The Whispering Willow Inn had endured worse.

  Floods, brawls, a particularly nasty business venture involving pickled eel. It had weathered them all with the unshakable resolve of a place too old and too stubborn to fall apart just yet. But a week of adventurers doing nothing at all? That was testing its limits. And worse, they were running out of coin.

  At first, the innkeeper had treated them like any other travelers—polite nods, a practiced smile, the occasional refill offered with something approaching warmth. But as the days dragged on and their coin turned to haggled discounts, as their presence became less a temporary inconvenience and more a permanent fixture, the welcome soured. The nods became grunts, the smiles faded into tight-lipped tolerance. More than once they’d heard him murmuring about the guard and evictions.

  “Still nothing from the church,” Raven said. She lounged in her chair, all sharp angles and impatience, one boot hooked over the table’s edge, her dagger rolling idly between her fingers. “A week, and not even a whisper of divine interest.”

  “Shocking,” Devon muttered. His logbook lay open before him, though his quill sat abandoned at its side. He traced a finger along its spine, gaze unfocused. “Almost as if a lich in some nameless dungeon isn’t worth their time.”

  “They care,” Marielle said, quiet but firm. Her fingers rested against the silver symbol of her faith, as if by habit. She hadn’t looked at them once since the conversation began, her eyes fixed instead on the fire. “The church always cares. They’re just… deliberate.”

  Raven’s smirk curled slow, deliberate as a blade being sharpened. “Deliberate,” she echoed. “That’s a polite way of saying they don’t lift a finger unless the problem starts burning down temples.”

  Marielle’s grip tightened on the symbol. She still didn’t look away.

  “Careful,” she murmured. “They are listening.”

  “To what?” Devon said, raising an eyebrow. “The sound of us running out of money? Or the fact that we can’t even get a permit for a new dungeon until they decide to do something?” He snatched up his tankard and took a long, bitter sip. “I’ll give them something to listen to.”

  Markus sat hunched over his drink, his shield resting against the chair beside him. The grooves in its surface caught the flickering light, worn deep by years of use.

  His voice cut through the growing tension, calm and low. “Enough. This isn’t helping.”

  “What’s helping, then?” Raven asked, flipping her dagger and catching it by the hilt in a single, fluid motion. “Sitting here for another week? Telling stories about how this will all work out? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but inns don’t take good intentions as payment.”

  “Neither do blacksmiths,” Talia added, her tone measured as she ran a hand over her carefully folded map. “And we need better gear if we’re going back in there.”

  “Better gear won’t matter if it’s not enchanted,” Markus said, setting his tankard down with deliberate care. “Liches are resistant to most weapons. Magical ones are rare, and we don’t have the coin for them.”

  Marielle’s fingers tightened around her holy symbol, her voice barely above a whisper. “It was a miracle that my spell worked at all.”

  Raven frowned, leaning forward. “What do you mean, a miracle?”

  “I mean it shouldn’t have,” Marielle said, finally turning to face them. The firelight caught the edge of her expression, a flicker of something uneasy crossing her face. “Hold Undead isn’t strong enough for something like that. Not against a lich. It… it wasn’t me. It was the goddess!”

  The table fell silent, the weight of her words settling over them like a cold draft.

  “If it was the goddess, do you think she could maybe hurry up her earthly representation?” Raven said.. “Because right now we’re waiting on a bureaucracy and divine intervention. Two forces famously known for their speed and reliability.”

  “Do you want to go back without them?” Markus asked, his tone calm but weighted. “You saw that thing.”

  “Obviously,” Raven said, her voice sharp. “Who the hells has ever heard of a lich on the first floor?”

  Devon hesitated, fingers brushing the spine of his logbook. He stared at it like a man hoping to find the answer written somewhere inside—some explanation that made sense of what they had seen. But there was none. He let out a sharp breath, shaking his head.

  “This isn’t right,” he muttered. “Liches don’t belong on first floors. And goblins don’t just… watch you until you attack.” His hand raked through his hair, voice curling with irritation. “None of it fits. It’s wrong.”

  Markus didn’t disagree, but agreement changed nothing. His fingers tapped idly against his tankard, the only outward sign of his impatience. “It’s dangerous is what it is. And I don’t like it either, but we aren’t getting a permit for a new dungeon unless we clear down to floor three or forfeit. And we can’t afford another canceled contract.”

  Raven exhaled sharply, her dagger spinning once between her fingers before sliding back into its sheath. “So we sit here. Again. Waiting for the church to decide if this is worth their time.” Her lip curled. “That worked well the first time.”

  Markus leaned back in his chair, unreadable. “You’re welcome to go back alone, Raven.”

  The dagger in Raven’s hand stilled. Her lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Gray sat by the fire, one hand resting on the massive wolf curled beside him. He didn’t look up. Didn’t speak. Just ran slow, absent fingers through fur like he was tuning a thought that hadn’t quite formed yet.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  After a long silence, he said, without turning, “You all talk too much.”

  The wolf huffed, as if in agreement.

  The fire crackled in the hearth, its glow painting restless shadows along the walls. No one at the table spoke, but the silence between them wasn’t the easy, comfortable kind. It was the kind that wanted to be filled and wasn’t, stretching thin across the room, fraying at the edges.

