The snow did not relent.
By the time Rodrik Vanhart's body was laid upon the hastily prepared stretcher of reinforced wood and leather, flakes had begun to gather over his lashes and hair, softening the harsh lines of his face.
In death, he looked less like a traitor.
More like a man who had simply… stopped.
Kel watched in silence as Vanhart soldiers and Malloren men stepped forward together to lift him. No one argued about who would bear the weight. The hands beneath the stretcher all belonged to those who understood what it meant to follow men who refused to ask for help.
The watchtower—cracked stone, broken parapets—stood behind them like a monument to choices too long postponed.
Count Edward Vanhart remained standing near Rodrik's feet for a heartbeat longer than the others. His eyes traced the line of his brother's face one last time.
Purple bruises marred the skin beneath Rodrik's eyes.
Dried tears clung stiff at the edges.
Edward's lips parted.
No words emerged.
He simply exhaled.
And turned away.
Beside him, Lorian Malloren's gaze lingered on the letters Kel had ordered carefully recovered from the snow. Wrapped now in fresh cloth, they were held in the arms of one soldier—guarded as if they were artifacts rather than regret.
The viscount's jaw tightened.
"Let my men take him," he said quietly.
His voice had regained its noble steadiness, but something underneath remained raw.
"…We will bury him where she sleeps."
Edward glanced at him.
Their eyes met.
They held there, in that silent crossing, the shared understanding of men who had both lost too late and gained clarity too late.
Edward nodded once.
"That," he said, voice low, "is what he would have wanted, if he had been brave enough to ask for it."
Lorian's expression cracked for a heartbeat.
Then steadied.
He lifted his chin and called out:
"Form escort. We depart for Malloren territory. Handle him with care."
His soldiers obeyed.
Not with the motions of men discarding an enemy—
but those of pallbearers who understood that sometimes the dead were more dangerous in memory than in life.
The Road to Malloren
The journey to Malloren territory was not far, but snow made every mile longer. The path wound between skeletal trees and low, sleeping fields, where frost covered rows of withered crops like a shroud. The sky remained a flat sheet of grey, neither darkening nor brightening, as if reluctant to commit to any mood while the dead were being moved.
Rodrik's body was borne in the middle of the procession, Malloren colors on one side, Vanhart on the other. Soldiers marched in step, boots pressing shallow graves into the snow. No one spoke loudly. When they did speak, it was in low murmurs, as if afraid to stir whatever lay beneath the white silence.
Kel rode near the front, reins held lightly in one gloved hand. His horse moved with slow, careful steps. The boy's posture was relaxed, but his eyes remained half-lidded, pitch-dark irises absorbing everything—the measured sorrow of the nobles, the twitch of Reina's jaw, Landon's clenched hands on his saddle.
Lysenne was not with them; she remained in Vanhart territory to rest her recovering legs. Yet Kel knew—when the news reached her, when she learned where Rodrik had been laid to rest—the quiet girl who had once watched him with fear would be the first to stand before his grave with shaking hands and uncertain words.
The world isn't kind enough to give clean endings, Kel thought, watching the snow cling to the hem of Rodrik's stretcher. But it can, occasionally… provide a straight line between the wound and the scar.
Sairen's presence brushed past his consciousness like the ripple of a submerged current.
You could have ended him yourself.
I know.
But you let those he hurt and those he failed decide.
It wasn't my history to close, he replied inwardly. Only my board to tilt.
Her voice held no judgment.
Only soft, ancient awareness.
And yet, you watched. Carefully. As if weighing something far older than this single life.
Kel's lips barely moved.
Because I've seen this pattern before.
He blinked once.
In pixels. In dialogue scripts. In unvoiced endings.
The difference now—
was the blood cooling beneath the snow.
The Cemetery of Malloren House
The Malloren family cemetery lay on a gentle, sloped hill overlooking a partially frozen river. Ancient stone markers, worn smooth by time and weather, jutted from the earth at measured intervals—each engraved with sigils now softened by lichen and frost.
At the hill's crest stood a more recent headstone.
Carved with delicate precision.
Its edges still sharp.
Here lay Elira Malloren.
Sister.
Daughter.
Woman who died with unsent letters beneath her floorboards.
The snow was thinner here, swept aside by careful hands earlier that morning. A lone stone lantern sat near the grave, its inner flame barely visible in the pale daylight.
The procession slowed.
Then stopped.
Lorian dismounted without waiting for assistance. His gloves brushed against the stone as he reached out, fingers resting on the top of Elira's grave marker.
"Big sister," he murmured, so quietly even the wind had to lean in to hear. "You always chose silence when you should have screamed."
He turned to Rodrik's stretcher.
"Bring him."
The soldiers stepped forward.
