One of Thousands
What a bizarre nightmare it was. The king lay upon a bed of cold stone, clad in full armor that crushed his chest with its weight. The darkness of the chamber was thick and eerie. Suddenly, a soft rustling broke the silence. From the feet of the bed, slender, green vines began to slither upward. The plant grew with terrifying speed, coiling around the bedposts and climbing higher. Soon, the soft tendrils looped around the king's neck.
Dorian, the young King of Alderia, reached down to draw his sword. He dragged the steel blade across the vines with all his might, but the sword felt like dull lead; it did not leave a single scratch on the green bark. He unsheathed his dagger and struck at the stems frantically, but the blade only slipped off their surface. The loop around his neck grew tighter and tighter. His breath caught in his chest, his eyes bulging from their sockets, until suddenly, with a muffled cry...
His eyes flew open, and he bolted upright.
He was panting. Cold sweat dripped from his brow. It took a few seconds for the familiar scents of the war tent—leather and lamp oil—to anchor him back to reality. He rubbed his neck; there was no plant there, but the phantom burn of strangulation still lingered in his throat.
If the nightmare was over, waking was no less a hell...
The air at the edge of the Oserian forests was cold, damp, and oppressive. The scent of rain-soaked earth mingled with the sharp stench of rotting willow leaves. Dorian wore his heavy armor, but the true weight rested upon his heart; the phantom choking of that plant still burned in his throat. He was a young king with arrogant eyes, now seeking his prey beneath the heavy shadows of the ancient trees. The Alderian army moved like iron snakes through the woods, hunting down the last remnants of the rival forces.
Commander Roland approached on his steed. His weathered, stone-like face beneath gray armor bore the marks of years of experience. With a deep, measured voice, he said, "My Lord, the scouts have spotted a small fire up ahead. It appears to be a handful of refugees. The Alderian army awaits your command."
With a mere nod, Dorian ordered the assault. To him, this uneven war had to end as swiftly as possible.
The ambush was like a thunderstrike—swift and merciless. The symphony of clashing steel and screams of terror tore through the misty silence of the forest. The Alderian soldiers, holding the Lion-crested banners high, crushed anything that smelled of resistance. Dorian himself was in the thick of it, mounted on his horse. Blood carved paths through the damp grass. Everything was proceeding according to his perfectionist calculations; a decisive purge.
But suddenly, a loud, tearful cry pierced the chaos: "Father...!" Time stood still for Dorian.
Amidst the mud and blood, beside the flickering flames of the campfire, a girl was on her knees. Before her lay an old man, his face bloodied and pressed into the earth. The girl wore a simple, dirt-stained dress that could not hide the delicate grace of her youth. Her cloak had fallen back, framing her fragile face with disheveled dark hair. A girl whose beauty shone blindingly amidst all that ugliness and death. In her large, green eyes, there swelled a profound, strange, and infinite surrender. She looked straight into the eyes of the conquering king...
A soldier raised his sword to finish the girl off. Instinctively, with a voice that startled even himself with its ferocity, Dorian roared, "Hold!"
Roland pulled his horse forward, staring at the king in disbelief.
But Dorian no longer heard anything. He dismounted. His heavy armor clanked against the muddy earth. Step by step, he approached the girl. Sylvia did not move; she only tilted her head up slightly. The shape of her pale lips delivered the coup de grâce to the king. Dorian sheathed his dagger, extended a trembling hand toward the girl, and with a tone that desperately tried to maintain his royal authority, declared: "Do not kill her... From this moment on, she belongs to my court."
Sylvia placed her cold, delicate hand into the king's palm.
The capital of Alderia, unlike the misty, ancient forests of Oseria, was a city built of carved stone, strict geometric order, and towering spires that pierced the sky. A place where everything reeked of logic, statistics, and the power of the sword.
Sylvia entered the marble halls of the palace wearing the same cloak that carried the damp scent of her motherland's willows. She was now the queen of this conquering realm—a woman for whom the young king had trampled over every law of the court to possess. Advisors and courtiers glared at this outsider with cold, suspicious eyes, but Dorian's unyielding presence and absolute backing kept their mouths shut.
On her very first night in the palace, in a bedchamber draped in dark blue velvet, Sylvia knelt before a tiny wooden shrine she had secretly crafted. She pulled a holy book from a silk wrap and whispered prayers, thanking God that she was still alive.