  Devon turned a page in his logbook. He wasn’t reading. Just moving for the sake of movement. Across from him, Talia dragged the tip of her quill along her map, tracing and retracing lines that had long since been set. Markus sat still, watching the room with the quiet patience of a man daring someone else to break first.

  It was Raven who finally did.

  “I’m just saying,” she muttered, quieter now but no less sharp, “waiting on the church is starting to feel a lot like waiting to starve.”

  Talia didn’t look up. “We’ve waited this long. Another day or two won’t kill us.”

  Devon scoffed, a breath barely more than sound. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Raven’s fingers twitched toward her dagger, her mouth half-open to argue—

  And then the door groaned open.

  The sound shouldn’t have been loud. Not over the murmur of the inn, not over the crackle of the fire. But it was. A deep, weighted noise, wood and iron dragging against time-warped hinges, cutting through the air like a blade drawn slow from its sheath.

  The draft came next, slipping in past the threshold like an unseen thing, curling under tables and chairs, making the fire in the hearth gutter low. Voices dwindled. The warmth in the room, thin to begin with, thinned further.

  Every head turned.

  And he stepped inside.

  Tall. Broad. His frame carried the kind of weight that had nothing to do with size. A dark cloak hung over polished steel plate, its jagged edges catching in the firelight, throwing back sharp glints of gold and silver. The armor wasn’t ornamental. The etched designs weren’t decorative. They meant something—to those who knew, to those who should.

  At his hip, a longsword rested, the hilt wrapped in black leather, the grip worn smooth by use. But it was the emblem on his chest that held the room still.

  A silver cross, encircled by sharp rays.

  Not just a warrior.

  A Holy Knight.

  Even in the rough corners of the world, that meant something. The Church did not send knights without cause. And when they did, it was never for something small.

  The fire crackled, but softer, as if it had the good sense not to draw attention.

  He moved further inside. His boots met the wooden floor with a weight beyond their size, measured in a way that made the space between each step matter. He wasn’t looking for them. He didn’t need to. His gaze swept the room, and the silence followed it, trailing in his wake like an obedient thing.

  Then he found them.

  Markus sat up straighter, his hand brushing the hilt of his sword. Talia set her quill down, fingers still curled around it, as if grounding herself with the motion. Raven’s hand drifted closer to her dagger—not quite reaching for it, but not far from it either.

  Only Marielle remained perfectly still. Watching. Unreadable.

  The knight stopped in front of their table. His cloak shifted with the movement, the fabric settling like the dust before a storm. His face was sharp, pale, the kind of features that might have been handsome if they had anything in them besides purpose.

  The inn seemed smaller now.

  No one spoke.

  No one moved.

  Then, finally, he did.

  “You are the ones who reported the lich,” he said.

  His voice was quiet. Certain. The kind of tone that left no space for doubt.

  Markus inclined his head, his expression guarded but steady. “We are.”

  The knight nodded once. “Your report has been reviewed. The Church has determined the threat to be significant.”

  “Oh, thank the gods,” Devon muttered.

  The knight’s gaze snapped to him.

  Cold. Unflinching.

  The weight of it settled like iron around Devon’s throat, and whatever humor had been lingering in his expression died a quick, silent death.

  “This is not a matter for gratitude,” the knight said.

  His voice carried no heat, no irritation—just a simple, undeniable certainty, the kind that turned walls into doctrine and doctrine into law.

  “I am Sir Garrick Draemir, Knight of the Holy Church. Effective immediately, you are conscripted into the Church’s Holy Army for this divine purpose. You will remain in service until the lich is destroyed.”

  The words settled heavy between them, balanced on the edge between a promise and a threat.

  A beat of silence.

  Then—

  “What?” Raven’s voice cut through the air, sharp as drawn steel. “You can’t just conscript us. We’re independent. Mercenaries. We don’t work for—”

  “You do now,” Draemir said, cutting her off as neatly as a blade severing a rope. “You will be released from service upon the destruction of the lich. This is a divine mandate.”

  His voice did not rise, but the words held weight, pressing down on the table like an executioner’s hand.

  “Your compliance is not optional.”

  Raven’s mouth opened, ready to fire back, but the knight moved before she could speak.

  A hand dipped into his cloak.

  A dull thud against the wood.

  The bag landed in the center of the table, heavy enough to make the tankards tremble. The leather shifted slightly, the drawstring loosening just enough to reveal the cold gleam of silver and white metal beneath.

  “Pure platinum,” the knight said. His tone had not changed. It did not need to. “Payment in advance.”

  The group stared at the bag.

  Even Markus faltered, his usually impassive expression cracking as his eyes flicked between the knight and the fortune sitting in front of them.

  Talia’s quill stilled against her map, the ink pooling at the tip.

  Devon leaned forward, fingers twitching slightly, like some part of him had already decided to take it before the rest of him caught up.

  The silence stretched.

  Then Raven let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “Well, shit.”

  She pulled the bag closer before anyone else had finished processing. No hesitation. No discussion. Her fingers toyed with the drawstring, just enough to pull it open—just enough to see what lay inside.

  A pause.

  “Guess we’re working for the goddess now,” she said, lifting the bag with one hand, feeling the weight of it. Then came a dry smirk .“Hope she offers better terms than the guild.”