Chapter 53 - End of the first part [1]

They say news travels fast, but the truth is that pain travels even faster. I wake up every day with the weight of the absence of those we lost, with the silence that echoes through the corridors of the Udrak house since the attack. Three out of ten of our people died. Twenty-three names I will never forget, twenty-three faces that were taken from us on one miserable night, because of a damned count dressed in perfume and vanity.

And yet, in the midst of tragedy, something unexpected blossomed.

Zaatar.

My son. The youngest, the most difficult to understand—and now, the most talked about among the houses of New Moon. He expelled the criminals who infested our lands with his own hands. And not as a mere militia commander, but as an Archer Commander. I could hardly believe it when I heard. That title... is extremely rare. Stolen only by the gods and their favorites. He earned it. Alone.

This turned the tables.

Our neighbors — Genese, Tenehir, even the damned Grenvence — all of them are now squirming in their seats. All their efforts, all the silver spent on schools, championships, instructors... and none of them produced an archer in this category. But my son? He did it. And that doubled the value of our name. In the eyes of the council, the nobility... and even the School of the Full Moon, which swallowed its pride and publicly acknowledged him.

I should be satisfied. But nothing comes without a thread of mistrust.

I sat down slowly, resting my elbow on the arm of the chair. The right side of my body still throbbed, as if the bandits' knives had left pieces inside. Every movement reminded me of what we had lost — thirty percent of our house... and I'm not just talking about soldiers.

These were men I trained, men I trusted. I lost time, gold, votes. Twelve years of alliances, all undone by a dirty order sent by a count too fat to ride his own horse.

And what happened after that?

Nothing.

No response from the capital. No formal punishment. No messenger with veiled threats. Their silence is deafening. They are pretending nothing happened. And that disgusts me.

"Master" I heard Benta's voice.

She entered the small hall with a folded scroll in her hands, but I already knew. She always has that look when it comes to him. To Zaatar.

"So?" I asked, already feeling the tension in my neck. "What is the boy doing now? Who is he hanging out with?"

"He's at the sheep farm, sir. Two days' journey. He'll stay there for a few more days. His horse is injured"

"The horse? Injured?"

I frowned.

"Injured where?"

"On its back, sir"

I sighed. Not with relief, but with irritation.

"Since when does a horse get hurt on its back? Did he ride an ogre on top of the animal?" I leaned back and smiled sarcastically. "Those horses carry two thousand pounds as if it were straw. What did he do? Bury the animal in a mine?"

Benta didn't answer. She just waited. Discreet as always. But I didn't need an answer.

That silence told me more than a thousand words. And the smell... the smell of trouble.

I sighed again, deeper this time. The old instinct flared up inside me—the same one that had saved me so many times before.

"Tell him to come back soon"

I closed my eyes for a moment. I know my son. He has a soft heart. He always has. He can kill a man from a hundred paces, but he couldn't bear to see a child cry. He's noble, perhaps even pure... but he's foolish. And foolish lovers make promises. Foolish lovers make mistakes.

And we... we can't make any more mistakes.

***

The day began with an almost sacred calm. The sky slowly changed from dark tones to a soft blue tinged with gold. We were on the edge of a crystal-clear lake, where the water reflected the distant mountains and the last stars resisting the rising sun. It was the kind of scene that seemed to have come out of an old painting — and yet there we were.

"You need to put it like this... that's right, that's right, that way" I murmured, trying to stay focused.

Evelyn wrinkled her nose, staring at the small natural bristle brush and the white powder I had brought from the south, a mixture used to clean teeth. She held it hesitantly, looking from me to the reflection in the water as if she expected someone else to take on this uncomfortable task.

"This is too big to fit in my mouth... are you sure this is how it's done? It's really bitter" she complained, grimacing.

"You don't have to swallow it" I said with a restrained smile. "Just rub it in well and spit it out afterwards"

She did just that, leaning over the water and rubbing the powder in with careful movements. She was clumsy but determined, like a child learning to write with the wrong hand. Her reflection danced with the ripples caused by her own movement.

"Are you sure this will clean my teeth?"

"Yes, it will. Just keep going" I replied, leaning my elbows on the damp grass.

She yawned, spat, then opened her mouth wide and stuck out her tongue, pointing with her finger.

"Like this? Is it clean now?"

The scene was so absurd and spontaneous that I couldn't help myself. I started laughing.

"Hey!" she grumbled, giving me an angry and embarrassed look. "Stop laughing at me! I'm trying here while you're laughing!"

"Sorry, sorry" I said between laughs. "It's just that... you look like a confused otter with foam on your mouth"

She pushed me lightly with her shoulder, unable to hide her embarrassed smile.

"You need to keep up this habit every day. Over time, your teeth will get much cleaner. But I can tell you now that your breath has improved a lot" I added, taking a deep breath as I smelled the morning breeze mixed with the subtle scent of grass.

Over the past two days, Evelyn had become much more than just a wounded peasant girl to me. She told me stories between preparing meals and taking breaks from short walks around the farm. Stories that stayed with me.

Her father had been a woodcutter—a simple man with thick hands and honor in his eyes, according to her. Her mother, a shepherdess, worked steadfastly even when the world seemed to be falling apart. Evelyn was still young when she was bitten by a centipede in the forest. She and her brother had gone out to play with other children, escaping their parents' watchful eyes, jumping through bushes, running to the lake.

"It was just supposed to be a game" she said, looking at the horizon.

However, what started as a simple game almost killed her because of the centipede bite.

Since then, her older brother has taken care of her as if he were a father. He gave up everything. Marriage, freedom, youth. "He says it's a debt he owes me. But I think he just doesn't want to leave me alone," she said with a melancholy smile.

Her father... died protecting her mother. An attack by the Wood Tigers — a rare, ferocious species with saber-like teeth, dense musculature, and skin like living cork. Her father killed one of them, even though he was just a peasant with an axe. But he couldn't resist the second one. He was buried near the barn, under a stone that Evelyn cleans every month.

"And since then... it's just us. Me, my mother, my brother. And the sheep" She said this without drama, as if narrating a summer rain.

But I saw it in her eyes. That strength that doesn't need to shout to exist. She could have given up. She could have lain there waiting for the end. But no... she learned to walk with a crooked leg, to scare monkeys away from the plantation with a stick, to smile with crooked teeth and a mouth bitter from herbs.

She was strong. Much stronger than me.

And there, as the sun finally touched the surface of the water, I realized that that morning with her was a kind of peace I didn't know I needed.