Aren was lying in the frozen slush, his breath hitching in silver plumes that vanished into the gray sky. The snow beneath him had turned a dull, rusted crimson where his blood had seeped through his tunic. Beside him, Colis leaned heavily against the jagged bark of an ancient pine, his breath coming in ragged, uneven bursts. The silence of the forest was heavy, broken only by the distant snap of a frozen branch and the rhythmic whistle of the wind through the needles.
Colis wiped a smear of grime from his forehead, his gaze drifting over to Aren. He noticed then, with a sinking feeling in his chest, that Aren had fared much worse in their exchange. The younger man's clothes were shredded, the fabric weeping dark fluid in half a dozen places.
With a grunt of effort, Colis forced himself to stand. His legs felt like lead, and his own side burned where a glancing blow had bruised his ribs, but he managed to limp over. He reached into his satchel, withdrawing a roll of coarse, clean linen. He knelt in the snow, his knees popping, and began to wrap the cloth around Aren's left shoulder where his own sword had grazed the meat of the muscle.
Aren groaned, a low, guttural sound that vibrated in the cold air, but his jaw remained locked tight. He didn't pull away.
"Hey," Colis muttered, his fingers trembling slightly as he tucked the end of the bandage.
"You should have told me before that you were a rebel. We could have avoided this mess."
Aren's eyes remained closed, his lashes frosted with light flakes of snow. His voice was a thin rasp.
"You could have done the same. If I knew you were aligned with the knights, I wouldn't have shared my bread with you. We didn't have to duel. We chose to."
Colis let out a soft, dry laugh that turned into a cough. "I suppose we did. Hardheaded to the end, aren't you?" He continued dressing the wounds, moving with a practiced, somber efficiency.
Aren opened his eyes then, staring up at the canopy. "You're bleeding too.
Your side. I felt the impact when my hilt caught you."
"It's not worse than yours, at least," Colis replied, dismissing the pain with a wave of his hand. He sat back on his heels, looking at the boy who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. "Well? Why did you do it? Why become a rebel? I mean... Markus Vex. Why did a man like him turn against the crown?"
Aren looked at him for a long minute, his dark eyes unreadable, reflecting the gloomy sky above. "I don't know," he said simply.
Colis blinked, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "You don't know? You follow the man into the jaws of death, and you don't even know why your own father took up the cause?"
"He is not my real father," Aren replied, his voice gaining a sudden, sharp edge.
Colis paused, his hands going still. "What?"
Aren stared into the distance, the memories rising up like smoke. He spoke of the Raum Knights—how they had descended upon his village like a plague of iron and fire. He spoke of the noble whose name was whispered in the shadows, the one who had signed the order that turned his childhood home into an ash heap. He told of the long nights running through the underbrush, the cold hunger, and the moment a group of bandits had cornered him in a ravine.
"I was a child," Aren said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Markus found me there. He didn't just save me from the bandits; he gave me a reason to keep breathing. He was the one
who saw it first—the twin cores. He told me I was the bearer of a prophecy I never asked for."
Colis sighed, the sound heavy with the weariness of a man who had seen too many wars. "So, that's it? You want revenge?"
"Yes," Aren said. The word was cold and final.
Colis looked down at the blood-stained snow. "I don't know much about prophecies or the 'Weight of Walker,' Aren. But the way you say it... 'I want revenge'... it sounds small. It sounds cringe, honestly. Like a child crying over a broken toy."
Aren's head snapped toward him, a flash of the old fire in his eyes. "Does it make any difference? They are dead. The village is gone."
"It makes all the difference," Colis
countered, his voice rising with conviction. "Revenge is a circle. They killed, so you kill. It's a transaction of blood that never ends. Justice is different. Justice is what those people deserve. It's a punishment for a crime, a restoration of balance. Revenge is for you. Justice is for them."
Aren turned his face away, staring back at the tree line. "I don't care about balance. I will just kill them."
"Revenge," Colis spat the word out like it was bitter. "You want to throw your life away for revenge? They weren't even your blood parents, Aren."
Aren sat up slowly, ignoring the flare of agony in his shoulder. He looked Colis dead in the eye, his expression one of profound, haunting loneliness. "They were the closest thing to a family I ever had. I never had parents anyway. To you, they are just 'people.' To me, they were the only ones who didn't look at me like I was a monster before Markus found me."
Colis opened his mouth to argue, but the words died in his throat. He saw the hollow ache in the boy's gaze—a void that no amount of blood could ever fill.
The wind picked up, swirling the snow around them in a white shroud. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting long, skeletal shadows across the clearing. The duel was over, but the war inside Aren was only just beginning.
Colis stood up and offered a hand. "The sun's going down. If we stay here, the cold will finish what our swords started. Revenge or justice... you won't get either if you freeze to death in a ditch."
Aren looked at the calloused hand, then back at Colis. After a long silence, he reached out and took it. As Colis pulled him up, the two stood amidst the ruins of their fight—two enemies bound by a shared wound, walking toward a future that promised only more fire.
-end of chapter 14-