A brief respite was granted, a cruel truce in the theater of horror. ZE-BE and his family were led to a dark, bare antechamber, far from the eager eyes of the crowd, but not from the smell of dust and despair.
The door closed with a sharp snap, and ZE-RAK rushed to his father, grabbing the rough fabric of his tunic.
"Father..." His voice was just a broken whisper. "Father, explain to me! Please! I know you didn't do anything. Why... why are you saying these things?"
ZE-BE placed a heavy hand on his son's shoulder. His smile was a mask of cracked serenity, a pathetic attempt at normality.
"Calm down, son. I'm fine. Don't worry about me, think rather about..."
"NO!" ZE-RAK's scream tore through the silence of the small room. The tears he had held back until now gushed out, burning and unworthy. "No... you're not fine! You didn't do it! You couldn't! You... tell me! Please, tell me it's not true... BUT SAY SOMETHING, DAMMIT!"
"That's enough, ZE-RAK!" cut in his mother, her voice strangled, broken by the effort of holding back her sobs. She stood stiff, her arms wrapped tightly around ZE-YA, as if she could protect her from reality that way. "Don't speak to your father in that tone."
"But Mother, you can also see that..."
"I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!"
The silence that followed was heavy with all the unspoken words, all the fear and powerlessness. ZE-RAK then saw his mother's expression: absolute terror, mixed with a sadness so deep it was almost serene. Resigned. As if she knew. As if she had, in some inexplicable way, accepted the unacceptable.
ZE-BE drew his wife to him in an embrace that seemed destined to be their last.
"Everything will be fine, my dear. You'll see."
She nodded, unable to utter a word, burying her face in his neck. She held ZE-YA close, their ten-year-old daughter who was sobbing silently, her face buried in the folds of her mother's dress, her small body shaking with tremors.
ZE-RAK watched his broken family. His mind, so quick to anticipate the movements of prey, couldn't grasp the rules of this rigged game. It was a setup, he was sure of it now. But by whom? Why? To what end? His father's behavior, the Priestess's gaze, MASSI's cowardice... everything formed a puzzle for which he didn't have the key pieces.
"Father..." he murmured, his voice broken. "In a few days, the recruitment will take place. I will finally become a hunter."
ZE-BE gently detached himself from his wife and turned to him. For the first time since the start of this masquerade, he gave a real smile, filled with painful pride and immense love.
"I know. And do you remember our creed? The first one I taught you?"
ZE-RAK closed his eyes, searching through the wreckage of his world. "...One must never weaken and always protect one's pack when one is its leader."
"Exactly," whispered ZE-BE, his gaze shining with sudden intensity. "You learned well. You are a good son."
ZE-RAK looked away, unable to bear this gaze that was saying goodbye to him. "Go on. Win... and come back quickly."
His father gave him one last smile. Was it the smile of a confident man, or the heart-wrenching, deliberate farewell of a father to his son? ZE-RAK didn't have time to decide. The door opened again. The time had come.
---
The crowd had moved as one body toward the dirt arena, a sacred circle where spilled blood was a prayer to the ancestors. The air was electric, charged with an unhealthy excitement, a primal desire to see a hero's blood flow.
The two men made their entrance from opposite sides. Elder MOULE, self-assured, looking down on his adversary with unconcealed contempt. ZE-BE, meanwhile, walked calmly, his gaze fixed on a point in the distance, as if he could already see beyond this arena, beyond this life.
The Tribal Chief raised his hand. The buzzing of the crowd died down.
"May the Ancestors guide our judgment and designate the truthful. May their will be expressed through strength and courage. Let the duel begin!"
The clash was immediate. And unbearable.
It wasn't a fight. It was a lesson. A sublime execution.
From the first exchange, ZE-BE was crushed. A simple push from MOULE, which he should have dodged with his eyes closed, made him stumble heavily. He got up, slowly, and ZE-RAK saw their gazes meet. In his father's eyes, he read neither pain nor fear. He read a silent message, terrible and sublime: "Watch."