Suddenly, the creak of the wooden door interrupted her devotion. Martha, a young local handmaiden, entered carrying a basin of warm water and white towels. With delicate, trembling hands that barely had the strength to hold the small basin, she said, "Sylvia... I brought you warm water to wash the weariness of the journey from your bones."
Sylvia stood slowly. An infinitely gentle smile graced her lips. She stepped forward, took Martha's hands, and spoke with a tender voice, "Thank you, Martha. You have tired eyes. I think you suffer from a lack of sleep." Martha smiled. "Yes, I haven't been sleeping well these nights. My cousin is on the battlefield in Oseria these days, and I worry for him." Her cheeks flushed.
Sylvia stroked Martha's hand, but the moment she heard the name Oseria, her eyes sharpened like daggers for a fleeting second. Yet, she maintained her smile, and with a voice like a soothing balm, replied, "Do not worry, my dear. God watches over the innocent."
- "Father!? What is the most painful thing in this world to you?" - "That one day, our land and our faith might be destroyed. My daughter, we are few in number. We have been pushed to the brink of annihilation time and time again, but the roots of our sacred tree are nourished by the blood of the faithful. And if the roots of our faith dry up, nothing will remain of us. But God chose us, out of all the people in the world, to preserve our religion."
Sylvia remembered her adoptive father again. She remembered that day in the forest, when the old man, completely unarmed, tried to protect her. Something he had done countless times in her life for a girl who wasn't truly his own. He wasn't her real father, but he was all she had in this world. The same kind, devout man who, years ago, had pulled her from the ashes of her burning home.
The royal council chamber of Alderia, unlike the damp, misty groves of Oseria, was built with dazzling geometric precision and cold stone walls. The young king slouched at the head of a massive oak table. Alongside his uncle and senior advisors, they wore deep scowls, arguing over the state of the treasury and the taxation of the newly conquered lands.
"Even though we sent Philip the Scorpion-Hand to Eldoria, and with the help of a few Oserian traitors, we arrested and executed many rebels, it still seems Eldoria has not been pacified."
To the king's right sat the Queen—Dorian's cousin—draped in priceless silk, her gaze proud and bored. She was one of Dorian's two wives. The culture of the Alderian court was brutal, reckless, and possessive. In this palace, not only the wives, but every single handmaiden and servant was considered the absolute property of the king. A single gesture from him was enough to alter any woman's fate forever.
The heavy council doors opened with a dry creak, and several servants entered to serve food and replace the goblets. Among them was Sylvia, wearing a simple earth-colored dress and a cloak that smelled of dampness, carrying a silver platter. A girl who, until recently, wanted nothing more than to worship God for the rest of her life; but now, fate had brought her to the Alderian palace as a defenseless spoil of war.
With measured steps and her head bowed, Sylvia approached the council table. Every time her simple skirt dragged across the polished marble, the sensation of captivity tightened around her soul. She cautiously offered the platter. Dorian, who until that moment had been listening to his uncle's long reports with irritation, suddenly turned his head.
The gaze of the conquering king, reckless and heavy, locked onto the girl’s delicate, trembling hands, and then slowly trailed upward—to her pale face and that defeated look hidden beneath the shadow of her long eyelashes. Amidst these harsh stone walls, she was like a fragile flower waiting to be trampled.
A brief silence washed over the hall. The Queen frowned suspiciously, and the king's uncle stopped mid-sentence. The king remained staring at this defenseless girl, whose purest dreams had been crushed beneath the boots of his army. It was a look whose meaning was crystal clear to everyone in the room. Sylvia set the platter down, offered a short bow, and stepped back, but she felt the crushing weight of the king’s gaze on her tired, delicate shoulders all the way to the end of the hall.
Sylvia hurried through the cold, stone corridors of the palace until she finally reached her modest room in the servants' quarters. She shut the wooden door and released the breath she had been holding with a shudder. Her heart was racing; Dorian's bold, heavy stare still burned like a red-hot brand against the skin of her neck.
She leaned her back against the door and slid down until she hit the cold floor. She pulled her knees to her chest, placed her hands over her heart, and whispered a prayer in her mother tongue. She had to expel this suffocating air, tainted with the smell of incense and court wine, from her lungs, or she would choke.
It was midnight when she slipped out of her room. The palace had sunk into a heavy slumber, though the distant clatter of guards' boots could still be heard. Sylvia made her way to the eastern courtyard, where the wind blew from the mountains.
