Chapter 4 — The Weight That Remains
The smoke did not clear by morning.
It clung to the lowlands like a bruise, dark smears against the pale sky, marking where the northern settlement had been. Even from a distance, the smell carried—burned wood, scorched grain, something sour beneath it that Mikkel refused to name.
The company moved at first light.
They marched not in triumph, but in silence. Armor scraped softly. Boots pressed into damp earth. No one sang. No one spoke louder than necessary.
Victory had never felt heavier.
Mikkel walked near the front, spear balanced across his shoulder, eyes forward. His body ached in familiar ways—bruises blooming beneath cloth, muscles tight with fatigue—but it was the stillness inside his chest that unsettled him most.
He had made the call.
And now they were walking toward what that call had left behind.
The village came into view as the sun crested the ridge.
Or what remained of it.
Charred beams jutted from the ground at broken angles. Roofs had collapsed inward, leaving blackened hollows where families had slept. The earth was churned and scarred, footprints overlapping in frantic patterns.
They halted at the edge.
Freja was the first to move.
She broke from the formation without waiting for orders, skirts gathered in one hand as she crossed into the ruins. Her eyes swept the ground quickly, efficiently—searching not for buildings, but for people.
"Wounded first," she called back. "Anyone who can hear me, answer."
A faint cough came from beneath a fallen beam.
Then another.
The soldiers moved.
They lifted rubble, formed buckets, carried water from the river. Freja knelt beside a burned doorway, hands already red again as she worked to free a man pinned beneath collapsed timber.
Mikkel stood where he was, jaw tight.
He counted survivors.
Twenty-three.
Less than half.
An older woman emerged from behind a shattered wall, soot streaked across her face, hair gone white with ash. She stared at the soldiers with eyes too sharp for grief alone.
"You came," she said.
It was not gratitude.
It was accusation.
Mikkel stepped forward.
She was tall, despite her age, spine straight as a spear shaft. Her clothing was simple—homespun wool, scorched at the hem. One sleeve hung torn, revealing a forearm marked by old labor scars and fresh burns alike.
Her hands were empty.
That, somehow, felt deliberate.
"I'm Elna Thorsen," she said. "This was my village."
Her gaze flicked to the smoke, then back to him. "You held the river."
"Yes," Mikkel replied.
"You let them come here," she said.
"Yes."
The word struck harder spoken aloud.
A murmur rippled through the gathered survivors.
Freja paused, glancing over.
Signe's hand tightened on her sword hilt.
Elna stepped closer, stopping an arm's length from Mikkel. He could see the tremor in her jaw now, the effort it took to keep her voice steady.
"They took my son," she said. "And my neighbor's daughters. And the baker's wife. They burned what they couldn't carry."
She swallowed.
"Tell me why."
Mikkel did not look away.
"Because if we'd chased them," he said, "they would have done this to all three villages."
Elna's eyes burned. "So you decided we were the price."
"No," Mikkel said. "I decided some had a chance."
Her hand rose.
For a moment, Mikkel thought she would strike him.
Instead, she let it fall.
"A chance," she repeated. "Is that what you call it when a child runs into the trees alone?"
Her voice cracked then.
Freja rose slowly, bloodied hands clenched at her sides, but she did not intervene.
This was not her place.
Mikkel felt the weight settle fully now—not abstract, not distant. It had a face. A name.
"I will not pretend this was right," he said quietly. "Only that it was necessary."
Elna stared at him.
Then she laughed—a short, broken sound.
"Necessary," she echoed. "That's what men with armor always say."
She turned away.
No one stopped her.
The soldiers finished their work by midday.
They found more survivors than Mikkel had feared. Fewer than he had hoped.
Freja organized what remained of the village with calm authority—setting up triage, assigning able-bodied men and women to salvage what they could. She moved among them without judgment, without pity.
Only purpose.
Mikkel watched her work and understood something he had not before.
This—this aftermath—was the true battlefield.
Havel arrived by late afternoon with additional supplies from the garrison. He took in the ruins with a grimace and found Mikkel near the riverbank, washing blood from his hands.
"You held," the quartermaster said.
"Yes."
"And they paid for it," Havel continued.
"Yes."
Havel leaned against a rock, exhaling slowly. "The council in the north won't like this. They'll say the road should have been abandoned sooner. That defending it at all was a mistake."
"They'll be wrong," Mikkel said.
Havel raised an eyebrow. "You're certain?"
"Because if we abandon roads," Mikkel replied, "we abandon people. And once we decide people are expendable, nothing holds."
Havel studied him, then nodded faintly.
"That's a dangerous way to think."
"It's the only way that lasts."
Havel snorted. "Spoken like a man who's never sat on a council."
Mikkel met his gaze. "Then don't put me on one."
That earned a thin smile.
They buried the dead at sunset.
No ceremony. No speeches. Just stones stacked carefully, names spoken softly by those who remembered them.
Elna did not attend.
When the work was done, the survivors gathered near the riverbank, huddled together beneath salvaged cloaks and blankets. Fear lingered in their eyes—not of the soldiers, but of what would come next.
Freja approached Mikkel as he stood apart.
"You could have walked away," she said quietly. "After today."
"I still can."
She shook her head. "No. Not really."
He watched the river flow past, carrying away blood and ash alike.
"I don't know how to make this right," he admitted.
Freja followed his gaze. "You don't. You make it less wrong next time."
Her hand brushed his sleeve—not gripping, not pleading. Just there.
He nodded once.
That night, as the company prepared to escort the survivors north, Elna Thorsen returned.
She stopped before Mikkel, eyes hollow but steady.
"We're leaving with you," she said. "All of us."
He frowned. "The garrison—"
"Is too far," she cut in. "And too crowded. And they'll abandon us when it suits them."
Her gaze sharpened. "You won't."
It was not a question.
Mikkel hesitated.
"I can't promise safety," he said.
Elna's lips thinned. "No one ever can."
She stepped closer. "But you choose. And you don't hide it."
Behind her, the survivors watched silently.
This—this was the moment.
The first time people looked at him not as a fighter, or a survivor, or a man who shouted orders—
—but as someone who decided where they would go.
"Stay with us," Elna said. "Until we find somewhere better."
Mikkel felt the weight shift.
Not lift.
Settle.
"Yes," he said.
Relief rippled through the group—quiet, restrained, fragile.
Signe raised an eyebrow when she heard. "You just picked up thirty mouths."
"Twenty-seven," Mikkel corrected.
She laughed softly. "You're terrible at avoiding trouble."
Liv appeared beside them, silent as ever.
"Graymarch won't stop," she said. "They'll follow the movement."
"I know," Mikkel replied.
She tilted her head slightly. "Good. Then they'll see where you stand."
As the camp settled for the night, Mikkel stood alone at the river's edge.
For the first time, the road ahead was no longer just something to survive.
It was something to shape.
Ashes did not ask for names.
But the living did.
And they had just begun to choose his.