The Legend of Alsbans

Foreword: Once Upon a Time

A quiet invitation into the old tale of Alsbans.

Some of you began reading out of curiosity. Some arrived here without knowing what they hoped to find. And some of you may have passed over these words so quickly that the story has not yet had the chance to enter you.

How do I know?

Because I know myself.

There are stories we choose, and there are stories that seem to wait for us long before we are ready to hear them. This one was first written by the hands of a young person whose eyes had closed against the ordinary world and opened somewhere else—somewhere rain meant blessing, forests remembered the names of the dead, and a child could be born beneath a star without knowing that the world had already begun to fear him.

Perhaps none of it happened.

Perhaps all of it did.

That is the mercy of old tales: they do not ask to be believed before they begin.

They ask only to be heard.

Once upon a time, there was an Alsbans...

Chapter 1: The Baby Born in Humpellia

Talis grows up beneath the shadow of absence, enters Trixalisse, and returns to a village waiting at the edge of war.

Humpellia was a country of green forests and pink meadows, where narrow rivers curved between farms and every roof seemed to lean toward the warmth of another. Its people knew hunger, sickness, and hard winters, as all people did, but happiness had lived among them for so long that they had begun to mistake it for the natural order of the world.

At dawn, smoke rose from stone chimneys. Children chased geese through wet grass. Old men argued over whose apples were sweetest, and women laughed while hanging linen between trees. Even grief, when it came, was carried together.

There was only one name that could empty a room without anyone leaving it.

Meras.

Some called him king. Others called him conqueror. In Humpellia, where children were taught not to speak his name after sunset, he was known simply as the punishment of the lands.

In one of Humpellia's most beautiful villages, rain fell heavily, as it did on most mornings. It struck the roofs in silver threads and gathered along the road in shallow pools that reflected the pale sky. Windows stood open despite the cold. Families placed bread, fruit, warm milk, and roasted roots upon their tables, then drew close to one another as though the rain had given them an excuse to remain together a little longer.

No one complained. In Humpellia, rain was not bad weather.

Rain was a blessing.

Then, from deep within the forest, another rhythm entered the morning: the slow, uneven beat of hooves against mud.

At first, only the dogs noticed. They lifted their heads but did not bark. Then the children fell quiet. One by one, the villagers turned toward the road.

The village governor, Uzak, was returning from distant lands.

He rode alone.

His cloak hung heavy with rain. Mud covered his boots and the legs of his horse. The journey had hollowed his face, but it was not exhaustion that unsettled those who saw him. It was the way he looked at the village—as though he had returned to a place already lost.

Birds sang in the branches above him. Their songs were bright and careless. Yet the sorrow in Uzak's eyes outweighed every sound.

At the entrance to the village, among the children who had gathered beneath the dripping trees, he pulled the reins and stopped. For several breaths, he remained motionless. The horse stamped beneath him, impatient to reach shelter, but Uzak seemed afraid of what would happen once he moved forward.

At last, he drew a long breath.

"People of my village," he called into the rain. "Gather yourselves. I have an announcement."

The change was immediate.

Laughter disappeared from the houses. Heads appeared at open windows. Some villagers stepped outside with bowls or pieces of bread still in their hands. Others hurried to wake those who had slept late. Doors opened along the road until the entire village seemed to be holding its breath.

Uzak dismounted and walked toward the square.

His boots sank into the mud. Water ran from his hair across his face, though those nearest to him could not tell whether all of it was rain. Babies stopped crying in their mothers' arms. The animals near the trough lowered their heads but did not drink. Even the wind appeared to weaken as he passed.

He had carried the news for seven days. With every step toward home, he had imagined himself speaking it. He had found brave words in the mountains, gentle words beside the rivers, and honest words while riding beneath the stars.

Now, surrounded by the people who trusted him, he could remember none of them.

Should he say it now?

Could a few more minutes of peace be considered a gift, or would they only become another cruelty?

Then a child's voice broke through the silence.

"Father."

Uzak froze.

Talis was running toward him, too young to understand why no one else moved. His bare feet splashed through the mud. His dark hair clung to his forehead, and the smile on his face was so open that Uzak nearly turned away from it.

Instead, he bent and caught his son in both arms.

"Where were you?" Talis asked, clinging to his wet cloak. "We missed you so much. Mother said you had gone far away. I was scared you would not remember the road home."

For one brief moment, Uzak buried his face against the boy's hair. He breathed in the smell of rain, smoke, and sleep. It was the smell of his own house. The smell of a life he had believed would remain waiting for him.

Then he forced himself to stand.

"Do not worry, my son," he said. He tried to smile, but the expression hurt. "Who would dare cause trouble while a governor like me stands here?"

Talis searched his father's face. Children often recognize fear long before they understand its cause.

"Are you going away again?"

Uzak's voice hardened because gentleness would have broken it.

"We will speak later. Go to your mother now."

The boy did not move until one of the village women took his hand. Even then, Talis kept looking back.

Uzak reached the center of the square. Around him stood farmers, hunters, craftsmen, widows, children, and old soldiers who had once sworn never to hold a sword again. These were not merely people under his protection. They were the names he spoke when he prayed.

"My people," he began, "today I bring news from distant lands."

Whispers rose through the crowd.

"What news?"

"Is it Meras?"

"Say it already," someone murmured, too frightened to remain patient.

Uzak lowered his head. When he raised it again, his face belonged to the governor rather than the father.

"All fathers, and all men who once took part in the Tree Contest, must gather their belongings. We are leaving."

For a moment, no one understood.

The sentence seemed too small for what it meant.

Then the village erupted.

"Leaving for where?"

"On whose command?"

"For how long?"

"Why only the fathers?"

"Is Meras calling us to war?"

Uzak heard every question, but he could answer none without revealing more than he had been permitted to say. He had seen what happened to messengers who returned with forbidden truth upon their tongues. Worse, he had seen what happened to the families of men who refused.

"Prepare yourselves," he said. "We leave before noon."

A woman struck him across the chest with both hands.

"You cannot take my husband."

Another began to weep before anyone had touched her.

Some men stared at the ground, already understanding that obedience might not save them and resistance would certainly doom those they loved. Others shouted that they would not go, but their voices weakened when they looked toward their children.

The rain continued to fall, yet no one called it a blessing anymore.

That morning, Humpellia ceased to be the place it had been before.

The men returned to their homes and packed what little they could carry. Swords were taken down from walls. Old boots were pulled from chests. Mothers wrapped bread in cloth with hands that would not stop trembling. Children asked whether their fathers would return before the next harvest, and fathers lied because love sometimes had no gentler language.

Uzak entered his own house last.

His wife stood near the table with Talis pressed against her side. She had not cried while he was gone. She had told herself that tears belonged to those who knew the worst had happened.

Now she knew.

"We will wait for you," she said. "However long it takes. Do not forget us."

Uzak crossed the room and held her. The walls seemed smaller than he remembered. On the table lay the breakfast they had prepared for him, still warm, untouched.

"I could forget my own name before I forgot either of you," he whispered. "I promise I will see you again. Not once, but ten times if I must. I will always love you."

His wife closed her eyes. She knew a promise was not the same as a future, but she accepted it because it was all he could leave behind.

He kissed her one final time and turned toward the door.

The handle would not move.

Uzak tried again, then looked back.

Talis was gone.

The keys were gone with him.

Outside, the boy's voice rose through the village.

"My father is not leaving! No one will take him from me!"

Uzak's face changed.

He struck the door with his shoulder. The wood groaned but held. He struck it again, harder, until the lock tore loose and the door flew open into the rain.

Talis was running through the square with the keys clenched in his fist. Two villagers tried to stop him, but the boy kicked, twisted, and screamed with the strength of someone who believed love itself could become a weapon.

"Let me go!" he cried. "He promised!"

Uzak reached him and pulled him into his arms.

For several moments, neither spoke. Talis beat his small fists against his father's chest, then clung to him so tightly that Uzak could feel the boy's heartbeat through both their clothes.

"Don't go," Talis whispered.

It was no longer a command. It was a prayer.

Uzak looked over his son's shoulder at the other fathers mounting their horses. Some avoided his eyes. Some watched him with anger, because the governor's grief was no greater than their own. The road waited beyond them, black with rain.

"I have to," Uzak said.

Talis pulled away as though struck.

"You left me again! Go, then. Go! You are not my father anymore."

His mother gathered him into her arms. Talis fought her at first, then collapsed against her, sobbing.

Uzak mounted his horse.

He wanted to explain everything: that courage did not always look like standing one's ground, that sometimes a man walked willingly toward the thing he feared because the people behind him mattered more than the life ahead. He wanted to tell Talis that fathers were not immortal, only practiced at hiding their terror.

But the boy was too young, and there was no time.

"Whether you hate me or not," Uzak said, "the day you become governor, you will understand. We are going to Meras because I love you more than I love myself."

Talis shook his head wildly.

"I will never understand you!"

Perhaps that was the last thing Uzak heard his son say.

He raised his voice over the rain.

"We are leaving. Everyone, mount your horses."

The men formed a line and rode toward the forest.

Behind them rose the cries of wives, mothers, sons, and daughters. Talis screamed until his voice became raw, calling for a father who did not turn around.

None of the departing men looked back.

Not because they did not love those behind them.

Because they did.

One backward glance might have been enough to destroy what courage remained.

And so they rode beneath the dripping branches until the village vanished, carrying its voices within them long after all sound had faded.

Days became weeks, and weeks became months.

At first, Talis woke each morning believing that day would be different. He would hear hooves upon the road. The door would open. His father would enter wearing the same rain-dark cloak, lift him into the air, and laugh at how foolish everyone had been to worry.

By evening, Talis would sit beside the window and watch the road disappear into darkness.

No one came.

Seasons turned. The rain softened, the pink meadows flowered, and the harvest passed without the men who had once worked the fields. The village learned to survive around their absence. Women repaired roofs, guided ploughs, settled arguments, and stood guard at night. Boys grew into the clothes their fathers had left behind. New babies were born who knew those men only from stories.

Talis continued asking.

"Mother, it has been so long since Father left. Why has he not returned?"

"I do not know."

"Did he reach Meras?"

"I do not know."

"Is he alive?"

At that question, his mother's hands always became still.

"There is nothing we can do but wait," she would say. "We must wait, Talis."

Waiting became the shape of their life.

For years, his mother placed a third bowl on the table during the first rain of every season. She never explained why, and Talis never asked. Sometimes he hated her for continuing to hope. Sometimes he hated his father for making hope necessary. Most of all, he hated himself for listening whenever hooves sounded in the distance.

Ten years passed.

The angry child became a quiet young man with his father's shoulders and his mother's watchful eyes. He learned to work the fields, to settle disputes among younger boys, and to hide his loneliness behind the responsibilities others placed upon him. The villagers had begun calling him the governor's son, though there had been no governor in Humpellia for years.

Then came the season of the Tree Contest.

No one remembered who had created the trial. Some said the first governors had invented it to teach their sons endurance. Others claimed the trees themselves chose which boys would become men and which would be swallowed by the wild lands. The rules had survived longer than any explanation.

Every boy of age was sent away alone. Each was given four things: a long rope, a piece of wood, a small paper naming the land he must reach, and a tiny bottle of poison. The rope was for survival. The wood was for fire, shelter, or a weapon. The paper was a command. The poison was called mercy.

If a boy found himself captured, crippled, or certain to die, tradition demanded that he choose his own ending rather than surrender his honor.

Talis held the small bottle between his fingers on the morning of departure. The liquid inside was clear. It looked harmless, almost pure.

His mother took it from him and closed his hand around it again.

"Do not use this because you are afraid," she said. "Fear passes. Death does not."

"Did Father carry one?"

She looked away.

"Every man did."

All the mothers gathered upon the mountain path to bid farewell to their sons. The morning was cold, yet no one complained. Some boys stood proudly in new boots and tried to appear eager. Others stared at the roads marked upon their papers and fought the urge to remain children for one more day.

Talis embraced his mother.

She felt smaller than she once had. There were silver strands in her hair that he did not remember seeing the week before.

"If I return and Father is here," he said, "tell him how long I waited. Tell him to keep the promise he made to me."

His mother held him at arm's length.

"What promise?"

"That he would see us again. Ten times, if he had to."

Her expression changed, not because she had forgotten, but because she remembered too well.

"Your father never promised you anything," she said quietly.

Talis stared at her.

"He did. I know it. I feel it."

She almost answered. Instead, she pulled him against her and held him with a desperation he would understand only years later.

The announcer climbed onto a flat stone above the gathered families. His voice carried across the mountain.

"Mothers, be seated. Sons, stand before them."

The crowd obeyed.

"Know this: the spirits of the fathers are with us. They have always been with us. Today, we send our young men beyond the safety of Humpellia. Today, they will learn what it means to be a man.

"Some of you will return. Some of you will not.

"Do not mistake survival for greatness. A man may live a hundred years and never become worthy of the breath he was given. Strength without judgment is the weapon of a beast. Wisdom without courage is a lamp hidden beneath the earth.

"Being a man is wisdom—and strength ruled by wisdom.

"You may go now."

The mothers rose.

Around Talis, boys embraced younger siblings who suddenly refused to release them. A mother pressed dried flowers into her son's palm. Another repaired a loose button while crying too hard to see. No one said goodbye directly; the word sounded too final.

"Do not forget," the mothers whispered. "I am proud of you for who you are."

Talis kissed his mother's forehead.

"I will return."

"Return as yourself," she said. "That will be enough."

He did not understand why those words frightened him.

The boys separated at the base of the mountain, each following the direction written on his paper. Talis waited until he was alone before unfolding his.

A single name had been written there in dark ink.

Trixalisse.

He had heard the name only in warnings. Hunters refused to enter its forests. Travelers claimed the trees were so tall that daylight died before reaching the ground. Some said the last ancient sorcerers lived there, while others insisted nothing lived there at all—nothing that could still be called living.

Talis folded the paper and placed it against his chest.

Then he began walking.

The road was longer than any he had known. It led him beyond the farms of Humpellia, over bare hills where the wind seemed to push him backward, and through valleys whose streams tasted of iron. Each path was harder than the one before it. The rope cut his palms when he climbed. The wood grew damp. His food disappeared faster than he had planned.

On the fifth night, hunger prevented him from sleeping. He lay beneath a tree listening to something large move among the brush. At first, fear told him to remain still. Then hunger told him that fear was a luxury.

Using the rope, he made a trap as his mother had taught him. Near midnight, a horned deer became tangled in it. The animal fought with such terror that Talis nearly released it. Its eyes reflected the moon. For a moment, he saw himself within them—young, frightened, and caught by a path he had not chosen.

"I am sorry," he whispered before killing it.

That night, he ate well, but the meat carried no triumph. In the morning, he buried what remained beneath stones so the wolves would not scatter it.

At dawn, he continued.

Days later, after crossing the last mountain, he saw the trees of Trixalisse.

They did not appear to rise from the earth. They appeared to hold it down.

Their trunks were broader than houses, black with age and moss. Their tops vanished into a ceiling of branches so high that no wind seemed able to reach them. Even from a distance, the forest gave the impression of watching.

Talis stood at its edge until the afternoon began to fade.

He thought of turning back.

No one would know. He could invent a wound, claim the road had collapsed, say the paper had been lost in a river. His mother would welcome him. The villagers might whisper, but whispers could be survived.

Then he remembered his father riding into the rain without looking back.

"For him," Talis said, though he no longer knew whether he meant he would continue for his father or in defiance of him.

He entered Trixalisse.

Within a dozen steps, Humpellia vanished behind him.

The air changed first. It grew colder and carried the scent of wet bark, old ash, and something sweet that had begun to rot. The ground was soft beneath layers of fallen leaves. Above, the branches swallowed the sky until the world became a narrow circle around the flame in his hand.

"Why is it so dark here?" he whispered. "What is that sound?"

At first, he heard only the drip of water.

Then voices answered from every direction.

"Help me, my son."

Talis stopped.

The voice came again, closer now.

"Please. Help me."

His breath caught in his chest.

"Father?"

A branch cracked behind him.

"Father, is that you? Where are you?"

The flame in his hand bent sideways although there was no wind. Then it went out.

Darkness closed over him so completely that he could no longer see his own fingers. He turned too quickly, struck his shoulder against a tree, and stumbled. Somewhere nearby, something moved around him in a slow circle.

"Talis," the voice whispered.

No stranger should have known his name.

Panic entered him like cold water. He crouched beneath the roots of a tree and pressed both hands over his mouth, afraid the sound of his breathing might reveal him. Minutes passed—or hours. He could not tell whether night had fallen or whether Trixalisse simply had no day.

He thought of the poison in his pocket.

The bottle seemed suddenly heavy.

He drew it out and held it in the dark. His mother's warning returned to him: Fear passes. Death does not.

Talis closed his fist around the bottle, then put it away.

He had not come this far to die from a voice.

More than that, he could not return without something to prove that the years of waiting had not made him weak. Somewhere within his fear lived a stubborn, wounded pride. It dragged him to his feet.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted. "I did not come to harm you. I came for my father!"

The forest answered in Uzak's voice.

"Then save me, my son."

Hope moved faster than reason.

Talis ran toward the sound, striking branches aside with both arms.

"Where are you? Father, I am coming!"

The ground vanished beneath his next step. His foot caught against stone, and he crashed forward. His palms tore open. Pain shot through his knee.

When he reached out, his fingers touched carved letters.

A grave.

Laughter rose all around him.

It did not sound human. It sounded like many mouths remembering how humans laughed.

Talis remained on the ground, breathing hard. Shame burned hotter than the pain in his hands. He had known the voice was impossible. He had followed it anyway.

Slowly, he stood.

"Do you think I do not know?" he called into the dark. "Do you think I cannot see that you are deceiving me? That those voices were not my father's?"

The laughter grew louder.

Talis wiped blood from his palm against his clothes.

"I know," he said. "But hope..."

The word caught in his throat.

For ten years, hope had woken him at every distant sound. Hope had made his mother place a third bowl upon the table. Hope had hurt them more faithfully than despair ever could.

Yet without it, what would have remained?

"Hope is like this," he said. "It makes a fool of you, and still you follow it."

The laughter stopped.

The silence that followed was deeper than the darkness.

"Who are you?" Talis demanded. "Show yourselves."

Something snapped above him.

In an instant, daylight flooded the forest.

Talis threw an arm across his eyes. When his vision returned, he found himself surrounded.

Eight ancient sorcerers stood among the trees.

They were old beyond any age he understood. Their bodies were bent and scarred, their robes stitched from cloth of different centuries. One had no eyes, yet turned his face toward Talis with perfect attention. Another had arms ending at the wrist, though small blue flames hovered where his hands should have been. Their faces were ugly not because time had touched them, but because something within them had reshaped the flesh.

"Why have you come here, boy of Humpellia?" one asked. His voice was the same voice that had called Talis son. "What business could you possibly have in this place?"

Talis looked from one figure to another.

"Hope brought me here."

The handless sorcerer lifted one blue flame.

"You call it hope. I call it poison given for death."

His gaze settled upon the small bottle beneath Talis's cloak.

The others smiled.

Something in Talis's answer had pleased them—not because they admired hope, but because they understood the cruelty of it.

"Come with us, child," one said.

Talis pointed at the sorcerer with the blue flames.

"How can you be a wizard without hands?"

For a breath, no one spoke.

Then several of them laughed—not mockingly this time, but with genuine surprise.

The handless sorcerer approached. He was taller than he had first appeared, though his spine curved sharply near the shoulders.

"What is your name?" he asked. "Begin with that."

"Leave me alone. I did not come here to listen to your nonsense."

Another wizard stepped forward. Small bones were woven into his beard.

"Did you come to defy us, child? What is your purpose?"

Talis thought of the correct answers expected in Humpellia: honor, manhood, service, strength. None felt true enough to speak before creatures who had pulled his father's voice from his memory.

"My aim is to grow," he said at last. "To become strong and brave."

The wizards laughed again.

All but the handless one.

He studied Talis as if the boy were a locked door and he had heard something moving behind it.

"Be silent while others laugh," said the Grand Wizard from beneath a hood of grey feathers. "A person often reveals more in humiliation than in victory."

The handless wizard moved closer.

"Why have you come here, Talis?"

Hearing his own name from that mouth chilled him.

"I..." Talis looked toward the grave over which he had fallen. "I came for my father. Yes. For my father."

This time, no one laughed.

The sorcerers exchanged glances. Talis did not understand what passed between them, but he felt the forest itself listening.

"Tell me," the handless wizard said, "what is the name of your greatest power?"

Talis thought of the rope, the knife at his belt, the strength in his legs, and the anger that had kept him walking.

"I do not know."

The wizard turned to the others.

"What is the greatest power?"

"Speed," one answered.

"Strength."

"A spell that cannot be broken."

"The power to make another kneel."

Their voices overlapped until the forest seemed crowded with certainty.

From behind them, Talis spoke quietly.

"Wisdom."

The answers ceased.

The handless wizard looked back at him and smiled. It was not a kind smile, but neither was it empty.

"My name is Trakless," he said. "Follow me."

They led Talis deeper into Trixalisse. As they walked, the daylight followed them in a narrow circle, though Talis could not discover its source.

"These are the finest trees in the forest," Trakless said.

Talis tilted his head until his neck hurt, but he could not see their tops.

"Why are they so tall?"

"They are not tall," Trakless replied. "We are small. Remember the difference."

At last, they reached an ancient hut leaning between the roots of a vast tree. It looked abandoned from a distance. Up close, Talis saw that the walls breathed faintly, expanding and settling like the chest of a sleeping animal. Eight crooked chimneys rose from the roof, though only one released smoke.

This was the home of the last eight wizards of Trixalisse.

"You will remain here," the Grand Wizard said.

Talis looked toward the path behind him. It had already disappeared.

"For how long?"

"Until the forest has taken what it wants from you," Trakless answered, "or given you what you came to steal."

Talis did not trust them. He did not like them. But the Tree Contest demanded more than survival, and some wounded part of him still believed that if he became powerful enough, he could cross every land, enter Meras, and bring his father home.

"I will stay," he said.

The first winter nearly killed him.

The wizards did not teach as men taught. They gave no clear instructions and offered no praise. Trakless once left Talis alone beside a frozen river and told him to cross without breaking the ice. When Talis asked how, Trakless replied, "If I knew how you would do it, there would be no reason for you to go."

Another wizard taught him to hear the direction of an arrow before it was released. A third made him sit in darkness while voices repeated every cruel word he had ever heard. The Grand Wizard demanded that he carry water in a broken bowl, then punished him whenever a drop was lost.

At first, Talis believed every lesson was intended to make him stronger.

Years passed before he understood that the wizards were not trying to build him. They were trying to discover what remained after everything unnecessary had been stripped away.

He learned to move through the forest without flame. He learned which roots healed fever and which caused a painless death. He learned to fight men larger than himself and to refuse fights he could win. Trakless taught him that anger was useful only while held by the throat; once released, it chose its own master.

Yet for every truth the wizards gave him, they revealed another reason not to love them.

They could watch an animal suffer without mercy. They could enter another person's memory and leave wounds behind for curiosity alone. They spoke of ordinary people as brief creatures whose lives mattered only because they ended quickly. Once, when Talis asked whether they had ever loved anyone, three of them laughed and one became so furious that the windows cracked.

Only Trakless sometimes seemed troubled by the cruelty of the others. Even he possessed a coldness Talis could not forgive.

During his final year, Talis asked him, "Did you know my father?"

Trakless was silent for so long that the fire between them sank to embers.

"I know many fathers," he said at last. "Most of them become sons again at the moment of death."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only one I will give you."

Talis rose and left the hut before his anger made him foolish.

By then, the boy who had entered Trixalisse no longer existed. In his place stood a strong and watchful man, shaped by hunger, humiliation, learning, and years spent listening to creatures who understood power but not goodness.

On the morning he chose to leave, no ceremony awaited him.

The Grand Wizard slept. The others pretended not to notice him gathering his belongings. Trakless stood at the edge of the path, blue flames hovering where his hands should have been.

"Do I have your permission?" Talis asked.

"Would permission change your decision?"

"No."

"Then it would be wasted."

Talis looked back at the hut. It had been his prison, his school, and, for longer than he wished to admit, the closest thing he had known to a home.

"I never want to see this place again," he said.

Trakless's expression did not change.

"People often return to the places they hate. Hatred remembers the road better than love."

Talis stepped closer.

"The goodness in my heart does not live in any of you."

"That is why you survived us."

Talis waited, uncertain whether the words were praise or warning. Trakless turned away before he could ask.

He left Trixalisse without looking back.

This time, it was not because looking back would break his courage.

It was because he feared some part of him might still wish to remain.

Beyond the forest, the sky seemed impossibly large. Sunlight hurt his eyes. The road toward Humpellia stretched across mountains and open fields, and with every step, anticipation grew within him.

He had conquered the Tree Contest. He had endured the last eight wizards. He was returning as the future governor, prepared to take his place and repair all that the long years had broken.

More secretly, beneath every plan and every hard-earned piece of wisdom, lived the hope of the child he had once been.

Perhaps his father had returned.

Perhaps his mother would be standing at the edge of the pink meadows.

Perhaps the door of his old home would open, and the years between them would collapse into nothing.

After the bitter cold of the mountains had passed, Talis finally saw Humpellia in the distance.

The sight stopped him where he stood.

The green forests were exactly as memory had preserved them, and beyond them lay the pink meadows, pale beneath the evening sky. From so far away, the village appeared untouched by time. Smoke rose from chimneys. Small lights glowed in windows. For a moment, Talis imagined that if he walked quickly enough, he might arrive before anything had changed.

But it was already night.

According to village custom, anyone returning from the Tree Contest had to enter at noon, beneath the full witness of the people. A man who crossed the boundary in darkness was believed to bring the shadows of the road home with him.

Years in Trixalisse had taught Talis to distrust superstition, but he would not break the first tradition waiting for him.

He lay among the pink flowers and folded his cloak beneath his head. The earth smelled of rain and warm grass. Above him, the stars appeared brighter than they had anywhere else.

One star, near the western edge of the sky, shone so fiercely that Talis could not look away.

"What a beautiful star you are," he whispered. "Yes, you—the brightest one. What is your name?"

The question made him smile at himself. After years among wizards, he had learned that names were rarely harmless. To name a thing was to invite it closer.

Still, he lifted one hand toward the light.

"I will call you Bans. You are mine now."

The star seemed to flicker.

Talis closed his eyes.

That night, he dreamed of his father standing beneath a tree with no leaves. Uzak's back was turned. No matter how loudly Talis called, the man would not look around. At his feet lay a newborn child wrapped in red cloth, staring upward with eyes full of stars.

Morning came softly.

While Talis slept among the flowers, several village children noticed him from the road. They had never seen him before. To them, the scarred man in the travel-worn cloak might have been a dead soldier, a thief, or some creature washed out of the old stories.

"Who is that?" one whispered.

"Do not go near him."

"He is not moving."

Curiosity, as it often does, defeated fear one step at a time. The children crept closer, hiding behind one another whenever Talis shifted in his sleep. At last, the boldest leaned over him.

"Is he dead?"

"Touch him."

"You touch him."

They were beginning to retreat when a ripe pear fell from a nearby tree and struck one boy on the head.

His cry tore through the morning.

Talis woke with one hand already reaching for a weapon.

