Chapter 669: The road forward(5)
It was a clear, golden day—the kind that made the rooftops of Herculia, if they were not destroyed by the fire, glint like polished bronze under the midday sun—when the city fell.
Not with fire and blood, not with the crashing of steel or the screams of dying men, but with a silence so complete, it seemed to shame even the crows who were voicing out their words by cawing overhead.
Or perhaps just protesting against the lack of a meal.
The fall of a royal seat, one that had stood proud for one hundred and thirty years, came not from defeat in battle, but from surrender. A quiet, tired surrender by soldiers who had given all they could, only to be abandoned by a crown that no longer had the will or perhaps the means to protect them.
As promised, the gates creaked open. One by one, the garrison emerged, heads bowed beneath the weight of shame and dust, their weapons falling like discarded burdens at the feet of the enemy, who for each, Clung , the swords made when they fell onto the ground or atop other swords, allowed them to stand an inch taller.
At the front of that somber procession walked Thalien—the third-born, the overlooked, the boy who had always stood behind his elder brothers. He stepped forward alone, unsheathing his sword with a slow, practiced grace. Then, wordlessly, he dropped it at Alpheo’s feet.
In the defeated soldiers’ eyes, he had become the only noble ember left in a royal house otherwise reduced to ash.
The one who stood behind and fought until he could
But of course, the truth was far more bitter.
Thalien had not stayed to defend Herculia. He had stayed to build his future, the city was simply his means for that.
It was his ambition—not honor—that broke the city’s will. His negotiations, his betrayal, had hastened the collapse. Had the true commander remained alive, the city might have endured longer. Food or not, Cretio was granite, unyielding , even as famine hollowed the people from the inside out. Surrender would have been a word left to die on his lips..
But he was gone.