---Chapter 26: The Smile That Hides the Ruin----
The wind carried the stench of rot. A dull, bitter scent clinging to metal, to flesh, to the earth itself. The night had settled over the ruined castle, but the fires still burned, flickering against half-collapsed walls. Beyond them, soldiers moved—dragging corpses, stacking bodies, building something that resembled order from the wreckage.
Varen walked past them.
His steps were slow, measured. Each one pressing into the blood-soaked dirt. His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles pale beneath the grime. The weight in his chest did not lessen. If anything, it pressed harder, deeper, settling into something cold. Something unbearable.
The tent stood ahead. A dull, silent shape in the dark.
Varen pushed inside.
The air shifted.
They felt him before they saw him. Every head turned.
Sylvian, standing near the table, unmoving. Samantha, watching him with something unreadable in her gaze. Alec, Sofia—both still. And Aldric, his expression tightening the second he saw Varen's face.
Varen inhaled, slow. Forced his voice to remain steady. "Commander, we've secured the castle."
The words felt distant. Like they belonged to someone else.
"The others are fortifying the perimeter. Barracks are being built. A defensive line is forming."
Silence. A heartbeat. Then—
"We searched the area. No monsters."
Another pause. His throat ached. His fingers trembled. He looked down.
A ragged doll. Stained, torn, its fabric stiff with dried blood.
"We found human remains." His voice barely lifted. "Disfigured. Tortured. Cannibalized."
A slow exhale.
"More than twenty-five hundred."
No one spoke.
The air in the tent thickened, pressing down like unseen hands on their shoulders. Varen did not look at them. Did not need to. Their silence told him everything.
Then—Aldric moved. A single step. A hand gripping Varen's shoulder, firm but wordless, before pulling him outside.
No one stopped him. No one spoke.
The tent remained in its silence, heavy, unbroken.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer. Then—
Samantha shifted. Her voice cut through the stillness. "Do you still believe those monsters were different?"
No anger. No accusation. Just a question. A question that shattered something in the air between them.
Sofia did not answer. Alec did not answer. They had nothing to give.
Sylvian exhaled through his nose, slow.He glanced at Sofia and Alec sitting around the corner. His voice, when it came, was measured. "Rest for now." A pause. "We'll continue tomorrow."
It was not an order. It was an acknowledgment. A delay. He knew the weight of tonight would not pass by morning. But he gave them the time to carry it.
One by one, they left.
Samantha found Aldric by the riverside.
Varen stood beside him, staring at the people working, at the fires burning in the dark. He said nothing. His fists remained clenched at his sides. The doll still in his hand.
---
"I joined the knights to protect people who smiled happily."
Varen's voice was quiet. Unshaken. His gaze remained on the working men and women beyond the riverbank, watching as they moved through the torchlight, dragging rubble, mending what little could be saved.
"To make sure those smiles never faded away."
A pause. Long. Unforgiving.
Then—a short, breathless chuckle. Bitter. Lifeless.
"Hell, I wasn't even able to protect anyone."
The wind carried the words away, but the weight of them lingered.
Aldric did not speak. He did not move. He only kept his gaze on Varen, steady, unmoving.
Varen exhaled through his nose. Slow. "We vowed, didn't we?" His grip tightened around the doll. "To never bow down. Never stop. Never be forgotten."
His fingers curled, knuckles paling beneath the grime.
"On that day, we defied the gods."
A stillness. A crack in the night. Then—his voice, low, unsteady.
"Then tell me, Sir Aldric—why are we still hesitating?"
Aldric did not reply.
"Why aren't we moving our blades fast enough?"
The doll in his hand crumpled beneath his grip. Blood—dried, blackened—flaked against his fingers.
A few paces behind them, unseen, Samantha had stopped mid-step.
Frozen.
She had known Varen longer than most. Had seen him in bloodshed, in chaos, in the aftermath of horror. Yet—no matter how heavy the air became, no matter how much death surrounded them—he had always found a way to cut through it. A joke, a smirk, a careless remark that made everything feel just a little less suffocating.
But this—
This was something else.
The weight in his voice. The way he spoke as if the world itself had slipped from beneath him.