MOULE charged, a grunt of triumph on his lips. His fist slammed into ZE-BE's chest. A blow that could have been parried, countered. ZE-BE took it full force, staggered, but remained standing. He spat a trickle of blood and raised his head. His gaze sought his son's again.
"Watch me. Watch what it means to protect your pack."
"But... he's not even defending himself!" someone shouted in the crowd.
"Look at him! He hits like a child!"
"All that, it was just hot air? His exploits, his legend..."
"I told you, he was a fraud!"
Shame mixed with horror in ZE-RAK's heart. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene. Every blow his father took was a word of the lesson. Every time he got back up, it was another sentence engraved in his son's memory. He wasn't fighting to win. He fell and got up to show the way. The way of sacrifice.
"Watch me fall." A blow to the face. Blood spurted.
"Watch me get back up." He got back on his feet, swaying.
"Watch, and remember. Remember determination. Remember the price to pay."
Beside him, his mother was no longer crying. She was watching too, her face streaming with silent tears, holding her unconscious daughter close to her heart. She understood too. She saw her husband dying not as a victim, but as a father, a protector, a man of honor until the last second.
ZE-BE's body was nothing but a raw wound. His clothes were torn, stained with mud and blood. His breathing was a hoarse rattle. But he was still standing. He held his weapons, his bare fists, and he faced forward.
MOULE, exasperated by this passive resistance, gathered all his strength for the final blow. He charged, a club in his hand, aiming for the skull.
ZE-BE didn't even try to dodge. He took the blow full force.
The sharp sound of the impact made the entire audience shudder.
He finally collapsed in the dust, a last breath escaping his lips.
He was dead. But he had died standing, weapons in hand, his face turned toward his family. And on his lips, frozen for eternity, was that same tranquil smile, a smile that said: "My task is accomplished."
A deathly silence fell over the arena. The legend had just been extinguished, not in a great epic battle, but in a deliberate sacrifice, misunderstood by most, but absolutely clear to those who mattered.
The Priestess stood up, her clear, cold voice cutting through the heavy air, without the slightest trace of emotion.
"I declare the end of the sacred duel. The Ancestors have rendered their verdict. Elder ZE-BE is found guilty of all the crimes he was accused of. He is hereby stripped of his title, his rights, his possessions, and his merit points. May his name be forgotten from the songs of glory."
The Chief added, seeming to search for a shred of humanity in this disaster, a meager consolation:
"In accordance with the clemency of our laws, his descendants will not bear the weight of his crimes. They will remain members of the tribe."
But no one was listening anymore. Jeers and insults were already raining down, the crowd, freed by the sentence, was spitting its accumulated venom.
"Look at that, he's not even grateful!"
"Like father,like son. They are our shame."
"The traitor's son!"
Deaf to the insults, ZE-RAK stepped forward. His tears had dried, leaving room for an icy cold inside him, a void that only diamond-hard determination could fill. He bent down and, with a strength he didn't know he possessed, lifted the bruised and still warm body of his father. It was heavy. Much heavier than in his memories.
He met MASSI's gaze, posted near the platform. The man immediately looked away, unable to bear the weight of this corpse and this gaze of a child who had grown old in an hour.
Without a word, ZE-RAK walked toward his mother. His face was stone, his eyes two cold embers in the falling night.
"Let's go home, Mother."
She didn't protest. She stood up, carrying the weight of her unconscious daughter, and followed him. The small funeral procession, ZE-RAK leading carrying his father, crossed the hateful crowd, indifferent to the spit and curses falling upon them. He walked straight, looking at the horizon, beyond the village, toward the grave he would have to dig.
Vengeance was not in his heart. It was a fire too hot, too disorderly. What inhabited him was colder, more precise, more implacable.
He would protect his pack. But never again like his father. Never again with honor and righteousness. He would do it with the coldness of the serpent and the cunning of the fox. He would devour everything in his path to build them a haven of peace.
The lesson was over. The student had understood.