The decision, once spoken aloud, became a stone lodged in the village's heart. The relief that had followed the clearing of the goblin den evaporated, replaced by a colder, more profound dread. A distant enemy was one thing; a creeping, existential rot was another. Kael moved through the rest of the day in a state of grim preparation, a solitary figure amidst the flurry of activity his announcement had sparked.
Orwin organized a council of the remaining able-bodied men and women. The discussion was not about stopping Kael, but about surviving in his absence. Plans were drawn to strengthen the palisade further, to create a militia under Liam's enthusiastic but untrained command, to store more food and dig a second, deeper well. Every hammer strike, every dug post, was a prayer for time. Elian became a temporary advisor, his knowledge of history and strategy an unexpected boon, though his eyes never strayed long from Kael, the central piece in his theological game.
Kael himself said little. He retreated to his cabin as dusk bled into a star-flecked night. He needed to be alone. The cacophony of fear and hope from the village was a pressure against his skull, a discordant chorus that threatened to drown out the cold, clear voice of the goddess. He sat on the edge of his bed, the sword lying across his knees. In the dim light, it was just a length of forged steel. But he could feel the potential slumbering within it, a serpent of silver light waiting to be awakened by his will and Theron's command.
He did not seek sleep, for he knew what waited for him in the realm of dreams. He had held it at bay for days, but now, on the eve of returning to the source of his damnation, the gates could no longer hold.
The air was not air, but a soup of blood-rain and magic. The Plains of Sorrow stretched before him, a churned wasteland of mud and the broken dead. The sky was a bruised purple, torn by the passage of spells. He was Kaelen again, encased in platinum armor that was now scarred and dented, his shield bearing the faded sigil of Lysander's open hand. The golden light that had once flowed through him was a guttering candle, his divine reserves nearly spent.
Before him, backed against the twisted, blackened trunk of the World-Tree Yggdrasil's youngest scion, stood Morganna. The Soul-Queen. Her own dark armor was shattered, her crown of obsidian askew. Blood, black as tar, leaked from a wound in her side. The legions of the dead she had commanded lay as motionless piles of bone around them. The final battle had whittled down to this: a paladin and a queen, alone in a field of the fallen.
"Enough," she rasped, her voice like grinding stones. She let her corrupted staff fall to the mud. She raised her empty, gauntleted hands. "I surrender. Mercy, Paladin. Grant me the mercy of your gentle god."
And she smiled. A cruel, knowing, victorious smirk. It was not the smile of defeat, but of a gambler playing her final, perfect card. She knew the tenets of Lysander as well as he did. Surrender must be accepted. Redemption is always possible. To strike down a surrendered foe was to betray the very core of his being.
Kaelen stood frozen, his sword arm trembling. The golden light within him flickered, urging him to lower his blade, to offer the rites of capture. But his eyes, his mortal, weary eyes, saw the truth she hid. He saw the faint, necrotic energy still coiling in her fingertips. He saw the souls of the thousands she had consumed screaming silently in the depths of her pupils. This was not surrender. It was a tactical retreat. A chance to heal, to gather her power, to begin the cycle of death anew. She would use Lysander's own mercy as a weapon against the world.
"Mercy…" Morganna whispered again, the word a poison on her lips.
The screams of the innocents she had slaughtered echoed in his memory. The faces of his fallen comrades, Gareth's brother among them, flashed before his eyes. The golden light of his god felt suddenly naive, a dangerous weakness that would doom the world to endless war.
His jaw tightened. The tremor in his arm stilled.
"I grant you only the mercy of a clean death," Kaelen said, his voice cutting through the psychic storm like a shard of ice.
He moved. There was no grand swing, no holy battle cry. It was an executioner's strike, swift and final. His blade, still faintly glowing with Lysander's eroding grace, took her head from her shoulders in a single, clean arc.
The world did not simply go silent. Itunmadeitself.
A wave of force, black and green and utterly silent, erupted from Morganna's headless corpse. It was the violent, uncontrolled release of every soul she had ever bound, every shred of necrotic power she had ever wielded. It hit Kaelen like a physical wall, throwing him backwards through the air. His armor cracked. The golden light inside him didn't just extinguish; it wasscouredaway, ripped from his soul with the agony of a thousand hooks.
As he tumbled through the void, a voice, vast and warm and infinitely sorrowful, boomed in the collapsing firmament of his spirit.OATHBREAKER! UNWORTHY!
The pain was beyond anything physical. It was the pain of divine divorce. It was the sound of a door to heaven slamming shut, forever.
He landed hard, the vision dissolving, but the sensation of falling, of being utterly and completely cast out, remained.
Kael gasped, jolting upright on his bed. His cabin was dark, the pre-dawn gloom seeping through the window. He was drenched in a cold sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs. The phantom pain of Lysander's rejection was a fresh wound, as potent as it had been fifty years ago.
He looked down at the sword on his lap. In the half-light, he half-expected to see it glow with the accusing gold of his former god. But it was inert. Cold. Waiting.
The dream was not just a memory. It was a reminder. He was not marching to a new war. He was returning to the old one. He was going back to the place where he had shattered the world to save it, to confront the consequences of his necessary sin.
He stood, his body aching with a fatigue that sleep could not cure. He strapped the sword to his hip, the action now as natural as pulling on his boots. He packed a bedroll, a waterskin, and a small pouch of dried meat and journey-bread. He was leaving the farmer's life behind. There was no place for it where he was going.
As the first true light of dawn painted the sky, he opened his door. Orwin, Elian, and a small group of villagers were waiting for him. They had known he would leave with the sun.
Orwin stepped forward and pressed a small, leather-wrapped package into his hands. "Salt-cured pork. And a whetstone. Better than the one you have."
Kael nodded, tucking it into his pack. "Thank you, Orwin."
"We will hold," the elder said, his voice thick with emotion. "We will hold until you return."
Elian simply bowed his head. "The Scale goes with you."
Kael's eyes found Liam in the crowd. The boy stood straight, trying to look brave, but his lower lip trembled. Kael walked over to him. He didn't offer words of comfort or empty promises. Instead, he unbuckled the practice sword from his own pack and handed it to the boy.
"The high block is still weak. Your wrist turns in. Practice until it doesn't," Kael said, his voice firm. "You are the shield of Emberwood now."
Liam took the wooden sword as if it were made of solid gold, his eyes blazing with sudden, tear-filled determination. "I will, Kael. I swear it."
With a final, sweeping glance at the faces of the people he had chosen to protect, at the home he had built from the ashes of his old life, Kael turned. He did not look back. He walked past the repaired palisade gate, past the scorched fields, and onto the northern road.
The path stretched before him, not into the unknown, but into the heart of a memory he had spent a lifetime trying to forget. He was going back to the Ashen Weald. Back to the Plains of Sorrow. Back to the ghost of the queen he had killed. The weight of his past was a physical burden on his shoulders, but his steps did not falter. The silver light within him hummed, a cold, constant companion on the road to judgment.