The outside air was biting. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders. The pale moonlight cast long shadows across the cobblestones. Suddenly, her steps faltered as she spotted a massive silhouette in the dark corner of the terrace.
"The air in Oseria is warmer than this, is it not?"
The voice was deep, raspy, like stone grinding against iron. Sylvia swallowed hard and took a step back. The shadow stepped out of the darkness. It was Commander Roland. He had shed his heavy armor and wore only a loose linen shirt that revealed old scars crisscrossing his arms. A long sword rested across his knees, and with a piece of oil-soaked leather, he was polishing the blade with terrifying meticulousness. The sharp scent of metal oil and male sweat hung in the air.
Sylvia lowered her head and spoke with a trembling voice, "Forgive me, Commander... I did not mean to intrude upon your solitude. I am just... very homesick and lonely. Insomnia has taken hold of me."
Roland stopped his work. He fixed his tired, emotionless eyes on her. Roland's gaze was nothing like the king's; it was the look of a man who had seen thousands die, now observing a small, captive bird.
"You are not homesick, girl. It is the king's gaze that has tightened its noose around your throat." Roland gave a bitter smirk and set the sword aside. "I saw how he looked at you in the council today. Your fate in this palace has already been written."
Sylvia’s heart clenched, but she maintained her mask of innocence. "I am merely a servant, My Lord. An insignificant girl from a defeated land."
Roland stood up. His massive frame blocked out the moonlight. He walked to the edge of the balcony and stared down at the countless flickering lights of Alderia below. A heavy silence settled between them. The wind ruffled the commander's graying hair.
"Insignificant..." Roland rolled the word around in his mouth, as if tasting its bitterness. "You know, girl? I have spent half my life on horseback, wading through blood and mud. I have conquered kingdoms and driven the Lion banner into the heart of enemy soils. Many men have died with a mere point of my finger."
He paused, pressing his large, calloused hands against the stone ledge. "But when I look at this city at night... I realize I am still just one of hundreds of thousands."
Sylvia cautiously took a step forward. For a moment, curiosity overcame her fear. "What do you mean, Commander?"
Without looking at her, with a voice that seemed to echo from the bottom of a deep well, Roland said, "The world is filled with millions of humans. Some are men, some are women. Some marry, and some remain entirely alone until the end of their days. Some birth children, and some die barren... We humans are agonizingly similar. We all come into this world with a cry, we all thrash about the same way to survive, and ultimately, we turn to dust with a moan. Whatever you are, whatever morals you hold, or whatever power lies within you; whatever you take pride in, anything... exists in thousands of others. If you pretend to be insignificant but secretly believe you have ensnared a king... know that dozens of other women have done the same."
He turned back to Sylvia. An ancient sorrow rippled through his eyes. "I have killed so much, conquered so much, yet I have still failed to change a thing about this world. The world remains just as cruel as it always was. I am just like the hundreds of thousands who drew swords before me, and those who will draw them after me. Just dust in the path of the wind."
Sylvia looked into the weary man's eyes. Outwardly, she was a girl brought to the verge of tears by the commander's heavy words. She offered a short bow. "Goodnight, Commander. May God grant peace to your heart." Roland did not answer. He merely returned his gaze to his sword.
Sylvia walked back to her room. She knew that tonight's peace was the most deceitful lie in this palace.
Three nights later, that deceptive illusion of peace shattered.
In the dead of night, the sound of heavy footsteps and the dry thud of a fist against Sylvia's wooden door snapped her awake. Two guards stood outside holding torches that sent black smoke billowing toward the ceiling. Behind them stood Martha, her face etched with distress, holding a bowl of exotic, scented oils. No one spoke a word; words were unnecessary. This was the silent ritual of the Alderian court.
They bathed Sylvia, combed her hair with bone combs, and dressed her in a gown of thin, white silk. Throughout it all, Sylvia sat like a marble statue—cold and motionless. Her eyes were fixed on the flickering flame of a candle.
The corridors leading to the king’s chambers were long and suffocating. With every step she took, the chill of the cobblestones seeped from the soles of her bare feet into her bones. The guards stopped before the massive oak doors of the king's quarters. With an agonizing creak, the doors swung open.
The heat and the sharp stench of the room hit Sylvia's face like a slap. The smell of frankincense, bitter wine, and hot animal leather. The room was drowning in the light of candles that cast long shadows over the dark red velvet draping the walls. At the far end stood a colossal bed, its legs carved into the shape of lion paws—the very lion that dominated the crest of Alderia, and now sought to devour her soul.
