The cruel Night

It was late and the night was quiet.

Not of the peace and tranquility sort of silence, but silence that conceals something sinister lurking right beneath the surface.

I sat on the edge of my cot with my hands clasped, my thoughts leaden. The barracks were dim, but I heard the others breathing in their sleep, restless, feverish. The mission had changed something in all of us — even those who would never admit it.

Even Asura.

Especially Asura.

I had seen it in how her hand had rested just a little too long over her dagger when she thought no one was watching. In the way those normally sharp, precise movements had become something almost… tentative.

And she just wasn't the type to hesitate.

I exhaled slowly. Something was wrong.

And I was tired of waiting for someone else to tell me who.

A Meeting with a Dead Man

I did not wake anyone on my way out.

The air was chilly, stinging my skin when I entered the deserted courtyard. The torches had burnt low; they cast snatches of light upon the stone walls and crept backward into darkness.

I knew where I was going.

The archives.

There wasn't a recruit who had any business being there. It was home to knights, nobles, and scholars — men who sat behind desks and rewrote the narrative to suit their needs. But the mission had raised too many unanswered questions.

If the knight order wasn't going to answer me, I'd answer me.

The door was locked, but the hinges were rusty and creaked as I pushed against it.

Dust hung thick in the air, the smell of ink and parchment embedded deep in wood as the shelves flanked the interior. At the far end of the chamber, a single candle burned dimly.

And someone was waiting for her.

A man bent over a table turned from me, and leafed through old pages very slowly, very carefully.

For a second, I thought he hadn't seen me.

Then he spoke, without turning.

"You shouldn't be here."

His voice was gravelly, beaten out by time and things unsaid.

I moved up closer, fingers hovering above the hilt of my sword. "Neither should you."

A pause. Then he turned.

His face was familiar in that I had not met him. It was familiar the way ghosts are familiar, the way someone who should be dead haunts the thoughts of people who used to know him.

I had seen his name on the list of the dead.

This man was not supposed to be alive.

The Truth No One Speaks

He stared at me for a long moment before speaking again.

"You're looking for answers."

I said nothing.

His lips turned up slightly, not in amusement. It was something more tiring. More broken.

"The thing about answers," he added, "is that they don't change anything. They simply remind you why things are worse than you realized."

I clenched my jaw. "What happened that night? Who were they?"

He traced his fingers along the edges of the parchment before him.

"No one fights them." His voice was quiet. "Not really."

My breath slowed.

Asura had claimed the same thing.

The man sighed and shook his head. "You ever wonder how the kingdom has made it as far as it has? Using this war, this uprising, to ask why, despite every war, every uprising, the rulers never actually fall?"

I frowned. "Because of the knighthood order."

He laughed.

A dry, bitter sound.

"No. Because we ensure that the right people die."

A refreshing weight came to rest in my chest.

"What are you saying?" I asked, my voice lower now.

He finally met my eyes.

"We do not protect the kingdom." He drummed his fingers against the parchment before him. "We protect what rules it."

There was something in the way he said it that crawled over my skin.

I stepped nearer, my eyes sweeping across the pages before him. The ink was old but the names were legible.

Names of knights. And names of those who had disappeared, erased from history.

Dain's name was already on it.

My breath caught. He had been erased from existence already.

I swallowed hard. "Who controls this?"

The man's face remained unchanged. "You're asking the wrong question.

I met his gaze. "Then what's the right one?"

A slow pause.

Then — "Who rules the rulers?"

Find these words harder than I would have thought.

Because I knew the answer already.

I just didn't want to say it.

The Woman Who Doesn't Leave Footprints

By the time I left the archives, dawn was seeping into the sky. The city was awakening in the distance, carts, and footsteps starting to punctuate the silence of the night.

I did not return to the barracks.

I went looking for her.

Asura was exactly where I thought she'd be — alone, standing in the courtyard, her back to me as she gazed at the horizon as if she were waiting for something to crest it.

She did not turn as I got close, but I knew she had seen me.

"I stopped next to her and let the silence stretch between us.

Then — "I met someone who is supposed to be dead."

She exhaled, slow, steady. "And?"

I stared at her face, searching for something — a glimmer of recognition, a glimmer of surprise.

There was none.

She already knew.

Of course, she did.

I swallowed. "Tell me what you know."

At last, she glanced at me, her dark eyes sharp, inscrutable. "And if I don't?"

My jaw tightened. "Then I find out on my own."

A long silence.

Then my mother did something I never saw coming.

She laughed.

Not in mockery. Not in amusement.

Something quieter.

Something closer to regret.

"You're not prepared for the truth."

I clenched my fists. "Then tell me anyway."

She adjusted her head inquiringly toward me. Then, finally, she said:

"There's a woman who doesn't leave footprints."

My breath stilled. "What?"

Asura's gaze didn't waver. "You won't see her name listed in any book. No one mentions her, but everyone obeys her directives. She doesn't exist, yet she reigns."

A slow exhale.

"You're searching for the enemy, Alarion. But the enemy has succeeded already."

Her words sank into my bones.

For the first time ever since entering the knight order, it dawned on me that I had not been fighting on the right side.

