her, unable to distinguish where her rags were amidst the swirling patterns that danced as she shivered.

The effort proved too much for the energy she still had. Amelia gave up, deciding to patiently wait for the world to once again sweep her up in its tumultuous nature. A decision she immediately questioned, when a warmth slipped its way into the crook of her arms. Hot enough to drive away the fog in her mind and ground her back in the present.

“Can you take care of it for me?” Stanton asked Amelia, who now clung to her father’s sword as tightly as she could, letting its comforting flames freely lap at her exposed self without causing harm. Fearful that the beacon of hope might be extinguished by the darkness of a subterranean world.

Stanton took her silence in stride. “Thanks,” he said, before removing the victor’s cape he had been gifted for besting the Hound.

Their eyes met for the first time as he draped it over her back. Stanton narrowed his, upon seeing just how dilated Amelia’s were.

“No falling asleep,” he said sternly, and only after Amelia had nodded did the gladiator confront the rest of the room: Both the men who had barely finished strapping their belts and the woman, whose quiet attempt to hide using shadows hit a roadblock when Stanton threw a rock hard enough to plunge into her chest.

“You’ve touched what you shouldn’t,” Stanton said to the men, as the woman gurgled for aid. Her life, amounting to nothing more than a declaration that help had arrived.

And it had come with a vengeance.

A gladiator in title, now a butcher in practice, the Marquess’s men, who had revelled in their control of a woman with no chance to fight back, took up their weapons with arms that trembled in fright at the prospect of facing someone their own size.

One couldn’t take it, he attempted to flee like the woman before him. He went running past Stanton, towards the cavern’s exit with a hand outstretched for the handle. It was a short-lived attempt. Stanton was on him before the man could even open the door. Ready and willing to crush a skull against wood, creating a horrible sound similar to that of a rotten fruit bursting as it fell upon concrete.

There would be no running from Stanton. And in the seconds which followed, Amelia bore witness to an executioner systematically dismantling one man after the next. A crushed throat, a snapped spine: two more were left to drown in their blood and it didn’t stop there. Stanton’s ruthlessness was to the point Amelia, who once held a smidgen of pride in the fact she could usually handle the most gruesome of sights, felt her stomach do a few flips.

“I’m… I’m only here for the money!” yelled the last man standing with his back to the wall as the second last slowly died under Stanton from asphyxiation, “Not a finger of mine touched her, of this I swear!”

Amelia tried to match the soft-hearted hero who had stood beside his princess in the Historian’s novel until the bitter end, with the gladiator who appeared unwilling to allow his victims even the chance to speak words of regret.

Another life sentenced against the silence of stone; Stanton’s fierce expression searched the cavern for more signs of life. Until he stopped in his tracks, upon seeing how Amelia stared at his gore-stricken front.

“Shoot,” he mumbled. Stanton awkwardly flicked away a chunk of brain matter stubbornly clinging to his leather breastplate, then knelt on the ground. Slowly, he raised both his arms and began removing his armor, as if afraid Amelia might think he meant her any harm.

“Ah… Hello,” he said, offering a cumbersome, well-meaning smile, “My name is Stanton, Lady Strightsworth. I’ve… I’ve heard a lot of things about your family. Truth be told… I had hoped we might meet one-day face to face… But never like this.”

Amelia wasn’t sure what to say. Although Stanton must have regretted his choice of words, since he hurriedly added, “Not that I think any less of you even now. Why, for you to have endured such a thing… It makes me want to dedicate my victory to you all over again.”

“Not the princess?” Amelia asked dumbly, since the idea that the gladiator’s salute had been for her all along, was a very foreign idea.

Stanton’s expression turned befuddled but amused. “I might be a bit of a fool, but I wouldn’t mistake who I dedicated my match too,” he said, before his eyes lit up as enlightenment dawned. “Ooh, the princess! Right. She must have been there with you as well. Makes sense, seeing that I passed her and Martel on the way here.”

“You… You know them?” Amelia asked, her mind abuzz with a tsunami of questions.

“Not really? Sort of? In a sense?” Stanton said, appearing just as unsure, “At least, I’m pretty sure it was them. Couldn’t quite tell due to the number of guards restraining the two… I think one of them stabbed someone?”

Amelia felt her heart hammer heavily against her ribcage. The sensation brought with it the question of what on earth had Grace and Martel done? And the return of a whisper; hinting to Amelia that her internal clock might need a reset. How much time had actually passed since her decision to tail the Marquess? Despite her questions, she could feel her eyelids beginning to droop.

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Stanton moved fast. He managed to catch Amelia before her tired attempt to stand ended with her falling back down. “Sorry, sorry,” said Stanton as he tried to find a way to hold her without touching too much. “Shit… Please don’t fall asleep. At least tell me where your father’s gone off first.”

“He… He went to meet with the… the king,” Amelia said, as she tried to stay awake. A task that became much easier when a new fear awoke from within her. “Don’t… Please don’t tell him what happened,” Amelia begged. “Please, you… you mustn’t. I… I don’t want to disappoint or upset my father again.”

“I won’t tell anyone about what has happened in this place,” replied Stanton, with immediate conviction.

“N-Nobody?” Amelia asked, her every thought now swimming with paranoid visions of the King deciding to cut off relations with Havoc should his Kingdom’s Dragon lash out in anger. The thought of being separated from Grace in such an unfortunate manner made it even harder to see through her tears that began swelling unending.