Dorian, the young king, stood by the stone fireplace. He had stripped off his armor and formal attire, wearing only dark trousers and a loose shirt, unbuttoned halfway down his chest. He held a silver goblet in his hand. At the sound of the heavy oak doors closing, he turned toward Sylvia.
The absolute silence of the room was broken only by the crackling of firewood in the hearth.
Sylvia remained standing right by the door. Her head was bowed. Beneath the silk gown, her entire body trembled like a willow in a storm. Dorian set his goblet on the wooden table. The king's footsteps made no sound against the thick rugs, but Sylvia felt him approaching through the radiating heat of his body and the sharp scent of wine that heavy his breath.
The king stopped right in front of her. He reached out with his large, warm hand and placed his index finger under Sylvia's delicate chin. With a soft but irresistible pressure, he forced her head up.
"You are trembling..." Dorian's voice was deep and quiet.
Sylvia swallowed hard. A heavy lump blocked her throat. With a voice barely above a whisper, she murmured, "I... I am afraid, My Lord."
A faint smile touched Dorian's lips. He brushed his thumb across Sylvia's cold cheek. "Fear is for those who do not know their fate. You are no longer in the dark forests of Oseria. You are here. In the safest place in the world."
Dorian leaned his face close to her hair and inhaled deeply. "You smell of rain... the wet earth of the land I conquered."
When the king guided her toward the massive lion-crested bed, Sylvia closed her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids was her only sanctuary. She no longer thought of becoming a nun; she no longer thought of the sacred prayers in her mother tongue. She surrendered to the fate the king had forged for her—silent, voiceless, and drowning in tears she did not even have the courage to shed.
Time did not merely pass in the court of Alderia; it scraped against Sylvia's bones like a rasp. Months had passed since that dark night, and now, her bedchamber was overwhelmed by the metallic scent of blood, sweat, and burning frankincense.
The labor pains crushed her abdomen and lower back like the claws of a monster. Sylvia had crumpled the silk sheets in her fists and screamed. The court midwives stood around the bed, their faces cold and indifferent.
Outside the door, Dorian paced. The rhythmic clack of his heavy boots against the stone floor was the only sound echoing through the corridor. In her own chambers, the Queen waited for news with a deep, festering hatred.
It was during these agonizing moments that Sylvia's worst memories paraded through her mind... The memory of her adoptive father's death. The hazy recollections of her childhood. The sight of blood resurrected the smell of smoke and burning flesh in her nostrils. A blurred memory from when she was barely a year old; when angry men drove a spear through her mother's heart. The image of her mother's lifeless body folded over the shaft, the spearhead jutting out from her back. She later learned from her adoptive father that her parents had been burned at the stake. Accused of witchcraft and heresy. They had wanted to throw Sylvia into the same fire, but the old man, who held great respect among them, had saved the girl and taken her as his own. Having no wife or child of his own at the time, he had even forsaken the village forever to protect her.
Finally, with Sylvia's last wail, the cry of a newborn shattered the heavy silence of the room.
The midwife wrapped the blood-slicked infant in a cloth. "It is a boy..."
Dorian threw the doors open and strode in. He went straight to the bed, his eyes locked solely on the child. The midwife placed the baby into the king's arms. Dorian wiped the blood from the boy's forehead with his thumb. Pride gleamed in his eyes.
Sylvia lay lifeless and pale on the bed. Her chest rose and fell with immense difficulty. Dorian sat on the edge of the bed and placed the newborn into her arms.
When Sylvia's gaze fell upon the small, red face of the baby, all her pain vanished for a fleeting moment. She touched his tiny fingers. The boy stopped crying and half-opened his large eyes. Sylvia's heart trembled. In this stone fortress built on hatred, she had absolutely nothing—and now, this infant was the only living thing made of her own flesh and blood.
The cold wind howling down from the mountains of Oseria whipped the massive banners of Alderia with ruthless violence. On the thick fabric, the roaring lion cast leaping shadows under the torchlight. Dorian's colossal army was now encamped just leagues away from the Oserian capital, bordered by a forest. A vast plain stretched before the camp, ending at the city walls. Tomorrow morning, the final bastion of this land's resistance was fated to fall.