"What happened?"

The children saw the speed of his movement and scattered in terror.

"Wait," he called after them. "I will not hurt you."

None stopped.

Talis watched them disappear over the rise. A laugh escaped him before he could prevent it. It felt strange, almost forgotten.

"Ah, never mind."

He washed at a stream and continued through the meadows, forcing himself not to hurry. The village bell rang once, then twice. When the sun reached its highest point, Talis stepped across the boundary stones.

The first people who saw him did not recognize him.

He walked toward the square while conversations ended around him. Women paused with baskets upon their hips. An old man set down his carving knife. Children followed at a careful distance, whispering that the dead man from the meadow had come to life.

Talis reached the center of the village.

"I have returned," he announced.

No one answered.

A woman near the well narrowed her eyes.

"Who are you?"

The question wounded him more than he expected. For years, this place had been the center of his identity. Yet the village had continued living without him long enough for his face to become foreign.

"I am Talis," he said. "Son of Uzak. I completed the Tree Contest."

Recognition moved slowly through the crowd.

Someone whispered his name. Another repeated it. An old woman covered her mouth with both hands.

"Talis?"

He straightened.

"I am your governor."

One by one, the villagers bowed their heads.

"Welcome home, Governor."

More people gathered until the square was full. Some touched his shoulders as though testing whether he was real. Others asked about the road, the contest, and Trixalisse. Talis answered little. He searched the faces around him for only one person.

"Where is my mother?"

The crowd changed.

Eyes lowered. Smiles vanished. A path opened before him without anyone speaking.

Talis understood before they began walking.

He followed them beyond the houses to a hill where small stones marked the dead. The grave they stopped beside was simple. His mother's name had been carved into it by a hand that had tried to make every letter beautiful.

For several breaths, Talis stood without moving.

The whole journey home had contained this possibility. He had known it. Ten years was long enough for any cruelty. Yet knowledge had not prepared him for the smallness of the stone.

"When?" he asked.

"Five years ago," someone answered. "A sickness came during winter. She fought it for many weeks."

"Was she alone?"

"No. We were with her."

"Did she say anything?"

The villagers exchanged glances. At last, the woman who had lived nearest to his mother stepped forward.

"She asked us to keep your room untouched. She said you would come back hungry and pretend you were not. She also said..."

The woman stopped.

"Say it."

"She said not to tell you that she waited. She was afraid you would spend your life blaming yourself for arriving too late."

Talis fell to his knees.

The sound that left him was not the cry of a governor or a man who had survived Trixalisse. It was the sound of the boy who had watched one parent ride away and had now returned too late for the other.

He pressed both hands against the earth above her.

"I came back," he whispered. "Mother, I came back."

No answer rose from the ground.

The villagers began to withdraw.

"Leave me alone," Talis said. "Please. I will stay with my mother."

When the last footsteps faded, he remained beside the grave until the sun had crossed half the sky. He told her things he had never said while she lived: that he had been angry at her for defending his father, that he had imagined returning with enough strength to make every year of waiting meaningful, that sometimes he had forgotten the exact sound of her voice and hated himself for it.

He placed the untouched bottle of poison from the Tree Contest upon the grave.

"You told me fear would pass," he said. "You were right. But you did not tell me what comes after it."

The wind moved through the grass.

At last, Talis bowed his head.

"I promise you this: I will find Father. Whether he lives or lies beneath a stone like you, I will learn the truth."

He rose only when darkness began to gather.

His old house stood where it always had, though the door was painted a different color. Talis entered without knocking and found a family seated around the table.

They rose in alarm.

"Who are you?" Talis asked, harsher than he intended.

The father recognized him and lowered his head.

"We are the owners of this house, my governor. Your mother gave it to us when our own home burned. We lived here with her. We cared for her when she became ill."

His wife stepped forward.

"We never entered your room. She would not allow it. If you wish, we will leave tonight."

Talis looked around.

A child's wooden horse rested near the hearth. Bundles of herbs hung where his father's coat had once been. The table had been repaired along one edge. It was his home, and it was not. Life had entered every empty space he believed belonged to memory.

He could have taken it back. No one would have opposed the governor.

Instead, he looked toward the narrow hall.

"My room is enough for me," he said. "Stay. A house that kept people alive should not be emptied for the sake of a ghost."

His room smelled of dust and cedar. The blanket his mother had woven remained folded at the foot of the bed. On the wall, beneath a thin layer of age, were the marks measuring his height as a child. The final line had been drawn the week before Uzak left.

Talis touched it with one finger.

For the first time since leaving Trixalisse, he wished he had never grown.

He slept badly. In dreams, he wandered through the village calling for people who stood just beyond his sight.

Morning found him seated beside the window.

Grief remained, but duty had already begun knocking at the door. Disputes had gone unresolved for years. Fields had been divided unfairly. Hunters argued over forest boundaries. Meras demanded grain the village could not spare. Talis understood that mourning would have to share him with the living.

He became governor not through ceremony, but through work.

He listened before deciding. He reopened an abandoned storehouse for winter food. He ordered that no widow's land be taken for unpaid tax. He trained young men to defend the roads, yet forbade them from drawing swords merely to prove they carried them. When people praised his wisdom, Talis remembered the wizards and wondered how much of them he had brought home.

It was during a dispute over a flooded field that he first noticed Melania.

She stood among the farmers with rain in her hair and contradicted him before the entire square.

"Your decision protects the richer family," she said, "because they can afford to lose one harvest. The other family cannot. Justice that ignores hunger is only a clean name for cruelty."

The crowd waited for Talis to become angry.

Instead, he asked, "What would you decide?"

Melania stepped forward and explained how the water could be redirected so both fields survived. Her plan required the village to work together for three days.

"And who will persuade them?" Talis asked.

"You are the governor," she replied. "I assumed you were useful for something."

That evening, Talis asked her father whether he might visit their home.

Melania was the daughter of a noble family, but nobility had not made her delicate. She rode well, carried a knife without showing it, and laughed whenever Talis tried too hard to sound wise. With her, he discovered a kind of silence different from the silences of Trixalisse. He did not have to fill it or defend himself against it.

Their love did not arrive all at once. It grew through small acts: Melania leaving food outside his door when he worked late; Talis repairing the roof of her mother's storehouse before anyone asked; the two of them walking the boundary of the village after rain, arguing about whether duty made a person stronger or merely lonelier.

One night, Melania asked about his father.

Talis told her everything except how much he still hoped.

She heard that part anyway.

"You are still waiting," she said.

"No."

"You became a man around the waiting. That is not the same as leaving it behind."

He should have been offended. Instead, he loved her more.

Their wedding took place beneath flowering trees. No palace could have made it grander. Villagers hung lanterns through the branches, musicians played until their fingers ached, and rain began just as the vows were spoken. Everyone laughed and raised their faces to it.

For one day, rain became a blessing again.

Talis and Melania built a new home near the edge of the pink meadows. It was not large, but every part of it was chosen together. Talis carved the doorframe. Melania planted herbs beside the window. At night, they spoke about the children they might have and the village those children deserved to inherit.

When Melania became pregnant, joy frightened Talis more than any danger had.

He began waking at night to make certain she was breathing. He repaired the cradle three times. He counted stores of grain as though a full cellar could protect the child from every possible future.

One evening, Melania placed his hand against her stomach.

"I cannot tell anymore," she said. "I think it is a boy."

Talis felt a small movement beneath his palm.

"No. It is a girl. I can feel it."

"You felt one kick and discovered wisdom greater than every midwife?"

"I lived among wizards."

"Then ask them."

His smile disappeared before he could stop it.

Melania squeezed his hand.

"If it is a boy, what will you name him?"

Talis looked through the window at the evening sky.

"I do not know. The first name that comes to my heart."

The season of the next Tree Contest arrived before the child was born.

As governor, Talis stood in the village square and read aloud the names of the young men who would leave. Their mothers listened with the same expressions he remembered from his own departure. He tried to make the ceremony gentler, but tradition had a way of keeping its old cruelties beneath new words.

Halfway through the list, Talis stopped.

The air had changed.

The pink meadows beyond the houses seemed to lose their warmth. Birds rose from the forest in a single dark cloud. Somewhere, a dog began barking and would not stop.

Then came the sound of horses.

Not one or two.

Dozens.

Forty soldiers of Meras entered the village in two disciplined lines. Their armor was dark and without decoration. Rainwater ran along their helmets though the sky above Humpellia remained clear. At their front rode a captain with a narrow face and a red cord tied around his sword arm.

The villagers moved closer together.

Talis handed the list to an elder and stepped forward alone.

"Are you Talis?" the captain asked.

"I am."

"Governor of this village?"

"By the will of its people."

The captain's mouth tightened at the answer.

"We bring a message from Meras."

"I am listening."

The captain looked toward the crowd.

"Will the message be spoken before everyone?"

"Yes," Talis said. "I hide nothing from my people."

Anger moved through the square. The older villagers remembered the fathers taken years before. The younger ones had grown up beneath their absence. No one loved the men of Meras, and no one believed a message from him could arrive without hunger behind it.

The captain unrolled a sealed strip of leather.

"By order of Meras, in preparation for war against Legacy, every able man of Humpellia is to present himself for service. Each village will provide soldiers, grain, horses, and iron. Refusal will be understood as rebellion."

A mother began to sob.

Talis heard the sentence that had never been spoken when his father left. Years of waiting, his mother's grave, and the empty place at every table gathered inside him.

"No one will fight for Meras," he said.

The captain lowered the message.

"I have not finished."

"You have."

The villagers stared at Talis. Then a voice behind him shouted, "No one will go!"

Others joined it.

"No one!"

"We gave you our fathers!"

"Not our sons too!"

The soldiers reached for their swords. The villagers had few weapons, but they closed ranks around Talis.

The captain leaned forward in his saddle.

"No one defies Meras. You do not want this, Governor. You know that well."

Talis met his gaze.

"Tell Meras this: not one drop of Humpellian blood will be spilled for his throne. If he wants our grain, let him plant our fields. If he wants our sons, let him come and ask their mothers."

The captain's face became still.

"He will come."

"Then he will hear the same answer."

For one terrible moment, the square stood at the edge of slaughter. Talis saw the captain weighing whether forty soldiers could kill enough villagers to make obedience return.

Then a cry rose from the far end of the road.

"Talis!"

A young woman ran from the direction of his house, waving both arms.

"Talis, you have a son!"

The world narrowed to those words.

Talis turned before caution could stop him and ran.

Behind him, the soldiers remained motionless. The captain watched him disappear, then rolled the message slowly and signaled his men. Without drawing their swords, they turned their horses toward the forest.

Their retreat brought no relief. It felt like a promise.

By the time Talis reached his house, half the village had followed. Melania lay exhausted, her face pale and damp, but when she saw him, she smiled.

"You were wrong," she whispered.

A midwife placed the newborn in his arms.

Talis had held swords, ropes, dying animals, and the hands of grieving people. Nothing had ever felt as fragile or as heavy as his son.

The child opened his eyes.

For a heartbeat, Talis saw not the room but the night sky above the pink meadows. A single star burned across his vision, bright enough to turn the darkness white.

A name entered him with the light.

He carried the child outside.

The village had gathered in silence. Fear of Meras still clung to every face, yet when Talis lifted the newborn beneath the open sky, something warmer moved among them.

"His name is Alsbans," he said.

Melania heard the name through the open door and closed her eyes, as if some part of her recognized it.

Yes.

His name was Alsbans.

"Long live Alsbans!" someone cried.

The villagers repeated it until the name crossed the square, entered the fields, and seemed to rise toward the stars.

They celebrated because a child had been born.

They did not yet understand that, in another place, something ancient might have heard them.

None of them knew what was coming.

Chapter 2: The End of Those Who Fear Losing

Meras returns, Humpellia burns, and the child who survives is carried toward the hidden darkness of Trixalisse.

Morning came, but peace did not come with it.

The village awoke before sunrise. Men followed the tracks left by the soldiers of Meras, searching the road and the forest beyond it. They found broken branches, deep hoofprints, and one strip of red cloth caught upon a thorn. Then, less than a step from the boundary stones, the tracks divided and vanished across hard ground.

It was as if the soldiers had not retreated at all, but simply stepped out of sight.

The searchers returned carrying no answers.

Throughout the village, doors remained open. Families spoke in whispers. Mothers who had celebrated Alsbans's birth now watched the forest from their windows. Every ordinary sound—the fall of a tool, a horse shifting in its stall, a shout between children—made someone turn in fear.

Talis had not slept.

He stood beside the cradle while Melania rested, watching his son breathe. Alsbans's fingers opened and closed as though grasping at something in a dream. Looking at him, Talis felt joy so fierce that it bordered on pain.

He had defied Meras for children like this one.

He had also placed all of them in danger.

By midmorning, the square was full.

"Gather," Talis called. "Everyone, gather. Today is not a day for fear to speak in separate houses. Whatever comes, we will face it with one mind."

Before he could continue, several elders stepped forward. At their front stood Haron, the oldest man in the village, whose back had bent with age but whose voice remained hard.

"Stop there, Talis."

The crowd shifted. No one interrupted an elder lightly, least of all before the entire village.

Haron planted his walking stick in the mud.

"You know that something great happened yesterday."

"Yes," Talis answered. "My son was born."

A few people smiled despite themselves.

Haron did not.

"No. Yesterday you betrayed us for your father."

The words struck more accurately than any accusation Talis had prepared to hear.

A murmur spread through the square.

"I acted for no dead memory," Talis said. "I acted for our children and for the future of this village."

"Did you?" Haron asked. "Or did you hear the same command that took Uzak from us and answer it ten years too late?"

Talis's jaw tightened.

"Careful."

"I am old enough to be careful without your warning. We all remember your father. We remember the men who left beside him. None returned. Yesterday, when Meras asked for our sons, you did not hear the war against Legacy. You heard a horse riding away in the rain."

The square became painfully still.

Talis could have denied it. A governor was expected to possess clean motives, or at least the appearance of them.

Instead, he looked at the faces around him.

"Perhaps I did hear it," he said. "Perhaps every decision a man makes is answered by the child he once was. But that does not make the decision wrong."

Haron's expression softened for only a moment.

"You are young and strong. You survived Trixalisse, and because of that you believe the world can be survived by courage. But Meras is not a forest. He is not a trial. He is inevitable. We are one village. If he wishes to erase us, even our graves will not remain."

A mother called from the crowd, "Then should we give him our sons?"

Haron turned toward her.

"I say only that living slaves may one day become free. Dead rebels become soil."

"And what do their children become?" Talis asked.

The elder did not answer.

Talis stepped closer.

"For ten years, this village lived without its fathers. We survived, yes. But survival alone is not proof that the price was just. If we kneel again, our sons will inherit the same waiting, and their sons after them. At what generation do you suggest we become human?"

Haron lowered his eyes.

"You speak beautifully. Meras kills beautifully spoken men as easily as silent ones."

"Then let him come. As long as I stand here, nothing will happen to anyone."

Even as Talis spoke, he knew the promise was impossible. The knowledge shamed him. Yet a governor could not answer terror with uncertainty.

He turned and left the square before anger made him cruel.

At home, Melania sat beside the window with Alsbans against her breast. She saw Talis enter and understood from his face that the argument had followed him.

"What happened?"

"The elders believe I doomed us."

"Did you?"

He looked at her sharply.

Melania did not look away.

"I am not asking whether you were right to refuse. I am asking whether you understand what refusal costs."

Talis crossed the room and knelt beside her.

"I will never allow anything to happen to you."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only answer I can live with."

She touched his face.

"Then do not confuse the answer you need with the truth."

Talis closed his eyes against her palm.

"I know they will return."

"When?"

"Soon. Perhaps tonight. Perhaps after they have frightened us with waiting."

Melania looked down at their son.

"What will we do?"

Talis had spent the night asking himself the same question. Now, speaking it aloud, the plan became real.

"We cannot remain. Defying the soldiers did more than refuse an order. We exiled ourselves from the part of Humpellia controlled by Meras. If we stay, they will surround us."

"Then we all leave."

"Not together. A village moving with children, animals, and wagons can be followed from a mountain away. The women and children must go first, quietly, toward Legacy."

Melania stared at him.

"Legacy is at war with Meras."

"That is why Meras will hesitate to cross the border openly."

"And the men?"

"We ride to the other villages. We warn them and ask them to join us. If enough of Humpellia stands together—"

"You do not believe that sentence," Melania said.

He fell silent.

She knew him too well.

"You are not planning a war," she continued. "You are planning to place yourselves between Meras and the road we take."

"If necessary."

"Say it honestly."

Talis looked at Alsbans. The child slept, unaware that his parents were dividing the future around him.

"We will buy you time."

Melania turned toward the window. For several moments, only the soft sound of the baby's breathing moved through the room.

"Then you expect to die."

"I expect to fight."

"That is how men make death sound less certain."

Talis stood.

"I have to speak to the village."

Melania caught his hand.

"And after that, you will come back here. You will not become governor for the rest of the night. You will be my husband and his father."

Talis bent and kissed her forehead.

"I will come back."

The words left his mouth before he remembered that his father had once made the same promise.

He returned to the square.

The argument had continued in his absence. Some villagers demanded that they send an apology to Meras. Others had already begun sharpening swords. Fear divided them more efficiently than any invading army.

Talis climbed the stone used during the Tree Contest ceremonies.

"Listen to me," he called.

The voices faded.

"The soldiers may have left our road, but they have not forgotten it. They will return, and when they do, they will come in greater numbers. We cannot defend these houses forever. Nor can we pretend obedience will make us safe. The fathers taken from us proved that."

Someone shouted, "Then what will we do?"

Another answered before Talis could.

"They were right! He sold us for his father!"

"No," Talis said.

The accusation came again from another part of the crowd.

"You wanted revenge, and now our children will pay for it."

Talis felt anger rise, but he remembered Trakless's lesson: anger was useful only while held by the throat.

He waited until he could speak without becoming its servant.

"Perhaps there is revenge in me," he said. "I will not insult you by pretending my heart is pure. But listen carefully. If there is wrong in what I have done, I will carry it. If there is right, I will carry that too.

"No one is forced to stand beside me. A governor who needs chains is only another king.

"I did not rise for glory. I did not refuse Meras because I believe songs will be written about us. I did not do it for power, and I will not lie by saying I did it only for you.

"I did it because I refuse to live on my knees. I refuse to raise children who believe obedience is the price of being allowed to breathe.

"So choose freely. Fight beside me, leave before dawn, or stand against me. But whatever you choose, choose it as a person—not as an animal waiting to discover which master will feed it."

Silence followed.

The speech had not removed anyone's fear. It had only made hiding behind fear more difficult.

Then a blacksmith named Saren lifted his hammer.

"I am with you."

A farmer beside him raised a woodcutting axe.

"We have always been with you. We only forgot when fear began speaking."

More voices joined them.

Not everyone agreed. Some elders stepped away. Two families announced they would leave immediately and ask Meras for mercy. Talis let them go. Freedom that existed only for those who agreed with him would be another form of rule.

When the square settled, he gave his orders.

"Take up every sword, bow, axe, and hunting spear. At dawn, the men will ride to the neighboring villages. We will warn them and ask them to prepare."

A frightened woman called, "And the children?"

"The women, the elderly who cannot fight, and the children will travel west toward Legacy. Move in small groups. Take food, blankets, and water. Leave anything that slows you."

"Legacy?" Haron demanded. "They are our enemies."

"No," Talis said. "Meras told us they were our enemies. Those are not always the same thing."

"How do you know they will receive us?"

"I do not."

The honesty frightened them more than certainty would have.

"But I know what waits here."

The people returned to their houses to prepare. The village spent the afternoon dividing food, repairing carts, wrapping weapons, and deciding which possessions could be abandoned. Every object became a question: Was a wedding blanket worth carrying? A father's tools? A child's carved toy? How much of a life could be left behind before the person carrying it became someone else?

Night came too quickly.

In each home, families tried to speak normally and failed. Meals were eaten without appetite. Parents memorized the faces of sleeping children. Lovers made promises neither believed. The village that had once welcomed rain as a blessing listened for hoofbeats in every gust of wind.

Melania packed a small bag beside the cradle.

"Let me stay with you," she said. "I can fight. You know I can."

"I know."

"Then do not send me away as though I am weak."

"I am sending you because you are the only person I trust to keep him alive."

She looked at Alsbans.

"What am I without you, Talis?"

The question stripped every answer from him.

He sat beside her.

"You are Melania. You were yourself before you loved me, and you will remain yourself if I am gone."

"Do not speak as if you are already dead."

"I am trying to speak before I no longer can."

Her eyes filled.

Talis took her hands.

"You will raise our son. And you will tell him nothing about me until he is old enough to choose what the truth means. I do not want him growing up chasing his father as I did. I do not want every road to become a promise he is trying to force the world to keep."

"You want him to grow without a father? Like you did?"

The words were cruel because they were true.

Talis lowered his head.

"No. I want him to grow without my ghost."

Melania began to cry. She did not hide it from him.

"Hope did not save you from your father's absence," she said. "It only kept the wound open."

"Perhaps. But living with hope is still better than living without it."

"You do not know that."

"No," he admitted. "I only know I survived one of them."

They held each other for a long time.

Later, when Melania finally slept, Talis remained beside the cradle. Moonlight rested across Alsbans's face. The child moved one hand, and Talis offered him a finger. Alsbans closed his tiny fist around it.

The strength of that grip almost broke him.

"Take care of your mother," Talis whispered. "She will pretend she does not need anyone. Do not believe her."

Alsbans slept on.

"Perhaps one day you will know true happiness. Not the happiness people feel because nothing terrible has happened yet. Something stronger. Something no king can take by sending men on horses."

He leaned closer.

"And if you ever hear my name, let it be only a name. Do not make a road from it."

Talis kissed his son's forehead.

For an instant, the room seemed to fill with the pale light of the star he had named Bans. Then it was gone.

He lay beside Melania but did not sleep for a long time.

When sleep finally came, it carried no dreams.

The screams woke them before dawn.

No one ever learned how the soldiers entered the village so quietly.

There had been watchers on the eastern road and two hunters hidden near the forest. Neither gave warning. Later, some would say Meras had sent men through the river. Others would claim the shadows themselves had opened a path.

What mattered was that, by the time the bell began to ring, three houses were already burning.

Talis came awake to red light moving across the ceiling.

For one confused breath, he thought dawn had arrived. Then glass shattered in the next room, and someone outside screamed until the sound ended suddenly.

He was on his feet before memory caught up with him.

"Melania. Take Alsbans."

She had already lifted the child from the cradle. Smoke pressed beneath the door.

Talis took his sword from the wall and opened the shutter a finger's width. The village had become another place.

Soldiers moved between the houses in dark armor. Some carried torches. Others dragged villagers into the road. The old storehouse burned from roof to foundation, throwing sparks across the square. A woman ran with her nightdress on fire. Two men tried to reach her and were cut down before they crossed the road.

There were far more than forty soldiers now.

Meras had not come to collect obedience.

He had come to erase refusal.

Talis rushed outside.

Heat struck his face. Smoke turned the familiar roads into narrow tunnels of flame and shadow. Everywhere he looked, people he had known since childhood were running, fighting, falling.

"To the western path!" he shouted. "Women and children to the western path! Men, gather at the square!"

A soldier charged him from the side. Talis turned, caught the man's sword against his own, and drove a shoulder into his chest. The soldier fell. Talis struck once and moved on before the body reached the ground.

"Gather, my village!"

His voice vanished beneath screams, steel, and burning timber.

Saren the blacksmith appeared with his hammer dark with blood.

"They killed the eastern watchers," he said. "The road is blocked."

"Then clear it. Take whoever you can."

"There are too many."

"I know."

Saren looked at him. Neither man said what both understood.

They separated.

Talis fought toward his home, where Melania stood in the doorway with Alsbans wrapped beneath her cloak. She held a short sword in one hand.

"Go!" Talis shouted.

"The western road is full of soldiers."

"Then take the stream path. Follow it north until the stones turn black, then leave the water and cross toward Trixalisse."

Melania stared at him.

"You told us to go west."

"They know that. Go north."

A group of soldiers rounded the corner. One pointed toward the house.

"There! The governor!"

Talis pushed Melania inside and closed the door behind them.

"The rear window," he said. "Now."

She did not move.

Outside, boots struck the road.

"Let me fight with you."

"No."

"Talis—"

"No!"

The word came out harder than he intended. Alsbans woke and began to cry.

Talis looked at his son, then lowered his voice.

"Listen to me. If you stay, I will spend every moment trying to keep you alive. I will watch you instead of the sword in front of me. We will all die in this room."

The soldiers struck the door.

Once.

The wood cracked.

Melania's face folded with grief.

"I will not leave you."

Talis took her hands around the hilt of her sword.

"Then do not leave me. Carry me with you. Every step you take with him is a step I take too."

The door shuddered beneath another blow.

Melania fell against him. For a moment, they stood with Alsbans between them while the world ended outside.

"How can I live without you?" she whispered.

"For us? You may not be able to." Talis pressed his forehead to hers. "So live for him. For Alsbans, my love. For him, we can do what we cannot do for ourselves."

The door split down the center.

Melania kissed him.

There was no time for gentleness. The kiss carried everything they would never say, every morning they had believed was still waiting, every argument left unfinished.

When she pulled away, she whispered into his ear.

"One day, there will be an answer for this. For you, for our village, and for every hand that tears love apart and calls it power."

Talis opened the rear window.

"Go."

Melania climbed through with Alsbans held against her chest.

She looked back once.

Talis smiled at her.

It was the same kind of lie his father had given him in the rain—a face made calm so the person leaving might survive the first step.

Then she disappeared into the dark.

The door burst inward.

Talis turned.

Three soldiers entered. The first died before he understood how close Talis stood. The second struck high; Talis ducked and drove his blade beneath the man's armor. The third retreated into the road, shouting for help.

Talis followed.

He no longer fought to save the village. That hope was burning around him. He fought to make each breath Melania took farther from Humpellia possible.

The surviving villagers gathered near the square. Farmers stood beside hunters. An old woman held a spear with both hands. Haron, who had warned against rebellion, sat wounded against the well with a sword across his knees.

When Talis reached him, the elder laughed once, bitterly.

"It appears dead rebels do become soil."

Talis knelt.

"You were right about the cost."

"And you were right about the kneeling. Help me stand."

Talis pulled him to his feet.

Together, the village made its final line beneath the burning bell tower.

The soldiers of Meras advanced.

What followed was not a battle in the way songs describe battles. There was no clean order, no moment in which courage made men invincible. People slipped in mud and blood. Friends struck one another in the smoke. Some fled. Some froze. Some who had boasted loudly died before lifting their weapons, while others who had trembled all night fought with terrible calm.

Talis moved among them like the man Trixalisse had made. He heard blades before they came. He used the firelight against his enemies. He refused anger its freedom and allowed it only enough breath to strengthen each strike.

One soldier fell.

Then another.

Then another.

But Meras had sent too many.

Saren disappeared beneath spears. Haron died standing, his walking stick still tied across his back. The bell tower collapsed, scattering burning timber across the square.

The pink meadows beyond the houses became black beneath smoke and red beneath blood. By sunrise, no trace of their former color remained.

An arrow struck Talis high in the shoulder.

The force turned him halfway around and drove him to one knee.

