Chapter 24 – Fragments
The air of the room still carried the muffled echoes of the blows. The floor, stained with blood, seemed determined to remember every fragment of violence that had just been unleashed. There, lying like a mutilated carcass, Saber struggled to breathe. His face was nothing more than a deformed mask of swollen flesh, his lips, puffed and broken, spat from time to time a trickle of dark blood. His body trembled with convulsions, unable to recover.
Valtherion had knelt beside him, his fingers covered in a white glow of healing energy. His furrowed brow betrayed the gravity of the boy's state.
"By all the gods… Luxurius… you have gone much too far," he murmured, his voice trembling between anger and helplessness.
Saber opened his eyes with difficulty. His gaze, blurred and drowned in tears, fixed on the face of his master. Each word he tried to pronounce broke under the weight of pain.
"M-Master… I… I'm sorry…"
Valtherion clenched his teeth, fighting to maintain his concentration. Threads of light were sewing shut the open wounds, but the depth of the hematomas was such that he could only soften the pain, not erase it.
"You have nothing to apologize for, Saber. Nothing… You've already suffered enough."
But Saber weakly shook his head, refusing pity.
"It's… it's my fault… Father… he… he's right. I… I'm nothing. I've always ruined everything. Even in Class A… I never shone. Even that number 1… it was never mine…"
His eyes clouded, and his voice broke like a confession too heavy to bear.
"I thought… that one day I could surpass Roy… prove that I existed… but… all I did was disappoint…"
Silence fell, heavy and crushing. Valtherion felt his chest tighten: these words were not those of a young man, but of someone reduced to ashes, convinced of his own uselessness. Luxurius' cruelty did not stop at his fists; it had seeped into his son's mind for years, eroding every spark of hope.
Valtherion placed a firm yet gentle hand on Saber's shoulder.
"Listen to me, Saber. Your father's words do not define who you are. Yes, Luxurius broke you today. Yes, he crushed your body and trampled your soul. But I see in you a strength he refuses to acknowledge. If you were nothing… you wouldn't still be alive after what he just did to you."
Saber's lips trembled, as if searching for a response, but no sound came out. His eyes slowly closed, surrendering to exhaustion and pain.
Valtherion sighed, letting the healing light fade from his hands. He knew the physical wounds could heal with time. But the scars of the soul… those might remain open forever.
With a precise movement, he lifted Saber, supporting his inert body against him. Blood had already soaked into his own clothes, but he didn't care. Walking toward the exit, he cast one last look at the room, as if to engrave into himself the injustice of what he had just witnessed.
Luxurius… if you continue like this, it won't just be your son you destroy. It will be everything we are meant to protect.
And in the suffocating silence, Valtherion left the room, carrying in his arms the shattered body of a son abandoned by his own father.
Night was slowly falling on Etheria.
In the underground sky, the magical moonlight filtered through the hanging crystals, spreading a soft yet unsettling glow across the Academy's towers. Seth was sitting on his bed, silent. His eyes fixed on the ceiling, though his mind wandered far from the narrow dormitory room.
Seth could not sleep. Lying on his bed, hands crossed behind his head, he stared at the pale light slipping through the small opening of his chamber. His eyes, open to the night, seemed to search for answers no one could give him.
One thought returned again and again, relentless, obsessive:
Who am I, really?
Why couldn't he remember anything before arriving here? Where did this emptiness in his mind come from, this bottomless void? At times he felt as if his body acted by instinct, guided by a memory that wasn't his own.
He rubbed his temple, his breath heavy.
"… And what if I'm nothing more than a ghost, a pawn moved across a chessboard far beyond me?" he murmured.
A sigh escaped his lips.
"Maybe… maybe I don't want to know."
The night had draped the Academy of Etheria with a silver veil. Underground, however, the moonlight pierced like a rare blessing through the crystalline domes adorning the city's ceiling. In the dormitory of Class B, silence reigned. The laughter and murmurs had faded, and only the distant crackling of stones and the steady breathing of sleeping students remained.
The moon continued to bathe his face, pale and thoughtful. And in the darkness, Seth finally closed his eyes, letting his doubts follow him into dreams always tinged with shadow.
To be continued…