For the first time, Varen was breaking.
Nobody moved.
Aldric placed a hand on his shoulder. Firm. Steady. The kind of touch that set a clear line between restraint and collapse.
His voice, when it came, was calm. Low. A quiet anchor against the storm.
"We can't be everywhere." His grip remained firm. "Not everyone can be protected."
Varen did not look at him.
Aldric inhaled. "But we must move on. Carrying their wills. Living for them, too."
Silence followed.
Nobody had the words to break it.
---
Aldric's voice was distant. Almost a whisper.
"Why did you join the knights, soldier?"
Varen blinked. The sky above was different. The air smelled of the old barracks, the scent of steel and dust clinging to his skin. He was standing straighter. Younger. His chest still held that unshaken pride.
Trainee armor clung to his frame—ill-fitting, but worn with confidence. The banners of the kingdom fluttered behind him, and a ring of recruits stood in the yard, practicing their drills. But here, under Aldric's sharp gaze, he felt exposed. He swallowed, then spoke.
"To earn big money and live with my mother in the city, far from the outskirts."
His voice was strong. Determined. But Aldric's eyes didn't change. A strange look passed over the commander's face—one that Varen couldn't place. Something between understanding and sorrow.
Varen hesitated. He felt the need to explain, to justify himself.
"Commander, we are but commoners. I have always lived with my mother in the outskirts. So I want to change that. Earn enough and live with her."
Aldric was quiet for a long moment. Then, finally, he gave a small smile.
"If that is what makes you move forward," he said, "then keep that conviction etched into your soul."
Varen didn't understand why those words felt so heavy. Not then. But he held onto them.
And for a time, life moved forward.
---
The days blurred into years.
Varen fought. Bled. Climbed.
The outskirts were far behind him, and the weight of a knight's duty settled on his shoulders. He rose through the ranks—no longer just a trainee, but a man with experience, with battle scars. He had seen cities burn, had felt his sword carve through flesh, had watched comrades fall beside him.
But when he returned home, it was different.
He would visit his mother on his rare days off. The house was small, the walls worn, but her smile was enough to make it feel grand.
"You look tired," she would say, touching his face with gentle fingers.
And he would laugh, shake his head, and tell her stories.
He spoke of the royal palace, of the bustling cities, of missions that took him beyond the borders. He never mentioned the blood, the death, the horrors. Only the moments that made her eyes light up, that made her forget how empty the house was when he was gone.
And every time he left, she would stand at the door, watching him until he disappeared down the road.
Every time, she would whisper, "Come back safe, my knight."
He always did.
---
The inn was loud, filled with drunken laughter and the clatter of mugs against wooden tables. The scent of ale and damp straw filled the air.
Varen barely listened. He was only passing through, exhausted from another mission, planning to rest before returning home. But then he heard it.
A casual conversation. A passing remark.
"They hanged her last night. Old woman, lived in the outskirts. Witchcraft, they said."
Varen's grip on his mug tightened.
"The way she screamed… you'd think she really was one."
His heart stopped.
"What was her name?" His voice was hoarse, almost a whisper.
The drunk man frowned, trying to recall. "Dunno. Something with an 'He-'"
Varen didn't wait to hear the rest.
The chair scraped against the floor as he stood. He didn't remember leaving the inn, didn't remember saddling his horse. All he knew was that he was riding—riding like death itself was on his heels, like the world would collapse if he wasn't fast enough.
The outskirts were hours away. It felt like eternity.
By the time he arrived, the house was silent. The door was slightly open, creaking in the wind. His breath was ragged. His hands trembled as he stepped inside.
And then he saw her.
The room smelled of decay. Her body had been left there—forgotten. Abandoned.
Varen couldn't move. His mind refused to process what his eyes were seeing.
Hismother. His reason. His home.
Gone.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed beside her, fingers shaking as he reached out. She was cold. Stiff. The skin around her throat was dark, bruised. He let out a breath—ragged, broken. His vision blurred. The weight in his chest crushed him.
She had died alone.
She had died calling for him.
And he hadn't been there.
The silence in the house was deafening. It was suffocating. He could hear the sound of his own breathing, shallow and unsteady. The way his heart pounded in his ears.
