Dathanham felt no fear.
As the shadow of the purple knight's sword fell over his childlike face, he saw only one thing: Nika's glazed blue eyes, reflected in the polished steel.
You killed her, he thought, his own crimson eyes burning like embers beneath tears. Then I will kill you.
He grabbed a broken piece of wood—ridiculous against rune-forged armor—and charged. A guttural roar, more beast than human, tore from his throat.
Roran, the blond, laughed. A clear, musical sound that clashed with the carnage around them.
"Lyra, end this farce. The kid's lost it."
Lyra, with her purple hair, hesitated for the first time. Something flickered in her ice-blue eyes: admiration. That bloodied eight-year-old, shoulders broken by pain, still had enough hatred to strike two Empire Knights.
"Poor little mouse," she whispered, almost pitying him.
Her sword rose. Not a killing blow, but a strike of discipline—meant to maim, to teach respect. The blade descended like a silver lightning bolt.
But it stopped.
Not because Lyra hesitated.
Because something hit first.
FWOOSH.
A whistling sound cut through the air.
Dathanham felt a dry impact in his chest, followed by a cold that spread like melting ice beneath his skin. It wasn't pain—not yet—but a deep, invasive pressure.
He looked down.
From his torn tunic emerged the hilt of a kōzuka—a short blade, thin as a needle, sharp enough to pierce even the best armor. The entire blade was lodged in his left chest. Dark blood oozed in slow pulses, soaking the fabric.
Lyra froze, her sword still hovering two centimeters from Dathanham's neck. Her eyes widened.
Who…?
"Who gave you permission to kill the kid?"
The voice came from the dense forest. Masculine, neutral, as cold as the metal now trembling in Dathanham's chest.
Roran did not turn. His shoulders tensed under his armor.
"Sylver Neil. Even as a Gold Rank A, you can't just interfere."
From the shadows among the pines, a figure emerged. Tall, slender, wearing gray combat attire without insignia. His face was hidden by a cloth mask, but his eyes—steel-gray, rusted like iron—fixed on the fallen child.
Sylver walked slowly, each step measured. He stopped three meters from the dying boy.
"I'm the one asking," he said, his voice flat. "Who needs reasons to kill that bastard's child?"
That bastard's child? Lyra thought, her mind racing. What plebeian child…
Roran finally turned, his angelic face now a mask of disdain.
"If you doubt my Silver Rank A skills, Sylver, come prove it yourself."
Sylver ignored him. His gray eyes scanned Dathanham: the chest rising and falling with effort, crimson eyes beginning to blur, blood pooling darkly beneath him.
"He'll bleed out in ten minutes," he stated, as if reading a weather report.
Lyra lowered her sword, tip touching the ground.
"The kōzuka pierced the left lung. He can barely breathe."
Roran observed the dying child. Something in his golden eyes softened—not from pity, but from calculation.
"At least let him die this way," the blond said, his voice losing some of its melody. "In honor… of that person."
Sylver smiled beneath the mask—a nearly imperceptible movement, just a slight twitch at the corner of his eyes.
"As you wish."
The three turned. Roran cast one last glance at the cabin, at Nika, at Dathanham. Lyra hesitated for a second longer, fingers tightening around her sword hilt. Then, they vanished into the forest, their silhouettes dissolving among the trees like ghosts.
The sound of their steps disappeared.
What remained was the silence of the clearing, broken only by the wet, gasping breaths of an eight-year-old boy dying alone.
Two hours later, twilight painted the sky purple and orange as Leo and Thom arrived at the clearing.
Thom, his noble features softened by age and genuine compassion—rare for a Bishop of the Goddess Eirene—froze at the cabin entrance. His nose, accustomed to incense and sacred herbs, filled with the metallic scent of death.
"Leo…" his voice came out as a held sigh.
But Leo, sixteen, with the same light-blue eyes now empty on the ground, was already moving. His face was a blank canvas. No shock, no tears. Only cold, terrible acceptance.
He saw Nika first.
Her body. Her blue dress—the one she had washed so carefully in the river—now a dark, soaked mass. Her silver hair, combed every morning while humming, spread out like a dirty halo.
Something inside him cracked.
But he sealed the crack immediately, with a will that would make war veterans tremble.
Later, he thought, teeth clenched. Cry later. Survive now.
Then he saw Dathanham.
Lying on his side, a kōzuka grotesquely protruding from his chest like an evil metallic shoot. Coagulated blood formed a dark halo around him. But… his crimson eyes were half-open. And his mouth moved, whispering something.
"He… is alive?" Thom said, incredulous, eyes wide.
Leo did not respond. He knelt beside his brother, his hands—hands learning to heal with Thom, hands that should have protected—examining the wound with clinical, inhuman precision.
