Chapter Thirty-Four: Ashes of the Old Flame
The morning after the battle, the battlefield lay silent. Smoke rose in soft, grey tendrils from scattered pyres. The dead—enemy and ally alike—were given the same fire. No flags draped them, no prayers exalted one side over the other. They had all been pawns of empires, kings, and fading ideals. And now, in death, they were equal at last.
Caedren stood alone among the pyres.
He watched the embers drift upward like lost souls seeking stars. The weight of the night, of mercy given to a man like Varenth, gnawed at him. Mercy had spared a life, but it had also spared a symbol—a relic of the very world he fought to cast down. Was it weakness? Or the strength of a man refusing to become what he despised?
He didn't know.
Behind him, a boy no older than sixteen approached. Dirt on his cheeks, a makeshift bandage wrapped around his forearm. One of the newer recruits—once a farmer's son, now a soldier by necessity.
"Lord Caedren?" the boy asked.
"Don't call me that," Caedren said without turning. "There are no lords here."
The boy hesitated. "Sorry… but I brought something." He held out a bundle wrapped in rough cloth.
Caedren took it and unwrapped the fabric. Inside lay an old emblem—half-burnt, half-preserved. The crest of the Crownbearers. It must've been ripped from a banner during the fighting.
"We found it near the general's tent," the boy said. "Figured you should have it."
Caedren stared at it for a long moment. The sigil, once feared across continents, now looked pitiful—like the last gasp of a drowned king.
He tossed it into the flames.
The fire swallowed it hungrily.
Later that day, the Council gathered. Word had spread: the Eastern Reach had fallen back across the river, their morale shattered. But retreat did not mean surrender. Caedren's advisors debated whether to pursue, to strike while the enemy limped.
Neris leaned against a column, arms crossed. "If we press them, we might crush the last of their command. End this once and for all."
"No," Caedren said. "We don't chase the wounded. That's how tyrants think."
"But what if they regroup?" someone argued. "What if they return stronger?"
"Then we beat them again," Caedren replied. "And again, until they understand that we are not here to conquer. We're here to offer something better."
Silence.
They all knew what he meant. Caedren wasn't trying to build an empire—he was trying to end them.
That night, Neris found him atop the bastion wall, staring at the moonlit valley where the battle had taken place. Her voice was quiet, but firm.
"You're gambling with our lives, Caedren. What if mercy undoes us?"
"Then let it," he said. "If we fall for choosing mercy, we fall with clean hands. That matters."
She stepped closer, her gaze softening. "You're not alone in this. But even the strongest vision can't stand if its builder breaks."
He looked at her then, not as a commander, but as a man worn thin by war and hope alike.
"I won't break," he said.
But the truth hung silent in the cold air.
He already had, just enough to bleed—just not enough to quit.