Sylvia's tent was one of the largest in the encampment, with walls of compressed wool and floors lined with bear pelts. Dorian, having just come from the royal pavilion to visit Sylvia and their son, sat on a wooden folding chair, examining a map spread across a table. Their boy had just learned to walk. He was asleep in the corner of the tent on a small, warm mattress—a boy with dark hair and large eyes. Sylvia knelt beside him, gently pulling a woolen blanket over his chest.
Over these years, Sylvia had been quiet, docile, and obedient. Her presence beside Dorian had become a daily routine—sometimes vibrant, sometimes fading into the background.
Suddenly, the heavy silence of the tent was broken by a dry cough.
Dorian lifted his head from the map. The cough repeated, this time more choked and prolonged. Sylvia immediately hovered over the child. "My love...?"
The boy rubbed his eyes. The whites of his eyes were webbing with thick red veins. His tiny mouth hung open, panting rapidly, but it seemed no air was reaching his lungs. He brought his little hands up and clawed at his own throat. His face was turning a violent shade of blue.
Dorian violently shoved the table aside and rushed to the mattress. "What happened?!"
Terrified, Sylvia grabbed the boy's hands to keep him from tearing at his own skin. "I don't know! He was just playing outside the tent near the trees..." She screamed: "Call the physician! Someone bring the physician!"
The child convulsed on the ground. Dorian scooped him into his arms. The tiny body was radiating heat like a furnace, yet shivering uncontrollably. The boy thrashed in his father’s arms, his hands still desperately seeking his throat, as if an invisible, thick rope—or perhaps the tendrils of a strangling vine—had coiled around his neck, pulling tighter by the second. With his free hand, Dorian frantically tried to unwrap whatever was choking his son, but there was nothing there. Only hot, inflamed skin.
For a split second, the boy's gaze locked with Dorian's horrified eyes. They were bulging from their sockets. And then... with one violent tremor, his body went limp, his small head rolling back against the king's arm.
A deathly silence claimed the tent.
Sylvia was frozen. For several seconds, she only stared at the lifeless body of her child. No sound escaped her throat. She crawled slowly across the floor, running her trembling fingers over her son's bruised neck, as if trying to wipe away the discoloration with her touch. Her mouth opened and closed, but she had no air to scream. Suddenly, with a stroke of sheer madness, she grabbed Dorian's shirt and shoved him backward. She threw herself onto the corpse, burying her face in the child's sweat-drenched hair. The sound of her weeping was not human; it was a dry, jagged, animalistic wail that battered the roof of the tent and sent shivers down the spines of the guards outside.
The army's physician sprinted in, but upon seeing the blue face of the child and the stone-cold visage of the king, he was rooted to the spot.
With a voice that barely scraped past his vocal cords, Dorian turned to Sylvia: "What happened... We were right here..."
Sylvia lifted her head. Her face was drenched in tears, her eyes wild with a manic grief. With trembling hands, she pointed to the back flap of the tent, which had been left slightly ajar. "Shadows..." She gasped through her violent sobs. "When you were looking at the map... I went out to fetch him water... I saw shadows darting through the willow trees. I thought they were the guards... but they weren't... They came into the tent, Dorian... They killed my baby!"
Sylvia lunged, grabbing the king's tunic, tugging at it pleadingly. "They were Oserian spies! They fed him the toxins of this forest... They took their country's revenge out on me and my innocent child!"
Dorian ground his teeth together. The muscles in his jaw corded. A blinding rage pushed back the grief that was threatening to drive him mad.
An hour later, Roland entered the tent. The king stood beside the shrouded body of his son, while Sylvia, crumpled in a dark corner, still wept with a hoarse, ragged voice.
"My Lord..." Roland nodded with genuine sorrow. "We must hand the body over to the physicians to prepare it for the rites."
Roland took a step forward, but before his hand could reach the mattress, Sylvia threw herself over the corpse like a she-wolf whose den had been breached. "Do not touch him!" Her shriek was so jagged and piercing that Roland froze in place. With trembling, frantic hands, Sylvia ripped a white silk sheet from the king's bed. She wrapped her lifeless child with an agonizing meticulousness, until nothing remained of him but a small, white bundle. She clutched the bundle tightly to her chest and curled back into the darkest corner of the tent.
Dorian, his eyes red and exhausted, raised a hand and signaled Roland to step back. "Leave us, Roland. I will not return to the Queen's pavilion tonight. I will stay here."
