[Haldor’s POV—The Beginning]
I was four when the world ended.
The carriage wheels skidded on wet stone—a shriek of iron, a violent lurch—and then we were falling. Rolling. Crashing. The world turning into splintered wood and screams and darkness.
When the world stopped moving, I didn’t.
I crawled out from the broken carriage door, glass digging into my palms. I didn’t understand the pain. I didn’t understand the blood.
All I understood was one thing, My mother wasn’t moving.
Her hand—the gentle hand that braided my hair every morning—hung motionless against the shattered fra. My father lay beside her, his sword broken, cracks of red spreading beneath his armor like roots of a dying tree.
That day, before I ever learned to write my na, I learned a different word.
Death.
People say grief is heavy. But in that mont, grief wasn’t heavy. It was empty. So empty it swallowed every sound from the world.
I rember pressing my forehead to my mother’s cold hand, waiting for warmth to return, for her eyes to open, for her voice to tell everything was alright.
But that mont never ca. She never moved.
Neither did my father.
Two days later, when the search party finally found us, my tears were gone. They tried asking questions—but I had no answers left.
Only silence.
They sent to the orphanage, a place where nas ant nothing and survival ant everything.
I learned to bow.
I learned to stay small.
I learned to exist quietly.
Until one morning a teacher whispered, "Tomorrow is a grand celebration in the Empire... The princess turns four."
That was the first ti I saw her.
A newspaper photo—the Emperor smiling proudly, the little princess clutching his cloak. Golden hair. Crimson eyes. A smile bright enough to burn through grayscale newsprint.
A world I could never reach.
It was also the last ti I let myself believe in fairy tales.
Years passed. No noble adopted . No one even looked twice. When I turned thirteen, I enlisted—not for glory, not for honor, but because a sword was easier to hold than grief.
And the day I earned mine, the Elorian Commander asked, "You have no family na to wear on your armor. What should we engrave?"
I stared at the blade, rembering the broken one lying in the dirt beside my father.
"Vaelthorn," I said.
The Commander blinked."That is not your birth na."
"It is the na I chose."
He studied for a long mont—then nodded.
And so my armor read: Haldor Vaelthorn—Knight of Eloria
The first thing I ever earned myself.
At seventeen, I was selected as an Imperial Captain by Sir Ravick. And on that day, I t her again—no longer the child in the newspaper, but the Crown Princess of the Empire.
General Arwin bowed. "Your Highness, I present our new Captain Haldor Vaelthorn."
I bowed too, lowering my head—and when I looked up, she was looking directly at . Golden hair like sunlight. Crimson eyes sharp as steel. Confidence was carved into every line of her stance.
And then—she smiled.
The first gentle smile anyone had ever given . "It’s an honor to et you, Captain."
I swallowed. "The honor is mine, Your Highness."
Her tone shifted—cold steel beneath silk.
"Good. Then I’ll give you your first task."
I nodded, and she continued, "Last night, I hunted down two traitors—the Hidden Emperor Caelum and Marquess Everett. I want you to break the Marquess and make him confess his cris. If he refuses..." Her eyes burned. "We will use other thods."
I bowed again.
"As you command, Your Highness."
That was my role—listening, obeying, bowing. No questions. No voice.
Until the day her voice thundered across the Imperial Hall:
"FROM THIS MONT—I PLACE THE CAPTAIN OF THE IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DIRECTLY BELOW THE CROWN PRINCESS—AND ABOVE ALL OTHER NOBLES!"
The court gasped.
She rewrote the hierarchy—just for .
Because I bowed. Because soone insulted her captain, and she felt like she was being insulted.
And in that mont, sothing terrifying and unfamiliar stirred inside my once-empty chest.
For the first ti since that cliff...I felt alive again.
That was the day I made my first vow.
To stay beside her. To protect her for as long as she continued to breathe.
It wasn’t a sworn oath spoken in front of the empire. It was not a vow carved on stone or written in blood. It was carved in the bones that survived death and in the heartbeat I thought had stopped long ago—
But she heard it anyway.