He broke the shaft and tried to rise.

A second arrow entered his side.

The village tilted.

Through the smoke, Talis saw a figure standing beyond the soldiers. The man wore no helmet. A red cord was tied around his sword arm.

The captain from the day before.

"You should have listened," the captain said.

Talis laughed, though blood filled his mouth.

"You should have finished your message."

The captain drew his sword.

Talis tried once more to stand. His legs failed. He fell onto the earth where he had played as a child, not far from the road along which his father had vanished.

At the final edge of his life, he did not think of being governor. He did not think of Meras or Legacy, victory or defeat.

He saw his mother placing a third bowl upon the table.

He saw Melania laughing in the rain.

He felt the small fist of his son wrapped around one finger.

And beneath all of it, older than reason, he heard the child within him call once more for the man who had ridden away.

"Father," Talis whispered.

Then life left him.

Humpellia burned behind Melania as she ran.

She did not look back. The sky ahead was dark, but the sky behind her glowed red enough to cast her shadow across the road. Alsbans cried beneath her cloak. She pressed him against her body, trying to keep smoke from his lungs.

The stream path was narrow and hidden by reeds. Twice, soldiers passed so close that Melania could hear their armor. She sank into the cold water and held Alsbans above it, whispering into his hair while he trembled.

"Quiet, my star. Quiet."

The words were not enough. She tore a strip from her sleeve, dipped it into the stream, and held it gently over his mouth to cool the smoke. He stared at her with wide eyes, too young to understand fear but old enough to feel it entering the body that held him.

For hours, Melania moved north.

Her feet bled inside her shoes. Hunger weakened her. Milk would not come because terror had dried it within her, and Alsbans's cries grew smaller. Each time they weakened, panic gave her another measure of strength.

At midday, she found bird eggs in a low nest and swallowed one raw so she would not collapse. She fed what she could to the child. By evening, she had reached the stony land near Trixalisse.

The forest stood in the distance, darker than the approaching night.

Melania had heard stories about it. Every child of Humpellia had. She also knew that soldiers feared stories more than desperate mothers did.

Near the base of a hill, she found a narrow cavern hidden behind hanging roots. The air inside smelled of damp stone and old leaves. She crawled deep enough that the opening could no longer be seen from the road.

There, between two rocks, she discovered a hollow just large enough to hide Alsbans.

She wrapped him in her cloak and placed him inside.

"You must forgive me," she whispered. "For every moment you are cold. For every moment you believe I left you."

The child reached toward her.

Melania placed one finger in his hand.

For an instant, she understood Talis's final night beside the cradle.

Then a voice came from the darkness behind her.

"Who is there?"

Melania turned, sword already drawn.

A man stepped into the faint light near the entrance. His armor bore the mark of Meras. Blood darkened one side of his face, but the red cord around his sword arm remained clean.

The captain.

"I found you," he said. "Did you truly believe you could escape?"

Melania moved between him and the hollow.

"Who are you?"

"The man who gave your husband one last chance to live."

His smile was thin.

"I watched Talis die. I thought you should know before I do the same to you."

Grief entered Melania so violently that for a moment the cave lost sound. She had known. From the moment she climbed through the window, some part of her had known. Yet knowledge became a different wound when spoken by the mouth of the killer.

"No," she said.

The captain raised his sword.

Melania attacked.

She was exhausted, wounded by the road, and carrying the weakness of hunger, but she had trained beside Talis. Her first strike opened the captain's cheek. The second drove him backward against the stone.

Surprise made him careless.

Rage made her dangerous.

For several breaths, the cave rang with steel. Melania fought not to survive but to prevent the man from taking one more step toward her child. She cut his arm. He struck her ribs. She drove her shoulder into him and nearly reached the entrance.

Then his blade entered beneath her side.

Melania gasped.

The captain pulled the sword free.

She fell to one knee.

He approached slowly now, anger replacing amusement.

"Where is the child?"

Melania looked toward the opposite wall.

The captain followed her gaze.

That was the mistake she wanted him to make.

With the last of her strength, she lunged. Her sword entered beneath his breastplate. He staggered, struck her once across the back, and collapsed near the mouth of the cave.

Melania crawled toward the hollow.

Each breath filled her with fire. She could no longer feel her legs. Behind her, the captain made a wet, broken sound, but he did not rise.

Alsbans was crying.

"I am here," she whispered. "I am here."

She reached the hollow and lowered herself across it, covering the child with her own body. Her blood warmed the stone around him.

Melania thought of Talis beneath the flowering trees on their wedding day. Rain had gathered on his eyelashes. He had looked nervous when speaking his vows, though he had faced ancient wizards without trembling.

She wanted to return there.

Instead, she pressed one hand against the rock and listened to her son breathe beneath her.

"Live," she whispered.

It was her final command, prayer, and act of love.

When the soldiers of Meras later searched the cavern, they saw two bodies and darkness. They did not find the child hidden beneath his mother's lifeless form.

By nightfall, Humpellia no longer existed as a living village.

Only Alsbans survived.

He lay in the cold hollow, hungry and unable to understand why the warmth above him would not move. His cries echoed through the cave, growing weaker as the hours passed.

No human ear heard him.

But something did.

Alsbans knew nothing of death.

He knew warmth and the absence of warmth. He knew hunger, darkness, and the smell of the person whose heartbeat had once been the whole world. He pushed against Melania's still body until a narrow space opened beside the stone.

His small body rolled.

For a moment, he fell through darkness.

Then the cave was gone.

He landed upon soft leaves without crying. Around him, everything was green and strangely still. Pale light drifted through branches that did not move. The air smelled of rain, though no rain fell. It was a garden hidden beneath the earth—or beyond it—a place untouched by the fire that had consumed his village.

Alsbans moved his arms and looked around.

He had seen almost nothing in his brief life, yet one thing drew his gaze immediately.

A single red rose stood alone among the leaves.

No wind touched it. No insect rested upon it. Its petals were perfectly smooth, without bruise or tear, and the color seemed deeper than red—as if every fire, wound, and sunset in the world had been gathered into one flower.

Alsbans crawled toward it.

There was no reason for him to do so. Infants do not understand beauty, prophecy, or danger. Perhaps he followed the warmth of its color. Perhaps the rose called to something older than understanding.

His fingers touched one petal.

The rose became cold.

Not cool like stone or water. Cold like a memory from before birth.

The ground beneath him opened.

Alsbans fell again.

This time, he landed beneath the leaves beside a narrow path leading into Trixalisse.

Jelin found him there.

She was walking ahead of the others, collecting pale mushrooms that grew only where the forest had recently dreamed. Jelin was still a child by the measure of ordinary people, though children raised among the wizards of Trixalisse learned early not to measure themselves ordinarily.

She heard a sound beneath the leaves.

At first, she thought it was an injured bird. Then the leaves moved.

Jelin knelt and pushed them aside.

A baby stared up at her.

For several breaths, she only stared back.

"And who are you?" she whispered.

Alsbans began to cry.

The sound startled birds from branches far above. Jelin lifted him awkwardly, supporting his head the way she had once seen a traveler hold a child in a memory stolen by one of the wizards.

"Listen to how frightened he is," she called to the others.

Three wizards approached. Their expressions held curiosity but no tenderness.

"Put it down," one said.

"He is not an it."

"Everything is an it until it proves otherwise."

Jelin wrapped part of her cloak around the child.

"He is cold."

"Then he will become colder. That is the habit of abandoned things."

Jelin glared at them.

"You are a child yourself," another wizard said. "How would you care for him?"

"You all care for me. Why not him?"

The wizards looked at one another.

It was not a question they enjoyed. They had fed Jelin, taught her, and kept her alive, but whether any of that deserved the name care was something none wished to examine.

Then Trakless appeared between the trees.

He said nothing at first.

His blue flames dimmed as he looked at Alsbans.

The child had stopped crying. He stared directly at the handless wizard with an attention no infant should have possessed.

For one heartbeat, the forest around them grew silent.

Trakless saw a flash of something he did not understand: a burning meadow, a dying woman, a star reflected in a man's eyes, and beneath all of it a red rose opening in darkness.

Then the vision vanished.

"The child stays," he said.

The others turned toward him.

"We do not keep human infants."

"We do now."

"By whose law?"

Trakless's flames rose brighter.

"Mine, until someone stronger objects."

No one did.

The wizards drifted apart, muttering. Jelin remained beside Trakless with Alsbans in her arms.

"Why did you agree without asking where he came from?"

Trakless looked toward the place beneath the leaves where the child had appeared.

"I do not know."

It was the first answer Jelin had ever heard him give without hiding another answer inside it.

She looked down at Alsbans. His fingers had closed around the edge of her cloak.

Jelin was still a child herself. She knew nothing of mothers except what she had seen in dreams and stolen memories. She did not know how often babies ate, why they cried, or how much a person could love someone who had done nothing to earn it.

But standing beneath the ancient trees, she made a decision that would shape both their lives.

She would care for him.

And if the darkness of Trixalisse reached for him, it would have to pass through her first.

Chapter 3: The Long Journey

Alsbans leaves Trixalisse behind and begins the harder search for a home that will not cast him away.

Alsbans learned to walk beneath trees so tall that he believed the whole world lived in their shadow.

He learned to speak in a house where words were rarely used for kindness. The wizards taught him the names of roots, bones, stars, wounds, and poisons before anyone thought to teach him the names of ordinary things. For years, he believed every child knew how to recognize a lie by the change in another person's breathing, but had to ask what a birthday was.

Jelin taught him the rest.

She taught him that warm food should be eaten slowly when there was enough of it. She showed him how to make small animals from folded leaves and how to listen for rain traveling through the upper branches long before it reached the ground. When he woke from dreams he could not describe, she sat beside him until his hands stopped trembling.

The wizards did not object to her affection. They regarded it as one might regard a harmless weakness in a useful creature.

From the beginning, there was something about Alsbans no one could explain.

He understood people.

Not merely their words. Words were easy and often false. He understood the pressure beneath them—the thought someone had swallowed, the fear hidden beneath anger, the hope a person was ashamed to admit. He could not always name what he sensed, but he reacted to it before others revealed it.

When one wizard praised him, Alsbans moved away because he felt the cruelty waiting behind the praise. When another threatened him without intending harm, the child remained calm. He avoided certain rooms before arguments began inside them. Once, he woke Jelin in the middle of the night and led her outside moments before part of the hut's roof collapsed.

"How did you know?" she asked.

Alsbans looked at the broken beams.

"The house was afraid."

Jelin laughed at first. Then she saw that he was serious.

As he grew, the wizards began testing him.

They placed sealed boxes before him and asked which contained a living creature. They sent him into the forest to find people who did not wish to be found. They told lies and demanded that he explain not only which words were false, but why the speaker needed them to be believed.

Alsbans rarely answered in the way they expected.

One evening, Jelin crouched beside him with a wooden spoon.

"You have not eaten," she said. "I made this for you."

The bowl contained a thick stew of roots and bitter herbs. Jelin had burned part of it and tried to hide the taste with salt.

Alsbans looked into the bowl.

"You do not like it either."

"That is not important."

"Then why must I eat it?"

"Because I made it with love."

He considered this.

"Does love always taste bad?"

Jelin struck him lightly with the spoon, and he smiled.

The door opened.

Trakless stepped inside.

Alsbans's smile vanished. Without a sound, he moved behind Jelin.

Trakless noticed. He noticed everything, though he often pretended otherwise.

"He has grown," the wizard said. "It is time he began working."

"He works every day."

"He follows you through the forest and asks questions. That is not work."

"He has only just learned to speak properly."

"Has he?"

Trakless looked at Alsbans.

The blue flames above his wrists gave no warmth.

"Then let him answer something simple. Who does he love most?"

Jelin drew a breath. The question disturbed her, though she could not have said why. Among the wizards, simple questions were often traps wearing clean clothes.

Alsbans stepped partly from behind her.

He looked at Trakless, then at Jelin.

"I love the one who loves me most."

The answer entered the room and changed it.

Trakless said nothing. For the briefest moment, his expression revealed something close to sorrow. Then he turned and left.

Jelin remained still until his footsteps faded.

"Then you love me," she said softly.

Alsbans looked up at her.

"Why?"

"Because I love you most."

He searched her face, listening for what lay beneath the words.

Then he put both arms around her.

Time moved differently in Trixalisse. Seasons could be seen only in the color of the moss and the kinds of voices that traveled between the trees. Alsbans grew taller. His body became lean from climbing, running, and the work the wizards gave him. He learned to fight with a staff and a short blade. He learned how to escape a grip, how to fall without breaking bone, and how to remain still while fear moved through him.

The wizards tried to teach him spells.

Most failed.

Magic bent strangely around Alsbans. Flames would approach his hands and then separate, as if refusing to touch him. Symbols that opened doors for Jelin faded beneath his fingers. Once, when the Grand Wizard ordered him to repeat an ancient word, every candle in the hut went out and a red petal appeared in the bowl before him.

No one explained what it meant.

After that, they watched him more carefully.

There was always something about Alsbans that people felt before they could name it. He seemed one step ahead—not because he knew the future, but because he noticed the beginning of things others recognized only after they had happened.

He heard the cruelty in a joke before anyone laughed. He felt a departure inside an embrace. He knew when Jelin was lying to protect him and when Trakless was telling the truth to cause pain.

This made him difficult to deceive.

It did not make him impossible to wound.

Jelin understood before he did that the wizards had begun to fear him.

They spoke in silence when he entered a room, using glances and movements too small for ordinary people to notice. They sent him farther into the forest and waited longer before calling him home. One suggested that he should be taken beyond Trixalisse and left near the southern marshes. Another argued that whatever had brought him to them would eventually return to claim him.

Trakless defended him at first.

Then even Trakless began asking questions he would not explain.

"Do you dream of a flower?"

"Sometimes."

"What color?"

"You already know."

The blue flames above Trakless's wrists darkened.

"Do not answer questions with accusations."

"Do not ask questions when you fear the answer."

Trakless struck the table hard enough to split it.

Alsbans did not move.

From the doorway, Jelin saw both of them understand the same thing: the child was no longer afraid of the wizard.

That frightened her more than if he had been.

The day of departure arrived disguised as play.

Jelin ran between the trees, laughing over her shoulder.

"You cannot catch me!"

Alsbans walked after her without hurrying.

"I am not trying to."

"That is what slow people say."

She disappeared behind a broad trunk, then emerged farther ahead. Alsbans knew she was making the path seem ordinary. He also knew something had been wrong with her since morning. Her laughter came too quickly, and she had not once looked directly into his eyes.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"To the edge of the forest."

"Why?"

"To say goodbye to Trixalisse."

He stopped.

Jelin continued several steps before realizing he was no longer behind her.

"Not again," he said.

They had spoken about leaving before. Whenever the wizards became cruel, Jelin told him there were places beyond the forest where ordinary people lived beneath open skies. Sometimes she promised they would go together. By morning, the promise always became a joke.

"I mean it this time," she said.

"You said that last time."

"This is different."

"Because you are afraid."

Jelin's face tightened.

"Come with me."

"Tell me first."

She walked back and placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"Look at me."

Alsbans resisted for a moment, then raised his eyes.

Jelin had learned to shield her thoughts from him, but emotion still reached through. He felt love, fear, guilt, and a decision already made.

"You do not belong here," she said. "You are not like us."

The words reached the oldest wound in him, though he did not know where that wound had begun.

"I can be like you. I will learn. I will do the spells."

"You have tried."

"Then I will try longer."

"That is not what I mean."

He pulled away.

"You all say I am wrong because your magic does not want me. Perhaps your magic is wrong."

"Alsbans—"

"I can become whatever I need to become."

Jelin held his gaze.

"That is what I am afraid of."

He said nothing.

She lowered her voice.

"You are too good for this place."

Alsbans almost laughed. He had seen Jelin steal memories from sleeping travelers. He had watched her turn a snake into smoke because it frightened her. Goodness, in Trixalisse, was a word used mostly as an insult.

"You are saying that because you want me to leave."

"Yes."

"Then say you do not want me."

Pain moved across her face.

"I cannot say what is not true."

He turned from her and walked back toward the hut.

That night, Jelin came to where Alsbans slept.

The room was narrow and open to the roots beneath the hut. Moonlight entered through a crack in the wall. Alsbans lay on his side with one hand beneath his face, appearing younger in sleep than he ever allowed himself to seem while awake.

Jelin sat beside him.

She had been taught a form of seeing that the other wizards called the Deep Gaze. It was forbidden to use it upon someone she loved because love made the vision difficult to survive. She placed two fingers against Alsbans's temple anyway.

At first, she saw only fragments.

A village beneath rain.

A man lifting a newborn toward the stars.

A woman running while fire consumed the horizon.

Blood upon cave stone.

A red rose standing where no rose should grow.

Then the vision moved forward.

Jelin saw Trixalisse burning with a fire that gave no light. She saw Alsbans older, standing among people who knelt without being commanded. She saw his hands covered in blood, though she could not tell whether he had killed or tried to save someone. Above him, stars vanished one by one.

A voice spoke from somewhere beyond the vision.

If he remains, he will become what survives this place.

Jelin pulled away.

Her nose was bleeding. She wiped it with her sleeve and looked at Alsbans until her breathing slowed.

The vision might have been warning, possibility, or deception. Trixalisse showed truth in shapes designed to wound the person seeing it.

But one thing was clear.

The wizards would eventually use him, fear him, or destroy him. Perhaps all three.

A child had to leave this place.

This child could not stay.

In the morning, Jelin woke him gently.

"Come with me."

"Where?"

"I will tell you about the day I found you."

Alsbans sat up at once.

She had always refused to speak about it.

They left before the others woke. As they walked, Jelin told him how she had heard crying beneath the leaves, how he had appeared near the path without footprints or a mother nearby, and how Trakless had allowed him to stay without explanation.

Alsbans listened without interruption.

Then the questions came.

"What was I wearing?"

"A torn cloth. It smelled of smoke."

"Was there blood?"

Jelin hesitated.

"Yes."

"Mine?"

"I do not know."

"Did anyone look for me?"

"Not where we could see."

"Did you search?"

Jelin's silence answered.

Alsbans looked ahead.

"Why did you never tell me?"

"Because I wanted Trixalisse to feel like the beginning of your life, not the place that came after someone abandoned you."

"You do not know that I was abandoned."

"No."

"Then do not make my family guilty because you need them to be gone."

The words struck her with the precision of his gift.

They walked beyond the familiar paths. The trees slowly thinned. For the first time in his memory, Alsbans saw an open piece of sky between the branches. It was painfully blue.

"Jelin, we have come very far."

"I know."

"Trixalisse is behind us."

"I want to show you something."

They reached a low hill where roots hung across the mouth of a cave. Jelin pulled them aside and entered. Alsbans followed.

The cave was small, dry, and empty except for a little food, a water skin, and an old blanket placed near the wall.

He looked at the supplies, then at Jelin.

"There is nothing here."

Stone ground against stone behind him.

Alsbans turned.

Jelin had stepped outside and pushed a great rock across the entrance. Only a narrow crack remained near the top.

For a moment, he did not understand what he was seeing.

"Jelin."

She continued pushing until the last daylight became a thin blade.

"What are you doing?"

No answer.

Alsbans ran to the entrance and struck both palms against the stone.

"Why did you do this? Open it."

Jelin leaned her forehead against the other side.

"Listen to me carefully. When you find your way out, you will not return to Trixalisse."

"Open the stone."

"You will go south until you reach running water. Follow it beyond the black rocks. There are settlements there. People."

"Open it!"

His voice filled the cave and returned to him from every wall.

"Do you understand me?" Jelin asked.

Alsbans felt her fear through the stone. He felt her love too, and that made the betrayal worse. Hatred from an enemy was simple. Love that chose to hurt him was a door with no safe side.

"I will come back," he said.

Jelin closed her eyes.

"No."

"I will come back, and I will kill you. Do not forget that."

The threat did not sound like a child's anger. It sounded like a promise he was creating because she had taken every other promise from him.

Jelin began to cry silently.

Her disappointment was not in him. She understood that his rage meant he still believed she was worth returning to. If he had simply accepted the abandonment, Trixalisse would already have taken something worse from him.

"Jelin," he called after a while.

She did not answer.

"Jelin."

Her footsteps moved away.

The cave became completely still.

Alsbans struck the stone until his hands bled. He shouted her name until the word lost its meaning. When exhaustion forced him to stop, he sat with his back against the entrance and listened for her return.

Evening came. The thin light above him faded.

He discovered the food and water but refused them at first. Eating would mean accepting that she had planned his imprisonment. Hunger eventually proved stronger than pride.

Each day, Jelin came to the crack above the stone. She dropped bread, fruit, and small pieces of meat through it. Sometimes Alsbans saw the shadow of her hand.

She never spoke.

He tried kindness.

"Jelin, I am not angry anymore. Open it."

He tried guilt.

"You said you loved me most."

He tried cruelty.

"When I die, it will be because you were afraid."

He tried silence, believing she might become frightened enough to enter.

Nothing changed.

Alone in the cave, Alsbans began studying every surface. Jelin had told him when he found his way out, not if. Somewhere inside the betrayal, she had left him confidence.

That knowledge kept him from surrendering.

Then, one afternoon, voices sounded beyond the entrance.

Not Jelin's voice.

Men.

"Did you hear that?"

"There is someone inside."

Armor scraped against stone. Alsbans moved away from the entrance and picked up a sharp rock.

"Who is in there?" a man called. "What is your name?"

Alsbans thought of the wizards, of the stories about Meras, and of the red marks he had once seen on a soldier's armor in a stolen memory. He did not know who the men were, but he knew names could become chains.

"Kales," he answered. "My name is Kales."

The men laughed.

"A child. Move the stone. We can sell him with the others."

There were four soldiers of Meras.

They shifted the rock just wide enough for one man to enter. He expected to find a starving prisoner too weak to resist.

Alsbans struck him in the throat with the sharp stone.

The soldier fell backward. Alsbans moved through the opening before the others understood. He took the man's short sword, cut the arm of the second soldier, and drove his shoulder into the third.

He fought the way Trixalisse had taught him: without fairness, warning, or wasted movement.

But he was still a child, and the soldiers were trained men.

One struck him across the back. Another caught his hair. Alsbans twisted free, leaving blood in the man's hand, and retreated into the cave before they could surround him.

The soldiers did not follow.

For several moments, he heard only their breathing and curses.

Then one said, "Smoke him out."

They gathered dry wood and pushed it through the crack. The first flame caught slowly. The next spread along the pile. Smoke rose toward the ceiling and rolled through the cave.

Alsbans covered his mouth with the old blanket.

"Come out, Kales," a soldier called. "You might still live."

Alsbans knew the voice was lying.

Heat filled the entrance. Fire crawled across the food Jelin had brought him. The blanket began to smolder in his hands.

He moved deeper into the cave.

There, near the back, he felt cool air against his face.

A crack ran through the stone wall, hidden behind loose earth. Alsbans dropped the blanket and dug. His fingernails tore. Smoke made his eyes stream. He clawed at the earth with both hands, then used the soldier's short sword as a lever.

The opening widened one stone at a time.

Behind him, the cave burned brighter.

His hair singed. Heat blistered one shoulder. He thought of Jelin outside the entrance, feeding him in silence. He thought of Trakless asking whom he loved most.

I love the one who loves me most.

The sentence now seemed like something spoken by another child.

The final stone gave way.

Cold air rushed through the gap.

Alsbans forced his body into it, scraping skin from his arms and back. For one terrible moment, his hips became trapped. Fire cracked behind him. He exhaled, twisted, and pulled until the stone tore his clothes and released him.

He fell onto the forest floor.

The soldiers remained near the entrance, waiting for him to scream or crawl through the smoke. One of their own had fallen unconscious inside and did not rise. Eventually, believing both the child and their companion dead, they left.

Alsbans lay beneath the trees until evening.

His body was torn, burned, and exhausted. Each breath hurt. He could have followed Jelin's directions south.

Instead, he began walking toward Trixalisse.

He told himself he was returning to keep his threat. He would find Jelin and make her feel the fear she had given him.

But beneath the anger lived another need.

He wanted her to see that he had survived.

He wanted her to run toward him.

Every step hurt, but the thought carried him through the dark.

That night, Jelin returned to the cave with food.

She knew something was wrong before she reached the hill. The air carried smoke. No insects sounded in the grass. One of the hanging roots near the entrance had burned through and lay curled upon the ground.

Jelin dropped the food and ran.

The great stone had been moved. Heat breathed from the narrow opening. She forced it wider with magic, cutting her palm against the rock in her haste.

"Alsbans?"

Smoke answered.

She entered.

The ground was black. The blanket had burned to ash. Blood marked the stone near the entrance. Farther inside lay the body of a soldier, his clothes and skin damaged by fire.

Jelin saw the size of the body. She saw the armor. She should have understood.

Grief understood first.

"Alsbans."

She moved toward the body but could not make herself touch it. The smoke stung her eyes. His name left her again, weaker this time.

She remembered his threat: I will come back, and I will kill you.

She had thought the anger meant he would survive.

Now the cave appeared to hold the proof that she had mistaken cruelty for protection.

Jelin began to cry before she had finished looking.

She did not discover the opening at the rear. She did not see the blood leading through it. Her own fear showed her only what she believed she had caused.

She ran back toward Trixalisse.

Alsbans reached the edge of the forest shortly after her.

He heard her before he saw the hut. Jelin was calling his name between sobs, stumbling through the trees. Alsbans stepped behind a trunk. He did not yet know why he hid. Perhaps some part of him wanted to hear what people said when they believed the dead could no longer listen.

Jelin entered the clearing.

The wizards emerged one by one.

"Alsbans is dead," she said. "I saw him. The cave burned. I saw him burning."

Trakless's blue flames went completely still.

"Show me what you saw."

"No."

"Jelin."

"I will not let you enter my mind. Not now."

The other wizards exchanged glances.

One shrugged.

"He was already finished for us."

Another smiled faintly.

"Then the forest corrected our mistake."

Jelin turned on him.

"He was a child."

"So were you once. It passed."

"I killed him."

"Then you have finally learned something useful."

The words echoed across the clearing.

Trakless looked toward the trees. For a moment, Alsbans believed the wizard could see him. Their eyes almost met through the darkness.

But Trakless turned away.

The wizards began to leave.

Some said nothing. Some wore expressions of relief. One laughed softly as he entered the hut. No one approached Jelin. No one placed a hand upon her shoulder. No one told her that grief could be shared.

She stood alone in the center of the clearing and cried.

Alsbans watched all of it.

He had returned imagining her running into his arms. Instead, he heard the people who had raised him dismiss his death as the removal of an inconvenience. He saw Jelin break beneath guilt, yet he could not separate her grief from the stone she had pushed across the cave.

Love and betrayal existed in the same place, and he was too young to hold both without choosing one.

He chose betrayal.

For a long time, he remained behind the tree. Then he turned away from Trixalisse.

He did not speak Jelin's name.

He did not keep his promise to kill her.

There are moments when leaving is a harsher punishment than revenge, though the person leaving rarely understands that at the time.

Alsbans walked until the clearing disappeared behind him.

He needed a new home.

He walked like a person with somewhere to be.

At first, he walked calmly.

Then the words he had heard began repeating within him.

Already finished for us.

The forest corrected our mistake.

He began to run.