That night was the longest night of the king's life. The wind howling through the tents sounded like a sinister, endless lullaby. Dorian sat on the floor beside Sylvia. The woman did not blink once until dawn. She merely rocked back and forth, pressing the white bundle against her heart, as if trying to breathe life back into it with her own body heat.
Near dawn, as the first gray slivers of light crept through the seams of the tent, Sylvia finally broke the silence. "Dorian..." Her voice sounded like crushed glass.
Dorian lifted his head and looked at his wife's pallid face. Sylvia rested her head on the king's shoulder. Her scalding tears slid down Dorian's leather armor. "Do not let them take my son from me... Do not let them bury him in this cold, foreign dirt. I am taking him with me."
Dorian spoke with an anguished tone: "Where will you take him, my love? We ride into battle in less than an hour."
Sylvia clawed at the king's shirt. Her gaze flicked up; her green eyes were now filled with a dark, consuming fire. "To the battlefield. With you." "Sylvia, this is madness. That is no place for a grieving mother." "I am not grieving, Dorian... I am dead!" Sylvia sobbed. "They ripped my heart from my chest last night. I beg you... I want to be there. I want to see with my own eyes how your army burns their city to ashes. I want to witness the vengeance for my son's blood."
The sheer agony and madness in her words disarmed the king. Dorian, who was himself overflowing with wrath and sorrow, pressed his forehead against Sylvia's cold brow and whispered hoarsely, "Very well... You shall ride beside me."
An hour later, the camp was drowning in the uproar of thousands of soldiers and the neighing of warhorses. The commanders waited outside the king's pavilion. Roland stood by the entrance in full plate steel.
Dorian emerged from the tent. His face looked as though it were carved from granite. "Roland." The commander stepped forward. "She rides with us to the field today." Roland's eyes widened. "My Lord..." Dorian snarled. "She is the mother of my child, and she is in mourning. You will follow her like a shadow. You will not take your eyes off her for a single second. That is my most absolute command to you." Roland hesitated, glanced at the dark entrance of the tent, and bowed his head. "It will be done."
Inside the tent, Sylvia was donning armor. She strapped a light leather cuirass over her black mourning gown. She had tied the white bundle to her back with thick woolen ropes, securing it so tightly that it looked as though the child were still alive and his mother was carrying him on her back.
Dorian walked back in. The clinking of his metal armor echoed in the tent. "Are you ready? The army awaits." Sylvia nodded. She walked over to the table where the war map had been spread the night before. A small jug of bitter Alderian wine sat there. She filled two silver goblets. Her hands did not tremble in the slightest.
With measured steps, she walked back to Dorian. She handed one goblet to the king and raised the other herself. Her eyes were still rimmed with red. "To your victory... and to the peace of our son's soul." Dorian looked at the goblet with a bitter sorrow. A lump formed in his throat. He raised the cup and downed the astringent wine in a single gulp.
"Let us go." Dorian turned to leave the tent, but on his very first step, he halted. Suddenly, a wave of intense heat bloomed at the back of his neck. The world spun around him for a second, and a blurred darkness edged his vision. He grabbed the wooden support pole of the tent to keep his balance.
Sylvia immediately placed a hand on his arm. Her voice was brimming with the concern of a devoted mother and wife: "Dorian... are you alright? You've gone pale." Dorian squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head a few times. He took a deep breath. The dizziness receded slightly. "It is nothing..." He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "The lack of sleep and this damned grief are taking their toll. Once I am on horseback, the cold air will set me right."
They stepped out of the tent. As the king emerged alongside a woman carrying a white bundle strapped to her back, a crushing silence fell over the thousands of soldiers in the Alderian army. Everyone knew what was inside that small bundle.
Two black warhorses were waiting. Dorian mounted his. Roland, his eyes clouded with worry, helped Sylvia onto hers. The weight of the bundle on her back caused her to lean slightly forward, but Sylvia gripped the reins with a grip of iron.
The war horns sounded. Their blare was like the groan of a beast waking from its slumber. Across the plains, the Oserian army had formed its ranks beneath banners depicting a twisting willow tree wrapping around a holy book.
The plain between the two armies had sunk into a deathly stillness. The only sound was the howling wind lashing at the fabric of the banners. The pale morning sun glinted off the countless spears of the Alderian host. Across the field, the Oserian soldiers stood as silent as a wall of stone beneath the shadows of their flags.
