The silence after war was never truly quiet.
Smoke coiled above the ruined field, drifting like spirits reluctant to leave. Embers still hissed in the corpses of twisted trees. The ground was wet—too wet—with blood, melted snow, and the foul stew of rot. Black ash floated in the air like falling snow, settling softly on the faces of the dead.
Aden stood at the heart of it.
The wind carried the stench of charred flesh and burned magic. His armor, once a gleaming black, now resembled cracked obsidian. Steam hissed from where it had fused to skin. Blood clung to him in layers—some of it his, most of it not. His gauntlets were bent out of shape from impact. His breathing, shallow and even, was the only motion in his frame.
All around him lay the wreckage of his command.
The Twelfth Pillar was broken.
Bent spears jutted from the dirt like gravestones. Mangled horses lay collapsed near shattered carriages. Some soldiers had been burned beyond recognition. Others, somehow worse, were untouched—lying peacefully, as if asleep. One woman, a young archer with a braid still neatly tied, had half her face melted off. Her hand still gripped her bow.
He remembered her name.
'Kate. From the northern garrison. Laughed too often. Too loud.'
Now she was just one more shape among the dead.
Aden blinked, slow. His body felt distant, wrapped in cotton. Numbness had settled into the cracks left behind by the Wrath.
They were looking at him.
Some with fear. Others with disgust. A few with something worse: recognition.
He didn't speak. Didn't move.
'They're waiting for me to explain.'
He couldn't.
He turned his gaze upward. The sky was still bleeding light from the ruptured sun Egmund had conjured. That black sphere — burning with an inner fire not meant for mortal eyes — had faded, but the clouds still shuddered around where it had been. The wind carried whispers. Or maybe that was just his mind, still ringing with screams.
'I let him out.'
The thought came quiet. Heavy. Unavoidable.
'I let Egmund take control.'
A sound broke the stillness. Boots—unsteady, limping—approached from the side.
Captain Dellen. What remained of him. His armor had been melted down one side. A fresh scar ran across his brow. His eyes were bloodshot, wild, fixed on Aden like a starving dog watching fire.
"You," he croaked.
Aden didn't look at him.
"You did this." Louder this time. Dellen's voice cracked like splintering wood. "You killed them."
More footsteps. More survivors stumbling from the smoke, blood-soaked and hollow-eyed. They stared at Aden in a ring of wary distance.
"You burned through the undead," someone spat from the back, "but you cut down our own men to do it!"
"There was no order. No restraint. You turned the battlefield into a—into a slaughterhouse!"
"He's not Vasco," another soldier whispered. "He's a monster."
Aden stood still, letting the words bury themselves in his chest.
He didn't argue.
He didn't deny it.
Because they were right.
He remembered the moment Egmund surged forth — the ripping sensation of bones grinding out of place, the claws splitting his fingers, his mouth tearing wider to roar with someone else's voice. He remembered the feeling of tearing through the horde, yes—but also through his own ranks. He remembered Kaelin screaming before her voice vanished in the fire.
'I said I could control it. I believed it.'
'But I lied.'
To them. To himself.
He should've told them. Warned them. The signs had been there—Egmund's presence pushing at the seams. But he hadn't spoken. He'd thought he could control it. Thought he was strong enough.
Fool.
The noise swelled. Accusations. Pleas. A cry of grief from someone cradling a dead brother. A dozen voices shouting at once.
The murmuring swelled, tension drawing tighter like the moment before a blade is drawn. Dellen raised a hand—not to strike, not to draw—but just to accuse.
"You're not fit to lead," he said, quietly now. "You should be buried with them."
Aden looked up.
His gaze swept across the broken survivors.
They flinched as one.
Not because he raised a weapon. He didn't need to.
The Wrath stirred behind his eyes, just enough. Just enough to remind them. A ripple of heat passed through the scorched battlefield, and the ground cracked faintly beneath his feet.
One of the mages gasped and dropped to his knees. Others backed away, instinct overriding courage.
Aden stepped forward. Smoke parted around him.
"I didn't ask to survive."
His voice was calm. Too calm.
"I didn't ask for the Wrath. Or for this command. I didn't ask to lead any of you into hell."
The wind picked up, dragging ash across their boots.
"I told myself I could handle it. That I could control my power."
His jaw tightened.
"But I was wrong."
A pause.
That was the truth. Not veiled. Not wrapped in noble excuses. Just raw and broken.
"I won't ask for your forgiveness. You wouldn't give it. And you shouldn't."
He looked at Dellen then, meeting the man's hatred with something far heavier.
"I will carry this. Every face. Every name. Every scream."
Dellen didn't answer.
No one did.
They just watched as Aden turned, his tattered cloak sweeping behind him like smoke in the wind.
And then—he was gone.
One step, and he vanished into the fog beyond the broken ridge. No farewell. No command.
Just silence.
Left behind were the remains of a command that no longer believed in its leader.
And sometimes that's what you truly need.
Man despises suffering
Yet without it
He is Nothing.