And worse—

Never had I even seen who the true enemy was

Her words landed in my chest, heavy, pressing against my ribs as if they were solid—intended to crush me before I'd even had time to understand.

"The enemy has already won."

I allowed the silence to extend between us, the torchlight playing in the courtyard between us, illuminating shadows against the cold stone.

"What?" I let out a breath, wiping a hand down my face. "You mean the kingdom is already lost,"

Asura shook her head once. No. I mean that it was never ours to begin with."

Her tone was steady, though there was something in it, something unsaid.

I studied her. "You knew this before we went out on that mission."

 She didn't answer.

I took a slow step closer. "You knew we were being challenged."

Still, nothing.

"You knew Dain was never going to return.

A glimmer of something in her expression, something so fleeting that I almost didn't catch it.

But I didn't.

Guilt.

It left as quickly as it arrived, but it was enough.

My chest tightened. "You could have warned him."

Asura clenched her jaw, fingers twitching over the hilt of her dagger. "And how would that have made a difference?"

I clenched my fists. "He might have survived."

She released a long, deliberate exhalation. Then—"No. He wouldn't have."

I inhaled sharply. "You don't know that."

Asura locked her gaze on mine, and for the first time since meeting her, I could feel something primal beneath her skin.

She did know.

Because it had been done before.

I stepped back, my pulse pounding against my ribs. "How many?"

Her fingers flexed her expression again unreadable. "What?"

"How many of them have you watched die? My voice was softer now, but not quiet. How many have they sent away to be judged?"

She slightly tilted her head, pondering me. Then, finally, she spoke.

"Too many."

I swallowed.

I had been expecting her to deflect. To not answer the question, to turn away. But she hadn't.

And that could only mean one thing.

She had accepted it.

This was simply how the world worked, as far as she was concerned. She had long ago stopped pushing against it.

I breathed sharply, shaking my head. "I refuse to believe that."

She didn't respond, only shifted her gaze back to the courtyard. "Believe what you want."

The conversation was over.

But the questions it raised were not.

A Noble Who Knew Too Much

The following morning, the courtyard was on edge.

The recruits murmured in small groups, looking toward the fortress walls. There was a heavy discomfort in the air, the sort that came over a group before an execution.

I followed their gazes.

And that's when I saw him.

A noble.

Dead.

His body slumped against the fortress steps, his fine robes drenched in blood. A clean wound — a slit throat, nothing more.

And there was no indication of a struggle." No toppled furniture, no smashed weapons.

Someone had entered his chamber and murdered him soundlessly.

The knights were already present, found in a cold, silent ring, their faces impossible to read.

But no one looked surprised.

And that's what made my stomach turn.

They had expected this.

I stepped in, heart racing faster. But I had never seen this noble before. I didn't know his name, I didn't know his rank.

But when I caught sight of the parchment still clutched in his cold, dead fingers, I realized precisely what he had been attempting.

He was trying to put something down before he died.

My breath caught.

I acted before I could think, stepping over the other recruits, bending down—

A hand caught my wrist.

Asura.

Her hand, on the other hand, was steady, steady. "Don't."

I looked back at her, my chest tightening. "He was attempting to leave a message."

Her fingers tightened. "And what do you think will happen if you read it?"

I swallowed. "I need to know."

Her expression didn't change. "You already do."

For a moment, I wanted to fight back. Hoped she was wrong, hoped there was something written there on that parchment that could turn it all around.

But then — a knight advanced, bent down, and wrested the paper from the dead man's clutch.

He threw it without looking into the nearest torch.

It was consumed by flames.

Just like that, the noble's last words were no more.

I sucked in a breath, my fists balling up. "They don't even care."

Asura released my wrist.

And for the first time, she had nothing to say.

....

That day, I didn't go back to training.

The afternoon was again spent in the archives, but not looking for answers this time.

Searching for a name.

The slain nobleman — who was that? What had he been involved in?

I rifled through parchment after parchment, scanning records, lists, and anything that would tell me who he was and why and how he had died.

Nothing.

These had already been taken off his name.

I breathed out slowly, pushing my palms against the table, trying to control my breathing.

I was running out of time.

I had glimpsed the truth, and now I understood how people who did pay for it.

If I wasn't careful, I would be next.

A shift in the air. A presence behind me.

I didn't turn. I didn't have to.

Asura.

She moved forward in silence across the stone. "You're wasting your time."

I clenched my jaw. "A man is dead."

A pause.

Then softer — "That's not new."

I finally looked at her, and for the first time since I met her, I allowed the frustration to slip into my voice.

"Do you even care?"

She blinked. A slow, measured motion. Then, she exhaled. "Yes."

The response took me by surprise.

I thought she'd say, "No," that she would stop me in my tracks like she always did.

But she hadn't.

She had answered.

And the way she said it — quiet, steady, with something almost imperceptible under it — made my chest constrict.

She did care.

She just didn't know how to deal with that.

I swallowed, the pulse in my throat slowing.

"Then help me."

For a long moment, she remained silent.

Then, at last, she came to sit across from me and traced the edges of the parchment with her fingers.

And she murmured something I never thought I'd hear from her.

"Where do we start?"