Branches struck his face. Roots caught at his feet. He ran farther into the trees and screamed at people who could no longer hear him.

"Traitors!"

His voice cracked.

"You are all traitors!"

He shouted Jelin's name once, then hated himself for it.

"Alsbans is dead to you!" he cried. "Do you hear me? He is dead!"

The forest returned pieces of the sentence from different directions.

He ran until his lungs burned and his legs lost strength. Still, he continued. Hunger twisted inside him. His burns pulled painfully whenever he moved. He knew he needed water, rest, and help.

He did not care.

Pain was the only thing that felt honest. It did not claim to love him before closing a stone across the door.

His foot caught beneath a root.

Alsbans fell hard, striking his cheek against the earth. For a while, he remained where he had landed. Leaves clung to the blood on his hands.

"I do not want anyone anymore," he whispered.

No one answered.

"I do not want to be unhappy anymore."

The second sentence made him angry because it sounded like a child's wish. He had been trained to survive smoke, blades, hunger, and fear. Yet no lesson had taught him how to stop wanting people who could hurt him.

He pulled dry leaves over his body and curled beneath a tree.

Before closing his eyes, he made himself a promise.

He would never again love someone merely because they claimed to love him most.

Morning found him feverish.

Hunger woke him first. Then thirst. Sunlight moved between unfamiliar branches, and for several moments, he did not know which direction led back to Trixalisse.

The discovery brought relief.

Through the trees, he saw a thin column of smoke rising far away. Smoke could mean soldiers, fire, or people cooking food. Any of those possibilities was more useful than remaining beneath the leaves.

Alsbans stood.

He was still angry, but anger had changed during the night. It no longer pushed him to run without direction. It settled deeper, becoming something colder and more patient.

He wanted to live.

That desire surprised him.

He followed the smoke through land that belonged to no village he knew. The forest grew thinner. Small stones marked paths made by human feet. Once, he found the remains of a cart and searched it for food, discovering only a broken wheel and a child's shoe.

Near midday, he heard running water.

He pushed through a wall of bushes and found a stone fountain built beside the road. Clear water poured from the mouth of a carved animal whose face had been worn smooth by time.

Alsbans dropped to his knees and drank with both hands.

The cold water hurt his empty stomach. He drank anyway.

"That is enough."

A man stood on the other side of the fountain.

His clothes were torn, and dust covered his beard. A leather bag hung across one shoulder. He smelled of sweat, road, and smoke. His eyes were sharp but not entirely focused, as though he were watching something behind Alsbans as well as the child himself.

"Get away," the man said. "This water is mine."

Alsbans wiped his mouth.

"Why is it yours?"

"Because I found it before you."

"The stone was here before you."

"Then it belongs to the stone. The stone has given it to me."

Alsbans almost walked away. The man was either mad or trying to appear harmless.

Then the stranger tilted his head.

"Alsbans," he said, testing the name. "That is what they called through the forest."

Alsbans moved before thought.

He seized the man by the throat and forced him against the fountain.

"How do you know my name?"

The stranger did not resist as strongly as he could have.

"I heard it last night," he gasped. "A girl was shouting. Then someone else screamed that Alsbans was dead. The whole forest knew your name before you arrived."

Alsbans tightened his grip.

"What girl?"

"I did not see her. Only heard. How could anyone near those trees not hear you? Why are you so angry?"

Alsbans released him.

The man rubbed his throat but did not reach for a weapon.

"You should be more careful with names," he said. "They travel faster than bodies."

Alsbans looked at the water.

"Take it. It is yours."

He turned to leave.

"Alsbans."

The child stopped.

"What?"

The stranger's expression had changed. The madness remained, but grief had appeared beneath it.

"Will you tell her I love her very much?"

"Tell who?"

The man looked toward the smoke in the distance.

"She will know."

Then he ran.

He moved with sudden speed, disappearing between the trees before Alsbans could ask another question.

Alsbans watched the empty road.

"Madman," he muttered.

Yet the request stayed with him.

Tell her I love her very much.

He hated that the sentence sounded like something said before a person left forever.

The smoke led him to a small settlement hidden between low trees. There were no more than ten people and four rough houses built around a shared fire. Strips of cloth hung between branches. A thin goat stood tied beside a cart. The place looked temporary, as though its inhabitants expected to leave the moment the world noticed them.

Alsbans crouched behind a bush and watched.

A woman stirred a pot over the fire. Two children repaired a fishing net. An old man sat sharpening a knife, though his eyes appeared too weak to see the blade clearly. No one wore the armor of Meras.

Alsbans studied their movements. He searched for concealed weapons, fear, and lies. He told himself he was deciding whether to steal food after dark.

What he did not know was that the people had seen him long before he found the courage to approach.

That night, Alsbans's stomach was hurting from hunger.

He had not eaten properly for days. He had been surviving on a few fruits he found in the forest, some water, and whatever else he could manage to find. But hunger was something that knew how to silence even a person's pride.

Alsbans whispered to himself,

"I have to do it tonight."

He sat there quietly for a while.

"Yes... I'm hungry. I'm starving. If I steal because I'm hungry, what will happen? That doesn't make me a bad person."

He repeated the words to himself, as if he were trying to convince someone else.

"I'm not a bad person. Why would I be? I need it. They already have food."

He waited a little longer.

Then he stood up.

Under the cover of darkness, he began walking toward the settlement.

In the distance, a few windows were still glowing with light. Others had already gone dark. Alsbans stood at the edge of the settlement for a while, watching the houses.

Eventually, he chose the house whose lamp had been the last to go out.

"Everyone must be asleep."

He approached quietly.

With every step, he looked around. Whenever a branch snapped beneath his feet, he froze, held his breath, and waited several seconds before moving again.

He slowly pushed the door open.

He stepped inside.

The house was dark.

For a moment, he could see nothing. Then his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He could hear the people sleeping inside, their breathing soft and steady.

Alsbans's heart began to race.

He had never entered another person's home like this before.

For a moment, he thought about turning back.

Then his stomach growled.

That sound made the decision for him.

He quietly made his way into the kitchen.

He found where the food was stored.

He took a piece of bread.

Then another.

For a moment, he stared at the bread in his hands.

"No one is going to die because of this," he whispered.

He took a little more food and placed everything into a bag.

Then, as quietly as he had entered, he slipped outside.

He closed the door.

For several seconds, he simply stood there.

No one had woken up.

No one had seen him.

Alsbans took a deep breath.

Then he ran.

He disappeared into the darkness.

He looked back several times, but he could not see anyone following him. Still, he did not stop.

He ran until his legs could carry him no farther.

When he was far enough from the settlement, he hid among the bushes. He looked around carefully.

No one would find him here.

He opened the bag.

He took out the bread.

For a moment, he simply stared at it.

Then he began to eat.

Quickly.

As though someone might come and take it away from him.

He barely finished one bite before reaching for another, trying not to let even the smallest crumbs fall to the ground.

That night, for the first time in a long while, he felt the emptiness inside his stomach slowly disappear.

When the food was gone, he leaned his back against a tree.

His eyes grew heavy.

"I'm not a bad person," he whispered.

This time, he said it more quietly.

Perhaps even he did not believe it.

But he had no strength left to say anything else.

He closed his eyes.

And fell asleep.

When morning came, Alsbans first felt the warmth of the sun against his face.

Then he heard a voice.

"He's awake."

Alsbans's eyes opened instantly.

He sat upright.

And froze.

There were people standing around him.

Not one.

Not two.

Almost the entire settlement was there.

Alsbans could barely breathe.

His bag lay beside him.

Empty.

Not a single piece of food remained.

But it no longer mattered.

Because they had found him.

Alsbans slowly backed away.

"What do you want?"

No one answered.

There was anger on their faces.

Some looked at him with contempt.

Others simply looked curious.

Finally, an old man stepped forward.

He stopped in front of Alsbans.

"Are you ready to be ashamed, young man?"

Alsbans frowned.

"Why should I be ashamed? What did I do?"

The man's expression did not change.

"You stole our food."

Alsbans's eyes dropped to the ground for a moment.

Then he looked back at the man.

"You wouldn't have given me any if I had asked!"

His voice rose.

"You wouldn't have!"

Several people in the crowd exchanged glances.

But the old man remained calm.

"No," he said. "Perhaps we would have."

Alsbans fell silent.

"Sometimes a person does not want to take what they need by force. Sometimes they simply do not know how to ask. And sometimes they are afraid of being refused, so they choose the easier path."

The man took a step closer.

"But whatever the reason, what you did has consequences."

Alsbans clenched his fists.

"I was hungry."

"I know."

"I haven't eaten properly for days."

"I know."

"Then why are you here?"

The old man stared at him for a long moment.

"Because being hungry does not change what you did."

The anger slowly disappeared from Alsbans's face.

Fear took its place.

The man glanced back at the others, then turned toward Alsbans again.

"But we will give you a choice, young man."

Alsbans looked at him in confusion.

"What choice?"

The man's voice became colder.

"You can stay with us."

A brief silence followed.

"You will do all the work we do. You will work. And in return, you will be allowed to live."

Alsbans frowned.

"So..."

The man finished the sentence.

"You will be our slave."

Alsbans's expression changed instantly.

"What?"

The people behind the man watched in silence.

"Or..."

The man paused.

"We kill you here."

Alsbans's eyes widened.

"No..."

His voice was no longer angry.

It was frightened.

"No. What do you mean?"

He took a step backward.

"A slave?"

The man said nothing.

Alsbans shook his head.

"I'm not a slave."

"Then choose the other option."

Alsbans looked around.

For the first time, he truly felt alone.

Trixalisse was gone.

Jelin was gone.

There was no one left to protect him.

And when he searched the people's eyes for mercy, he found none.

"I..."

His voice trembled.

"I don't want to be a slave."

The man shrugged.

"Then make your choice."

Alsbans could not answer.

For a while, he simply stared at the ground.

Finally, the man turned away.

"Then the young man has made his choice."

The crowd slowly began to disperse.

Alsbans remained where he was, unable to move.

As the people passed him, one of them suddenly stopped.

He leaned toward Alsbans's ear.

"Don't worry," he whispered. "They won't kill you."

Then he walked away as if nothing had happened.

Alsbans stared after him.

"What...?"

The man had already disappeared into the crowd.

Someone at the front turned around and shouted,

"Come on! Follow us!"

Alsbans did not move.

The man shouted again.

"Where are you, young man?"

Alsbans lifted his head.

For a moment, he watched them.

Then, slowly, he stood.

He lowered his head.

And began walking after them.

But there was something no one noticed.

Alsbans's hands had tightened into fists.

And in that moment, for the first time in his life, he began to understand just how precious freedom truly was.

Chapter 4: A Place to Belong

As the days passed, Alsbans began to understand that life was not made of suffering alone.

In the beginning, he woke each morning with the same thought: how he might escape.

Every day among the people of Fenis felt like a day taken from him by force. He did the work they gave him, listened when they spoke, and obeyed when he had to, but none of it felt like his own choice.

To him, they were simply the people who had made him a slave.

And perhaps, in those first days, he had every reason to see them that way.

But days became weeks, and weeks slowly turned into months.

And something strange began to happen.

No one treated him like a slave anymore.

When he woke in the morning, there was no one standing over him waiting to give him orders. Instead, someone would call him to breakfast.

When he worked, the others did not merely tell him what to do. They showed him how to do it.

And when evening came, no one sent him away from the others.

They made room for him beside the fire.

At first, Alsbans did not understand it.

Perhaps he did not want to.

Hating someone was easy.

But when the person you hated began treating you with kindness, hatred became far more difficult to hold onto.

Little by little, Alsbans stopped feeling like a slave among them.

He began to feel like a friend.

No one announced the change.

No one stood before him one morning and said, You are one of us now.

It happened quietly.

One day, he realized he was laughing with them.

Another day, someone asked what he thought before making a decision.

Once, a child ran toward him, grabbed his hand, and pulled him toward the others without the slightest hesitation.

Alsbans had stared at the child for a moment.

He isn't afraid of me.

Perhaps that was what had truly changed.

People were no longer afraid of him.

And Alsbans was slowly learning not to be afraid of them.

He began to love the place.

He tried to live as they lived, to understand what they understood, to learn what they knew.

But there was something else happening inside him.

Something he did not yet recognize.

Alsbans was not only learning about their world.

He was learning about himself.

He had no idea how much potential existed within him.

He did not even think of it as talent.

He was simply curious.

And perhaps the thing Alsbans loved most in the world was learning.

If he did not know something, he asked.

If he did not understand the answer, he asked again.

If one person's answer was not enough, he found another person.

Sometimes he asked so many questions that people laughed and sent him away.

The next morning, Alsbans would return.

And ask another.

He learned to fight.

In the beginning, he swung a sword with nothing but anger. To him, strength meant striking harder than the person standing in front of him.

Over time, he learned that strength was something else entirely.

He learned where to place his feet.

He learned to notice the smallest movement of an opponent's shoulder and understand where the next attack would come from.

He learned when to strike.

More importantly, he learned when not to.

He learned to read.

At first, letters had looked like meaningless marks scratched across a page.

Then those marks became words.

Words became sentences.

And sentences opened doors to worlds he had never known existed.

One day, Alsbans closed a book and stared at its cover for a long time.

The thought fascinated him.

A person could die, disappear from the world for hundreds of years, and yet still speak to someone through the words they had left behind.

He learned to write.

He learned to take the thoughts trapped inside his mind and leave them on paper.

He learned to think.

He began to understand people not only through what they said, but through what they chose not to say.

He learned how to grow.

How to lose.

Sometimes, how to forget.

Sometimes, how to remember.

And perhaps the most difficult thing he had ever learned...

was how to be loved.

Alsbans had known what it was like for people to need him.

But he had never understood that someone could remain beside him without needing anything from him at all.

He had never truly believed that someone might love him simply because he was himself.

In Trixalisse, they had cared for him.

Jelin had protected him.

But everything that happened afterward had tied love and fear together inside his heart.

Whenever Alsbans loved someone, a part of him expected them to leave.

That was why trusting the people of Fenis had taken so long.

He expected every good thing to end.

But the days continued to pass.

And no one left.

The child who had once stolen their food and stood trembling before them had become a young man known by everyone in the settlement.

Children ran toward him when they saw him.

The elderly invited him to sit beside the fire and listen to stories of times long gone.

The young trained with him, worked beside him, argued with him, and laughed with him.

The boy people once watched with suspicion had become someone they were happy to see.

And time did not stop for him.

Alsbans was growing.

The last traces of childhood were slowly disappearing from his face.

He was becoming a young man.

He was handsome, of average height, with striking blue eyes. People sometimes told him so, though Alsbans rarely cared much about his appearance.

Other things interested him far more.

Questions.

Conversation.

Knowledge.

He could sit across from someone and speak for hours.

Perhaps his favorite word had always been:

Why?

Why do people fight?

Why are we afraid?

Why do we love?

Why do some people become good while others become cruel?

And perhaps the question that interested him most was this:

Can a person truly change?

One evening, he and his closest friend, Cesa, sat outside the settlement.

The sun was slowly disappearing behind the trees, and the color of the sky was growing darker.

Cesa had been watching Alsbans for some time.

Eventually, he broke the silence.

"How are you, Alsbans?"

Alsbans looked at him.

"I'm fine."

Cesa waited.

He knew Alsbans too well to believe that would be the entire answer.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, Alsbans continued.

"But I feel strange."

"Strange how?"

Alsbans pulled his knees closer to himself and stared into the distance.

"I feel as though my life is somewhere else."

Cesa frowned.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

Alsbans searched for the right words.

"It feels like everything is moving so quickly."

"Everything does move."

"No. That's not what I mean."

Alsbans shook his head.

"People are growing. Things are changing. Everyone seems to know where they are going. Something happens every day. Everyone keeps moving forward."

He fell silent for a moment.

"But sometimes I feel as though I've stopped."

Cesa watched him.

Alsbans continued.

"As though the entire world is passing in front of me while I'm standing in the same place."

Cesa smiled faintly.

"You know something, Alsbans?"

"What?"

"Maybe we're all like that."

Alsbans turned toward him.

"All of us?"

"Yes."

Cesa picked up a small stone from the ground and turned it between his fingers.

"Sometimes we run."

He threw the stone into the distance.

"Sometimes we walk."

Then he looked at Alsbans.

"And sometimes we stop."

"Isn't that a bad thing?"

"Who said it was?"

Alsbans had no answer.

Cesa shrugged.

"Maybe sometimes a person has to stop before he can understand where he's going."

Alsbans thought about it for a few seconds.

Then he smiled.

"You might be right."

"I am right."

"And how are you so sure?"

"Because I said it."

Alsbans laughed.

Before he could answer, a voice came from the settlement.

"CESA! ALSBANS!"

They both turned.

Kesal was calling them.

"Food is ready! Where have you two been?"

Cesa immediately stood.

"Run."

Alsbans looked at him.

"Why?"

"Because if we're late, everyone else will eat the best food."

Cesa started running.

Alsbans shouted after him.

"That's cheating!"

"Life isn't fair!"

Laughing, Alsbans ran after him.

They reached the others together.

That evening, the tables seemed more crowded than usual.

Food had been placed everywhere. People sat beside one another, conversations overlapping as laughter rose from one side of the table and arguments from another.

Alsbans sat beside Cesa.

Everything seemed normal.

Then Kesal stood.

He held a cup in one hand.

With a spoon, he struck it gently.

The conversations slowly faded.

Kesal looked around.

"People of Fenis!"

Everyone turned toward him.

"Today is an important day."

The people at the tables exchanged confused looks.

Alsbans looked at Cesa.

Cesa shrugged.

Kesal continued.

"Today, someone new will join us."

Whispers immediately spread across the tables.

"Someone new?"

"Who?"

"Did someone come here?"

"I didn't see anyone."

Cesa leaned toward Alsbans.

"What's happening?"

Alsbans shook his head.

"Why are you asking me? I don't know either."

No one at the table seemed to understand.

Kesal watched their confusion for a moment.

Then his eyes settled on one person.

"Alsbans."

The whispers stopped.

Alsbans looked around before pointing toward himself.

"Me?"

Kesal smiled.

"Yes. You. Come here."

Alsbans slowly stood.

He had no idea what was happening.

Everyone was watching him.

He walked toward Kesal.

"What happened?"

For several seconds, Kesal said nothing.

Then he placed a hand on Alsbans's shoulder.

"Alsbans."

His voice was calm, but serious.

"Do you remember the first day you came here?"

How could Alsbans forget?

He remembered waking among the bushes.

The people surrounding him.

The fear.

The bread he had stolen.

And the two choices they had given him.

He nodded slowly.

"I remember."

"We gave you a choice."

The smile disappeared from Alsbans's face.

Kesal continued.

"You would work for us."

A short silence followed.

"And you would be our slave."

No one at the table spoke.

Alsbans looked into Kesal's eyes.

He could still feel the man's hand resting on his shoulder.

"But today..."

A small smile appeared on Kesal's face.

"You are no longer a slave."

Alsbans did not move.

It was as though he had heard the words but his mind had not yet understood them.

Kesal stepped slightly closer.

"From this day forward, you are not merely a young man who happens to live among us."

He raised his cup.

"You are a free man."

Alsbans's eyes widened.

Then Kesal raised his voice so that everyone could hear him.

"You are now a true Humpellian."

For a single moment, there was complete silence.

Then everything erupted at once.

People rose from their seats.

Cups were lifted into the air.

Voices filled the settlement.

"ALSBANS!"

Cesa jumped from his seat and wrapped his arms around him.

"I knew it!"

Alsbans still did not know what to say.

People slapped him on the back, embraced him, shouted his name, and laughed with such joy that some of them looked almost like children.

But in the middle of all that noise, Alsbans suddenly heard nothing.

Only Kesal's words remained inside his mind.

You are no longer a slave.

He was free.

Alsbans closed his eyes.

He remembered the days when he had thought death would be better than remaining in this place.

He remembered how deeply he had hated these people.

The nights he had imagined escaping.

Then he thought of Cesa.

Of Kesal.

Of the words he had learned.

The first sword he had held.

The first book he had read.

The first evening someone had moved aside and made room for him at the table.

They were all pieces of the same life.

And that night, Alsbans understood something important.

Becoming someone new did not mean he had to kill the person he had once been.

The child from Trixalisse was still him.

The child who had screamed at Jelin was still him.

The child who escaped death inside the cave was still him.

The child who stole food was still him.

The slave was still him.

And the young man now standing before everyone was still him.

They were all Alsbans.

He could not erase his past.

Perhaps he was never supposed to.

Because the new Alsbans had not been born from the destruction of the old one.

He had been built upon him.

That night, he understood that everything he had learned had to stand beside everything he had once been.

His pain.

His anger.

His fears.

The people he had loved.

The people he had hated.

Everything he had lost.

Everything he had found.

The old Alsbans and the new Alsbans were no longer two different people.

They were one.

And perhaps that was what growing up truly meant.

Not escaping your past...

but becoming strong enough to carry it with you.

Chapter 5: The Price of Brotherhood

Alsbans was no longer a child.

The years he had spent in Fenis had changed more than his face and body. They had changed the way he looked at people, the way he spoke, the way he walked, even the way he remained silent.

The boy who had once been caught stealing food and forced to choose between death and slavery had grown into a young man.

And according to the traditions of Fenis, another time had come for him.

The time to find a partner.

In Fenis, reaching the age when a young man was expected to seek a companion was no ordinary occasion. On that day, the men dressed more carefully than usual, fixed their hair, wore the finest clothes they owned, and stood before the women hoping to leave the best impression they could.

Some tried to display their strength.

Some their wealth.

Some their intelligence.

Others simply tried to be themselves.

Alsbans found the whole tradition rather strange.

He stood before a mirror for a long time while getting ready.

He brushed back his blond hair and put on one of the finest outfits he had been given.

Against the pale fabric, his blue eyes appeared even brighter.

Cesa was already waiting outside and had begun to lose his patience.

"Alsbans!"

"I'm coming."

"You've said that three times."

Alsbans opened the door.

Cesa looked at him.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Alsbans raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

Cesa shook his head.

"Nothing."

"You were about to say something."

"No."

"Cesa."

Cesa sighed.

"I'm going to hate you today."

Alsbans laughed.

"Why?"

"You'll understand soon enough."

They walked toward the square together.

And it did not take long for Alsbans to understand what Cesa had meant.

Young men had gathered on one side of the square, while the women stood on the other. People talked, laughed, and studied one another from across the open space.

But when Alsbans entered the square, several conversations stopped.

A few heads turned toward him.

Then a few more.

And soon, almost everyone was looking.

When Alsbans noticed, he leaned awkwardly toward Cesa.

"Why is everyone staring at me?"

Cesa did not even look at him.

"I told you."

"Told me what?"

"That I was going to hate you today."

Alsbans laughed.

"You're exaggerating."

He was not.

There was hardly a woman among them who did not find Alsbans attractive.

The other young men had prepared for this day for months. They had worn their finest clothes and done everything they could to stand out.

Yet most of the attention had settled on Alsbans.

Cesa folded his arms.

"Wonderful."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"You're lying again."

"I'm having the greatest day of my life, Alsbans."

Alsbans laughed.

"I can tell."

When the choices were made, the result was hardly surprising.

Alsbans had been chosen by far the greatest number of women.

Cesa was among the most popular as well, but beside Alsbans, the attention he received seemed almost insignificant.

Everyone assumed the competition was already over.

Then Kesal stepped forward.

He raised a hand.

"Wait."

The crowd fell silent.

Kesal looked at the young men.

"It is easy to choose a person by looking at his face."

A few people smiled.

"But you will not spend your life looking only at his face."

He paused.

"You will see his anger."

"You will see his sorrow."

"You will see his silence."

"And years from now, when the beauty of his face has changed, what will remain is his mind and his soul."

Alsbans listened carefully.

Kesal smiled.

"So today, the winner will not be decided only by the women's choice."

The crowd stirred.

"This year, we will do something different."

Kesal pointed toward Alsbans and Cesa.

"The two men who received the most choices, come forward."

Cesa looked at Alsbans.

"Of course."

Alsbans smiled and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Come on, soul brother."

They walked to the center of the square.

They were seated opposite one another.

Kesal turned toward the crowd.

"Everyone, close your eyes."

People exchanged confused looks.

"Close them."

This time, everyone obeyed.

Kesal continued.

"Now you will not judge beauty."

"You will only listen."

"Each of them will speak one short poem. It does not need to be long."

Cesa opened his eyes.

"Who starts?"

Kesal looked at him.

"You."

"Why me?"

A few people in the crowd laughed.

Kesal answered without hesitation.

"Because fewer people chose you."

Laughter erupted.

Cesa lowered his head.

"Thank you, Kesal."

Alsbans bit his lip, trying not to laugh.

Cesa looked at him.

"Don't laugh too much."

Then he took a deep breath.

He thought for a moment.

And spoke.

"The meaning is not hidden in books written about love.

It is hidden in the worth of every sentence you read."

The crowd remained silent.

Kesal nodded.

"Good."

Then he looked at Alsbans.

"Your turn, Alsbans."

Cesa turned toward him.

"Let's hear it, soul brother."

Alsbans closed his eyes.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then he spoke.

"With every breath I take,

let your scent become the air inside me.

And tonight...

let us become

the song sung by the stars."

A few quiet breaths could be heard from the crowd.

Alsbans opened his eyes.

Cesa was staring at him.

Alsbans smiled.

"Soul brother."

Cesa raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"You can't defeat my heart."

Cesa's smile disappeared.

"Come on," Alsbans said. "Your turn."

This time, Cesa spoke more seriously.

The warmth in his voice had been replaced by the beginning of anger.

"I am a lonely man

waiting at the edge of your lips.

And wherever I may fall...

every place I fall

becomes your heart."

The crowd reacted more loudly this time.

Alsbans looked at his friend.

Cesa really was good.

But the small smile on Alsbans's face only irritated him further.

Alsbans leaned forward.

"Then I want you to know something, soul brother..."

He paused.

The playfulness disappeared from his voice.

"The greatest pain

is to be abandoned while you still love."

Cesa looked at him.

Alsbans continued.

"Not once...

but twice."

For a moment, he remembered Jelin.

He remembered Trixalisse.

He remembered standing in the darkness and listening to the people he had once loved speak as though his death meant nothing.

"Not dying once...

but twice."

The crowd had become completely silent.

Alsbans did not take his eyes from Cesa.

"And I think tonight...

I will die here once again."

Cesa was about to answer.

But Kesal raised his hand.

"Enough."

Cesa fell silent.

Kesal turned toward the crowd.

"In that case..."

"Everyone choose your side."

One by one, the people made their choice.

One side for Cesa.

The other for Alsbans.

At first, the numbers seemed close.

Then Alsbans's side began to grow.

One person.

Then another.

Then another.

Until the result became undeniable.

Alsbans had won.

The crowd applauded.

Alsbans rose with a smile.

The first person he looked toward was Cesa.

But Cesa was not smiling.

He stood.

Without saying a word to anyone, he began walking away from the crowd.

Alsbans immediately tried to follow him.

But Kesal caught him by the wrist.

"Wait."

"Cesa is leaving."

"Let him."

Alsbans watched his friend disappear into the distance.

Kesal turned toward him.

"Now it is your turn."

"My turn for what?"

Kesal gestured toward the women.

