The road back from Seraphan was quiet. No songs of triumph. No celebration. Just the biting wind and the haunting silence of men who had stared into something deeper than death.
Herzl sat in the back of the transport, his face hollow. His hands trembled—not from cold, but from memory. The images that had surged through him in the Hall of Echoes were still scorched into his mind. A thousand lives. A thousand deaths. All felt at once.
Anna rode beside him, bruised and bandaged. Her gaze remained on the horizon. But she broke the silence.
"You saw them, didn't you?"
Herzl nodded, slowly.
"Every face. Every scream."
"They'll never leave you," she said. "You don't return from a place like that. Not as the same man."
He turned to her, finally asking what weighed on his chest:
"Were we the villains?"
She didn't answer.
Because deep down, they both knew.
Capital of Ashes
Back in Alexandria, the kingdom's capital was preparing for a grand procession. A parade not of joy, but mourning.
Thousands of soldiers had fallen. Hundreds of machines lost. The Republic had suffered worse—devastated by the fall of Seraphan. But the Kingdom's own people had begun to question whether the cost of victory was worth it.
"We were supposed to be liberators," murmured a captain.
"Now we're just grave diggers."
The parade rolled on.
Black banners. Steel masks. Gunmetal flowers thrown from balconies.
Herzl, Anna, and Grim were paraded through the avenue as war heroes—but none of them smiled.
The crowd clapped. But not with joy.
With fear. With sorrow. With silence in their eyes.
A Prince and His Mask
That night, a private council was held within the royal fortress.
Prince Dutch, older than his age now, stood at the head of the war table. Maps were strewn, blood still staining parts of them.
"The Republic's stronghold has collapsed. Their supply lines are failing. Reinforcements are scarce. They will break."
The room nodded.
"But the people…" one general began, "they're growing tired. Afraid. We are winning the war, but losing the soul of our nation."
Dutch's voice was colder than ever.
"Victory heals all."
Herzl stepped forward. He looked into Dutch's eyes—eyes that no longer resembled the man he first met.
"At what cost?"
Dutch's lips barely moved.
"Whatever it takes."
And with that, the meeting ended.
The Cracks in Grim
Later that night, Herzl found Grim alone in the war garden, standing beneath a statue of Alexander the First.
"You've been quiet since Seraphan," Herzl said.
Grim didn't turn to him.
"Veyra's words…" he whispered. "They weren't just riddles. They were reminders."
"Of what?"
Grim looked down at his hands.
"Of what I was. What I might still be."
A chill ran through Herzl's spine. He looked at Grim—his mentor, his savior, his mystery.
"You're not telling me something."
Grim looked at him, and for just a moment, his pupils disappeared—as if black voids stared out instead.
But then, they returned to normal.
"Not yet."
A Shadow in the North
Far across the continent, beyond burned fields and shattered borders, within a shattered citadel of the Republic, a new figure emerged.
Dressed in red armor, wrapped in black cloth, a faceless general walked through the remains of a ruined command bunker. He stepped over corpses. Bullet shells. And kneeled before a broken INN core still humming with residual energy.
"Seraphan has fallen," said a voice behind him.
The figure said nothing.
"The Kingdom believes they've won."
He stood. Looked out the shattered window toward the sky.
And then, in a voice filled with icy clarity:
"Let them believe."