“You died with honor, my son,” he said.
His voice did not tremble; yet something in his eyes cracked, just enough to show that even stone could splinter.
I looked at Salvatore.
He stood as though the world had turned him to rock—rigid, pale, eyes wide and hollow. Lord Lorian spared him no glance; only as he passed did the warlord’s gaze flick to his son.
The look was not grief. It was blame. Contempt. As if Salvatore should have fallen in Julian’s stead.
And Salvatore did not flinch. He didn’t speak.
I knew what his silence cost him.
I wanted to say something—anything—but the air was full of ghosts and expectations. Lord Lorian’s grief had the shape of a kingdom, and we were all trespassers at its border.
So, I stood and watched.
As a father honored the dead and abandoned the living.
* * *
That night, the Lorian estate was a shadow of itself.
The air lay heavy with roasted lamb, spiced wine, and figs—aromas that once promised celebration but now clung to every stone, unable to mask the grief. Tables had been set for a feast, as tradition demanded, but after Julian’s death, the act felt hollow. Food sat untouched; wine flowed not for joy but as an offering to numb.
Servants moved like wraiths among the guests, steps hushed, eyes downcast. They poured wine, placed barley bread and honeyed dates with dutiful care—yet even their presence felt spectral, as if they too mourned a world already ended.
Laughter, when it came, was dim and hollow. The nobles were there in body only, minds elsewhere, the weight of the tomb clinging to their garments. They drank not to honor the dead but to forget the living. Wine dulled grief; where it could not dull, it unshackled.
Turtanu, Chief of the Army, staggered forward with his goblet—crimson slopping over his fingers. He lifted it with soldier’s pride and drunkard’s sorrow. “Julian was a lion—bold and unflinching,” he declared, his voice thick. “He rode at the front—blade raised. His final strike broke the enemy line and brought us a small victory in this ongoing war against the Sea Peoples. Let his name be etched into the stones of Ugarit for a hundred generations.”
Murmurs and nods answered with the practiced rhythm of the court. He swayed; his words slid into ritual, “He was our best commander. He fought valiantly. We shall never forget him.”
It read like a tribute. It sounded like a dirge dressed in pride.
In the corner, Salvatore stood half-drowned in shadow, a tankard of Levant wine cupped in both hands as if the bottom might hold answers—or absolution. Each time Julian’s name rose, his eyes sharpened like embers fanned by some unseen wind. And each time those embers found their way back to Lord Lorian, who sat at the head of the hall like a statue—unreadable, patient, measuring. He had buried one son in honor and cast the other into scorn.
Then Salvatore moved.
He stepped forward—unsteady, burning—and for a breath I feared he would cross the room, cup still in hand, and hurl himself at his father in a confrontation that would not end with words.
I reached for him, gripped his arm tight. “Salvatore,” I said, my voice low, “your brother is dead. But you are still here. Your legacy lives on.”
My words were gentle, but they carried weight—a tether meant to anchor him before grief dragged him too far.
He turned, eyes rimmed red and glassy. Rage and sorrow warred on his face. Splinters held him together.
“Legacy?” he spat, the sound as raw as stone scraping bone. Then, bitter and flat—the same phrasing I’d heard in his father’s mouth, “What is the legacy of a good-for-nothing son who will never amount to anything?”
I stepped back, not from fear but from the sheer force of pain in his voice. His hand trembled as he raised the goblet to his lips; dark wine spilled warm onto the flagstones and ran in a thin, glinting stain.
“Your legacy will live on,” I said again, quieter, more to him than to the room.
For a second, I saw him not as the man the house demanded, but as the boy who’d once climbed fig trees with me—the brother who had stood forever in the shadow of a gilded heir. The sight hit with a simple, sharp ache.
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him.
He did not resist. He just stood there.
