The barracks were unusually still that morning.
Even the training grounds, once echoing with steel and laughter, felt subdued. The hounds lingered by the shade of the kennels, quiet and listless. Garren, the young handler, frowned as he watched Bristle pace in circles, then whine at the empty doorway where Aurean used to stand.
Two weeks since Aurean left for Virelia, and yet his absence hung like smoke in their lungs. The ghost of him lingered—not loud, not spoken—but felt. Even by those who once pretended he didn't exist.
It had been Lareth who summoned them all to the field.
But it was Rythe who stood before them.
He wore no crown or princely cloak. Just simple armor, sleeves rolled to the elbow, hands still smudged with training dust. His eyes, however, burned with cold fire.
"Two months," Rythe began, voice low but sharp. "Two months Aurean was missing."
The silence deepened.
"No one asked. No one searched. No one wondered." His gaze swept across the crowd. "Tell me—did you think he ran? That he vanished like the shadow you always pretended he was?"
Unease shifted among them.
"You let him bleed beneath our feet and did nothing. He gave you nothing but service—loyalty, discipline, even silence when you mocked him—and still you chose to act as if he was unworthy of breath."
Rythe's voice rose now, thunder coiling in his throat.
"How many of you have disobeyed me in the past? Lied to my face? Failed your missions or questioned your orders? And how many of you did I forgive?"
He let the words hang, like arrows ready to fall.
"You want to call him weak? Broken? A traitor? What of your own hands? What of your cowardice?"
Not one voice spoke.
Rythe's jaw clenched, his anger simmering below his skin. "If the whole kingdom spat on his name—fine. Let fools be blind. But you—you who saw him. You who fought beside him. You who lived with him—you knew."
He looked away, as if the sight of them sickened him.
"He would've died," Rythe said quietly. "And none of you would've known. Or cared."
A long, terrible pause.
Then Rythe turned, cloak snapping behind him as he walked away without a farewell.
The silence left in his wake was louder than any rebuke.
Lareth remained behind, hands clasped behind his back. He studied the stunned, shame-faced soldiers before him—some looked at the ground, others shifted in discomfort, a few looked like they might speak, but didn't.
"You're all proud of your honor," Lareth said flatly. "Your banners. Your vows. And yet, you've become the very thing we raise our blades against."
He nodded once, toward the space Rythe had just vacated.
"He trusted you. More than he trusted the court. More than he trusted himself, sometimes. You do not need to understand his choices. But you will respect the weight he carries."
He looked to Garren, then the others.
"You failed him. But more than that—you failed Aurean."
With that, Lareth too turned, following Rythe's path.
And the field remained still—haunted, at last, by a silence that was no longer Aurean's, but their own.
They remained standing in the training yard long after Rythe and Lareth had gone.
A warm breeze stirred the dust, but no one moved.
The silence wasn't just awkward—it was suffocating.
Garren, still kneeling by Bristle's side, finally broke it. "He hasn't eaten properly in days," he said, his voice a whisper. "Fen either. They keep pacing like they're looking for him."
No one answered.
From across the yard, one of the older soldiers—Tharen, a battle-hardened knight known for his silence more than his speech—shifted uncomfortably. "I thought he was just… doing his duties. Keeping quiet like he always does. Didn't think he'd gone."
Another scoffed quietly. "No, you just didn't care."
Tharen's jaw tensed. "None of us did."
It hit like a wave.
One by one, the soldiers—men and women who had faced war without flinching—now stood unsure, exposed not by blade or enemy, but by their own indifference.
"I remember," said Denik, a young recruit who had only recently earned his rank, "how he'd always make sure the hounds were calm before drills. I thought it was just his job. But Bristle wouldn't even listen to me last week. I had to call one of the seniors just to get her to move."
"It's like he knew them better than we know each other," Garren added, glancing up. "Better than we ever tried to know him."
A few heads bowed.
"I called him a ghost once," someone muttered. "Said he moved like one, looked like one. But ghosts don't bleed. They don't break."
"But he did," said another. "And we let him."
Silence followed again, this time heavy with shame.
One of the oldest knights, a grizzled veteran named Oric, crossed his arms. "I saw him after the poisoning. He fought with the hounds. Didn't speak, didn't boast. Just fought. We never even asked how he did it."
He exhaled slowly. "What kind of soldiers does that make us?"
"Aurean would've died," Garren whispered. "And we'd have gone on. Laughing. Training. Eating. Not even knowing."
The words struck deep.
No one had seen the signs.
No one had cared.
And now, their prince—stoic, unreadable, unflinching Rythe—had looked at them not as comrades, but as failures.
Not for battle.
But for heart.