Chapter 61: The Weight of Tomorrow
The dawn broke cold and gray over the village.
Mist clung to the narrow dirt paths.
Chimney smoke drifted slowly into the pale sky.
And at the edge of it all, standing before the battered house he had once called home,
stood Kaelen Drayce.
A Sovereign.
A son.
Both at once.
Inside, the last preparations were underway.
Packing Memories
His mother moved about the house in small, careful steps —
gathering everything of meaning, even if it had no value to anyone but them.
A worn cooking pot.
A chipped cup that had survived generations.
Old threadbare clothes, mended so often the stitches were thicker than the cloth.
Kaelen watched silently from the doorway.
Every object she packed was a piece of their life.
Every item a small defiance against the years that had tried to erase them.
Across the small room, his father sat at the old table, sharpening a rusted blade —
the same sword Kaelen remembered him carrying across harvest fields,
not as a warrior, but as a stubborn man who refused to let the world take more than it already had.
"A blade's a blade, even if it's old," Garron Drayce muttered, not looking up.
"So long as the hand behind it doesn't tremble."
Kaelen smiled faintly.
The hand hadn't trembled then.
It didn't tremble now.
Siblings and Laughter
Upstairs, chaos reigned.
Riven argued loudly with Lyanna about how many books she could bring.
"You can't carry twenty books on horseback, Lyanna! Even a pack mule would collapse!"
"They're important! What if I need them later?"
Kaelen chuckled softly, shaking his head.
Some things never changed.
Little Alen sat cross-legged by the door, clutching a small wooden carving —
a crude figure of a knight Kaelen had whittled for him before leaving all those years ago.
He hadn't let go of it.
Not once.
Kaelen knelt beside him.
"Ready, little brother?"
Alen nodded fiercely, tiny fists clenched tight around the figure.
"I'm going to be strong. Strong like you."
Kaelen ruffled his hair, warmth blooming in his chest.
"You'll be stronger," he promised.
One Last Walk
Before they left, Kaelen walked the perimeter of their small property alone.
Past the crooked fence where he'd once patched holes with stolen boards.
Past the well where he'd made a thousand childhood wishes.
He stopped beneath the old oak tree.
It leaned heavily now, branches gnarled with age —
but it still stood, stubborn and proud.
Kaelen rested his hand against its bark.
"I'll build you a world where trees don't have to stand alone anymore," he whispered.
A promise.
Not just to the tree.
Not just to the village.
To everything he was about to become.
At the Village Gates
When the family gathered at the road's edge, a small crowd waited.
Villagers — some with hopeful eyes, others with guarded ones — came to watch them leave.
It wasn't every day a family left the village for a future built from dreams.
An old man Kaelen barely recognized — the village elder who once caught him stealing apples — shuffled forward.
He eyed Kaelen up and down.
"You sure about this, boy?"
Kaelen nodded without hesitation.
"I am."
The old man grunted.
"Good. Then don't come back unless it's to make the world better than you found it."
Kaelen smiled.
It was not a blessing.
Not quite.
But it was enough.
He turned to his family.
Their horses were packed.
Their eyes were bright with fear and hope intertwined.
Kaelen mounted his own horse, Sovereignblade Astryn hidden beneath his cloak.
"Let's go," he said softly.
"The Heartland awaits."
And together —
Kaelen and the Drayce family rode out of the village,
carrying with them not riches, not glory,
but something far rarer.
The first seeds of a future no king could ever kill.