Steel did not sing when it entered his back.
It slid in quietly, almost politely, between the plates of his armor. Mihail of the Low Marches felt pressure first—then warmth spreading beneath his ribs.
He did not fall at once.
Around him, the camp was calm. Torches burned low. Horses shifted in their tethers. Men he had trusted stood very still, as if afraid motion might condemn them.
"So," Mihail said, breath fogging the cold air. "This is how."
No one answered.
He turned his head just enough to see the banner behind him—the same red cloth he had carried through swamps and snow, patched more times than he could count. It stirred faintly in the night wind.
Another blade struck. Lower this time.
His knees gave way. Mud met him like an old companion.
Mihail tasted iron. The sky above was clear, uncaring, and full of stars he no longer remembered the names of.
I held, he thought distantly. Longer than most.
Hands rolled him onto his back. Someone said a prayer too late to matter. Someone else was already arguing about proof.
When the final blow came, he did not see it.
There was no darkness.
That surprised him.
Mihail stood—stood—on a road of pale stone stretching into mist. No pain. No weight. He looked down at his hands. They were clean. Strong. Unscarred.
Figures waited ahead.
They did not glow. They wore no wings. They looked like travelers who had walked too far and finally stopped.
One stepped forward—a man Mihail recognized instantly.
"Radu," he whispered.
The captain smiled faintly. "You took your time."
Others emerged:
A monk who had lied for him before dying for it
A boy soldier whose name Mihail never learned
A woman from the Low Marches, her hands rough from fieldwork, eyes tired
"I failed us," Mihail said, because someone had to.
"No," the woman replied gently. "You spent us."
The road trembled.
A final presence made itself known—not larger, not brighter, but heavier. The mist bent toward it. Mihail could not see its face, only the sense of being known.
A voice spoke—not aloud, but inside him.
"You walked the road given."
Mihail laughed weakly. "And bled all over it."
"Would you walk it again?"
He thought of the marsh. The banners. The knives.
"Yes," he said. Then, quieter, "But not the same way."
Silence followed. Long enough for doubt to grow teeth.
Then the voice returned.
"Then wake."
...
Mihail gasped.
Air burned his lungs. His body jerked upright, knocking over a wooden stool. Sunlight poured through a narrow window, harsh and real.
He was in a small room. Bare walls. A straw bed. The smell of wet earth and cheap soap.
His hands—he stared at them again—were younger. Smooth. No scars.
A mirror hung cracked on the wall.
The face staring back was his.
Seventeen.
Outside, bells rang—morning, not mourning.
Mihail pressed his forehead against the mirror and closed his eyes.
The road had not ended.
It had only begun again.