"Who do you choose?"

The conversations in the square stopped again.

Everyone looked at Alsbans.

Alsbans looked toward the women.

Then toward the direction Cesa had gone.

He thought for a moment.

"No one."

Kesal frowned.

"What?"

"I'm choosing no one."

Angry murmurs rose from the crowd.

"So many people chose you!"

"Are you insulting us?"

"What do you mean, no one?"

Alsbans did not answer.

Suddenly, he turned and ran.

"Alsbans!"

Kesal shouted after him.

But Alsbans was already gone.

He caught up with Cesa.

He grabbed him by the arm.

"Soul brother."

Cesa pulled his arm away.

"Leave me alone."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"You're lying again."

Cesa stopped.

Slowly, he turned toward Alsbans.

There was an anger in his eyes that Alsbans had rarely seen before.

"You stole what should have been mine."

Alsbans stared at him.

"What?"

"You took it from me!"

"Cesa, it was only a competition."

"For you, maybe."

Cesa struck his own chest.

"For me, it wasn't."

Alsbans fell silent.

Cesa shook his head.

"Go."

"Where?"

"Go choose the most beautiful one."

"I chose no one."

"How noble of you."

"Cesa—"

"We are brothers, aren't we?"

Alsbans answered without hesitation.

"Yes."

Cesa laughed bitterly.

Then he shouted:

"You aren't even from here, Alsbans!"

Every expression vanished from Alsbans's face.

Cesa realized the weight of what he had said.

But it was already too late.

"What did you say?"

Cesa was breathing heavily.

Anger had spoken before thought could stop it.

"Go!"

"Cesa..."

"Go choose the most beautiful girl!"

His voice rose even higher.

"And then don't come back!"

Alsbans said nothing.

For a moment, Fenis disappeared.

Cesa disappeared.

The years disappeared.

Alsbans was a child again.

The child standing alone at the edge of Trixalisse.

The child no one wanted.

The child sealed inside a cave.

The child who had listened from the shadows as the people who raised him spoke as though his death meant nothing.

You aren't even from here.

Those words hurt more than everything else Cesa had said.

Because Cesa was his closest friend.

The person he called his soul brother.

The closest thing Alsbans had ever had to a real brother.

And now that person was telling him that he did not belong.

Alsbans's lips moved slightly.

But no words came.

Cesa turned away.

He began to walk.

Alsbans did not stop him.

He simply watched him disappear.

That night, both of them returned to their homes.

When morning came, a strange silence hung over Fenis.

No one knew exactly what had happened.

But everyone could feel that something had changed.

Alsbans did not leave his house.

He did not answer anyone who came to his door.

Even when food was brought to him, he pretended not to hear.

Kesal knocked several times.

"Alsbans."

No answer.

"Open the door."

Still nothing.

Eventually, Kesal left.

He went to Cesa's home.

The same silence greeted him there.

"Cesa."

No answer.

Kesal shook his head.

"You're both idiots."

Then he walked away.

Hours passed.

The sun had climbed high into the sky as noon approached.

But that day, noon suddenly became night in Fenis.

First came the sound of horses.

Then dust.

Then shouting.

"SOLDIERS!"

People rushed out of their homes.

Within minutes, the square was full.

At the entrance to Fenis stood soldiers of Meras.

There were many of them.

Their armor shone beneath the sun.

Their weapons were ready.

Kesal stepped forward.

"What do you want?"

One of the soldiers moved his horse several steps closer.

"Kesal."

Kesal said nothing.

The soldier pulled out a scroll.

"By the great command of Meras."

Silence settled over the square.

"Every man capable of holding a weapon will come to Meras."

Kesal's expression hardened.

The soldier continued.

"For the war."

Kesal looked at the people around him.

Fenis was small.

Very small.

Nearly all of its young men were already standing there.

"We cannot."

The soldier raised an eyebrow.

"What did you say?"

"We cannot."

Kesal raised his voice.

"There are already too few of us. If you take every man from this place, there will be no people left here to survive."

The soldier watched him for a moment.

Then shrugged.

"Very well."

Kesal hesitated.

Was it really going to be that simple?

At that moment, Cesa stepped out of his house.

He had not slept the entire night.

His anger was gone.

All that remained was shame for the words he had spoken.

He wanted to find Alsbans.

He would knock on his door and apologize.

Perhaps Alsbans would send him away.

Perhaps he would not even look at him.

But Cesa needed to say it.

You aren't even from here.

Those words had echoed through his mind all night.

"What have I done?" he had whispered to himself.

When he stepped outside, he saw the soldiers gathered in the square.

He stopped.

One of them noticed him.

"You!"

Cesa began walking toward the square.

Kesal looked at him.

"Cesa, go back."

But it was too late.

One of Meras's soldiers lifted his bow.

Before anyone understood what he was doing, he drew the string.

Kesal shouted.

"STOP!"

The arrow was released.

Its flight was almost silent.

It struck Cesa.

Cesa stumbled backward.

He looked down.

He saw the arrow.

Then his knees gave way beneath him.

The square erupted into screams.

"CESA!"

People began running.

Some dragged children back toward the houses.

Others reached for weapons.

A woman screamed.

Kesal drew his sword.

And at that moment, Alsbans stepped outside his home.

He had heard the shouting.

At first, he had refused to leave.

Then he heard a name.

Cesa.

Alsbans looked toward the square.

He saw someone lying on the ground among the people.

There was blood on the pale earth.

And it took him only a second to understand who it was.

"Cesa..."

He ran.

"CESA!"

He pushed through the crowd and dropped to his knees beside him.

Cesa was still breathing.

Barely.

Alsbans pulled him into his arms.

"No."

Cesa struggled to open his eyes.

"Soul..."

"Don't speak."

Alsbans saw the arrow.

"We can fix this."

Cesa shook his head weakly.

"Alsbans."

"Be quiet."

"Listen."

"No."

Alsbans's voice trembled.

"Don't speak. I'll carry you. We'll find someone."

Cesa managed the faintest smile.

"For once...

you're asking very few questions."

Alsbans's eyes filled with tears.

"Shut up."

Cesa struggled for another breath.

"Yesterday..."

Alsbans shook his head.

"We are not talking about yesterday."

"We are."

Cesa's voice was growing weaker.

"I'm sorry."

Alsbans closed his eyes.

"I know."

"No."

Cesa slowly lifted his hand.

Alsbans took it.

"I need you to know."

One breath.

Then another.

"You belong here."

A tear fell from Alsbans's eye.

Cesa continued.

"I was...

angry."

"I know."

"You are my..."

His voice disappeared.

Alsbans leaned closer.

"I'm your what?"

Cesa smiled faintly.

"My soul brother."

Alsbans tightened his grip on his hand.

"And you're mine."

Cesa's eyes began to close.

"Forgive me."

Alsbans did not hesitate.

"I forgive you."

A faint sense of peace crossed Cesa's face.

Then his hand became heavy inside Alsbans's.

"Cesa?"

No answer.

"Cesa."

Alsbans shook him gently.

"Soul brother."

Silence.

"Cesa!"

The sounds of the square disappeared for Alsbans.

The angry words they had exchanged the night before meant nothing now.

The competition.

The women.

The poems.

Who had won.

None of it mattered.

Alsbans slowly lowered Cesa's body to the ground.

Then he stood.

The grief did not leave his face.

But something else rose beneath it.

Rage.

He picked up the sword lying on the ground.

He looked toward the soldier of Meras.

The man who had fired the arrow was still standing there.

Alsbans began walking toward him.

Kesal shouted:

"Alsbans!"

Alsbans did not stop.

The soldier drew his sword.

Alsbans ran.

The first clash came in the middle of the square.

The sound of steel echoed between the houses of Fenis.

Then everything began.

The people of Fenis reached for their weapons.

The soldiers of Meras dismounted.

A bloody battle erupted.

Alsbans had fought many times before.

But never like this.

This time, he was not fighting to prove something.

He was not even fighting simply to survive.

Cesa lay dead only a few steps behind him.

Alsbans saw him with every strike.

A soldier rushed toward him.

Alsbans blocked the attack.

Turned.

Struck back.

The man fell.

Another came.

Then another.

The people of Fenis were few.

But they knew their homes.

They knew their streets.

They knew one another.

And they knew exactly what they stood to lose.

The battle did not last long.

But to them, it felt like hours.

At last, not a single soldier of Meras remained standing.

Silence returned.

But it was not the silence of the morning.

This time, bodies lay upon the ground.

People of Fenis.

Alsbans let his sword fall.

He wanted to turn back toward Cesa.

Then someone shouted.

"Kesal!"

Alsbans ran.

Kesal was leaning against the wall of a house.

A deep wound had opened across his stomach.

The people beside him were trying to stop the bleeding.

Alsbans dropped to his knees.

"Kesal."

Kesal looked at him.

Strangely, he smiled.

"So you came."

"Don't speak."

Kesal laughed weakly.

"Everyone keeps telling me not to speak today."

Alsbans looked at the wound.

"We can close this."

"No."

"Kesal—"

"Alsbans."

Something in Kesal's voice changed.

Alsbans fell silent.

Kesal drew a deep breath.

"Listen to me."

"I'm listening."

"Fenis cannot remain here."

Alsbans looked around.

There were bodies.

There were wounded people.

Children were crying.

Kesal continued.

"Meras will return."

Alsbans already knew.

When these soldiers failed to return, others would come.

More of them.

Perhaps hundreds.

"Get the people out of here."

"Where?"

Kesal answered.

"Legacy."

Alsbans looked at him.

He had heard that name before.

"Legacy?"

"You may have a chance there."

Kesal closed his eyes.

Then opened them again.

"And one more thing."

Alsbans held his hand.

"What?"

Kesal looked at him for a long time.

As if he were searching the young man's face for the child who had once stolen food from them.

Perhaps he could still see him.

"You are the new leader of Fenis."

Alsbans froze.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"No."

Alsbans immediately shook his head.

"I can't."

Kesal smiled faintly.

"Good."

Alsbans stared at him.

"What's good about that?"

"I would never make someone a leader if he were certain he could do it."

Alsbans's eyes filled with tears.

"Kesal..."

"Be afraid for your people."

Alsbans frowned.

Kesal continued.

"Be afraid for their lives. Be afraid of the wrong choices you might make. Be afraid of losing them."

His breathing grew heavier.

"But never let fear make your decisions for you."

He tightened his grip on Alsbans's hand.

"Take them to Legacy."

"You are coming too."

Kesal did not answer.

"Kesal."

Silence.

"You are coming too."

Kesal's eyes slowly closed.

Alsbans did not release his hand.

For the second time that day, the hand of someone he loved became heavy inside his own.

Alsbans lowered his head.

He wanted to cry.

For Cesa.

For Kesal.

For himself.

But when he looked around, he saw that everyone was watching him.

Children.

Women.

Wounded men.

The elderly.

All of them were afraid.

And for the first time...

they were all waiting to hear what Alsbans would say.

Slowly, he stood.

For a moment, he could not speak.

Then he remembered Kesal's final words.

Take them to Legacy.

Alsbans drew a deep breath.

"Listen to me!"

The people fell silent.

"We cannot stay here."

Someone began to cry.

Alsbans continued.

"The soldiers of Meras will return. When the men who came here fail to return, more will come in their place."

A man asked:

"What are we going to do?"

Alsbans looked toward the distance.

Then he answered.

"Everyone takes only what they can carry."

"Food."

"Water."

"Weapons."

"Whatever the children need."

A woman asked:

"Where are we going?"

Alsbans remained silent for a moment.

Then, for the first time in his life, he gave an order that would change the fate of an entire people.

"Legacy."

Whispers spread through the crowd.

Alsbans raised his voice.

"We leave slowly and together. No one travels alone. We leave no wounded person behind."

Then he looked toward the center of the square.

Cesa was still there.

The night before, he had told Alsbans:

Don't come back.

And only hours later, with his final breath:

You belong here.

Alsbans closed his eyes.

Then opened them again.

He was no longer crying.

The people of Fenis began to prepare.

Doors opened for the last time.

Food was packed into sacks.

Children held tightly to their mothers' hands.

The wounded were lifted onto horses.

Quiet prayers were spoken for the dead.

And Alsbans stood in the center of the settlement while everyone prepared.

Only yesterday, he had been a young man expected to choose a partner.

Today, he was deciding where an entire people would go.

Sometimes life did not give a person years in which to grow.

Sometimes it gave them only a single day.

Alsbans looked at Fenis one last time.

Then he moved to the front of the road.

"When you're ready..."

He looked back at the people behind him.

His people now.

"We leave."

And so the people of Fenis abandoned their homes and began their journey toward Legacy.

Alsbans walked at the front.

Cesa was no longer beside him.

Kesal's voice no longer followed from behind.

But he carried both of them with him.

One had taught him what brotherhood meant.

The other had taught him what it meant to carry the lives of others.

That day, Alsbans had failed to find a partner.

Instead, he had lost a brother...

lost a leader...

and inherited something he had never asked for.

The fate of a people.

Chapter 6: The Red Ink of Fate

Everyone followed behind Alsbans.

The farther they walked, the farther the end of the road seemed to move away from them.

They had been traveling for days, yet none of them truly knew where they were going.

Legacy existed on their maps.

It existed in the stories told by the elderly.

And Kesal, with his final breath, had told them to go there.

But no one among the people of Fenis had ever been to Legacy.

None of them had seen its lands.

None of them even knew whether they would be accepted when they arrived.

Perhaps the gates would be closed before them.

Perhaps, while fleeing the soldiers of Meras, they would find themselves standing before another enemy.

Perhaps Legacy was nothing more than a hopeful story people had repeated for generations because reality was too cruel to bear.

Still, they kept walking.

Because there was nothing left behind them to return to.

Sometimes people did not move forward because they knew where they were going.

Sometimes they walked simply because there was nowhere left to go back to.

And the people of Fenis had become exactly that kind of people.

When evening came, they stopped in a clearing deep within the forest.

Over the course of the journey, they had created a simple routine.

Women and children slept close to the fires.

Some of the men slept while the others kept watch.

After several hours, they changed places. Those who had been awake finally rested, while the others rose to guard the camp.

No one ever truly relaxed.

Every sound from the forest resembled the footsteps of a soldier.

Whenever a branch snapped, someone lifted his head.

Every distant cry of an animal made the children move a little closer to their mothers.

Alsbans remained among them.

He did not ask for a separate place to sleep.

He did not keep the best food for himself.

When his turn came to stand watch, he stood like everyone else.

One of the men once told him,

"You should rest. Tomorrow, you must lead us again."

Alsbans shook his head.

"My exhaustion is no more important than yours."

Another man said,

"But you are our leader now."

Alsbans looked at him.

"That does not make my life more valuable than yours."

He meant those words.

He did not want the people merely to hear them.

He wanted them to see them.

He slept on the same ground.

Drank from the same water.

Shared the same bread.

Feared the same darkness.

Their fate had become one.

And perhaps that was the first duty of a true leader:

to walk ahead of his people without ever believing he stood above them.

That night, the sky was almost completely black.

The fires had grown weak.

Most of the children were asleep.

Even the quiet conversations among the adults slowly disappeared.

But fear remained.

No one spoke about it.

They did not need to.

Everyone felt it.

What would happen tomorrow?

How much farther was Legacy?

Was Meras following them?

Would their food last?

How long could the wounded survive the journey?

In the middle of all those questions, the people had only one thing left.

Hope.

And that hope had a name.

Alsbans.

They believed in him.

And the more Alsbans understood how deeply they believed in him, the heavier that belief became.

Sometimes, he believed in himself too.

Sometimes, he truly thought he could do it.

They would reach Legacy.

He would protect his people.

He would carry the responsibility Kesal had placed upon him.

And then there were other nights.

Nights when everyone was asleep and a single question would return to him.

What if I cannot?

What if he was leading them in the wrong direction?

What if Legacy refused them?

What if Meras found them first?

What if Cesa would have been better at this than he was?

Alsbans sat beside the dying fire and looked toward the sky.

Stars could be seen between the branches above him.

One of them appeared brighter than all the others.

He stared at it for a long time.

There was something strange about it.

It did not seem merely to shine.

It seemed to watch him.

Then...

Alsbans heard a voice.

"Come."

He turned.

No one was there.

The guards stood far away.

None of the sleeping people had moved.

Alsbans looked back toward the sky.

"Alsbans..."

This time, the voice was clearer.

"Come."

He stood.

His heart began to beat faster.

For a moment, he considered telling the guards where he was going.

Then he changed his mind.

He did not know why.

He took his sword and quietly entered the forest.

The farther he walked between the trees, the smaller the fires behind him became.

Soon, all that remained of the Fenis camp was a distant orange glow.

Alsbans kept walking.

Leaves broke beneath his boots.

He had no idea where he was going.

And yet, strangely, he did not feel lost.

It felt as though he had walked this path before.

As though his body already knew every turn.

Eventually, he stopped before a large tree.

He looked up.

At first, the tree appeared no different from the others.

But the longer Alsbans stared at it, the more uneasy he became.

He knew this tree.

He was certain of it.

He simply could not remember from where.

Perhaps from a dream.

Perhaps from his childhood.

Perhaps he had never truly seen it at all.

Still, something deep inside him whispered:

You have seen this before.

Alsbans slowly reached toward the trunk.

Before his fingers touched the bark, a thin voice spoke from below.

"Humpellian."

Alsbans froze.

His hand immediately moved toward his sword.

"Who's there?"

Silence.

Then the voice came again.

"Humpellian, what do you seek in these woods?"

Alsbans looked down.

For several seconds, he could not speak.

A small turtle stood between the roots of the tree.

Alsbans looked around, expecting someone to be playing a trick on him.

"Who said that?"

The turtle lifted its head.

"I did."

Alsbans stepped backward.

The turtle had spoken.

It had actually spoken.

Alsbans had seen wizards in Trixalisse.

He had heard voices in the darkness that imitated his father's voice.

He had once touched a red rose and fallen into another place.

His life had never been ordinary.

But even after all of that, the sight of a small talking turtle felt like an omen.

The turtle watched him.

"Do not be afraid, Alsbans."

Alsbans tightened his hand around the hilt of his sword.

"No harm will come to you from me."

Alsbans frowned.

"I'm not afraid of you, turtle."

Something almost resembling a smile appeared on the creature's face.

"Of course not."

Alsbans grew irritated.

"We are going to Legacy."

The turtle said nothing.

"I'm saving my people."

"Ah, Alsbans..."

Alsbans's expression changed.

"Wait."

The turtle slowly raised its head.

"What is it?"

"How do you know my name?"

The turtle did not answer.

Instead, it asked another question.

"Do you believe everyone among your people is good, Alsbans?"

Alsbans narrowed his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you believe you know your people?"

"Of course I do."

"All of them?"

Alsbans did not answer.

The turtle began to move slowly between the roots of the tree.

"How important do you think this journey is, Alsbans?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think it is great?"

Alsbans remained silent.

The turtle turned its head toward him.

"Perhaps it is great to you."

Then it looked toward the sky.

"But in the book where your fate is written..."

It paused.

"This journey is nothing more than a small page."

Alsbans's anger slowly gave way to curiosity.

"What book?"

"The book of your fate."

Alsbans laughed.

But there was no amusement in it.

"So someone wrote my fate?"

"The gods."

The smile disappeared from Alsbans's face.

The turtle continued.

"The gods wrote your fate with their own hands."

"But..."

Its voice became quieter.

"One day, a drop of red ink fell upon the book."

Alsbans's breathing changed.

Red.

For a moment, he saw a rose in his mind.

A single flawless red rose.

The turtle continued.

"The drop spread."

"It erased a word."

"Then a sentence."

"Then a page."

"And eventually..."

The turtle looked directly at Alsbans.

"It erased the entire fate the gods had written for you."

Alsbans stared at it in silence.

The turtle continued.

"We gave you—"

"Stop."

Something had changed in Alsbans's voice.

The turtle fell silent.

Alsbans took several steps closer.

"Are you a god?"

The turtle did not answer.

"Are you one of them?"

Silence.

Alsbans's voice rose.

"Answer me!"

The turtle simply watched him.

And that look only made Alsbans angrier.

"If you are a god..."

His voice trembled.

"If all of this was truly your doing..."

Everything he had held inside for years began to rise at once.

"Where was my mother when I was a child?"

The turtle said nothing.

"Where was my father?"

Alsbans's eyes filled with tears.

"Why did I grow up without even knowing who they were?"

"Why was I left in Trixalisse?"

"Why did Jelin lock me inside that cave?"

"Why did Cesa die?"

"Why did Kesal die?"

Each question came louder than the one before.

"Did you write all of this?"

Alsbans looked toward the sky.

"Was this my fate?"

Then he looked back toward the turtle.

"Was leaving a child alone part of your plan?"

"Was taking everyone he loved away from him part of it too?"

He did not draw his sword.

But his hands were shaking.

"If you are gods..."

His voice was no longer loud.

That was worse.

It was broken.

"Why am I the one who has to pay for everything you wrote?"

For a long time, nothing happened.

Then the turtle spoke.

"You are always the same, Alsbans."

Alsbans frowned.

"What does that mean?"

"You always ask first."

The turtle paused.

"Then you become angry."

Alsbans said nothing.

The turtle lifted its head toward the sky.

"Fate does not have to follow what was written."

Alsbans remained silent.

"Your story was supposed to end well."

Alsbans looked at it.

"What?"

"A good life."

"People you loved."

"A home."

"An ending."

The turtle looked back at him.

"But you..."

For a long moment, it studied his eyes.

"You are different."

"Why?"

"Because you are the only one who can rewrite your fate from beginning to end."

Alsbans said nothing.

The sounds of the forest seemed to disappear around them.

"You were chosen, Alsbans."

Alsbans stared at the turtle for a long time.

Then he asked only one question.

"Why me?"

The turtle answered:

"Because you already made your choice."

Alsbans frowned in confusion.

"What choice?"

The turtle said nothing.

"What did I choose?"

Alsbans stepped closer.

"Tell me."

The turtle interrupted him.

"Your journey will be with the gods, Alsbans."

Alsbans fell silent.

"Do not be afraid."

Then the turtle spoke more firmly.

"But whatever happens, do not fear."

"Why?"

"Because when fear takes hold of you, the gods will no longer walk beside you."

Alsbans tried to understand.

The turtle continued.

"There is a long road ahead of you."

"You will have enemies."

"You will have friends."

"And sometimes, you will not know which is which."

Then it added, calmly:

"But this road..."

"You will cross it without receiving a single wound."

Alsbans's expression changed.

He looked at his own body.

Then toward the darkness behind him.

He thought of the camp.

The women.

The children.

The wounded.

The people of Fenis.

He immediately lifted his head.

"And what about my people?"

The turtle was gone.

Alsbans froze.

"Turtle?"

Silence.

He looked around the roots of the tree.

Nothing.

"Hey!"

He dropped to one knee.

"What about my people?"

No answer came.

Only the wind moved through the forest.

Alsbans slowly stood.

Had any of this truly happened?

Perhaps he was exhausted.

Perhaps the long journey and lack of sleep had finally begun to break his mind.

Then he noticed something near the roots of the tree.

Something small.

He bent down.

He touched it with one finger.

A tiny red stain.

It looked like ink.

Alsbans stared at it for a long time.

Then he closed his hand around it.

The turtle's final words echoed inside his mind.

You will cross this road without receiving a single wound.

Alsbans looked into the darkness of the forest.

But the one question that mattered most had still gone unanswered.

What about his people?

The first morning of the long and difficult journey had finally arrived.

The entire people of Fenis were ready.

The old, the young, the children… Everyone had looked back one last time at what they were leaving behind and accepted the uncertainty that stretched ahead of them. No one knew how long the road to Legacy would take. No one knew whether they would even be accepted once they arrived.

But they had to walk.

Alsbans walked at the very front.

Like a leader.

But not above his people.

Among them.

He ate the same food they did, slept on the same ground, stood beneath the same rain, and grew tired on the same road. He refused to let leadership mean a larger portion, a warmer place to sleep, or an easier night.

Kesal had entrusted the people to him.

Alsbans had quickly learned that this was not a title.

It meant carrying the lives of others on his shoulders.

The first day passed easily.

So did the first night.

The men hunted, the women cared for the children and the elderly, and whatever food they found was shared among the people. Fires were lit, guards were posted, and when morning came, they continued on.

But Alsbans was waiting.

The turtle’s words would not leave his mind.

He believed the gods would test them.

He did not know when.

He did not know how.

He only knew that when the trial came, he wanted every one of his people to survive it.

Sometimes, while walking, he turned and looked back at the people of Fenis.

The children.

The elderly.

The wounded.

The faces that followed him because they trusted him.

And he remembered the turtle’s final words.

You will cross this road without receiving a single wound.

But Alsbans did not care about his own body.

His question had never changed.

What about my people?

He did not know the answer.

Perhaps fate was no longer something the gods had already written for him.

Perhaps now he would write it himself.

It would become the story of a hero…

or the story of evil.

On the second night, the first problem began.

The men returned from hunting empty-handed.

For the first time, unease spread through the people.

“Alsbans, we have no food.”

“What are we going to do?”

“What will we give the children?”

Alsbans looked at what little food remained.

There was hardly enough.

“We endure,” he said. “Whatever we have, we share.”

But hunger had already begun to change people.

Some refused to share what they had.

Some hid the small pieces of food they still carried. Others turned their faces away so they would not have to look at someone else’s hunger.

Alsbans noticed.

He watched in silence.

And slowly, he began to understand.

Perhaps this was it.

Perhaps the gods’ first trial would be about food.

He gathered the people.

“Come together, my people.”

They slowly formed a circle around him.

They were tired.

They were hungry.

But they were still listening.

Alsbans looked at them.

“Soon, the gods will test us.”

Whispers immediately spread through the crowd.

“The gods?”

“What gods?”

Some were confused.

Others seemed frightened by the word itself.

After a moment, someone called out:

“And what will our first trial be about, Alsbans?”

Alsbans answered.

“Food.”

Their expressions changed.

“What kind of trial?”

“Are we supposed to starve?”

“Our babies too?”

“What about our elderly?”

Alsbans did not raise his voice.

“Trust me.”

The crowd went quiet.

“If you do what I tell you, nothing will happen to any of you.”

The weight of those words struck him as soon as he spoke them.

Because he was no longer making promises only for himself.

He was speaking for hundreds of lives.

Days passed.

Each night they went to sleep a little hungrier.

Each morning they woke a little weaker.

Their supplies grew smaller.

Eventually, almost nothing remained.

The people of Fenis began to wear down.

At night, the cries of hungry babies echoed between the fires. The elderly stopped more often while walking. Some children moved silently beside their mothers, holding tightly to their hands.

Even the adults had less strength left for conversation.

Nights followed days.

Days followed nights.

And the longer the road became, the longer hunger walked beside them.

Then one morning, they woke.

The first people to open their eyes could hardly believe what stood before them.

Lambs.

Goats.

Not one.

Not two.

A whole herd.

The animals stood there as though they had been waiting for them.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then people slowly began to rise.

For the first time in days, something other than exhaustion appeared on their faces.

Hope.

Some thought it was incredible luck.

Others did not hesitate at all.

“A gift from the gods!”

One man raised his voice.

“Wake up, people of Fenis! The gods have finally rewarded us for all the days we have gone hungry!”