And then, slowly, something inside him cracked.
He stood— turned.
And he picked up his sword.
---
The streets of the outskirts ran red that night.
The priests. The inquisitors. The ones who called themselves servants of the gods. The ones who had stood by and watched as an innocent woman was condemned.
Varen didn't see men. He saw monsters, monsters who accused his mother and had taken her from him.
His sword cut through them like paper.
Screams echoed through the alleys, but he didn't hear them. Didn't care. His hands were slick with blood, his body moving on instinct. Each kill was too fast, too easy. He wanted them to suffer. He wanted them to feel even an ounce of what she had felt.
By the time the knights arrived, it was over.
Varen stood alone in the street, bathed in the blood of those who had stolen everything from him. His sword dripped crimson. His breath was slow, steady.
And in his arms, he carried his mother.
The same way she had once carried him.
---
Aldric arrived before dawn.
He had expected to see a monster. A madman.
Instead, he found Varen walking toward the cemetery, his mother's body wrapped in a cloth. His expression was blank, empty. The fire in his eyes had burned out.
Aldric didn't move. Didn't speak. He simply watched as Varen knelt, as he dug into the earth with his bare hands, as he buried the only thing he had ever fought for.
When it was done, Varen stood there unmoving, like a lifeless doll.
And he did not resist when he was being taken away by the knights.
The king's hall was silent when they dragged him inside.
The nobles whispered. The priests cursed his name. Some called for immediate execution. Others called for something worse.
The king listened. Then he spoke.
"Knight Varen of 4th Platoon, You are sentenced to death."
And Varen only bowed his head.
But then—
The doors burst open.
Aldric strode inside, followed by knights who had stood beside Varen in war, men who had bled alongside him. Among them was Sylvian.
The hall erupted into chaos. Cries of treason, of betrayal, rang through the chamber.
Aldric ignored them. He stepped forward, gaze locked onto the king. And then, in a voice that silenced the room, he spoke:
"I have come to take a knight. My knight. Back."
The weight of his words pressed into the chamber like a storm.
And the king, seeing the fire in Aldric's eyes, knowing the man before him was no fool, no traitor—only a warrior who refused to abandon his own—sighed.
"Then his fate is yours to decide."
---
The chamber had gone silent after the king's words.
Aldric's grip on Varen's shoulder had been firm, steady—the only anchor in a world that had shattered beyond recognition.
No chains. No verdict. Just Aldric's presence, standing between Varen and the abyss.
And Varen, for the first time since that night, had looked up. Had truly seen the man before him.
Not a commander. Not a judge.
But something else. Something unspoken.
A lifeline.
---
The world began to fade.
The walls of the chamber dissolved into shadow. The murmurs of nobles and priests stretched into a dull, distorted hum. The torches along the walls flickered, their glow swallowed by something deeper, colder.
The past unraveled at the edges.
The weight of time pressed down, dragging him forward. The air thickened, turning colder, sharper.
The sound of wind. The scent of damp earth. The river's quiet murmur.
And when Varen blinked—
The chamber was gone.
The kingdom was gone.
Only the present remained.
The night had long settled over the land. The stars, cold and distant, offered no warmth. The river stretched out before them, its surface shifting with the quiet pull of the current.
Aldric stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back, staring at the water. His face unreadable.
The past had faded, but the weight of it remained.
Varen stood by the river, the cold wind threading through his hair, the ragged doll still clutched in his hand. The echoes of his mother's laughter, of Aldric's defiance, of his own breaking, still lingered—just beyond reach, just beneath the surface.
Aldric exhaled, slow and measured, but said nothing.
There was nothing left to say.
And behind them, footsteps had already faded into the night.
Aldric watched him for a long moment. Then, in a voice quieter than before, he spoke.
"You asked me why we're hesitating."
The wind whispered between them. Varen did not move.
Aldric exhaled, slow. "Because hesitation keeps us human."
The words settled into the night, heavy, inescapable.
Varen's grip tightened around the doll. His jaw clenched. The ache in his chest did not fade. It deepened.
Aldric's voice, softer now—"Because the moment we stop hesitating—"
A pause. A breath.
"—we become no different from them."