The dawn was already breaking when Alexis stirred.
His body ached, his neck sore where Hiral's strike had landed, but it wasn't the pain that tore at him—it was the emptiness beside him.
No faint echo of laughter, no sardonic quip to start a fight, no quiet presence to share the silence.
Just cold ashes where a fire had been.
He sat up slowly, vision swimming until the blurred shapes around him resolved into the weathered faces of the barren land locals.
They watched him with the patience of stone, their gazes neither pitying nor prying.
One of them handed him a canteen and a small bundle of dried meat without a word.
Alexis took them with stiff hands, his lips twisting into a smile that felt too sharp, too wrong.
Then the laugh broke out of him—low at first, then louder, until it cracked into a near-maniacal edge that startled the horses tethered nearby.
The locals only shook their heads, as though they'd seen men crack before, as though his outburst was only another wound of the past they could not mend.
Still, they let him laugh until his chest ached, until his breath came ragged and raw.
And then, without judgment, they saddled his horse for him and pressed the reins into his hands.
"There must be reason," one of them murmured, the words thick with an accent. "Trust it."
Alexis's throat tightened.
He wanted to scream that reason had no place where Hiral was concerned—that no cause, no plan, no brilliant grand design could excuse the weight of being abandoned by the one man who saw him fully.
But he swallowed it down, forcing a smile instead, and bowed his head.
"…Thank you." His voice cracked around the edges.
The barren lands stretched before him, endless and empty.
As he rode, the wind cut sharp against his cheeks, carrying with it the echo of a night he could not banish.
The cliff rose unbidden in his mind—the way the moonlight had softened Hiral's eyes, the unguarded fragility in his voice when he spoke of running away.
Alexis clenched the reins tighter, teeth grinding.
For a heartbeat, he had believed it.
He had wanted it.
Their hands, bound but steady; their words, sharp but tethered with longing.
Their souls had brushed together in that fragile pause, and Alexis had dared—dared—to hope Hiral might choose him.
And then… darkness. A betrayal delivered with the gentleness of a lover's touch.
"You bastard," Alexis muttered under his breath, though the ache behind the words hollowed them into a plea.
His chest burned as he remembered the faint warmth of Hiral's voice—"Good night, Alexis"—and the way it had sounded like both farewell and confession.
He laughed again, bitter and broken, the sound stolen by the wind.
He knew.
He knew Hiral would always place his duty above all else—above love, above himself.
And still, Alexis had hoped.
Still, his heart ached as though he'd been made a fool.
The horse's hooves drummed against the barren soil, carrying him back to the heart of Ro's army.
And as he rode, Alexis whispered to the wind, to the memory of that night, to the phantom of a man who had left him behind yet again:
"…I would have run with you. Even if it meant betraying the world."
The barren horizon gave no answer—only silence.
****
The campfires of Ro flickered against the twilight when Alexis rode in, his face drawn but unreadable.
Soldiers stopped what they were doing to glance at him—some curious, some wary. Whispers followed him like shadows.
He ignored them. He had no room in his chest for their suspicions; his storm was too loud, his heart still raw from the ghost of Hiral's touch.
But he wasn't allowed peace.
A cluster of commanders broke from the edge of the camp, their polished armor catching the firelight.
The smugness in their eyes was enough to betray their intent before they opened their mouths.
"So," one of them drawled, stepping into Alexis's path. "The great General Alexis, the grand duke, finally returns. We were beginning to wonder if the desert swallowed you—or if perhaps you chose more… traitorous company."
A ripple of amusement moved through the men.
Another commander leaned closer, his voice a mockery of concern.
"Tell us, General, did you happen to parley with the enemy's favored dog? Or were you too busy plotting with him to sabotage your own king?"
The words should have stung.
They should have sparked fury.
Instead, Alexis laughed.
A sharp, dark sound that silenced them more effectively than any command.
His smile curved in a way that held no mirth, only cutting edge.
"You know," he said softly, voice curling like smoke, "for men who pretend to serve crown and country, you've just blurted out your true hearts so easily. Treason rolls off your tongues as if you've rehearsed it."
Their smirks vanished.
"What—" one began, but Alexis cut him off, his voice iron wrapped in velvet.
"Accusing me of collusion, of sabotage, of ambition for the throne?" His smile sharpened. "You already stated that I'm the great general and a grand duke, yet you spoke such words. So if I use my grand status, whose loyalty will be questioned first—mine, or those who whispered treason aloud with so little shame?"