People rose to their feet.

Some began walking toward the animals.

That was when Alsbans stepped forward.

“No.”

The crowd stopped.

For a moment, no one knew what to say.

Then several people turned toward him.

“Who are you to decide that, Alsbans?”

Another voice rose.

“Do you want our babies to die?”

“What about our elderly?”

“There is food standing right in front of us!”

Alsbans listened to their anger.

“This is a trial, my people of Fenis.”

Before he could finish, one of the oldest among them stepped forward.

The old man stood directly before him.

“You, Alsbans…”

The crowd fell silent.

“You have not forgotten the day you stole our food, have you?”

Voices of agreement rose from different parts of the crowd.

Alsbans did not answer immediately.

He thought.

Because the old man was not lying.

Once, he really had stolen their food.

He had been hungry.

Alone.

And at the time, he had tried to convince himself that what he did was justified.

At last, he looked at the old man.

“I have not forgotten.”

The voices quieted.

Alsbans continued.

“When someone takes what belongs to another and later repays that debt, the old wrong cannot remain a debt forever.”

The old man narrowed his eyes and listened.

Alsbans turned toward the crowd.

“If the person you wronged chooses to trust you again after you have made things right, then what remains is no longer only a repaid debt.”

He paused.

“That trust becomes a gift.”

Then his voice hardened.

“I stole your food. You gave me a chance to live. I worked. I repaid what I owed. And then you accepted me among you.”

He looked at their faces.

“If all you still see today is the thief I once was, then you never truly trusted me.”

Silence.

“If you do not believe what I am telling you here…”

He paused.

“…then do not follow me.”

Those words divided the people of Fenis.

Most of them did not move.

They remained with Alsbans.

They were hungry.

They could hear their children crying.

They stared at the lambs and goats standing before them.

But they did not touch them.

The others stepped away.

“Enough.”

One of them walked toward the animals.

Others followed.

“We are no longer with you, Alsbans.”

Another shouted:

“Do whatever you want!”

They slaughtered the lambs.

They slaughtered the goats.

They lit fires.

Before long, the smell of meat spread through the entire area.

For people who had been starving for days, there could hardly have been a greater torment.

Those who remained with Alsbans sat in silence, watching the others eat.

The children smelled the food.

The elderly turned their faces away.

Some people cried.

On the other side, they ate.

Until they were full.

They feasted on the meal they had dreamed about for days.

Alsbans said nothing.

He only watched.

Because he knew the trial had begun.

But he still did not know what the trial truly was.

Morning came.

Those on the other side woke with full stomachs.

Those who had stayed with Alsbans were still hungry.

Voices began to rise from across the camp.

“Do you still not regret refusing to eat?”

Some laughed.

Some cursed Alsbans.

Even a few who had stayed with him through the night finally gave in to their hunger and crossed to the other side.

The people of Fenis were no longer merely hungry.

They were divided.

Alsbans saw it and said nothing.

That day, he went hunting with several young men.

They needed food for the people who had remained.

He looked back at them once before walking into the forest.

He did not know how far they had gone when voices suddenly came from behind them.

At first, shouting.

Then more.

Alsbans stopped.

The young men beside him stopped as well.

Another scream echoed through the forest.

This was not the sound of an argument.

Alsbans turned immediately.

He began to run.

The young men ran behind him.

As they moved through the trees, the voices became clearer.

“What happened?”

“You are still going to follow that outsider?”

“You are still going to follow that filth who once stole our food?”

Alsbans ran faster.

But when he returned, it was already too late.

He stopped where he stood.

Blood.

The blood of Fenis.

For the first time on this journey, people had not died because of an enemy from outside.

Meras was not there.

His soldiers were not there.

No foreign people stood against them.

Fenis had killed Fenis.

Those who had turned against Alsbans had attacked those who remained loyal to him.

They had begun killing anyone who resisted.

As Alsbans looked at the bodies on the ground, only one thought remained in his mind.

He had taken this road to protect his people from Meras.

He had wanted to lead them through the gods’ trial.

He had believed he could bring them safely to Legacy.

But he had failed to protect the people of Fenis from the evil growing within their own people.

Alsbans drew his sword.

The young men beside him did the same.

After that, there was no more talking.

Alsbans and the others moved against the attackers.

Steel struck steel.

Shouts filled the trees.

People who had sat around the same fires only the night before were now killing one another.

People who had walked the same road were now raising swords against each other.

Alsbans showed no mercy to those who stood before him.

They killed those who had rebelled against him and attacked the people of Fenis.

When the fighting finally ended, the forest became quiet again.

But this silence was different from the silences before it.

This silence was no longer innocent.

The earth drank the blood.

It ran slowly toward the roots of the trees.

Some of the roots became completely red.

Alsbans lowered his sword.

He looked around.

The people he had tried to save were lying dead.

The people he had killed had once been part of Fenis too.

Once, they had eaten from the same table.

Once, they had slept in the same place.

Once, they had lived beneath the same name.

Now they lay dead upon the same earth.

No one truly slept that night.

When morning came, the blood was still visible around the roots of the trees.

Before the surviving people of Fenis left that place behind, they gave it a name.

Peranit.

The Bloody Trees of Betrayal.

Because that day, they understood something for the first time:

A people did not always need an enemy from outside to be destroyed.

Sometimes, the greatest danger was already growing inside those who sat around the same fire.

Chapter 7: The Road to Legacy

In the darkness of the night, Alsbans saw a woman.

Her entire body was concealed beneath layers of cloth. Only her eyes were visible through the fabric covering her face.

Green eyes.

They were so vivid and deep that Alsbans could see nothing else in the darkness.

The woman slowly approached him.

Alsbans tried to step back, but he could not move. He could neither lift his hands nor move his legs. He tried to call out. His lips parted, yet not a single word escaped his mouth.

The woman stopped directly before him.

For a while, she simply looked at him.

Then she raised her hand and smeared blood across his lips.

Alsbans felt its warmth. Before he could understand what was happening, the redness on his lips began to disappear. It was as though the blood were sinking into his skin, vanishing as if it had never existed.

The woman moved closer.

And kissed him on the lips.

Alsbans still could not move.

When she drew back, she slowly began lifting the cloth that concealed her face. At last, Alsbans thought, he would see her. He would learn who she was, why she had come, and why she had placed blood upon his lips.

But just as her face was about to be revealed, the dream ended.

Alsbans awoke in terror.

He struggled to catch his breath. For several moments, he could not understand where he was. He raised his hands to his face, then ran his fingers across his lips.

There was no blood.

The woman was gone.

There was only the night.

And those green eyes he could not drive from his mind.

Alsbans did not want to believe it had been an ordinary dream.

Throughout his life, he had encountered things he could not explain. What he had learned from the wizards of Trixalisse had taught him that things people could neither see nor understand were sometimes far more important than they appeared.

Perhaps this dream meant something too.

He spoke to an interpreter of dreams.

He described the woman, her green eyes, the blood she had placed upon his lips, the kiss that followed, and how he had awakened just before seeing her face.

The interpreter listened and eventually told him it was a meaningless dream.

Alsbans was not satisfied.

He asked someone else.

This time, he received an entirely different answer.

Two people had heard the same dream, yet each had given it a different meaning. Alsbans no longer knew whom to believe.

At last, he stopped searching for its meaning in the words of others.

Perhaps he was the only one who could understand it.

But such thoughts were difficult to pursue on the road to Legacy. His people needed food, water, and rest. Every day demanded new decisions, and behind every decision stood people who had placed their trust in him.

One day, while the people were resting, Alsbans sat beneath a tree.

He was thinking.

He tried to remember the woman's eyes. He wondered why the blood had disappeared and what the kiss might have meant.

Eventually, exhaustion overcame him.

He rested his head against the tree.

And fell asleep.

The woman stood before him once again.

The same coverings.

The same green eyes.

The same helpless stillness.

She approached, placed blood upon his lips, and watched it disappear. Then she kissed him and began lifting the cloth to reveal her face.

Alsbans awoke again.

This time, he was certain. His mind had lived through exactly the same vision twice.

He tried to recall what the wizards had taught him. He searched his memory for everything he had learned about dreams, visions, and the workings of the human mind, hoping that some forgotten piece of knowledge might offer an explanation.

But no matter how hard he tried, he found nothing.

The woman remained a stranger.

And Alsbans had begun to wonder about someone whose face he had never even seen.

That day, he called out to his people.

They needed rest.

They caught fish. Those who were hungry ate, and those who were thirsty drank. Bodies weakened by the long journey recovered a little of their strength.

When night came, everyone withdrew to their sleeping places.

Alsbans remained beside the stream.

Alone.

He watched the flowing water, occasionally following the small movements that appeared upon its surface. In the silence of the night, the sound of the current should have brought him peace, yet it only made the questions in his mind more difficult to ignore.

He did not want to sleep.

He was afraid of seeing the woman again.

And yet he wanted to see her again.

Being caught between two opposing feelings was nothing new to Alsbans. Throughout his life, he had loved things he feared and feared losing the people he loved. He had longed to belong to places he was eventually forced to leave.

Now he dreaded the return of a woman he did not know, while finding himself unable to rest without discovering who she was.

As these thoughts occupied him, he noticed a small fish in the stream.

It was swimming alone.

No other fish accompanied it. It moved through the water with small motions, occasionally stopping before continuing on its way.

Alsbans began watching it.

Then a much larger fish appeared.

It approached the smaller one and swallowed it in a single movement.

Everything happened so quickly that Alsbans barely had time to blink.

But then something strange happened.

The larger fish released the smaller one.

As though it had simply changed its mind about eating.

After a while, the little fish continued swimming as if nothing had happened. It seemed not even to understand that it had been swallowed. As though it had passed through a dark night and awakened to a new morning, it simply returned to its life.

It began searching for food again.

Alsbans watched the water for a long time.

Perhaps human beings were not so different from animals after all.

One creature could end another's life, then choose not to. And the one spared might continue living without ever understanding what had nearly happened to it.

Was the human world really any different?

Some killed. Some showed mercy. Some survived. Others departed from the world without ever knowing why they had lived or why they had died.

Alsbans watched until the little fish disappeared from sight.

Perhaps the dream he had spent so many days thinking about was no different.

Perhaps it meant nothing.

Perhaps a person did not need to search for a secret behind everything he saw.

That night, Alsbans decided he would no longer concern himself with the dream.

He would believe that the green-eyed woman was nothing more than a meaningless vision.

But it would not be long before he discovered that this decision had been a mistake.

Alsbans loved looking at the stars at night.

Beneath them, he often thought about his past and his future.

When he thought about the past, he often cried.

For when he looked back, most of what he remembered was loss. The mother and father he had never known, the Trixalisse he had left behind, Jelin, Cesa, and Kesal…

Each remained somewhere along the road of his life.

Sometimes his entire past seemed to consist of paths separating from one another. No matter which one he followed in his memory, it always seemed to end in farewell.

But when he thought about the future, he felt hope.

Perhaps one day he would find a place where he truly belonged.

Perhaps he and his people would reach somewhere they could live without fear.

Perhaps, after all the suffering he had endured, life still held a happiness he had never known.

His past had taught him to weep.

His future taught him to hope.

One night, Alsbans decided to do one of the things he loved most.

While everyone slept, he walked deep into the forest.

The voices of his people faded behind him.

He found a quiet place among the trees and closed his eyes.

He listened.

To the rustling of leaves.

To the distant cries of animals.

To the sounds of living creatures moving through the darkness, their voices blending with one another.

Sometimes Alsbans imagined that death might be something like this.

One day, his body would return to the soil, and the world in which he had lived would take him back into itself. He would no longer exist as a separate being. He would become part of the world to which he had always belonged.

The thought did not bring him only fear.

Sometimes it brought him peace.

For while a person lived, he could feel separated from the world around him. But perhaps in death, there would be no separation at all.

On mornings when he slept in the forest, Alsbans sometimes awoke to find animals nearby.

Sometimes a snake.

Sometimes wolves.

Sometimes other creatures.

It was almost as though they were protecting him.

Alsbans did not know whether they truly meant to protect him. Yet in their presence he found a kind of silence he had been unable to find among people for a long time.

The animals did not ask him who he was.

They did not remind him of his past.

They did not demand that he explain himself.

For them, his presence was enough.

One morning, when Alsbans returned to his people, he brought them good news.

"We are almost there, my people."

Heads lifted.

"Almost where?"

"The end of our road."

Several people stared at him in disbelief.

"Legacy?"

Alsbans nodded.

"Yes. I believe we are no longer far away."

The people struggled to believe him.

They had been walking for days. Some had nearly forgotten how much time had passed. The babies still suffered from hunger, the elderly still struggled to keep up, and everyone carried their exhaustion with them.

But they were alive.

After everything they had endured, they were still alive.

And they still had hope.

Someone called from the crowd.

"How do you know, Alsbans? How can you tell that we are getting close?"

Alsbans gestured toward the land around them.

"Look at the earth."

The people looked down.

"It is greener."

Then he pointed toward the water.

"There are more fish. Food is easier to find than before. The life around us is changing."

The crowd listened.

"Where there is abundance and order, life is often more beautiful. Where life flourishes, living becomes easier."

Someone asked:

"And what are we, Alsbans, in such a world?"

Alsbans thought for a moment.

Then he answered:

"We are a small mistake within that order."

Some exchanged puzzled looks.

He continued:

"Sometimes, to become part of an order, you must first pass through its mistakes. We are among those mistakes."

He paused.

"Along this road, we have starved, we have feared, and we have lost one another. But we are still here."

Then he extended his hand toward the path ahead.

"Come, my people. We are almost there. Let us continue our journey."

The people began walking again.

Before, whenever exhaustion overcame them, they would stop and rest for a long time.

This time, things were different.

The belief that the end of their journey was approaching had given them new strength. They walked farther. They stopped less often. Their exhaustion had not disappeared, but now they believed every step was carrying them closer to somewhere.

Hope did not take away their hunger.

But sometimes it carried a person farther than hunger ever would.

The following morning, a man appeared before them.

"Have you lost your way, people of Fenis?"

At the sound of his voice, heads turned.

A stranger stood before them.

He held a red rose in his hand.

And he was plucking its petals, one by one.

Those who looked at him could not determine his age.

He was not very old.

Nor was he very young.

Yet he did not seem middle-aged either.

It was as though every age existed within him at once. One moment he appeared young; the next, he looked like someone who had lived for countless years.

The people stepped back in fear.

Some of the young men reached for their swords. Others seized wooden clubs.

"Who are you?"

The man did not answer.

He plucked another petal from the rose.

Alsbans came forward through the crowd.

"Stop!"

The young men stepped back.

Alsbans looked at the stranger.

"What is happening here?"

Someone answered:

"This man is standing directly in our path, Alsbans."

Alsbans turned toward him.

"Who are you?"

A faint expression crossed the stranger's face.

"Ah, Alsbans. You know me very well."

Alsbans frowned.

"No. I do not know you. Who are you?"

The man plucked another petal.

"I am someone who has come to tell you to turn back, Alsbans."

Angry voices rose from the crowd.

"You cannot stand in our way!"

"Get out of our path!"

"We are not turning back!"

Alsbans raised his hand.

"Silence!"

The crowd slowly quieted.

He turned toward the man once more.

"If you have come to stop us, then you will tell me why."

The stranger looked at the rose in his hand.

"Alsbans, do you know who writes history?"

Alsbans did not answer.

The man continued:

"The gods write history in the most beautiful way, Alsbans."

Another petal fell to the ground.

"And I am a stain caught within that history, within that fate."

Alsbans's expression changed.

The stranger looked directly into his eyes.

"I have heard about the agreements you made with the gods."

A new uneasiness spread through the crowd.

Agreements?

What agreements?

What had Alsbans said to the gods?

Alsbans answered sharply:

"I made no agreements. I only heard what was told to me."

The man shook his head slightly.

"No, Alsbans."

He paused.

"You believed a few words that would allow you to justify yourself while killing people from your own nation."

Whispers rose from the crowd.

Some stared at the stranger in astonishment.

Others looked toward Alsbans.

After what had happened in Peranit, wounds remained in the hearts of the people. The stranger's words had touched those wounds.

For the first time, some began to wonder whether Alsbans was hiding something from them.

The stranger spoke again.

"Tell me, Alsbans. Have you told everyone the truth?"

Alsbans remained silent.

"Have you told them who you are?"

The man watched him.

"What you are?"

The crowd fell quiet.

Alsbans took a step forward.

"Even if I die at the end of this road, my people will make it through."

The stranger watched him.

Alsbans continued:

"I do not even know who I am. How could you possibly know?"

His voice rose.

"Go on, then. Tell me. Who am I?"

For a long time, the man simply looked at him.

Then he lowered his head.

"Ah, Alsbans…"

He turned away.

"So this was my final task."

He had plucked every petal from the red rose.

He dropped what remained of it to the ground.

Alsbans was surprised.

"Giving up so soon?"

The man turned back toward him.

"I came here knowing what would happen, Alsbans."

He did not take his eyes off him.

"I came so that what must happen would happen."

Then he spoke one final time.

"Tell her that I love her very much."

And he vanished.

Alsbans stood motionless.

Then he shouted:

"Who?"

There was no answer.

"WHO?"

He looked around.

The man was gone.

The red rose he had dropped remained upon the ground, but the one who had carried it seemed never to have been there at all.

Alsbans began searching the surrounding area.

His people searched as well.

Day passed.

Night came.

Then another day.

Another night.

They continued searching, but the man could not be found.

As time passed, uneasiness began growing among the people of Fenis once more.

The stranger's words had not been forgotten.

The agreements you made with the gods…

Have you told everyone the truth?

Have you told them who you are?

People spoke among themselves, questioning Alsbans's past all over again.

Some began to suspect that he was leading them into a trap.

Others, after what had happened in Peranit, found it difficult to trust his every decision.

But Alsbans did not abandon his determination to lead them to Legacy.

They continued walking.

Eventually, great mountains rose before them.

The road grew increasingly difficult.

The people were exhausted.

That night, while Alsbans slept, several people woke him.

He opened his eyes and saw members of the Fenis people standing before him.

They held swords in their hands.

Alsbans sat up.

"What has happened?"

One of them spoke.

"From now on, we want you to go ahead of us."

Alsbans looked at them.

"I already walk at the front."

"No. You will go before us."

"How far before?"

"One night."

Alsbans fell silent.

He looked again at the swords in their hands.

Then he raised his eyes.

"Do you no longer trust me?"

One answered:

"If you want our trust, you will do this."

Another spoke:

"You are our leader, Alsbans. Then lead the way."

Alsbans studied them for a while.

"So you want me to find out whether the road is safe before you take it."

"We want you to travel one night ahead of us. True kings do this."

Alsbans lowered his head.

Then he answered:

"Very well."

The people exchanged glances.

Alsbans continued:

"But understand this. What you are doing is rebellion."

The man before him immediately objected.

"No. We are not rebelling. We simply want you to travel one night ahead of us."

Alsbans did not argue any further.

He rose to his feet.

And began walking.

He walked.

And walked.

Now he traveled one night ahead of his people.

Behind him was Fenis.

Before him lay a road he did not know.

He was alone again.

Whenever he thought he had finally found somewhere he belonged, it seemed that place would slowly begin to move away from him.

He had been alone when he left Trixalisse.

He had been alone when he arrived in Fenis.

There, he had found a family.

He had found a brother.

He had found people who would believe in him.

Then he had lost his brother, witnessed the death of his leader, and fought against members of his own people to protect those he had sworn to save.

And now, the very people for whom he had endured all of it no longer trusted him.

Once again, an emptiness opened inside him.

But Alsbans continued walking.

Because he loved them.

Whether they believed in him or not did not make their hunger, their fear, or their lives any less important.

Those who distrusted him were still the people of Fenis.

So were those who had once welcomed him among them.

So were those who had turned against him.

And whatever happened, Alsbans would lead them to Legacy.

One night ahead of them.

Completely alone.

And still their leader.

I am tired of this...

Alsbans spoke quietly to himself as he walked.

I am tired of walking. Tired of asking people, one by one, to trust me. No matter what I do, I always end up having to explain myself to them again.

For a moment, he stopped and looked back at the road stretching behind him.

After everything they have done, I still love them. Because a leader must always think of what is best for his people, whatever happens. That is what I have done. What I have always tried to do.

But even his own words no longer comforted him.

The trust he had once seen in people's eyes had given way to suspicion. He had set out to save them from Meras, struggled to find food for them, and been forced to fight members of his own people. Now those same people, whom he was trying to protect, had made him walk a full night ahead of them.

Still, Alsbans continued.

It was not easy to stop loving someone.

Especially when you had come to call those people your own.

One morning, when he opened his eyes, he felt that his spirit was more exhausted than his body.

For a while, he lay without moving.

There was more than sleeplessness in his eyes now. There was weariness, a weariness that had grown into something close to resentment. He was tired of walking, tired of thinking, tired of having every decision questioned and of explaining, again and again, what he believed was right.

Voices reached him from a distance.

“Get moving, Alsbans!”

He lifted his head and looked in their direction for a moment. Then he slowly rose to his feet.

He did not answer them.

He began walking again.

As he made his way through the forest, a tree caught his attention.

It was unlike the others.

Its leaves appeared to be red. Sunlight filtered through its branches, casting an unfamiliar color over the earth beneath it. The beauty of the leaves made the silence around the tree seem even more pronounced.

Alsbans stopped.

He had seen countless trees in his life: the towering giants of Trixalisse, the green forests of Humpellia, and all the trunks beneath which he had rested along the journey.

But there was something different about this one.

Its beauty seemed almost to invite him closer.

He approached slowly and examined its branches. Then a small glimmer among the roots caught his eye.

He bent down.

Gold lay scattered across the ground.

Not one piece, nor two, but countless pieces tucked between the roots, lying on the soil and half-hidden beneath fallen leaves.

Alsbans picked one up and studied it.

His expression changed when he recognized the markings.

These were Meras's coins.

He raised his head.

First, he looked to his right.

Then to his left.

Only then did he notice the other things surrounding the tree.

Soldiers' helmets.

Broken armor, partly buried in the earth.

And bodies that no longer moved.

Soldiers of Meras.

Alsbans straightened slowly.

Many soldiers had died around this tree. Some lay close to its roots; others had fallen beside the scattered gold, their helmets resting among the coins.

But something troubled him.

This did not look like a battlefield.

It lacked the disorder he would have expected after a great battle. It was almost as though all the soldiers had died here for the same reason, claimed by something they had not been able to fight.

Why would so many soldiers die beneath a single tree?

He looked at the gold again.

Had the very thing that brought them here also brought about their deaths?

As he considered this, he noticed movement before him.

He looked up.

And saw a figure standing directly in his path.

A winged Humpellian.

The figure wore red garments, had snow-white hair and yellow-toned skin. Wings extended behind his body, setting him apart from every person Alsbans had ever encountered.

Alsbans immediately reached for his sword.

“Who are you?”

The stranger replied calmly.

“I am the guardian of this tree, Alsbans.”

Alsbans kept his hand on the hilt.

“Did you kill these soldiers?”

Instead of answering, the figure turned his attention to the tree.

“This tree, Alsbans, represents the greatest hunger we all carry.”

Alsbans narrowed his eyes and listened.

“People do not hunger for bread alone. Sometimes they hunger for something so deeply that they are willing to lose everything they possess to obtain it.”

The guardian looked up at the red leaves.

“Upon every leaf of this tree lies the thing you and I despise most.”

Alsbans frowned.

“Gold.”

The figure turned back to him.

“You are afraid of me, Alsbans.”

“I am not afraid of you.”

“If I wished, I could defeat you. You know that, don't you?”

“I did not come here to fight you.”

“And yet you are afraid.”

The stranger took a step closer.

“I can smell your fear, Alsbans. You have no idea what I am capable of.”

Alsbans's face hardened.

He was tired of being threatened, too.

He drew his sword.

“Then show me!”

Gripping the sword with both hands, he pointed it at the figure.

“If you say you can defeat me, what are you waiting for? Show me your power!”

He stepped forward.

“I am ready!”

The winged figure did not move.

For a while, he simply regarded Alsbans.

Then he spoke.

“My name is Inos.”

Alsbans fell silent.

“I rule these lands, Alsbans. I am the guardian of this tree and the territory surrounding it.”

Inos looked down at the gold.

“You and your people may pass through my lands.”

He paused.

“But you will not touch a single piece of my treasure.”

Alsbans listened carefully.

“If even one of you touches it, I will come for all of you. For you, Alsbans, and for them.”

A brief silence settled over the forest.

Slowly, Alsbans lowered his sword and returned it to its sheath.

“They will touch it, Inos.”

Inos's expression changed.

Alsbans continued.

“They will. When they see your gold, they will want to take it. And when I tell them not to, they will fight me for it.”

He glanced toward the bodies of Meras's soldiers.

“I do not know exactly what happened here. But I know my people.”

Inos answered him.

“Then there is no place for you in my lands, leader of Fenis.”

His wings opened slightly.

“Take your people and go.”

Alsbans frowned, then turned away.

He did not argue.

He did not draw his sword again.

He began to walk.

He had taken only a few steps when Inos called after him.

“Alsbans!”

He stopped.

“Why did you not try?”

Alsbans looked back.

Inos continued.

“Why did you not try to lead your people through? Perhaps none of them would have touched my gold.”

Alsbans regarded him for a long time before answering.

“Inos, understand one thing. I am not a lover blinded by love.”

Inos listened, surprised.

“I will not let my eyes go blind.”

Alsbans raised his voice.

“I do not know everything, Inos. I will not pretend otherwise.”

He took a step toward him.

“Sometimes I listen for a long time and speak very little. Sometimes I know what is right and still remain silent. Sometimes I listen to someone for hours and cannot persuade them of a single thing.”

His voice grew stronger.

“But I know my people, Inos!”

Inos said nothing.

“I know the good in them. And I know the evil in them, too!”

Anger and sorrow mingled in Alsbans's expression.

“I have seen how people become blind to those they love. I have seen how love can make them overlook wrongdoing, how belief can carry them into terrible acts.”

He shook his head.

“I will not do that, Inos.”

For a moment he was quiet.

“I love my people. But loving them does not mean closing my eyes to the truth.”

Inos watched him closely.

“I know what kind of people they are. I have seen what hunger can make them do, and how they treat one another when fear takes hold.”

Alsbans's voice rose again.

“I am their leader! I must protect them. But I do not have to believe they are perfect in order to do it!”

He drew a deep breath.

“I need friends more than enemies, Inos.”

He looked once more at the bodies around the tree.

“And I cannot change a truth I already know simply because I wish it were different.”

Inos remained silent for a long time.

His wings were still.

He considered the words of the man before him: a man who wanted to protect his people without denying their faults, who loved them without allowing that love to blind him.

At last, Inos turned toward the tree.

He approached one of its most beautiful places and took a tiny piece of gold from it.

Holding the piece in his palm, he wrote his own name upon it.

Inos.

Then he returned to Alsbans and extended his hand.

“Take it, my friend.”

Alsbans looked at the gold in surprise.

“What is this for?”

Inos answered.

“I want you to know that you are among the good.”

Alsbans accepted the gold.

A smile appeared on Inos's face.

“Long live goodness!”

He spread his wings and flew away from Alsbans.

Alsbans looked at the small piece of gold in his hand.