Dorian shifted in his saddle. He drew a deep breath to roar the command for a full assault, but suddenly, that dark vertigo returned with double the ferocity. He felt his collar and leather armor tightening around him in a suffocating grip. He brought his hand to his throat. No air was reaching his lungs. Invisible roots were slithering through his veins, coiling tightly around his windpipe.
But he was the King of Alderia. The ruthless conqueror of nations. He could not tremble on his horse before the eyes of thousands of soldiers. He clenched his jaw. The astringent taste of the morning wine had now turned to the taste of ash in his mouth. With iron will, he kept his back straight, refusing to let the army's morale shatter.
But before Dorian could raise his hand to give the order, an insane shriek ripped through the silence of the plains.
A scream that was not the roar of a warrior; it was the animalistic wailing of a mother abandoned in absolute darkness. Sylvia, her eyes flashing with a mix of tears and pure lunacy, whipped her horse's reins. Her black steed reared up with a piercing neigh and charged toward the heart of the enemy lines at a breakneck gallop.
Sylvia swayed in the saddle like a blind drunk. Her raven hair whipped wildly in the wind, and the white bundle on her back looked like a fragment of a dead moon against the dark canvas of her armor. She waved a short sword in the air, screaming with everything she had.
Dorian tried to yell: "Stop her!", but the voice died in his throat. Only a pathetic wheeze escaped his purple lips. The world was going dark before his eyes.
Commander Roland, witnessing this absurd and suicidal display, did not hesitate for a second. "What madness is this?! Turn back! The order to attack hasn't been given!" Roland roared, digging his spurs deep into his horse's flanks. He had the king's orders. That woman's life was his absolute responsibility.
Roland rode with everything he had. His armored warhorse tore up the earth. "Sylvia! Stop! They will cut you to pieces!" But the woman did not hear him. Or she did not want to hear him. She was only weeping. Her tears were entirely real; scalding and burning as they streamed down her pale cheeks. She wept for her son, and for what she had done to him...
The distance to the enemy vanguard was closing by the second. The Oserian archers, seeing a lone rider charging them like a madwoman, drew their bows. The collective groan of hundreds of bowstrings being drawn echoed across the plain like the tearing of a massive canvas.
At the center of the enemy lines, the old King of Oseria sat atop a white horse. The old man's eyes narrowed as he watched the rider wearing Alderian armor, carrying a white bundle on her back. He recognized that bundle. And he recognized the woman.
"Hold your fire!" The King of Oseria raised his hand, shouting with all his might. "Hold your fire!"
But it was too late to stop all the archers. The first volley of arrows tore through the sky like a rain of black death.
Roland, who had closed the distance to Sylvia, saw the shadow of death raining down from above. He could not let a grieving woman be turned into a pincushion before his eyes. Frantically, Roland slammed his horse into the flank of Sylvia's mount to knock her out of the trajectory, throwing himself in the path of the volley as her human shield.
The sound of steel biting through flesh was horrific.
Roland convulsed. Three long, feathered shafts pierced his armor, burying themselves in his chest and side. His horse shrieked in agony and collapsed to its knees. Roland, with all his majesty and bloody history, tumbled into the mud of the battlefield. In the final seconds of his life, tasting blood and dirt, he lifted his head to see if he had managed to save the girl.
What he saw was a truth that shattered his soul before he even died.
The Oserian soldiers sheathed their swords. Their ranks parted like a river cleaving in two. Sylvia pulled back her reins, bringing her horse to a halt mere paces from the Oserian King. She leaped down from her saddle. Her weeping had ceased completely. With firm, unwavering steps, she walked past the corpses of the vanguard, knelt before the old king of her homeland, and pressed her forehead into the dirt.
Across the plains, amidst the Alderian army, everything was collapsing. Dorian saw it all. He saw his wife bow before the enemy. He wanted to draw his sword. He wanted to scream, to say something... but nothing worked. The poison had finished its job. His lungs had withered, and his heart ceased to beat.
The young King of Alderia, without having suffered a single blade wound in this war, slipped from his saddle. His heavy body hit the ground with a dull thud, and his silver crown rolled into the mud.
The Alderian army, witnessing the sudden death of their king and the fall of their greatest commander, descended into absolute terror. The horns of retreat blew, trembling and frantic. The conquerors, now resembling a panicked herd of cattle, abandoned their Lion banners and fled toward the treeline.
And on the other side of the battlefield, beneath the banner of her motherland, Sylvia remained kneeling...