The air went tense, blades of silence cutting between them.
Rage flashed in their eyes, but they were cornered.
Their taunts had turned to daggers pointing back at their own throats, and they knew it.
One by one, they stepped back, their jaws clenched in silent fury.
Alexis did not watch them retreat.
He only laughed again—quieter, almost to himself.
A laugh frayed with edges of despair.
Because they weren't wrong.
Not entirely.
He had come close.
Closer than they could ever imagine. Closer than reason, duty, or pride should have allowed.
He had been ready to throw away crown, army, nation—everything—for the fleeting chance of a life with Hiral.
And Hiral had cut him down with a single strike.
His hand slipped to his chest, fingers curling tight around the small koi necklace beneath his tunic.
The cool metal bit into his palm as he bowed his head.
"Hiral…" The name slipped from him raw, torn from his throat like a wound.
The storm inside him churned harder, threatening to split him open.
When he entered his tent, the sight that greeted him was merciless.
Stacks of reports, war strategies, letters demanding decisions. Duty, piled high and waiting like an executioner.
Alexis stood there for a long moment, just staring, listening to the raging storm inside him.
Then he sighed—long, bitter, resigned.
With grim hands, he sat at the table, drew the nearest document toward him, and forced his mind back into the war.
Ink met parchment, lines of strategy unfurling beneath his hand. But his heart—his heart still bled in silence.
The candle on his desk guttered, its flame casting weary shadows across the mountains of parchment.
Alexis forced his hand to keep moving, ink scratching across lines of troop placements, supply routes, and counter-schemes.
But the words blurred.
Numbers slipped from meaning, replaced instead by images that rose unbidden, merciless as a tide.
A figure seated at the very edge of the world, knees drawn up, head bowed as though in prayer or surrender.
Moonlight had sculpted him into fragility, so unlike the unflinching general Alexis had come to know.
Hiral had lifted a hand—quick, almost ashamed—to wipe his eyes. That single gesture had cracked something inside Alexis, and even now, ink pooling beneath his trembling pen, he felt the echo of that fracture.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but it only worsened.
Their eyes met across the gulf of crowd and snow. Bells tolled, grief roared through Eldara, yet all narrowed to the faint, pained curve of Hiral's mouth. A smile that wasn't a smile, carved from sorrow. The words he mouthed still burned in Alexis's chest: The war begins.
The war begins—and yet Alexis had wanted nothing but to run toward him, to break through the crowd, to keep him from vanishing into the winter air.
The parchment blurred again, ink smearing beneath his unsteady hand.
He tried to steady himself. Tried to calculate enemy movements. But the next memory struck like a blade unsheathed.
The wind caught in Hiral's unbound hair, strands dark and wild across his cheekbones.
He leaned into the ship's railing, untethered, his voice humming a lullaby meant for no one.
A song that belonged to another world, one he had been stolen from as a child. Alexis had thought him untouchable until that moment.
Until the song, fragile and aching, carved into him like salt against raw skin.
Alexis's grip on the quill faltered.
He dragged a shaking hand over his face.
But the memories did not relent.
The temple on the island. The crowd, the noise—all of it faded until there was only the weight of Hiral's gaze, meeting his own across distance, across silence.
For that breath, nothing else mattered. Not war, not duty, not the world. Only them.
And deeper still—
The barren lands. A loud crash, laughter, dust. Hiral's eyes had locked with his then, wary and sharp, yet undone in that single instant.
Alexis remembered the electricity in the air, remembered striding forward with the reckless relief of a man who had found water after endless thirst.
That was the moment, Alexis knew. The moment his soul had been captured, before he even understood the cost.
The quill slipped from his fingers. Ink spattered across the parchment.
His hands trembled as he clasped them together, bowing his head over the desk.
Lips pressed tightly, as if holding back the storm that threatened to rip him apart.
And yet the tears fell anyway. Silent, unbidden, streaking down his face to blot the pages that bore his father's war.
"Hiral…" he breathed, the name breaking from him like prayer, like confession, like surrender.
The candle wavered, shadows bending over the tent walls. Duty lay scattered across the desk, waiting.
But Alexis—he could only sit there, hands clenched, head bowed, undone by the ghosts of memory and the storm he could not silence.