"The blade pierced the left lung," he diagnosed, his voice monotone. "But the kōzuka itself is acting as a plug. He's in hemorrhagic shock. At least a third of his blood is gone."
Thom pulled him back, his hands—bishop's hands, hands that bless—trembling slightly.
"Let me, Leo. I have the Goddess's blessings."
As Thom murmured prayers in an ancient tongue, his hands began to glow with a soft golden light—the healing magic of the Goddess of Peace, Eirene. The light enveloped Dathanham, sealing blood vessels, disinfecting the wound, encouraging the body to regenerate.
Leo just watched. Absolute silence. As if he had always known this day would come.
A memory burst forth, unbidden:
His father, lying on an improvised bed in the same cabin, silver hair soaked with sweat, pale blue eyes clouded with pain. Internal injuries no healer, no bishop, no magic could fix.
Dathanham, a baby with eyes still closed, in his arms.
"The name… will be Dathanham." His father coughed, blood running down his chin. "He is your brother."
Another violent cough.
"Nika… protect Dathanham. And Leo…" his eyes found Leo, then only six years old, "…protect Nika."
A pause. A sigh that seemed to come from the very bones.
"And… forgive me, my children."
His hands fell. The baby cried. Silence.
Leo closed his eyes, brushing the memory aside as if it were a bothersome insect.
I failed, father. I failed Nika. I failed Dathan. I failed everyone.
Dathanham woke screaming.
Not a scream of physical pain—his wounds were sealed, the chest bone wrapped in holy energy—but a nightmare scream, of guilt, of images that would never leave his mind.
"NO! I COULD… I SHOULD… I PROMISED…!"
He was in a simple but clean bed, in a stone room with a single narrow window—Thom's residence on the village outskirts. Candles smelled of lavender and myrrh. Leo sat in a rustic wooden chair beside him, motionless as a statue.
"Dathan."
Leo's voice was strangely calm, almost robotic.
"Tell me. Everything. Every detail."
And Dathanham told him. Between sobs that hurt his recently healed chest and tremors from his bones, he described the cabin, the blood, the vacant expression in Nika's eyes, the gold and purple knights, their cruel smiles, the flying kōzuka, Sylver Neil's cold voice, the words about "that bastard."
When he finished, gasping, Thom—who had listened from the door, his face increasingly pale—entered the room.
"Those who swear to protect the weak… take the lives of children for fun," the old bishop whispered, his faith shaken to its core.
Leo did not look at Thom. His blue eyes remained fixed on Dathanham, but Dathanham saw—there was something different now. No longer just pain. It was calculation. Cold analysis.
"Our lives never meant anything to them," Leo said, each word carefully measured. "They see us as insects. As things."
"But now," Dathanham added, sitting up in bed, his crimson eyes glowing with a feverish, intense light, "now we matter. Because we will make each one of them pay. For Nika. For every strike. For every smile as she bled."
They spoke simultaneously, with a coldness that made Thom shiver and clutch the crucifix hanging from his neck:
"Revenge."
Thom shook his head, decades of habits as a bishop speaking louder than his broken heart.
"The Goddess Eirene teaches in her sacred texts: 'Say not: I will avenge evil; wait for the Lord, and He shall deliver you.' Revenge is a cycle, children. It brings only more suffering, more death, more broken hearts."
Dathanham laughed—a harsh, humorless sound, like a bark.
"We are plebeians, Thom. Worms. We do not know your Goddess of Peace. We were not taught in noble schools. We were taught that those who do not fight, die." He stared at the bishop, his red eyes burning. "If we must cooperate with demons to kill the knights who murdered Nika, then so be it. We are already in hell."
Leo lifted his head slowly, his gaze now as sharp as the kōzuka that nearly killed his brother.
"Thom. Who is this 'person' Sylver mentioned? Who wants an eight-year-old dead enough to send a Rank A Gold assassin? An assassin who, according to the records you once showed me, charges a fortune for his work?"
Thom hesitated, fingers clutching his robes.
"Noble families… have secrets buried deeper than their ancestors. Feuds that last generations, that begin with the slightest insult and end in bloodbaths." He inhaled sharply. "Sylver Neil is from the Neil family—powerful enough to have multiple high-rank knights, but mediocre compared to the Great Houses like Valerius or Moncroft. If he acted under 'higher orders'…"
"Then someone is above him," Leo concluded, his eyes gleaming with bitter understanding. "Someone with more power, more influence. Someone who feared our youngest brother before he even knew how to hold a kitchen knife."
Thom rose, legs trembling. He walked to the window, staring at the forest now hiding so much horror.
"I cannot support this. I am a Bishop of Peace. My vows… my faith…" He turned, face marked by conflict. "But…" His eyes scanned the two brothers—one with ice eyes plotting, the other with fire eyes burning for justice—and saw only absolute determination. "…Good luck."