It was different from all the treasure he had seen lying beneath the tree.

He had not stolen it.

He had not fought for it.

He had not put anyone's life in danger to possess it.

It had been given to him.

As a gift.

But something far more important than gold occupied his thoughts.

His people.

Suddenly, he turned around and began to run.

He hurried back through the trees, following the path he had come by, using every bit of strength he had to reach the people of Fenis.

At last, he saw them.

“TURN BACK!”

The people spun toward him in alarm.

“Alsbans?”

“Get away from here!”

Confused, the people began to retreat. No one understood what had happened.

Alsbans stepped in front of the crowd.

“This is not our road. We will not pass through here!”

Someone objected.

“Why?”

“We will take another way.”

“What do you mean, another way? We have been walking for so long!”

Unease spread through the crowd.

“The road is right in front of us!”

“Why should we turn back?”

Alsbans's explanation did not satisfy them.

Some exchanged glances. Others thought he had made yet another decision they could not understand.

One person began walking forward.

Alsbans immediately drew his sword.

“STOP!”

The person froze.

Alsbans raised his voice.

“I said we are not going that way!”

The crowd stared at him in disbelief.

“Why, Alsbans?”

“Tell us the reason!”

“What are you hiding?”

Alsbans did not lower his sword.

He looked across his people.

They were tired.

They were hungry.

They wanted answers from him.

And now, once again, they were questioning his decision.

Alsbans spoke.

“If I am the leader of this people, then my words must mean something!”

The crowd slowly fell quiet.

“I am telling you we will not go that way, because that road will bring us harm.”

He stepped forward.

“I have to make decisions for your good. You do not have to like every decision I make. But if you challenge me every single time, how am I supposed to protect you?”

His voice grew stern.

“If I am still the leader of Fenis, then my words will be obeyed!”

He pointed his sword toward the road ahead.

“No one will go that way!”

He paused.

Then, one last time, he shouted:

“IF I SAY WE ARE NOT GOING, THEN WE ARE NOT GOING!”

“We are going, Alsbans!”

The words rose from the crowd and broke the silence of the forest.

“You can no longer tell us what to do!”

Alsbans looked at the people standing before him. Only moments earlier, he had been trying to keep them away from danger. Now they were turning against him again.

“We will never see you as our true leader!”

A sword was drawn.

Then another.

Before long, most of the people facing Alsbans had weapons in their hands.

For a while, he could not speak.

He knew those swords. Once, they had been raised against the soldiers of Meras. The people holding them had accepted him as their leader and followed him along the long road to Legacy.

Now those same blades were pointed at him.

“So you no longer see me as your leader. Is that it?”

No one answered.

Alsbans took a step forward.

“Why?”

His voice grew louder.

“Because I tried to protect you? Because I wanted to keep you from harm?”

The crowd erupted.

“You are a stranger!”

“You are not even one of us!”

“You lying piece of filth!”

Voices collided in the air.

“You made a deal with the gods!”

“You have been killing us slowly!”

“You are lying because you do not want us to go in there! You are hiding something from us!”

Someone pushed forward.

“Who knows what is waiting in that forest? Perhaps you want to keep it all for yourself!”

Alsbans stopped answering.

The accusations kept coming, but he only looked at the faces before him.

You are not one of us.

He had heard words like those before.

Once, in anger, Cesa had said something similar. But Cesa had apologized in the end. Before dying, he had reminded Alsbans that he belonged among them.

Now Cesa was gone.

Kesal was gone too.

And most of the people of Fenis were telling Alsbans that he was not one of them.

A thought passed through his mind.

Perhaps they are right.

Perhaps he had never truly belonged.

He had lived among them, shared their food, and fought for them. But none of those things could change where he had been born.

Alsbans did not allow his sadness to show.

His expression hardened.

Then he slowly lowered his sword.

He let it go.

The crowd watched him in surprise.

“Go,” he said.

No one moved.

Alsbans lifted his head.

“If you do not believe me, then go.”

There was no anger left in his voice.

“If my words mean nothing to you, then follow the road you have chosen.”

For a moment, the crowd remained still.

Then people gathered their weapons and began walking toward the forest.

Alsbans did not try to stop them.

He did not shout after them.

He only watched them leave.

Of all the people who had once followed him, only two remained at his side.

Mos.

And Tap.

Alsbans struggled to remain standing.

Mos and Tap came to him.

“Come, brother,” Mos said.

Alsbans did not answer.

Tap moved to his other side.

They placed his arms across their shoulders and supported his weight between them. Slowly, they helped him walk to a place where he could sit.

Alsbans kept looking toward the forest.

The people who had followed him only a short while ago had now chosen to leave him behind.

Mos sat beside him.

“Alsbans…”

There was no reply.

Tap glanced at Mos, and Mos looked back at him.

Neither knew what to say.

Sometimes there were no words that could comfort a person, especially one who had spent his entire life searching for a place to belong and had found himself alone each time he believed that search was over.

So Mos and Tap remained beside him.

It was all they could do.

As the people of Fenis moved deeper into the forest, the great tree with red leaves appeared before them.

First, they noticed the glimmers scattered across the ground.

Then they saw the gold.

It was everywhere.

Between the roots, beneath the fallen leaves, across the earth itself.

They could hardly believe their eyes.

These were people who had endured hunger and the crushing weight of a long journey. Now, before them, lay more treasure than they could have imagined.

Some fell to their knees.

Some began to laugh.

Others thought immediately of Alsbans.

“So this is why he did not want us to come!”

“He was keeping all of it from us!”

“Liar!”

Their anger grew.

“We will kill you, Alsbans!”

“You filthy liar!”

To them, Alsbans was no longer a leader who had tried to protect them.

He was a stranger who had wanted to keep the treasure for himself.

And they believed they had finally proved it.

They reached for the gold.

The moment their hands touched it, a figure appeared before them.

Inos.

Dressed in red, with white hair and wings rising behind him, he stood before the tree.

The people had no time to understand who he was.

Death began.

Inos attacked.

People screamed.

Some tried to flee.

Others reached for their swords.

None could stop him.

He killed them one by one.

The hands that had reached for the gold would never hold it again.

Their cries rang through the trees.

Then Inos buried the dead beneath the earth.

The forest swallowed the people of Fenis who had entered it.

The screams reached Alsbans.

He lifted his head.

For a moment, he could not understand what he was hearing.

Then he tried to stand.

“No…”

Another scream rang out.

His face changed.

“NO!”

He forced himself to his feet.

But his strength was gone.

Before he could take more than a few steps, he fell to the ground.

Mos and Tap rushed to him.

Alsbans pressed his hands into the earth.

“No… No, please…”

He stared toward the forest.

He could hear his people.

But he could not reach them.

He buried his face in his hands.

And began to cry.

“It is my fault…”

Mos knelt beside him.

“Alsbans…”

“IT IS MY FAULT!”

His voice echoed among the trees.

“I could not protect them!”

He struggled to breathe.

“The children…”

For a moment, he could say no more.

“The elderly… All of them…”

Tears fell onto the soil.

“I was supposed to save them.”

Mos and Tap tried to lift him.

Alsbans shook his head.

“My fault. Mine…”

At the beginning of the journey, he had promised his people that no harm would come to them.

Now most of them were gone.

In Peranit, he had watched his own people kill one another.

This time, he had tried to lead them away from danger, but he had failed to convince them.

The people he had sworn to protect had died close enough for him to hear their screams, yet beyond his reach.

Mos placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Come, brother.”

Alsbans did not answer.

Tap took his other arm.

Together, they lifted him.

Alsbans was in no condition to keep walking.

His body had weakened, and his mind seemed crushed beneath the weight of what had happened.

Before long, he fell ill.

Mos and Tap carried him in turns as they continued the journey.

For a while, Mos carried him.

Then Tap.

Then Mos again.

Yet of the three, Alsbans seemed to bear the heaviest burden.

It was not upon his shoulders.

It was within him.

When night fell, they stopped on a mountainside.

Mos and Tap laid Alsbans down where he could rest.

Darkness settled around them.

After the long journey, both men were exhausted.

Mos looked at Alsbans.

He lay almost motionless.

“What do you think, Tap?”

Tap raised his head.

“Will Alsbans wake up?”

Tap studied him for a while.

“I do not know, Mos.”

He listened to Alsbans breathing.

“But he seems to be coming back to himself, little by little.”

Mos took a deep breath.

“I hope he wakes.”

Tap looked at him.

Mos continued.

“Without him, this journey will be terribly difficult.”

Tap said nothing.

They both knew what remained of the people of Fenis.

There were only three of them now.

And one could barely regain consciousness.

Later that night, Mos rose to his feet.

He looked toward the sky.

The stars shone above the mountain.

For a while, he watched them.

Then he heard a faint movement behind him.

Alsbans had stirred.

Mos hurried to his side.

“Alsbans?”

No answer came.

As Mos bent to check on him, he noticed something in his clothing.

Gold.

There was a piece of gold in Alsbans’s pocket.

Mos examined it carefully.

So Alsbans had gone after the gold too.

The thought settled in his mind.

But another question followed almost immediately.

Then why had he survived?

The others had died after touching the treasure.

Why was Alsbans still alive?

Mos could find no answer.

At that moment, shouting rose from the forest.

Mos lifted his head.

The voices were drawing closer.

“Tap!”

There was no reply.

Mos shouted louder.

“Tap, get up!”

Tap woke with a start.

“What happened?”

“We have to protect Alsbans!”

Tap sprang to his feet.

Both men seized their swords.

They turned toward the forest.

First came movement in the dark between the trees.

Then figures.

Then more of them.

Hundreds of soldiers emerged from the forest.

Soldiers of Meras.

“We found you, you filthy rats!”

Their shouts echoed around the mountain.

Mos and Tap looked at each other.

The men before them were far too numerous for two swords to defeat.

But Alsbans lay behind them.

Mos raised his sword.

Tap did the same.

They looked into each other’s eyes.

“Let us fight, brother.”

Mos nodded.

“Let us fight.”

And they began running toward the soldiers of Meras.

But after only a few steps, Mos realized something was wrong.

No one was beside him.

Tap was not running forward.

Mos turned his head.

Tap had turned away.

He was fleeing.

Before Mos could understand what was happening, the first soldiers fell upon him.

He raised his sword.

He blocked one strike.

Then another.

But he could not stop every blade coming at him at once.

He was wounded.

He stumbled back.

And when he turned, he saw Tap running deeper into the forest.

“Tap!”

Tap did not stop.

Mos shouted again.

“WHY, TAP?”

There was more than anger in his voice.

He could scarcely believe it.

Only moments earlier, they had made a promise.

They would fight together.

They would protect Alsbans together.

Now Mos stood alone.

Tap shouted as he ran:

“I CAN’T!”

His voice trembled.

“I can’t do it, Mos!”

For a moment, he looked back.

He saw that Mos had been wounded.

The man he called his brother was fighting alone among the soldiers of Meras.

Tap wanted to stop.

But his fear was stronger.

And he kept running.

The last Mos saw of him was his figure vanishing among the trees.

“We promised each other, Tap!”

No answer came.

Pain twisted Mos’s face.

“WE PROMISED!”

No one was coming to help him now.

He understood that.

He raised his sword once more.

“No!”

He turned back toward the soldiers.

He did not retreat.

Mos fought well.

He handled his sword with skill, parrying the attacks that came at him and struggling to remain on his feet despite his wounds.

But there were too many soldiers.

He blocked one blow, only to face two more.

Little by little, his strength deserted him.

At last, he could fight no longer.

He fell.

His sword slipped from his hand.

He raised his head.

The sky was still full of stars.

For a while, he watched them.

Tap was gone.

Alsbans still needed help.

Most of the people of Fenis were already dead.

Mos knew all of it.

Yet even in his final moments, he did not forget whom he had fought for.

His lips parted.

“For the people of Fenis…”

He closed his eyes.

And died.

The soldiers of Meras came to Alsbans.

They found him lying on the ground.

He did not move.

The soldiers gathered around him.

For a while, they simply stared.

Then they began to laugh.

“So you are the one who defied us!”

Another mocked him.

“Look at him! Is this really the man who caused all that trouble?”

Their laughter grew.

Alsbans gave no answer.

One soldier drew his sword.

“Then let us finish it here.”

He raised the blade.

But just as he was about to drive it into Alsbans, something glimmered on the ground.

He stopped.

Bent down.

And picked up the gold.

He examined the writing upon it.

Inos.

While the soldier tried to read the name, the others grew impatient.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Strike him!”

“Why have you stopped?”

The soldier turned the gold in his hand.

“Inos…”

He paused.

“What is this? Some kind of gold?”

And at that very moment—

Inos appeared.

Wings spread wide.

The white-haired figure in red stood before the soldiers.

The men of Meras stumbled back in astonishment.

But Inos gave them no time to recover.

The battle began.

The soldiers drew their swords.

Inos moved against them.

He killed one.

Then another.

The soldiers surrounded him.

Countless weapons turned toward him.

But Inos did not stop.

A great battle raged.

As the soldiers of Meras fell one after another, Inos was wounded too.

Pain coursed through his body.

Still, he did not retreat.

Because Alsbans lay behind him.

Inos had given him a piece of his own gold.

He had called him his friend.

And now these soldiers had come to kill that friend.

Inos fought on.

Despite his wounds, he pressed into the soldiers' ranks.

He would not allow them to reach Alsbans.

At last, every soldier of Meras lay dead.

The sounds of battle faded from the forest.

Inos stood motionless for a while.

He was wounded.

But he was alive.

Then he turned.

And walked toward Alsbans.

Alsbans was still lying on the ground.

Inos knelt beside him.

He looked at the young man before him.

Only a short time ago, Alsbans had stood before him with a drawn sword, declaring that he was not afraid. He had spoken of knowing his people well enough to recognize even their faults.

Now he lay helpless.

In pain.

Inos reached toward him.

“I can see that you are suffering, Alsbans.”

He fell silent for a moment.

Then he spoke softly.

“I will save you, brother.”

He took the piece of gold.

His own name was written upon it.

He placed it back in Alsbans’s pocket.

Then he carefully lifted him.

They could not remain there.

Alsbans needed help.

Inos had decided to take him away.

He opened his wings.

And, wounded himself, he carried Alsbans toward the realm beneath the earth.

Petracisa.

Chapter 8: Petracisa

Alsbans opened his eyes.

For a while, he could not understand where he was. He tried to look around, but every movement of his head reminded him how little strength remained in his body.

The last things he remembered were tangled together.

Shouting.

Swords.

People dying.

And the darkness that followed.

“Where am I?”

Even the sound of his own voice felt unfamiliar.

He tried to stand. But when he moved, he realized that his arms were bound.

Ropes held his wrists tightly together.

At first he struggled to understand what had happened. Then, in anger, he pulled against the bindings. When he realized he could not free himself that way, he looked around.

There was a knife nearby.

With difficulty, he reached for it and began cutting through the ropes around his wrists. After some effort, his hands were free.

He stood.

His legs trembled beneath him.

He remained still for a moment, waiting for his strength to return, and then began to examine the place around him.

Everything was empty.

Yet it did not look like a place in which nothing had ever lived.

It was as though countless living beings had once been here—speaking, moving, going about their lives—only to leave it all behind at once.

All that remained was silence.

Alsbans found no peace in that silence.

For an empty place was not necessarily an abandoned one.

Sometimes, to understand how lonely a place had become, one needed only to imagine how much life had once filled it.

Then he heard a voice.

“Brother, are you awake?”

Alsbans turned sharply.

Inos was coming inside.

Alsbans stared at him in surprise.

“Inos?”

“Yes, brother.”

Alsbans thought for a moment.

Then he looked around again.

“Where is everyone?”

Inos's expression did not change.

“Everyone is dead, Alsbans.”

Alsbans went still.

Inos continued.

“And one person betrayed you, brother.”

Anger appeared in Alsbans's eyes.

“You…”

Inos watched him.

“You killed my people!”

His voice echoed through the empty place.

“You killed them, Inos!”

Inos remained calm.

“You know I had to obey the rules, Alsbans.”

“You didn't have to!”

Alsbans raised his voice.

“You could have spared them!”

He took a step toward Inos.

“You didn't have to kill innocent people!”

Inos gave a short laugh.

“Innocent?”

Alsbans fell silent.

Inos turned fully toward him.

“Do you believe they were innocent, Alsbans?”

He waited for an answer.

“The people who sold you out? The ones who said they had no bond with you? The ones who were waiting for the right moment to kill you?”

Alsbans tried to answer.

But no words came.

Inos continued.

“Loving them does not mean they were good people, brother.”

The words lingered in Alsbans's mind.

He remembered what the turtle had asked him.

Do you believe everyone among your people is good, Alsbans?

Do you believe you truly know all of them?

He had not understood why the turtle had asked those questions.

Now he did not want to understand.

Did I ever truly know my people?

Did I believe they were good?

Or did I believe it only because I wanted them to be?

Inos approached and asked him to come outside.

But Alsbans stepped back.

“No.”

“Alsbans…”

“I'm not going out.”

Inos watched him for a moment.

“You cannot remain here alone, brother.”

Alsbans lifted his head.

“I want to be alone.”

Inos did not answer.

“Please, Inos.”

His voice was quieter now.

“Leave me alone.”

Inos waited a little longer.

Then he turned and left.

Alsbans was alone once more.

When the door closed, everything he had been holding inside began to rise again.

Anger.

Guilt.

Fear.

And something heavier than all of them.

Helplessness.

Suddenly, he seized whatever was in front of him and hurled it to the ground.

Something shattered.

Then something else.

Alsbans could no longer stop himself.

“Enough!”

He began breaking everything within reach.

“Enough of this!”

But nothing changed.

After each crash, the same silence returned.

Eventually, his strength gave out and he sank to his knees.

He buried his face in his hands.

And began to cry.

Once, when he cried, Jelin had been there.

Later, there had been Cesa.

And Kesal.

Now there was no one.

No one to see his tears. No one to ask why he was crying.

After a while, he felt pain in his hand.

He saw that he had cut his finger.

A shard of broken glass had wounded him.

He looked at the blood.

How much blood had he seen in his life?

The blood of others.

His own blood.

The blood of the dead.

And now, in a world that seemed to remind him of nothing but suffering, even this small wound had lost its meaning.

Alsbans lay down on the floor.

He closed his eyes.

But the silence did not last.

“Forgive me, Alsbans!”

It was Tap's voice.

Alsbans kept his eyes shut.

“Forgive me!”

It sounded as though Tap were standing beside him.

Then other voices came.

You are the chosen one, Alsbans.

You are the chosen one.

The voices multiplied.

From every direction came the same words.

The chosen one.

The chosen one.

Alsbans opened his eyes at once.

“NOT ME!”

He struggled to his feet.

“I am not the chosen one!”

He began breaking the objects around him again.

“I don't want to be the chosen one!”

His voice trembled.

“Why did you choose me?”

In his anger, his foot caught against something.

He fell to the ground.

He no longer had the strength to stand.

For a while, he remained where he had fallen.

He was breathing.

But it felt as though he had lost all the strength it took to go on living.

He closed his eyes.

Tap's voice returned.

Forgive me, Alsbans.

Then the others.

You are the chosen one.

Alsbans pressed his hands over his ears.

But the voices were not coming from outside.

They were inside his mind.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not escape them.

When Inos entered again, he looked around in astonishment.

Everything was in disarray.

Broken objects lay scattered across the floor.

Alsbans lay among them.

He did not even have the strength to call Inos's name.

Inos hurried to him.

“Alsbans!”

He knelt beside him.

“What happened here, brother?”

Alsbans did not answer.

“Are you all right?”

After a while, Alsbans opened his eyes.

He saw Inos.

And spoke in an exhausted voice.

“I will stay here, brother.”

Inos listened.

“Thank you…”

Alsbans paused.

“You didn't abandon me.”

Inos could see both the anger and the grief that Alsbans carried within him.

The man before him had not merely grown tired of battles.

Life itself had worn him down.

Inos did not force him to leave.

He promised to bring him something to eat every day.

Alsbans nodded.

Then he fell silent again.

Days passed.

Nights passed.

In Petracisa, time slowly began to lose its meaning for Alsbans.

Inos kept his promise.

He brought food every day.

But he no longer came inside.

He would open the door and leave what he had brought.

Alsbans would take it.

Then the door would close again.

He ate inside.

He drank inside.

Whenever he woke, he was in the same place.

Whenever he slept, he was there too.

Once, in Trixalisse, he had been imprisoned in a cave.

Back then, Jelin had put him there.

He had wanted to escape.

He had wanted to free himself from ropes, stones, and closed spaces.

Now no one stood between him and the door.

Yet he would not leave.

This time, he had imprisoned himself.

And sometimes the prison a person built with his own hands was harder to escape than one in which someone else had locked him.

After a while, Alsbans began to write.

At first, he only thought.

Then he began turning his thoughts into words.

When he had nothing to write on, he carved them into the walls.

He wrote poems.

Everything he carried inside, everything he could not tell another person, became words that perhaps only he would ever read.

One day, he carved these lines:

“Those who have never truly lived, even once, have never lived at all.

For a person who has never seen the truth only imagines that they are alive.

A false life is not worth living.”

He stared at what he had written for a long time.

What did it mean to truly live?

Alsbans did not know.

He had grown up among people who did not know who he was.

When he was older, he had lost the people he thought he knew.

Once he had been a slave.

Then he had become free.

Once he had been alone.

Then he had become the leader of a people.

Now he was alone again.

Which of these lives had been real?

Which one belonged to him?

On another part of the wall, he carved his own name.

ALSBANS

He looked at it for a long time.

Then he began writing beneath it.

“I know that my name is Alsbans.”

He stopped.

“But I do not know who gave me that name.”

He ran a hand over the wall.

And continued.

“I do not know who my mother and father were.

I know that I grew up without them.

Perhaps they are alive.

Perhaps they are dead.

I do not even know that much.”

For a while, he stopped.

Writing these things meant facing questions he had spent years being afraid to ask himself.

But he continued.

“I have no one.

I spent part of my childhood in Trixalisse.

Jelin found me when I was still a baby.

When she found me, neither my mother nor anyone who knew me was there.

The only thing anyone knew was that I had been wrapped in a torn piece of cloth.

It was stained with blood.

And it smelled of smoke.”

Alsbans lowered his hand.

He thought about that piece of cloth.

Whose blood had stained it?

Why had it been torn?

Why had it smelled of smoke?

How could a person know so little about the beginning of his own life?

He carved more words into the wall.

“Was I abandoned?

Or was someone trying to save me?”

There was a terrible difference between those possibilities.

In one, he had been an unwanted child.

In the other, perhaps someone had lost everything so that he might live.

But Alsbans did not know which was true.

He kept writing.

For days, he carved his thoughts into the walls.

What he remembered.

What he did not know.

The questions he had asked himself for years.

At last, there was no space left to write.

Every wall was covered with words.

Alsbans looked at the last empty place.

He thought for a long time.

And wrote one final question.

“Who am I?”

Then he lowered his hand.

There was nowhere left to write.

Perhaps there was nothing left for him to say, either.

That night, Alsbans dreamed again.

The green-eyed woman stood before him.

As always, her face was concealed.

This time, Alsbans was not surprised to see her.

He spoke wearily.

“You again?”

But before the woman could approach, everything changed.

All the images around him vanished.

Suddenly, Alsbans found himself surrounded by darkness.

There was no ground to see, no sky above.

Only darkness.

Then he heard voices.

From every direction.

Different voices, yet somehow speaking together.

Alsbans knew who they were.

The gods.

He lifted his head.

“Why?”

There was no answer.

“WHY DID YOU CHOOSE ME?”

His words echoed through the darkness.

He kept shouting.

“Come before me!”

He turned in every direction.

“Show yourselves!”

But nothing appeared.

The gods did not reveal themselves.

Instead, a voice answered.

“Enough, Alsbans.”

Alsbans fell silent.

The voice continued.

“Stop blaming us.”

He held his breath.

“We did not choose you.”

Alsbans looked up.

The voices went on.

“Nor did you choose yourself.”

He had no words.

“Time chose you, Alsbans.”

Another voice spoke.

“And life…”

The words came out of the darkness.

“Life, over which even we have no power.”

Alsbans listened.

“It was life that chose you.”

Silence followed.

Then the voices rose again.

“Know this: you are the chosen one, Alsbans.”

“But you still cannot see yourself as someone chosen.”

Tears gathered in Alsbans's eyes.

“Because you hold yourself responsible for every loss you have suffered.”

Another voice spoke.

“Forgive yourself, Alsbans.”

Alsbans lowered his head.

“Give yourself a chance.”

The voices were not harsh.

Yet they left him nowhere to hide.

“Make peace with yourself.”

Alsbans closed his eyes.

“Whatever happens, it is you who must live this life.”

“And you who must make something beautiful of it.”

After a while, the final words came.

“No matter how unhappy you become, Alsbans, life will not stop.”

“Nor will we stop time.”

“Even while you suffer, others will go on laughing. Even those who see your sorrow will continue living their own moments of happiness.”

“The world will not come to a halt because of your pain.”

The voices began to fade.

“Forgive yourself, Alsbans.”

“And make peace with who you are.”

Then the darkness grew silent.

Alsbans opened his eyes at once.

He was in Petracisa.

In the same place.

Surrounded by the same silence.

For a while, he did not move.

Then he turned his head.

On the wall before him were the last words he had written.

“Who am I?”

Alsbans stared at the question for a long time.

Once, whenever he asked himself who he was, he searched his past for an answer.

His mother.

His father.

Where he had come from.

Who had found him.

Why he had been left alone.

But now, for the first time, he thought of other things.

The things he had done in his life.

The people he had tried to save.

Those he had loved.

Those he had lost.

He had not always made the right decisions.

Sometimes he had been wrong.

Sometimes he had been afraid.

Sometimes anger had overcome him.

Sometimes he had failed to protect those who trusted him.

But one thing he knew.

He had done everything he could.

He had wanted to save his people.

He had wanted to repay the kindness of those who accepted him with kindness of his own.

He had never wanted to lose the people he loved.

And despite all his failures, he had never set out to choose evil.

Alsbans closed his eyes.

This time, when he remembered his past, he did not turn his anger against himself.

He thought of the child who had been left alone.

The child who had grown up in Trixalisse without knowing why he was there.

The Alsbans who wanted to be loved, wanted to belong, wanted to find somewhere he could call his own.

He remembered the young man who had once been so hungry that he had stolen food.

The day he became free.

Cesa.

Kesal.

The people of Fenis.

And everything he had lived through.

For the first time, he did not judge himself only by his mistakes.

He did not blame himself for growing up without a family.

He was not ashamed of failing to know things no one had ever told him.

He still grieved for the people he could not protect.

He still missed those he had lost.

But he began to understand that he did not have to carry their deaths as his punishment forever.

He could not change the past.

But he could change the way he looked at the Alsbans who had lived through it.

Tears ran down his face.

This time, sorrow was not the only reason he cried.

For the first time in years, he was beginning to show himself the mercy he had waited to receive from others.

He forgave himself.

He accepted the person he was.

With everything he did not know.

With his fears.

His regrets.

His love.

And all his losses.

Alsbans looked at the wall once more.

“Who am I?”

He no longer waited for someone else to answer that question.

Not Jelin.

Not the people of Fenis.

Not even the gods.