Stanton frantically looked around them for emotional help. Finding none, he began gently rocking Amelia in his arms. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he whispered, “Those in the know, are now among the dead. And my lips are sealed. Even if the good Baron walked through that door right this instant, I’m sure he would be so preoccupied with helping and keeping you safe, that he wouldn’t have time for anything else.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I do,” Stanton said, and Amelia found herself wanting to believe him, “So, what do you think?” he continued, like they were discussing their plans for the day, “I’m not confident I can sneak you back home undetected, and I’d really rather not leave you alone for any longer than a minute... With your permission, do you have anything that could send your father a signal?”

Amelia looked at Stanton like he had grown a second head. It almost sounded as if he were speaking of the dragon tooth her father had gifted her for protection.

Stanton abruptly clicked his tongue in ashamed annoyance, “Forget it,” he said, brushing his idea away, “If you had something like that on you…”

Amelia knew what he wanted to say before he had finished. If she did have the tooth, it would have already been used.

Stanton continued to rock her, “Rats, leaves us in a bit of a pickle then, doesn’t it,” he mused aloud, unaware of how much Amelia appreciated his friendly candor while feeling so dirty and stupid. Her lips began trembling, forever intent on betraying their owner.

“No-no-no,” Stanton said, beginning to panic, “It’s okay. Everything is going to be alright. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. Your honor will not be besmirched as long as I’m here.”

“I don’t care about that anymore…” Amelia whispered, pausing the wiping of her tears to correct his assumption. Personal honor had become the last thing on her mind. All she wanted now was to give Grace and the Marquess what they deserved before returning home to the safety of her mother’s greenhouse. But she knew how pathetic that sounded, so she chose not to share.

“Okay… that’s fine,” said Stanton, as the man began nodding his head deep in thought, “But… If I said I had a way to get your dad’s attention, would you let me?”

Amelia hesitated, but ultimately nodded. Seeing this, Stanton bit the inside of his cheek and began doing math. “Uh… Shoot… Alright, it-uh took me a good ten minutes of running to get here… Worst case scenario if someone else started walking the tunnel after me it should still take them at least… At least twenty, right?” He turned to look at the canal, “Then if I… Yeah… That should be enough time… It’s him after all.”

With a “Pardon me,” Stanton leapt to his feet. Carrying Amelia all the way to the cave’s entrance, he gently set her down on the tunnel’s side, and shut the door with a nervous but excited grin on his face that to Amelia, spoke of nothing good whatsoever.

“What are you doing? Stanton!” Amelia asked, as loudly as she could, before pulling back in fright when Stanton, without explanation, bent the door’s lower most hinge with a sharp kick: Ruining its ability to open.

“What a man should do in situations like this,” Stanton answered calmly, through the crack between door and wall.

Amelia watched Stanton take a deep breath, raise his chest in firm resolution, and turn towards the canal. Did he plan on commandeering the second boat one of the dead Marquess’s men had mentioned would arrive within approximately an hour? Amelia’s head spun, since for all intents and purposes that shouldn’t be something Stanton could have possibly known.

But then Stanton turned around one more time, showing a face Amelia knew the man had been wanting to hide, but couldn’t hold back any longer.

Stanton looked… Sad. “H-Hey…” he said, with only the slightest of quivers to his voice, “When you mistook me for your dad… Did you mean it? Even just a bit?”

His question to Amelia, was nonsense. His behavior, even more so. Hadn’t Stanton only just stated he didn’t want to leave her alone for any long period of time? Why was he acting as if that was no longer the case?

Amelia, tightly holding the warmth of her father’s sword, made sure to honestly answer his question. “I did.” She said, and Stanton’s dour expression melted away for a brilliant smile.

Like she had given him the world, and he now wanted nothing else.

Alarm bells began ringing in Amelia’s head. Since if Stanton was even remotely like his Historian novel counterpart… While he might be brave, honest, loyal and heck, incredibly cute, it meant the young man probably also still had a tendency of putting himself in incredible danger. After all, you couldn’t become a princess’s duelist by backing down when the going got rough.

“Then, I’m glad,” Stanton said, before scratching his chin in embarrassment. “You know, we were told the Hound they brought in was because the Baron of Strightsworth would be watching. My buddies… They came up with a plan to have me take up the spotlight. Get his attention. Maybe get myself recruited as a page. Kind of a silly hope in hindsight, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t think so at all,” Amelia answered. Not wanting to belittle the dreams of another.

“Thanks. Now, just to check from a reputable source… The Lord Strightsworth, he’s the type of man who would rush to his daughter’s defence if he felt something was wrong… right?”

“Without hesitation,” Amelia said, thinking back to how her father had come to her rescue.

A strange chuckle slipped out of Stanton. “Sorry, that was a silly question. Of course he would.”

“Hold on,” Amelia said, wanting to find out why the man had begun acting so strange. Only minutes earlier, he had been acting like a warrior her father could be proud of, but now…

Stanton once again turned away from the door.

It was like he was saying goodbye, when they had only just met.

“W-Wait!” Amelia called after him, louder this time. When no response came, she began beating the door. “Stanton! Stanton, what are you doing!”

An answer of sorts did eventually come. But by then Amelia could tell Stanton had moved exceedingly far away. And his words… weren’t being directed towards her any more.

“I am Stanton!” Stanton yelled aloud, fierce to the point Amelia became convinced he had put all of his being behind his voice. “And though I might not have been the greatest, I was still the best gladiator this Kingdom has ever, and will ever see!”

A short pause followed. It didn’t last long.

“I dare address you as an equal only this once! For through you I have come to know that hard work can bring great strength! And that the weak, can be protected!”

Amelia gasped. The words Stanton spoke. Why did it sound like… her family motto?

“Havoc Strightsworth!” came Stanton’s loudest shout yet, “I have rescued your daughter, but have not the means to protect her honor! Hear me!”

And as his voice faded, an explosion rang out.