Rodrik's body was lowered from the stretcher with a gentleness that would have struck him as absurd while he lived. The shroud wrapped around him had been white at first; now it bore faint, spreading flowers of red that the snow could not drink fast enough.
They placed him in the open grave dug beside Elira's.
The distance between the two was just wide enough for the living to walk through.
Just narrow enough for the dead to lie close.
Lorian looked down at him.
The viscount's face—used to courtly masks, diplomatic calm—was naked for once.
He spoke without formality.
"At least…" he said, each word carefully chosen, "…after death, you two may be together."
The snow settled slowly on Rodrik's chest, catching in the crease of his coat, the angle of his jaw.
Lorian exhaled, mist curling from his lips.
"My father," he continued quietly, "thought he was protecting our house. Protecting Elira. He thought Vanhart's fading crest would drag her down."
His fingers curled into a fist.
"He never understood that it was not poverty she feared… but lovelessness."
The words cut more deeply than any blade.
Lorian nodded once, as if answering some question only he could hear.
"If he had let her marry you," he said, almost to himself, "you would not have become this man."
He lifted his gaze to the sky.
"Or perhaps you still would have broken. But at least… it would have been together."
The snow listened.
Gently.
Edward stepped forward.
He removed his glove.
The cold bit into his skin instantly, reddening the knuckles.
He rested his bare hand on the edge of Rodrik's grave.
"I failed you," he said softly. "As a brother. I thought giving you space was respect. I didn't see that the distance… was a blade."
He closed his eyes.
"For that alone, I will not claim righteousness at your grave."
He stepped back.
Reina lowered her head.
Landon's gaze remained fixed on the dirt, jaw tight.
Kel watched.
He held the bundle of letters still wrapped in cloth.
The question had been unspoken.
But the answer was clear.
He moved forward.
Kneeling between the two graves, he laid the letters gently over Rodrik's chest, then adjusted the cloth so that the edge of Elira's first written apology aligned with where Rodrik's hand rested beneath the shroud.
He spoke—not loudly.
Not reverently.
Just clearly.
"So that, even in silence," he murmured, "you can finally read what was always yours."
He rose.
Stepped back.
Count Vanhart gave a small nod.
Lorian turned to his men.
"Begin," he ordered.
Shovels bit into snow.
Then earth.
The sound was harsh at first.
Then steady.
Dull thuds punctured the silence as dirt fell over Rodrik's body, covering the cloth, burying the ink, weighing down regret with soil that had already seen centuries of it.
Kel closed his eyes briefly as the first clumps struck.
Sairen's presence tightened around the edges of his awareness.
Does it hurt you? she asked.
It's not my life, he replied.
A pause.
But it feels… familiar.
The game had never shown this.
Only a dropped item.
A fragment of loot.
An end.
Here—
it showed the cost.
Return to Vanhart
By the time Rodrik's grave stood complete—a fresh mound beside Elira's marker, two stones sharing the same slow snowfall—the sky was dimming. The small lantern beside Elira's grave flickered softly, light casting pale halos on both names.
Lorian lingered longer than the rest.
His lips moved in silent prayer.
Or apology.
Perhaps both.
Edward stood beside him, head bowed.
Two nobles.
Two men.
Two witnesses to the end of someone who had once shared their table.
Kel watched for a moment longer.
Then turned away.
"Form ranks," he said quietly to the assembled Vanhart soldiers. "We return."
Reina stepped to his side.
Landon took his usual place just behind his right shoulder.
As they began to walk, boots crunching over the snow-laden path, Reina spoke without looking at him.
"Do you think," she asked softly, "he found his peace?"
Kel's eyes remained forward.
"Yes," he answered. "But peace is not the same as redemption."
Landon's voice came, low.
"What you did—showing him Elira's truth before the end… was that kindness?"
Kel's lips curved faintly.
It wasn't a smile.
"Cruelty that hides truth," he said, "births monsters."
His gaze darkened, lashes lowering.
"Cruelty that reveals truth," he continued, "at least allows them to die as themselves."
Reina's fingers tightened around her reins.
Landon let out a slow breath.
Behind them, the graves grew smaller as the distance stretched—two mounds of earth beneath a slowly thickening layer of snow.
Vanhart's banners swayed ahead.
Malloren's behind.
The wind picked up.
The sky deepened.
Kel drew his coat tighter around himself as they walked back toward Vanhart territory.
Toward new problems.
New scripts.
But somewhere within him, the memory of Rodrik kneeling in snow, clutching letters with shaking hands, settled like a stone dropped in water.
Not forgotten.
Not forgiven.
Simply—
recorded.
The world did not change for one man's death.
The Empire continued turning.
The game's main story still lay far ahead, its known tragedies and unnamed branches.
But here, on a hill where two graves lay side by side beneath falling snow…
one unfinished story finally closed its cover.
Kel did not look back.
He did not need to.
He had already learned what he came to see.