He no longer needed someone to tell him who he was.

For the person he had searched for all these years had been living within his own life all along.

That child's name had been Alsbans.

That young man's name had been Alsbans.

The slave, the free man, the brother, and the leader had all been Alsbans too.

None of them was separate from the others.

They were all him.

And that day, in the silence of Petracisa, something happened that no people applauded, no god appeared to witness, and no one else was there to see.

For the first time in his life, Alsbans made peace with himself.

He no longer needed others to believe in him before he could believe in his own existence.

He had forgiven himself.

He had accepted himself.

And perhaps, after everything he had endured, he had finally reached the hardest place of all.

Himself.

For Alsbans, that day was a great one.

For at last, he had become the true Alsbans.

For days, Inos had brought food to Alsbans.

Each time, he opened the door, left what he had brought, and departed without disturbing him. Alsbans remained inside, ate his meal, and withdrew once more into his silence.

But that day, something had changed.

When Inos arrived with food as usual, he found Alsbans waiting by the door.

He stopped in surprise.

Alsbans looked at him with the faintest smile.

"Inos, is this how friends treat their guests?"

For a moment, Inos said nothing.

Alsbans continued.

"I've been here for days. You bring me food and leave, but you haven't once shown me the place where you live."

He held out his hand.

"Come on, then. Show me around."

Inos smiled.

"Come, brother."

He rested a hand on Alsbans's shoulder.

"Come. Let me show you Petracisa."

They began walking together.

For the first time in days, Alsbans stepped outside the place where he had shut himself away.

As they passed through the vast spaces of Petracisa, he studied his surroundings carefully. Everything was quiet. Places that had clearly once held life now stood without a single human voice.

Emptiness stretched as far as he could see.

Yet it was not merely the emptiness of an abandoned place.

It was as though the absence of those who had lived there could still be felt.

Inos led him to the square.

Alsbans looked around.

"Does no one truly live here anymore?"

Inos stopped in the middle of the square.

"You can see for yourself, Alsbans. This place is empty."

He gazed around in silence for a moment.

"But not in my eyes."

Alsbans turned to him, puzzled.

"What do you mean, Inos?"

Inos answered slowly.

"You see an empty square. I see the people who were born beneath this earth and buried beneath it."

Alsbans listened.

"People who never saw the sunlight, Alsbans. People who lived without ever knowing the beauty of the world above."

Inos looked across the deserted square.

"We were born here. We grew up here. We lived here. And most of us never even considered that another world might exist beyond the one we knew."

He fell silent for a moment.

"Because we were all chasing the same thing."

Alsbans asked, "What thing?"

Inos looked at him.

"Gold."

Then he continued.

"Jewels. Emeralds. Everything precious hidden deep within the earth."

He began walking across the square.

"We had the finest emeralds, Alsbans. The brightest gold. We possessed more than a person could dream of owning in an entire lifetime."

He shook his head.

"But it was never enough."

Alsbans followed him without speaking.

"We always wanted more. No matter how much gold we found, we believed there must be more buried beneath us. When we obtained one jewel, we searched for a finer one. When we discovered a treasure, we began thinking about the next."

Inos stopped.

"And do you know the strangest part, Alsbans?"

"What was it?"

"Not one of us ever thought to dig upward."

Alsbans looked at him.

Inos went on.

"Everyone dug downward. Deeper. And deeper still. They kept forcing their way farther into the earth for the sake of a little more gold."

He raised his head.

"And anyone who dug upward was called a fool."

Inos repeated the words he remembered from long ago.

'What do you expect to find up there? There's nothing but stone!'

Then he turned back to Alsbans.

"That was what they said."

For a moment, he was quiet.

"Because to them, the only things of value were those hidden underground. They could not believe that any other kind of beauty might exist."

Inos stopped walking.

Alsbans noticed the change in his expression.

A moment earlier, Inos had spoken calmly of the past. Now he seemed to be returning to a memory much farther away.

"One day, war broke out among us, Alsbans."

Alsbans said nothing.

Inos looked toward the square.

"Every place you see around you was once filled with gold."

He lifted his hand and gestured across the deserted ground.

"There was gold everywhere. Jewels everywhere. No one needed to live in poverty."

His voice grew heavier.

"And still, they could not be happy."

He did not speak for a while.

"Because they never looked at what they already had, Alsbans. They saw only what they did not yet possess."

Alsbans lowered his head.

Inos continued.

"In the end, they began fighting not for what was theirs, but for what belonged to someone else."

The silence of the square stretched around them.

"Everyone wanted more. No one was content with what they held. One person's gold became, in another person's eyes, a treasure that had to be taken."

Inos drew a deep breath.

"And they began killing one another."

Alsbans looked around again.

He was beginning to understand why the square stood empty.

But Inos had not finished.

"That was the day I realized something, Alsbans."

"What did you realize?"

"That happiness did not come from possessing more."

Inos turned toward him.

"Happiness was learning how to be happy with what you already had."

He paused.

"I was younger then. And for the first time, I understood that I thought differently from the others."

Alsbans listened closely.

"While everyone was killing one another, I made a decision."

Inos lifted his head.

"I would no longer dig downward."

A faint smile crossed his face.

"I would dig upward."

"Upward?" Alsbans asked.

"Yes, brother."

Inos looked into the distance.

"Finding more gold had lost all meaning for me. No matter how wealthy I became, I understood that the things I owned would never make me happy."

He continued.

"Because wealth was not what I was looking for."

"Then what was?"

"Freedom."

Alsbans fell silent.

Inos's voice softened.

"The freedom to do what I wished. To choose my own path. To live without becoming a slave to the things I possessed."

He lowered his head slightly.

"Sometimes a person believes he has everything, Alsbans, without realizing that the things he owns have begun to rule him."

Alsbans considered his words.

Inos went on.

"Everyone searched for happiness among beautiful and precious things. But I had already learned to be happy with what was in my hands."

He paused.

"And once I had found that happiness, I began to feel something else."

Alsbans asked, "What did you feel?"

"Curiosity."

For the first time, genuine joy appeared on Inos's face as he remembered his past.

"I no longer wondered about gold. I wanted no more jewels. I had seen enough of what lay below."

He lifted his head.

"I wanted to know what lay above."

Inos raised a hand.

"Look up, Alsbans."

Alsbans followed his gaze.

Inos pointed toward an opening high overhead.

"Do you see that hole?"

Alsbans studied it.

"Yes."

"I dug it."

Alsbans turned toward him in surprise.

Inos smiled.

"For years."

Then he continued.

"While everyone else tried to reach farther down, I dug toward the surface. Every day, a little more. Every time, a little higher."

His hand still pointed toward the opening.

"I kept going without anyone noticing. I did not want them to know what I was doing, because they could not see the possibility I saw."

He paused.

"I dug, Alsbans. I dug without stopping."

Alsbans looked toward the opening once more.

Inos continued.

"And through all those years, the people here went on killing one another."

He looked across the square.

"In the places you now see standing empty, people were dying for gold. Those who wanted to increase their possessions ended by losing the life they already had."

Inos looked up again.

"But I kept digging."

Neither spoke for a while.

Then Inos smiled slowly.

"At last, I reached the outside, Alsbans."

Alsbans looked at him.

"And do you know what I thought?"

"What?"

"That I had reached heaven."

Inos's eyes turned toward somewhere far away.

"I had never seen sunlight in my life. I knew nothing of the beauty of the surface. I had believed the world consisted of nothing more than the stone, gold, and jewels I had always known."

He paused.

"But when I came out, everything was different."

Alsbans listened.

"It was so beautiful..."

Inos shook his head slightly.

"I thought I had died."

Then he smiled.

"It was as though I had entered heaven without dying."

Inos's smile slowly faded.

For a while, he looked across the empty square.

"But when I reached the outside, I did not forget what had happened here, Alsbans."

Alsbans waited in silence.

"I did not forget the dead."

Inos continued.

"I carried the bodies of everyone who had died out from beneath this earth."

He paused.

"I brought them all to the surface."

Alsbans raised his head.

Inos looked at him.

"Do you remember the tree, Alsbans? The one with the red leaves?"

The tree returned at once to Alsbans's mind.

The red leaves.

The gold scattered across the earth.

The bodies of Meras's soldiers.

And Inos.

"I remember."

Inos nodded.

"I buried them beneath that tree."

Alsbans remained silent.

Inos continued.

"And I buried all the gold with them."

Alsbans looked at him in astonishment.

"All of it?"

"Yes, brother."

Inos turned toward the square.

"Every piece of gold that was here."

After a moment, he spoke again.

"Everything they had longed to possess throughout their lives, I finally laid in the earth beside them."

A deep silence filled the square.

Inos's voice had grown solemn.

"Because that gold had never brought them happiness."

He paused.

"Instead, it had blinded them so completely that they could no longer see the happiness they already held."

Alsbans thought about his words.

He remembered the bodies of Meras's soldiers beneath the red-leaved tree. He had wondered why the gold was there, and what the tree was meant to represent.

Now he understood that the tree did not shelter treasure alone.

A past lay buried beneath it.

The hunger of an entire people.

Their desires.

And their dead.

Inos spoke once more.

"That was the day I made a promise to myself, Alsbans."

Alsbans turned toward him.

"What promise?"

Inos's expression hardened.

"That I would never again allow those blinded by hunger for gold to live in this world."

Alsbans fell silent.

Inos continued.

"Those who cannot see beauty, who cannot value what they already possess, who destroy the lives of others in their hunger for more—I would not allow them to commit the same evil again."

He paused.

"And I did not leave that promise as a vow to myself alone."

Alsbans watched him closely.

Inos spoke his final words.

"I received a promise from the gods themselves, Alsbans."

For a while, Inos said nothing.

In Petracisa's deserted square, nothing remained of those who had once lived there except their memories. In a place where people had spent their lives searching for gold and jewels, where they had killed one another without ever learning the value of what they already possessed, only two people now stood.

Alsbans looked at Inos.

The one who had spoken to him about happiness, who had told him how gold could blind a person, now carried a different kind of sorrow in his eyes.

Inos lowered his head slightly.

"Perhaps there is a world where I have a family too, Alsbans."

Alsbans said nothing.

"Perhaps there is a world where I am happy."

Inos's voice trembled.

"Perhaps, before all of this, I could have lived another life."

Tears began to run down his cheeks. Inos, who had lived for so long in Petracisa's silence, who had witnessed the deaths of his entire people and spent years alone, could no longer hold them back.

He stepped closer to Alsbans, rested his head on his shoulder, and began to weep.

Alsbans remained quiet. He did not try to stop him. He did not tell him to be strong, or speak of tears as though they were a weakness.

He knew something about this kind of sorrow.

Sometimes what a person needed was not for the pain to end, but for there to be someone before whom it did not have to be hidden.

Alsbans placed a hand on Inos's shoulder.

"Keep crying, brother."

Inos did not lift his head.

"Let out everything you've been carrying. I'm here."

Inos wept harder, and Alsbans stayed beside him.

That day mattered to them both, because each knew the pain of having no one. They knew what it meant to wake with nobody nearby; to have something to say and no one to listen; to remember the past without having a home to return to.

Inos had spent years surrounded by gold before freeing himself from it. Alsbans had spent years searching for a place to belong, only to lose it each time he thought he had found one.

Their lives had been different, but their loneliness was not strange to one another.

That day, Alsbans shared Inos's grief. And for the first time in years, Inos was able to carry that grief in the presence of another person.

The next morning, Alsbans went walking through Petracisa.

He no longer wanted to remain in the place where he had shut himself away for so many days. He passed through the square Inos had shown him, looking more closely at the vast underground world where people had once lived.

As he walked, Petracisa's silence began to seem different to him.

Before, he had seen only an abandoned place. Now he thought of the people Inos had described: those born without ever seeing sunlight, those who spent their lives searching for riches beneath the earth, and those who died surrounded by the gold they had collected.

He walked a little farther, then stopped.

Before him stood a great green banner.

It rose within Petracisa's silence, unlike anything around it. Alsbans approached and saw that something was written upon it.

ALAMONISA

He studied the letters for a long time, trying to remember whether he had ever heard the word. He had learned many things from the wizards of Trixalisse, but he did not know what this inscription meant.

He turned around.

"Inos!"

A short while later, Inos came to him.

"What is it, brother?"

Alsbans pointed at the banner.

"What is that banner, Inos?"

Inos lifted his head. His expression changed as he looked at the green cloth.

"Ah, Alsbans..."

For a moment, he said nothing.

"There is a very old story about this banner."

"What kind of story?" Alsbans asked.

Inos walked toward it.

"According to the legends, one day a chosen person will appear."

Alsbans's eyes widened.

"That person will come here, pass through Petracisa, and take this banner."

He paused.

"And then bring justice to the universe."

Alsbans fell silent.

Inos continued looking at the banner.

"That is how the story is told, brother. They say someone will come who will put an end to all this evil."

Alsbans remembered the voices of the gods.

You are the chosen one, Alsbans.

But he said nothing.

"The legends say this person will possess tremendous power," Inos went on. "Such power that no one will be able to stand against them."

Alsbans listened closely.

"And Meras..."

Inos's voice grew heavy.

"According to the legends, that person will be the only one capable of defeating Meras."

Alsbans looked at the banner for a while.

"Then what does Alamonisa mean?"

Inos shook his head.

"I don't know, brother."

Alsbans was surprised.

"Not even you?"

"No. The legends say only the chosen one knows what that word means."

He paused.

"Some legends even say Alamonisa is the chosen one's name."

Alsbans looked again at the inscription.

Alamonisa.

He repeated the word silently.

The gods had told him that he was the chosen one. Yet he did not even know what a chosen person was supposed to be. He had failed to protect his own people. For years, he had been unable to forgive himself.

And now, before him, stood the banner of someone who was said to bring justice to the entire universe.

Alsbans turned toward Inos.

"Do you believe it?"

"Believe what?"

"That someone like that will really come."

Inos gave a faint smile, but there was no hope in it.

"If such a person truly existed, they should have come long ago, Alsbans."

He gazed at the banner.

"So much evil has been done. So many people have died. So much time has passed."

Slowly, he shook his head.

"It's too late now, brother."

His voice dropped.

"Everything is already over."

Alsbans did not reply.

As he listened, another thought grew within him.

What if it isn't over yet?

He remembered what the gods had told him: that his fate had been erased, that he could rewrite it himself, and that he was the chosen one.

Alsbans knew this now.

But Inos did not.

He looked at his friend for a moment, then decided to tell him the truth.

"Inos..."

Inos turned.

"Yes, brother?"

Alsbans drew a breath.

"There's something I need to tell you."

He was just about to speak when they heard voices.

Both fell silent.

Petracisa's stillness had been broken. Shouts rang out in the distance, growing louder. Then came the sounds of armed men approaching.

Meras's soldiers had arrived.

Alsbans immediately looked at Inos. The smile disappeared from Inos's face.

For a moment, they looked at one another.

This was no longer the time to talk.

Inos handed Alsbans a sword.

Alsbans took it.

Once, he had been forced to fight Meras's soldiers alone. He had lost the people he tried to protect and watched those he loved die.

But now Inos stood beside him.

Inos, who had saved him from death, brought him to Petracisa, and shared his loneliness.

The one Alsbans called his brother.

Inos turned to him.

"The time has come, brother."

Alsbans tightened his grip on the sword.

They stood shoulder to shoulder.

Meras's soldiers were before them.

And this time, Alsbans was not alone.

Two brothers stood ready to fight the soldiers of Meras together.

Chapter 9: The Fall of Petracisa

First came the sounds.

Then the ground began to tremble.

Deep beneath Petracisa, the footsteps overhead grew louder and louder, breaking the silence of the underground world. Every step shook the earth. There were so many soldiers marching above them that their approach felt like an earthquake.

Meras's soldiers were coming.

And their numbers were far beyond any army Alsbans and Inos had faced before.

Inos listened. He drew his wings slightly back and turned to Alsbans.

“What are we going to do, brother?”

Alsbans gripped his sword but remained silent.

“There are too many of them, Alsbans. Can you hear them? Even the ground above us is shaking.”

Alsbans raised his blade.

“We fight, Inos.”

Inos stared at him.

“Fight?”

“Yes.”

“But brother, we cannot defeat them. We do not even know how many there are!”

Alsbans met his eyes.

“I said we fight.”

There was neither anger nor fear in his voice this time. Only the resolve of a man who had made his decision.

Inos fell silent.

Alsbans looked toward the entrance.

“First, seal the entrance.”

Inos lifted his head.

“What?”

“They are almost upon us. If they come through an open passage, we will not withstand them. We block it, and we wait for them to reach us.”

Inos thought for a moment, then nodded.

They set to work together.

They dragged great stones into the passage and piled them across the entrance to Petracisa. Whatever they could find, they used. They filled the remaining gaps with smaller rocks until the way inside was almost entirely sealed.

But blocking the entrance would not be enough.

Alsbans studied the enormous stones above the passage.

An idea came to him.

“We stop them here.”

Inos looked at him.

“How?”

Alsbans pointed upward.

“When they try to force their way through, those rocks will fall on them.”

Inos followed his gaze, then looked back at Alsbans.

He understood.

Together they positioned the stones and prepared a trap. To enter, the soldiers would have to move the obstacles blocking the passage. But the moment they did, the boulders above would come loose and crush those standing beneath them.

When everything was ready, the two of them concealed themselves.

And waited.

The footsteps overhead continued.

The trembling grew stronger.

The soldiers were drawing near.

“Brother,” Inos whispered.

Alsbans turned.

“What is it?”

“Remember this. When the footsteps stop, they will attack.”

Alsbans nodded.

After a while, the sound of marching began to fade.

First the distant footsteps ceased.

Then those closest to them.

Until at last there was complete silence.

Alsbans held his breath.

Inos kept his eyes on the entrance.

Nothing moved. For an instant, it was as though the entire army had vanished.

Then the first blow struck.

BOOM!

The great stones shuddered.

Another blow followed.

Then another.

Meras's soldiers had begun hammering at the entrance with all their strength. Dust spilled through the cracks, and each impact sent a tremor through the walls of Petracisa.

Alsbans looked at Inos.

“Are you ready, brother?”

Inos turned to him.

“Ready.”

At last, the entrance gave way.

The great stones shifted out of place.

And just as Meras's soldiers began to force their way inside, the trap sprang.

The boulders waiting above came crashing down.

The soldiers at the front had no chance to escape. They were crushed beneath the falling rock. Those behind tried to stop, but hundreds more were pressing forward, pushing them into the passage.

Screams echoed through Petracisa.

Dust swallowed the entrance.

Alsbans and Inos emerged from their hiding place.

The trap had worked.

But behind the fallen stones stood more soldiers.

And behind them, still more.

And more beyond those.

Meras's army was not stopping. Each man who fell was immediately replaced by another.

Soldiers poured in with torches, longbows, and swords in their hands.

“ALSBANS!”

The cries rang through the underground halls.

“ALSBANS!”

Some shouted his name while others advanced with their weapons raised.

Alsbans turned toward the voice.

He saw one of the soldiers calling for him.

He did not hesitate.

With all his strength, he hurled his sword toward the man.

The blade cut through the air and struck him. The soldier fell where he stood.

Inos began tearing loose heavy stones and hurling them at the attackers.

Each stone opened a gap in their ranks.

Alsbans seized one of those openings, rushed to the fallen soldier, and pulled his sword free before returning to Inos's side.

And each gap filled again almost at once.

Alsbans and Inos exchanged a glance.

Then they ran together toward the entrance.

Traps alone would no longer hold the enemy back.

The battle had begun.

Nothing remained of Petracisa's ancient silence.

The clash of steel, the cries of men, and the thunder of falling stone filled the underground world.

Alsbans fought the soldiers in front of him, keeping all his attention on the next strike, the next blade, the next opening that might keep him alive.

Inos fought beside him. He lifted great stones and flung them into the enemy, driving back anyone who came too close.

Together they pushed toward the entrance.

But no matter how many soldiers they killed, more took their places.

The dead fell to the ground, and those behind them marched over their bodies to continue the assault.

The stones were stained with blood.

As the fighting went on, bodies and torn flesh covered the passage. There was scarcely a clean place left to stand at the entrance of Petracisa.

Alsbans began to struggle for breath.

Inos's movements, too, were growing heavier.

Still, they fought.

Then one of the soldiers raised his bow.

The arrow flew.

By the time Inos sensed the danger, it was too late.

The arrow struck his wing.

“AAAH!”

His cry rang through the passage.

He staggered, blood running down his wounded wing.

Alsbans turned at once.

“INOS!”

But Inos did not retreat.

If anything, the pain made him angrier.

He charged the soldiers again, striking down those in his path despite the wound. One by one he forced them back until he reached the entrance.

There he killed the remaining soldiers in the passage, dragged a massive stone across the opening, and sealed it once more.

Outside, the soldiers immediately began pounding against the barrier.

Inos bent forward and tried to move his wounded wing.

Pain twisted his face.

He could no longer fly.

Alsbans rushed to him.

“Inos!”

Inos raised his head.

“Are you all right, brother?”

Before answering, Inos looked toward the entrance.

The stones were trembling again.

The army was preparing to break through a second time.

Alsbans looked at his wing.

“You are wounded. I have to help you.”

Inos raised a hand.

“No.”

“Your wing—”

“Listen to me, Alsbans.”

Alsbans fell silent.

Inos pointed upward.

“Do you see that place?”

Alsbans looked where he was pointing.

“Yes.”

“Up there. On the left.”

Inos's voice hardened.

“Go there and start digging.”

Alsbans stared at him.

“Why?”

“Do as I say!”

For a moment, Alsbans did not move. Inos had never shouted at him like that before.

“Inos, what are you planning?”

Inos glanced toward the entrance. The blows were growing stronger.

“I will take care of things down here, brother. You have to go.”

“And what about you?”

Inos answered:

“They are not after me, Alsbans.”

He paused.

“They are after you.”

Alsbans watched him.

“We can trap them all inside here. You reach the surface and deal with those who remain outside.”

Alsbans shook his head.

“I do not like this plan.”

Inos did not look away.

“We have no other choice.”

Another blow struck the entrance.

One of the stones shifted.

Inos raised his voice.

“Go, brother!”

Alsbans looked at him for another moment.

Then he turned and ran to the place Inos had shown him.

Alsbans began digging upward.

He broke through the earth and stone before him, trying to open a way to the surface. His hands grew more tired with every blow, but he did not stop.

Below, the pounding at the entrance continued.

Inos waited alone.

Blood still ran from his wing.

He kept his eyes fixed on the barrier.

After a while, Alsbans called down.

“Inos!”

Inos looked up.

“What is it, brother?”

“The way is opening!”

Inos looked toward him.

The moment had come.

He turned to the stones at the entrance and began pulling them loose.

Together with the soldiers' blows from outside, the barrier collapsed.

The entrance opened wide.

Meras's soldiers surged inside.

There were no great stones left to stop their advance.

The men shouted as they poured through.

Inos turned.

And ran.

With his wounded wing, he could not fly, but he ran as fast as he could.

“GO, BROTHER!”

Alsbans heard him and kept digging upward.

Below, more and more soldiers entered Petracisa.

First hundreds.

Then hundreds more.

The vast underground chambers began to fill with men.

Before long, wherever one looked, there were only Meras's soldiers.

They shoved and trampled one another, pushing forward over those who fell.

Their numbers were so great that almost nothing else could be seen inside.

Every voice was shouting the same name.

“ALSBANS!”

“DEATH TO ALSBANS!”

“DEATH!”

The words thundered against Petracisa's walls.

As Inos ran, he glanced behind him.

Most of the army had entered.

And getting back out would not be easy.

He raised his head toward the opening Alsbans was digging.

His brother was almost through.

Inos stopped.

For a moment, he watched Alsbans climbing toward the surface.

Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

At last, Alsbans broke through to the outside.

The moment he reached the surface, he turned back.

“Inos!”

He looked down through the opening.

There was Inos.

Still inside Petracisa.

And behind him, countless soldiers of Meras.

“COME, BROTHER!”

Inos raised his head.

“I am staying here, Alsbans!”

Alsbans could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

“WHAT?”

“Do not worry about me!”

Inos's voice rose from below.

“Go to Legacy! Save yourself!”

Alsbans shook his head.

“No!”

Inos looked up at him.

Alsbans shouted:

“I WILL NOT GO WITHOUT YOU, BROTHER!”

Inos's expression softened.

For a while, he looked at Alsbans.

Then he spoke.

“Go, Alsbans.”

Alsbans leaned forward as if he meant to climb back down.

Inos shouted again.

“GO!”

He paused.

“Nothing will happen to me, brother!”

Alsbans kept his eyes on him.

Inos called up one last time.

“I promise!”

Alsbans could not move.

Throughout his life, he had heard so many promises.

Promises from those who said they would return.

From those who said they would protect him.

From those who said they would never leave.

And now Inos was making him a promise too.

But there was such resolve in his brother's voice that Alsbans understood arguing would change nothing.

Inos turned away.

He looked toward the pillars supporting Petracisa.

Years ago, he had dug upward through this earth to find freedom.

He had dug without stopping.

To escape.

And now, beneath that same earth, he would use the freedom he had found so another person might live.

He gripped his pickaxe tightly.

He approached one of the supporting pillars.

And struck with all his strength.

The first pillar shifted.

Then the others.

A terrible sound rose from deep within Petracisa.

The ground shook.

Great pieces began to break from the ceilings.

Before the soldiers could understand what was happening, rocks were falling upon them.

Inos struck again.

And the supports of Petracisa gave way.

Alsbans felt the tremor first.

Then he heard the sound.

The roar rising from underground seemed to come from the heart of the mountain itself.

Dust poured upward through the opening.

Alsbans stumbled backward.

“Inos?”

There was no answer.

The earth continued to collapse.

The depths of Petracisa were closing, one after another.

The cries of Meras's soldiers vanished into the thunder of falling stone.

Alsbans rushed toward the opening.

“INOS!”

He shouted with all the strength he had left.

“INOS!”

But no answer came from below.

The hole began filling with falling earth.

The place where he had seen his brother only moments before disappeared.

Alsbans fell to his knees.

“No…”

He stared at the ground.

“Inos, please…”

A final tremendous crash sounded.

And Petracisa collapsed completely.

The great underground realm where countless people had once lived, where gold and jewels had been gathered, where Inos had spent years digging toward the surface, was buried beneath the earth.

Along with Meras's soldiers.

And Inos.

Alsbans could not tear his eyes away from the ruins.

“INOS!”

His voice faded into the emptiness.

He shouted again.

Still, no answer came.

He did not know whether Inos was alive or dead.

All he knew was that the soldiers who had gone down with him could no longer be seen.

But the battle was not over.

Alsbans heard voices behind him.

He turned.

The soldiers of Meras who had not entered Petracisa were still outside.

And now they had seen him.

“THERE HE IS!”

The soldiers raised their swords.

“ALSBANS!”

Alsbans slowly stood.

He looked back at the collapsed ground one more time.

He did not want to leave his brother there.

But the voices of the soldiers closing in behind him were growing louder.

He shut his eyes.

Then opened them again.

He turned away.

And began to run.

Meras's soldiers pursued him.

Alsbans did not stop.

He ran.

Behind him lay the ruins of Petracisa.

And beneath those ruins, one of the few people who had ever called him brother.

Alsbans kept running.