Page 169 of Veinblood
But even as denial pours from his lips, Authority soldiers around him begin abandoning their positions. Spears clatter against the ground. Helmets roll away from heads bowed in defeat. Hands rise in the universal gesture of surrender.
Drayeth watches his command fall apart and makes the choice of a fanatic confronted with the death of everything he believes. Rather than accept the evidence in front of his eyes, he raises his sword above his head and charges across the courtyard toward our position, attacking his own soldiers as he moves.
“Traitors! Cowards! Stand and fight for the Authority! Stand and fight for order!”
His blade cuts down the nearest soldier, a young man who had just begun to kneel. Blood sprays across the stones as Drayeth continues his mad charge, striking at anyone within reach. Hisown people scatter before him, no longer Authority soldiers but terrified individuals trying to escape a madman's blade.
He makes it perhaps twenty steps before they stop running from him. A crossbow bolt takes him in the shoulder, spinning him around. Another catches him in the chest. A third finds his throat.
He’s cut down by his own soldiers.
Nobody moves, and silence settles across the entire courtyard. I find myself holding my breath, waiting to see what will happen next. The only sounds are the distant crackle of dying fires and the soft moans of the wounded.
And then the soldiers all drop to their knees, heads bowed.
Through our bond, I feel a change in Sacha. The grief is still there, and always will be, but purpose flows through him as well now. He’s changing before my eyes. From weapon to leader, from a man who could kill his brother to one that will heal a realm fractured by decades of hatred.
“Secure the prisoners. They fought under orders from the Authority. We will treat them better than they would have treated us.” His voice carries across the courtyard, and the soldiers don’t resist as our people move among them, taking their weapons and securing their hands with hastily torn material from clothes.
The war is over.
I feel it through every fiber of my being. The summons that brought me to this world, the fear that shaped every day since I arrived, the war that cost so many lives and demanded somuch sacrifice … it’s over. Really, truly over. The knowledge leaves me lightheaded and strangely empty.
What do we do now? What comes after a lifetime of fighting?
“What happens now?”
Sacha looks at his brother’s face, then across the courtyard where enemies kneel in surrender, and friends tend their wounded. His expression carries an exhaustion that reaches far beyond the physical. It’s a bone deep weariness that comes from reaching the end of a road traveled through darkness for longer than anyone should ever have had to experience.
“Now? Now we discover whether we understand ruling with compassion better than they understood ruling with fear.”
Epilogue
TWO YEARS LATER
“From the grave of what was comes the birth of what might be.”
Writings of the Veinblood Masters
SACHA
The memorial gardensare empty at this hour. It’s a little after dawn, the sun barely peaking over the horizon as I make my way along the stone markers arranged in neat rows where the old gardens once stood. Each stone bears a name—Veinwardens and Veinbloods who died fighting, innocents caught in the war, and even Authority soldiers who turned away from their cause before the end. The dead earned their place of remembrance here through sacrifice, regardless of which side claimed them first.
Near the center of the gardens is the marker I’m here to visit. It doesn’t look any different from the others, but it’s set slightly apart from them, beneath an old tree. I stop in front of it, andbrush away leaves that have landed on top of it overnight, my eyes lowering to look at the name carved deep into the stone.
Sereven Torran.
I trace a finger over the letters, the same way I do every morning, and question why I persist in continuing this ritual.
Perhaps it’s the need to remember that Sereven was human once.
I will never forgive the Authority High Commander who committed genocide on my people, but the brother who spent hours teaching me how to anticipate an opponent’s strategy three moves ahead? That person deserves to be remembered, even though I had to kill the monster he became.
Standing here reminds me of the cost of power without conscience, of what happens when ideology replaces humanity, and doctrine justifies any cruelty. Sereven believed he was saving the world from the chaos magic could bring. He was convinced that order at any price was better than the alternative. Instead, he created something far worse. A system that fed on fear, and dressed brutality in the language of necessity.
I miss him, and I hate that I miss him.
“Sleep in peace, brother.” I touch my fingers to the stone once more.
