After she had cried until her chest ached and her throat burned raw, Orin gently pulled away from the embrace.
Without a word he seized the back of her dress again and started dragging her across the war-room floor.
Aeloria wiped the tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand, sniffling, but this time she didn't protest. The rough stone scraping against her skin barely registered; the emptiness inside her had been filled, even if only for a moment, and the rest of the world felt distant.
He kicked the heavy door open with a resounding thud that echoed down the corridor and kept walking, pulling her behind him like a child's forgotten doll.
"Commander… where are we going?" she asked, her voice hoarse and cracked from all the crying.
Orin didn't answer her question. Instead he asked one of his own, as though they were discussing the weather.
"I've been meaning to ask. After the incident with your child, why do you keep eating people? Is human flesh addictive?"
Aeloria blinked, glanced around, and realised the training field was already spotless. Every weapon had been returned to its rack, every helmet and glove accounted for, not a single scrap of cloth or steel left on the ground. The army had vanished as efficiently as it had assembled.
She drew a slow breath and began to speak while the commander continued dragging her toward the main gate.
"I met a nobleman when I was seventeen. Second son of the Almon family, Ramai Almon. He was… beautiful. Tall, gentle eyes, and a calm voice. At first I wanted nothing to do with him—I was a commoner, he was high-born, and I knew how those stories ended. But he kept coming back. For an entire year he visited, brought small gifts I never accepted, he never mocked my clothes or my manner of speech. He promised he would treat me well if I ever agreed to be his. Over time I started to believe he truly was kind."
Orin reached the massive outer gate, planted one boot against it, and kicked it open. The iron-bound wood swung wide with a deep, booming groan that rolled across the empty field.
'Why does he always kick doors open instead of using his hand?' Aeloria thought, but she knew better than to ask aloud unless she wanted another throbbing lump on her skull.
He dragged her through the gate and onto the wide street of Ohlm. People stopped and stared—shopkeepers, passers-by, children on errands—all watching the towering commander haul a thin, orange-clad girl behind him like a sack of turnips. Most didn't recognise her as the infamous cannibal; they simply assumed she had committed some crime and was being taken to the stocks.
Orin never once interrupted her story. He just listened and continued his strides.
"My grandmother had just died," Aeloria continued, her voice steadier now, "and I was terrified of making any rushed decisions. Ramai never pressured me into making a choice. He said he would wait for as long as I needed. When he learned about the debts my family had left behind, he paid a third of them himself—said he couldn't touch any more of the family wealth without a good reason, or his father would surely disinherit him for spending it on a common woman he wasn't even betrothed to."
They passed beneath the shadow of the city wall and turned down a narrower road that led toward the outskirts.
"One evening he came to my door looking exhausted. He told me there was trouble inside his family—some inheritance dispute—and he needed a quiet place to spend the night. Just one night alone, he said. He promised he wouldn't bother me, that he had no one else to go to. After everything he had done for me, I couldn't turn him away. I let him in. He insisted on sleeping on the floor because I only had one narrow bed. I refused—how could I let a noble sleep on bare boards? We argued politely until he finally agreed to take the bed but only if I also agree to lie with him. He didn't want me to catch a chill. One thing led to another… and I gave him permission to my body. He was gentle with me.
He left at dawn the next morning with a kiss on my forehead and a promise to return soon."
She swallowed hard.
"But he didn't leave me alone.
He left me with child. I realised it a few weeks later."
"I see," Orin said at last, the first words he had spoken since they left the building.
"When they found out you were pregnant, they had to act. His family wanted no scandal with a commoner's bastard, so they sent men to kill you both and bury the disgrace. Is that correct?"
"Yes," Aeloria answered quietly. "But that still doesn't answer your question about the eating of other people."
Orin stopped in front of a modest, single-layered house on the very edge of Ohlm, far from the wealthier districts. He kicked the door open—wood splintering around the latch—and flung her inside.
Aeloria rolled across the packed-earth floor, came up in a sitting position as she brushed dust from her shoulders and face.
Orin stepped in after her, closed the door, and folded his arms, waiting.
She drew a slow breath and continued.
"A few months after that night, I was travelling with a merchant caravan—trying to earn a few coins. We were attacked by bandits on the barren plains of Squora. They killed the guards, took everything of value, and started marching the survivors deeper into the waste, picking us off one by one for sport. By the time only a handful of us remained, I realised I had been their true target all along. Someone had paid them very well to make sure I never came back."
