I remember the day Sir Ector died like it was carved into my bones. The sun was high, the crowd roaring, and he was one pass away from victory. Then he fell—silent, still. Roland and Wat wanted to vanish with the prize money, but I couldn’t. Not when I’d spent my life training for this. So I put on his armor. Felt like stealing a corpse’s skin. But when I won, when the crowd screamed for Sir Ulrich, I knew I couldn’t stop.

Now, standing in the mud of another tournament, my armor’s cracked, my name’s a lie, and Adhemar’s sneer cuts deeper than any lance. He thinks I’m nothing. Jocelyn watches from the stands, her eyes full of something I can’t name. And Chaucer’s in debt again—same damn Summoner, same Pardoner.

Kate’s hammering my breastplate, sparks flying like stars. 'You ride like a madman,' she says. 'But you fight like a man with nothing to lose.'

She’s not wrong.

The final joust approaches. Adhemar’s already declared he’ll break me. And I? I have to decide: do I play the knight one last time… or finally become the man I was meant to be?