With careful hands, he freed the banner from the rubble. He shook it once, gently, letting the dust fall away, then folded it, taking care to preserve what little remained unmarred. His movements were almost ritualistic, as though this small act might atone for the thousands he could never save.
“I see you,” he murmured, though no one remained to hear it. “I will remember you.”
He tucked the folded banner beneath his arm and rose, turning one last time to survey the ruin.
This was not a battlefield. This was a wound carved into the earth and soaked with the blood of people who never would have fought back.
As he lifted into the air, wings beating softly against the cold sky, Val-Theris understood something with terrible clarity: no ceasefire, no treaty, no victory would ever undo what had been taken from Lunareth.
It was a burden of truth that rested solely on his shoulders—a failure branded into the very earth.
The desert windhowled as Val-Theris’s convoy crossed the blackened threshold into Korvath. The sky here was the color of ash, the sun dimmed by a haze that seemed to rise from the ground itself.
Korvath’s capital—the Citadel of Thorns—sprawled before them. Its iron and stone towers clawed upward, jagged and sharp, catching the light as though built to wound the heavens themselves.
A Korvathian scout had seen them on the horizon, and so it was no shock when Val-Theris’s brother greeted them at the unholy gates.
“Welcome home, brother,” Val-Oros said, his voice echoing with pride and something darker. His wings burned red in the half-light, the tips blackened like cooled embers.
Home.His words were not untrue, but they still struck Val-Theris like a blade to the heart. They had lived and ruled this land together once, before their opposing morality drove them apart. Korvath looked much different than when he had last seen it—his gaze drifted to the streets behind them, lined with people that were thin, gray, and silent.
Children carried buckets of water heavier than their arms could bear. Men were in chains, scrubbing dirt from the ground and buildings. Women knelt beside the roads as if in silent prayer, faces veiled, bowing to Val-Oros as he led the Seravethians inward to his palace.
“Why are they all so quiet?” Val-Theris asked his brother, gesturing to the women who bowed.
Val-Oros gave him a wicked smile and threw his arm over his shoulder. “Because they have no tongues.”
Val-Theris halted. “That is a cruel jest.”
His brother’s grin widened. “I have no reason to jest. Our women are silenced as soon as they have their first bleed. It keeps order. Women are the first to gossip, the first to protest, the first to whine. I wish to hear none of it.”
He said it so casually that Val-Theris felt his spine go numb. His wings flared unconsciously, a ripple of gold and white amongst the gray and suffering. “You mutilate them?”
Val-Oros shrugged. “Iperfectthem.”
He led Val-Theris and his convoy through the city. For the Angel-King, it was like a descent into Hell. For Val-Oros, he described it all as if it was something to be proud of.
Workers in the fields harvested fruit and vegetables under lash and flame. Young boys were being trained to fight with barbed chains around their throats. Women with babies were huddled into a tiny shack in the furthest corner of the city so that no one heard the crying. The rest of them were treated like cattle—but Val-Theris thought to himself that even Korvath’s livestock were granted more dignity than their women. There was an entire district of men that were maimed and blind. Val-Oros called themthe Unworthy, stripped of name and purpose, left alive only as a warning to others not to disappoint their king.
When they finally reached the palace after their tour, Val-Theris was offered a meal, but he felt too sick to eat. The banquet table was filled to the brim with feast, but all he could smell was blood, fire, and dirt. Even his men barely picked at their plates. Val-Theris wondered if they considered what a privilege it was to live as freely as they do in Seraveth. Val-Theris was not a perfect ruler, but he certainly wasn’t intentionally cruel like his brother.
Val-Oros watched him carefully. In his lap sat two of his wives, topless, and Val-Theris made a very obvious effort todivert his eyes. They may be called wives, but Val-Theris saw what they really were: slaves.
“Hmph,” Val-Oros muttered as he groped the women on his lap. “You judge me, little brother.”
“I need to speak with you,” he responded.
“So speak,” Val-Oros said. He bounced his legs where his wives sat. “Don’t worry, they’re silent, remember? They won’t betray your confidence.”
“You need to end your occupation of Lunareth.” Val-Theris finally met his brother’s eyes. “Its people have done nothing to earn your wrath in this war. Only a weak man targets weak people.”
Val-Oros threw his head back and laughed. “Tired of them already? I knew you would be.”
“No,” Val-Theris said. “Theywantto go home.”
“And what if IwantLunareth?”
“This is bigger thanourwants, Val-Oros. People have a right to live and die where they choose to. Have you truly turned so far from our father’s Light?”