Orin lowered himself onto the only sturdy chair in the kitchen and fixed his gaze on the girl still sitting on the floor with her legs folded beneath her, and her hands resting loosely on her knees.
"There was no chance of escape," Aeloria continued with a quiet voice, "so it didn't matter what the bandits said; we were all going to die anyway. By the end only three of us were left. They had marched us to the edge of a sheer cliff in the deepest part of Squora. The leader laughed and told me it was the first time they had ever been paid to kill a pregnant woman, and that the order had come from someone inside the Almon family, though they never learned the exact name. The other two captives panicked. In their desperation to live they fought the bandits, and in the struggle they accidentally shoved me over the edge. Even now I don't understand how I survived the fall; I was so close to my due date my belly was enormous."
Orin leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees as he studied her with open curiosity for the first time.
"Why travel that far for trade when you were almost ready to give birth? Was the wage really worth the risk?"
"Yes," she answered without hesitation. "After that one night, I never saw Ramai again. He had warned me he might disappear for a while because of family troubles, but I never imagined it would be forever. I joined the caravan because the pay was more than double the usual rate; enough give the child a real start. I was terrified of raising a baby alone, but I wanted to do the best I possibly could. Getting hired while heavily pregnant was nearly impossible, yet somehow I convinced them."
She paused, her eyes distant, as if seeing the barren cliffs again.
"So you fell," Orin prompted, voice low. "You gave birth at the bottom… and then?"
"The baby came two days later. My daughter. She was small, but she cried loud and strong at first. Then the crying grew weaker. There was nothing down there—no water, no food, no shelter, only rock and dust. There was not even an insect alive, the land was simply dead. I held her for two weeks while she starved. She fought so hard to live… and I had to watch her fade. In the end I ended it myself so she wouldn't suffer any longer. Then I ate her so I could have the strength to climb out and come home."
Orin's expression did not change, but his eyes narrowed slightly.
"But how did the people of Runevale find out? And more importantly, how did you walk out of Squora alive?"
"After I… consumed her, something changed. When I woke the next morning every broken bone, every cut, every bruise was gone. I felt stronger than I ever had in my life. I climbed and walked for days across the waste without hunger, without thirst, without tiring. When I finally reached Runevale I walked straight to the square and told everyone what I had done. I wanted the truth known. I needed to atone. I swore that day I would devour every single person who had a hand in the attack the same way I devoured Lira—the ones who abandoned us, the ones who paid the bandits, the ones who ordered it all. Until I join my daughter in the ground, I will keep eating the flesh of my enemies. Every bite is penance. Every bite keeps the guilt alive so I never forget what I lost and what I became."
Orin sat back slowly, the wooden chair creaking beneath his weight.
"So that's why you bite," he said, almost to himself. "Not because the flesh is addictive. You eat your enemies to carry your sin on your tongue every single day. That is your way of atonement."
Aeloria looked up at him with a blank face and hollow but unflinching eyes.
He studied her for a long moment, then stood without another word.
He crossed the small room in a few steps, paused at the doorway, and flicked something metallic toward her.
Aeloria's hands came up too late; the object struck the floor with a sharp clink and rolled to a stop between them.
A plain iron key.
"I see you're still useless," Orin said dryly. "You don't even know what your hands are for."
She stared at the key, then at him. "What is this, Commander?"
"This house used to be mine, back when I was young and exploring the kingdom. It's even more useless than you are now. It's been empty for years. Three rooms, three different beds—choose whichever one doesn't offend you. Rest. I need you on the training field before the sun rises tomorrow. Oversleep and you're dead."
He turned to leave, then added over his shoulder, "If you need anything—come find me. But if you waste my time with useless requests, well...."
The door creaked shut behind him.
Aeloria stayed on the floor a moment longer, the key cold against her palm. She was overwhelmed, for the first time since she came back to Runevale, she didn't have to worry about where she would sleep.
***
Then the door burst open again.
"Mom, we're back!" Enoch's bright voice shattered the quiet and brought her back from her train of memories. He marched in proudly, sloshing a little water from the wooden bucket he carried with both hands.
Rya trailed behind him, pale and swaying, clutching the smallest bucket like it weighed a hundred pounds. Her arms trembled; her face was slick with sweat; she looked ready to collapse from sheer exhaustion.