He turned to leave, steps heavy.
"Thom."
Leo spoke, not as a sixteen-year-old, but like a general giving orders to a subordinate.
The bishop stopped but did not turn.
"I want your help."
"I said—"
"Adopt us."
The room fell silent. Dathanham's eyes widened, looking at his older brother as if he had gone mad.
Thom slowly turned. His face showed understanding—and horror.
"Leo… do you realize the weight of what you're asking? If I, a church bishop, officially adopt two orphaned plebeians, especially one with…" his eyes landed on Dathanham's crimson ones, "…with such… distinctive features…"
"Exactly," Leo interrupted, a calculating gleam in his blue eyes. "No one would look for a bishop's adopted children. We would have a respectable surname. Access to church records, archives, even the inner city. Relative protection, under the cloak of faith."
"And in return?" Thom asked, arms crossed, defensive posture. "What do you offer for the immense risk I am taking? For the possibility of being excommunicated? Of having my own life threatened?"
Leo was silent for a moment. Then he stood from the chair, facing Thom as an equal.
"I will tell you our full story. Everything I know about our parents. Where Dathan's eyes came from. Why someone, somewhere, at some level of power we can't even imagine, wants him dead."
Thom studied Leo. He saw the sharp intelligence honed by years of survival in streets and forests. He saw the pain disguised as relentless logic. And he saw something more—a determination beyond revenge, beyond hatred. It was pure survival. Ensuring at least one brother survived.
"Very well," Thom sighed, defeated not by logic, but by the pain in the young man's eyes. "But I want the full truth. No omissions. And you will follow my rules while under my roof. Study, prayer, and no rash actions. Understood?"
Leo nodded, a short, sharp movement.
Then something shifted in his face. The mask of perfect control cracked for a second, and behind it, Dathanham saw something that made him shrink: a fury directed at himself, a guilt so deep it almost had color.
Leo looked at Dathanham, his voice a harsh whisper, filled with an emotion he could no longer contain:
"Dathan… think. Think carefully. Who saved you?"
Dathanham blinked, confused.
"Saved? They left me to bleed on the floor."
"Exactly." Leo's eyes glowed with a dangerous light. "The kōzuka was thrown to kill, yes. But think: Sylver Neil—a Rank A assassin, a professional who never misses—was sent specifically for a plebeian child in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. And Roran and Lyra were prevented from 'playing' with you before killing you."
He leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the bed.
Someone wanted your death clean. Quick. No torture. No interrogation. Why?
Dathanham felt a chill run down his spine, unrelated to his recent wounds.
"Because," Leo continued, voice now full of bitter understanding, "maybe someone knew that if you were tortured… if they spent hours or days with you… you could reveal something. Or worse…"
He paused dramatically.
"…survive and remember."
Thom's eyes widened, understanding hitting him like a physical blow.
"You're suggesting that…"
"That the assassination attempt on Dathanham was not just bored knights' random cruelty," Leo concluded, fingers gripping the wood until the knuckles whitened. "It was a mission. Planned. Ordered. And missions…"
He looked at Thom, then Dathanham.
"…leave traces."
As night fully fell over Thom's small sanctuary, wrapping the world in a cloak of cold stars, the three remained in the room—each trapped in their own thoughts, their own silent vows.
Dathanham, his crimson eyes now carrying not just childlike pain, but adult, dark purpose.
Leo, with his cold intelligence and simmering guilt, already beginning to draw invisible lines between names, ranks, families, and motives in his mind.
And Thom, the bishop of peace, servant of the goddess of harmony, now harboring two seeds of war under his sacred roof, silently wondering if Eirene would forgive him for what he was about to do.
It was Leo who broke the final silence, his voice sounding strangely mature in the dim light:
"The first thing: discover who our parents really were. Because if someone feared their 'bastard child' so much that they sent an elite assassin the same day they killed our sister…"
He paused, his blue eyes reflecting the candlelight.
"…then our parents were no ordinary plebeians. And whatever they were, or did, put us in danger from the day we were born."
Dathanham touched the spot on his chest where the kōzuka had pierced him. The skin was smooth now—healed by sacred magic—but the memory of cold metal entering his flesh remained, a ghost scar.
"And the second thing?" he asked, voice lower but firm
Leo smiled—a hollow, warmthless smile that didn't reachhis ees.
"Learn. Everything. How they kill. How they think. How they underestimate."
He looked at Thom.
"And then… learn to kill before we are kille
Outside, beyond the window, a crow landed on the stone sill. Its black, glossy eyes reflected the candlelight inside, seeming, for a fleeting moment, red as fresh blood.
Like the eyes of the child now swearing war on an entire world.