Three days earlier
"What exactly happened? Give me an explanation, Simon."
In a cellar in the Abandoned Fishing Village, Ser Aris, bound up like a dumpling, impatiently demanded answers the moment he saw his younger brother Simon approach.
They had been ambushed the previous night. Dozens of enemies had come under cover of darkness, surrounding them before they could even react.
After a futile attempt at resistance, Aris had chosen to surrender. He had then been tightly bound and thrown in here, where he had remained imprisoned until today.
"Speak! Simon! Answer me!" Ser Aris's face twisted viciously. He had been wondering why Simon had not warned him that Veld and the others would act last night, but only when Simon entered alongside Ser Veld did he realize he had been betrayed.
"Why? Why did you betray me?" Ser Aris roared at his own younger brother with all his strength.
The violent movement pulled at the wounds on Aris's face, and blood seeped from the scabs that had not yet fully dried. But Aris ignored the pain and glared fiercely at Simon.
"I had no choice, Brother." Ser Simon kept his head lowered, not daring to meet Aris's eyes as he replied in a trembling voice. "They caught me."
"Veld caught you?" Aris froze, then looked up at Veld beside Simon. "Seven Hells! Didn't you say that old bastard trusted you completely? Where did you give yourself away?"
"I don't know." Simon shook his head blankly, terror clear in his voice. "I don't know! They discovered the truth. The moment I entered House Ward's castle the afternoon before yesterday, they seized me. They beat me. They threatened me. Aris, they said they would slice me alive into three thousand six hundred pieces if I didn't cooperate."
"You discovered the truth