2 Months Ago


    Valgard gazed at the lifeless bodies of the yellow-caped men, his eyes vacant. The body next to him, the one he was kneeling beside, belonged to Anton. Anton, who had taught him everything he knew when Valgard had joined the Golden Claw seven years ago, and who had been like a brother to him.


    After crossing the river tainted by the poison of Pollum, and a few days away from Elebamachos, they had found him in the forest where he had been hiding. The full moon had just begun to light up the forest through the branches of the trees. The cold ground, covered with fallen dry leaves, lay beneath the corpses, and all of their faces had begun to frost over.


    The man who had protected him, who had stopped the other Claw members from bullying him, who had taught him to swing a sword and throw a javelin, now lay at Valgard’s feet, his spirit gone. His leather chest armor was cracked, and a large hole had been torn through the center. The hole was now filled with the javelin that Valgard had thrown only moments ago. Just as Anton had taught him, it was a clean shot that pierced the heart. The pain was brief—an almost instantaneous death, barely lasting a few seconds.


    As if it weren’t him who had taken Anton’s life, Valgard pressed his hand over the wound, desperately trying to stop the blood. His eyes were wide enough that the tears would have fallen, had they not been trapped behind his eyelids. Anton’s face was so blurred for him now that it was almost unrecognizable. He clenched his teeth as if he wanted to break them, and a soft groan escaped him.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    “I didn’t want this. I swear, I didn’t. I’m sorry, Anton. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Please.”


    He hoped, with all his heart, that Anton would take one last breath, look up at him, and say that he forgave him. He wanted Anton to say that everything would be alright, that he wasn’t to blame for any of this. But Anton’s lips didn’t move. Not a single breath escaped him. The only sound that filled Valgard’s ears was the cold winter wind, howling through the forest.


    The other two bodies were strangers to him. They were so young, probably around the same age Valgard had been when he first joined the Golden Claw. They were likely the recruits Reiner had gone to bring in from nearby villages before Valgard had started running from the Claw. They had their own stories, their own hopes—and all of them remained unfinished. Valgard made sure of that. Did they know why they were trying to capture him? Did they understand what they had died for?


    If he could fix this situation, he would have done it without a second thought. But there had never been a choice where both his sister survived and he didn’t have to abandon his comrades. He had made a choice—a selfish choice. A choice that would save one life now, but might cost dozens later. A choice that had torn him from his identity, from his family, and from the friends he had once known. A choice that, though he wasn’t sure it was the right one, had set him on a path from which there was no turning back. For Valgard, there was no going back.


    Desperately, he lifted his head and looked at the moon, now high in the sky. It seemed as though the moon had risen just for him that night. As if it knew what was about to happen, as though it wanted to witness the blood on his hands more clearly, to see the lives he had taken. It hung full and bright in the sky, as if it had always known.


    “Please forgive me,” he whispered, barely audible.


    This time, he didn’t ask for Anton’s forgiveness.