"I'm here, Captain Julius! My savior, save me from this man!" his mother Octavia cried.
"Wait just a little longer, my queen, I will save you from this man and return you to the kingdom! Father, your story ends here! Give me my mother back, and I will spare you!"
Julius shouted, pointing his swrod to Conner bravely.
"Captain Julius, do you really think you can defeat me? The best swordsman in the whole kingdom."
His father, Conner, said with an easy, confident grin.
"You have no idea." Julius answered, and charged.
They fought in the small kitchen. Wood rang on wood under the low beams. Sunlight cut the floor into long bars; steam rose from the loaf in its basket. Julius feinted left then right; Conner met him with the patient, careful. Octavia clapped at the doorway, cheering him on with eyes full of pride.
He dove for the opening 'I can see it now!' But his feet slipped on the swept floor. Conner twisted, and Julius hit the boards with a thud, the wooden blade resting harmless at his throat.
"You still have a long way to go, Julius,"
Conner said, half scold, half smile.
"Next time, my queen," Julius said, bowing with mock ceremony. Laughter filled the kitchen and the warm ordinary of it settled around them like a blanket.
They left the house together. The lane smelled of wood smoke and wet leather, the blacksmith's bell ringing in the distance.
Flags of gold and crimson hung along the main road, the Sun Empire's colors but the gold looked dull and the crimson had bled to rust; threads frayed at the edges where no one bothered to mend. Posters pinned to boards.
"Today we go to the market and then the town hall,"
Conner said as they walked.
"Quick errands."
Julius's chest buzzed. Market day was like a small festival: spices, fruit, a potter who always winked when Julius looked his way. Walking beside his father made him feel big. People nodded, some with respect, others with tired curiosity. Veterans tipped their heads. A soldier with a patched sleeve gave a curt salute; his uniform had been repaired too many times to be whole.
The market square was a knot of voices and color, but the color was worn. Stalls that should have been piled high were careful, cautious. Oranges came in small bundles; sacks of grain were half what they used to be. A cloth merchant propped his awning with a stick, counting coins on a shaking thumb.
Julius saw prices written on a board in hurried ink—higher than last season. A woman adjusted the ribbon on a child's hair as she turned away from a stall, the child's cheeks sunken with the kind of hunger Julius had only seen in passing.
Children still ran and played in the alleys, oblivious for a while—sword fights with sticks, laughter that tried to be loud enough to drown worry. Julius tried to join them, but the market pulled at him: veterans with medals dulled to gray, a man with one sleeve who still carried the look of a life that gave more than it took, mothers with their arms full of meager bundles. Faces carried a weary patience, a habit of keeping going when there was nothing else to do.
Near the town hall a small group argued low and fast. Julius only heard pieces: levy, watch at the ford, bands in the hills. A messenger rode past, hair whipped by the wind, a silver-sealed letter tucked under his arm. Conner's face closed like a gate. He stepped forward to speak with the steward—thin, ink-stained, ledger heavy with names.
"Roads north and east report groups moving at night," the steward said without drama.
"Levies stretched. Grain shipments delayed. Some villages report men leaving overnight."
Conner listened.
"We keep what we can. We watch. We guard the mills," he answered. It was not a speech. It was a list of small acts that might hold a neighborhood together.
Julius watched the exchange and felt the warmth of the kitchen and the weight of the ledger at once. The town's pride—the statue on the hall steps, a bronze soldier with a tarnished blade—looked smaller beside the steady talk of ledgers and patrols. He saw tax notices stuck to a post like old leaves; he saw a young soldier staring at Conner with a question he did not voice. The Sun Empire here was not banners but faces—tight, tired, making do.
They moved back through the market with a small parcel of bread wrapped in cloth and a pot of pickled onions for an elderly neighbor. Prices had risen; where once a coin bought comfort, now the same coin bought only enough to keep the night from emptying the belly. Julius felt a small hot worry over the cost of things—a new knowledge like the sting when a practice sword slips.
They were almost home when the first impact hit—a sound that was not thunder and not a cart, something worse and heavier. The ground kissed their boots with a tremor. People paused, carts creaking to a halt. Then another strike landed.
Boom Boom
A stall two rows over folded into itself with a crack; a sheet of flame licked a thatched roof; smoke uncoiled and swallowed the sunlight. The smell of burning hit Kealmar's throat like iron. The church bell did not chime for prayer; it began to peal in staccato, quick and urgent.
Shouts broke out. A merchant dropped his coins. A child screamed and a dog raced under carts. Men pushed and stumbled, pulling clothes and children into whatever shelter they could find.
Conner moved with the motion of someone who keeps a dozen precautions in his back pocket. His smile was gone. He set down the small parcel they had carried, grabbed Julius's shoulder, and steadied him with a hard, fast grip.
"Julius, listen," Conner said, voice a blade.
"Take your mother. Go the western road. Run past the mill. Do not stop. Promise me."
Fear flared in Julius's chest, a bright, foolish rush to step forward and stand beside his father. But Conner's face—so steady, so absolute—left no space for argument. This was not a game.
"I promise," Julius said, voice small and fierce.
Conner pressed a wrapped bundle into his hands—coins, a scrap of cloth, a note with a hastily drawn symbol.
"Now go!"
Octavia's face went white then fierce. She took Julius's free hand and held it like a lifeline. Around them the market moved like a river gone wild: people running, soldiers shouting orders, smoke pooling into the sky. The banners above the lane curled black at the edges.
Julius did not look back. He ran, because the order was his father's and because running felt right and because the life he had known split like bread under a hand. He ran with his mother, with the bundle clutched tight, toward the western road Conner had named.
The bell rang on. The sound filled his chest and matched his footsteps until there was only the road and the heat and the breath of the Sun Empire falling away behind them.