She looked at that day, really looked—and I saw sothing flicker in her eyes. Surprise. Warmth. Like no one had ever stood with her before... only for her. Like every vow she’d ever received, it promised glorious death, not stubborn survival.
And maybe I was a fool, but I thought, "She looked relieved."
But I never forgot my reality.
Grand Duke Osric stood at her side already—a man with titles, land, and power. A childhood companion. A legend. Soone who belonged in her world.
And ?
I was just a street rat polished into a knight. A naless orphan who borrowed a surna from a corpse. A shadow standing too close to the sun.
A passing tree in her path—easily forgotten.
A bug she could crush beneath her heel if she chose.
Yet sohow, I didn’t realize the distance between us had already begun to collapse... until the day she treated my wounds herself.
I had been injured during the attack—a deep cut across my arms. I expected a dic. A servant. Anyone but her.
She dismissed the others and sat beside , silent and steady. Her hands were gentle but certain as she cleaned the blood, wrapping the bandage with careful precision.
I forced myself not to tremble—from pain, or from sothing far more dangerous.
When she finished, she tied the knot securely and murmured:
"It’s done. Now go to Rey as soon as possible."
Her voice... it was softer. Almost human. Not the steel-edged command of a ruler.
Later, Rey brushed a hand near the bandage to heal, and sothing inside snapped tight.
I couldn’t explain it.
Why did my skin crawl when soone else touched what she had wrapped? Why did I hate the sound of another person breathing too close to it?
I didn’t want anyone near it.
Near the proof that she cared.
But Rey... Rey always had a talent for seeing too much.
When his fingers stopped just short of the bandage, he let out a low hum, studying with that infuriating half-smile of his.
"I see," he murmured. "So I shouldn’t touch your heart, huh? "
I froze. Heart? What was he talking about?
Before I could ask, he stepped back and tossed the dical cloth aside. "I’ll leave it, then. Take care of your precious heart, Captain."
I stared, confused and irritated.
Is this why everyone calls him the ’Smug Bastard’?
Probably.
Everything was going well after that—too well. We seized the Black Wall stronghold, marching straight toward the legendary Red Wall Castle, preparing to tear down the Empire’s most fortified rebellion nest.
And then the world caught fire.
The enemy launched a barrage—flaming bombs arcing across the night sky like burning stars—and one of them landed close. Too close.
Right beside her.
For a heartbeat, I saw the flas swallow her in my mind—saw her body broken like my mother’s—and sothing inside snapped.
I didn’t think.
I didn’t breathe.
I just moved.
Rage roared through —blistering, savage, blinding—and all I wanted, all I felt, was:
I WILL KILL THEM. ALL OF THEM. EVERY HAND THAT DARED TO THREATEN HER.
I wanted to end the world if it ant keeping her safe.If she left my sight, if I let go, I felt like sothing precious would be ripped away again—like that cliff all over again.
Was I even allowed to say that? Precious? Why did I call her precious?
I didn’t. I swallowed it like blood.
Later that night, on the eve of the Red Wall attack, I sat beneath the pines, hand pressed to the bandage, whispering to the dark:
"Sothing feels wrong..."
A voice answered from the shadows. "You’re not feeling anything wrong, Captain."
Rey stepped out, leaning against a tree, arms crossed, wearing that irritatingly smug smile. He walked closer, lowering his voice. "You’re just starting to understand what real warmth is."
There he goes again—speaking in riddles, pretending he knows everything about .
My jaw tightened. "If you know so much, why don’t you speak like a normal human for once?"
He blinked—surprised—then laughed, soft and genuine, for the first ti since I t him.
He clapped a hand on my shoulder, grip firm and steady.
"Because so truths can’t be spoken plainly. You’ve seen too much darkness, Haldor. It’s about ti the gods returned sothing that is truly yours."
I stared at him, caught between confusion and fury mixing inside my chest.
He turned to leave, pausing only for a breath.
"Good luck, Captain."
Silence settled around .
I ran a hand through my hair, exhaling sharply.
"I swear..." I muttered under my breath, "I need to stop talking to him so much. If this continues, they’ll start calling the crazy one."
Reviews
All reviews (0)