Misarmor - [work]

The Silent King’s head tilted. The Brethren stirred, hungry and impatient. It was about to order a search—room by room, soul by soul. It would find the relic eventually. And it would find Kaelen’s comrades, hidden in the crypts, their bright armor glowing like beacons in the dark.

He drew his sword. No flourish. No final prayer. Just a short, sharp thrust into that sliver. misarmor

Kaelen wiped his blade on the Silent King’s cloak. “They were half right,” he said. “It’s not the armor that’s mis. It’s the armor they’re wearing.” The Silent King’s head tilted

He nodded toward the courtyard, where the bright, beautiful knights lay still beneath the mist. The Archivist looked away. And Kaelen walked back into the rain, gray steel blending into the gray dawn, already forgotten by everyone who had seen him. It would find the relic eventually

Kaelen had always considered himself a practical man. In a city of feathered capes and jeweled hilts, his armor was a slab of unadorned gray steel. No etchings, no gold leaf, no heroic codpiece. Just rivets, dents, and the faint smell of old rain. The other knights at the Citadel called it “misarmor”—a deliberate flaw, a weak point. They laughed behind his back, certain that his lack of ornament concealed a lack of skill.