"There, There."
Regina was stroking her younger son's head. His face and eyes had both turned red. Opposite the Rolfe family, the Romée sisters were quietly munching on the potato wafers.
"Ha...ha..."
Gawain was looking on with a smile on his face. Due to his injuries, he wasn't touching the explosives today. Instead, he had just challenged his brother to eat two whole servings of the dish by himself.
"You were right, Godwin. Your heat tolerance is indeed better than mine."
Regina turned around to glare at him, wiping the grin away almost immediately.
"You are supposed to be the responsible one."
Her tone was scary.
"I-I..."
"Stop stuttering and fill this up."
She handed him the glass.
"Let me help."
Kali picked up the jug and walked closer to him. While taking the glass from his hand, their fingers touched for a moment. Celia, observing each and every one of her moves, could tell where her interests lay. Her eyes were saying,
'I will snap her like a twig.'
She picked up a wafer and crunched it with her teeth.
"Here."
After filling it up, she handed it back to him.
"Thanks."
This time around, he purposely avoided her fingers and took the glass without making contact.
"Ha...ha..."
Godwin wiped his lips.
"I...told...you..."
He slowly turned towards Gawain.
"I...was...better..."
Gawain patted his back twice.
"Yes, yes. I admit defeat."
He handed him the glass. His brother was still acting tough after crying a river from both his mouth and his nostrils.
"Gawain?"
Finished with the snack in her mouth, Joan called his name out.
"Yes, master?"
Judging from her tone, she had something important to say.
"Now that the trials are over, I think that you should move back to the dorms."
Celia wanted to interject. But she knew why Joan brought this up.
"Understood."
To be honest, Gawain didn't like the dorms. Even if he moved back, he was going to spend the majority of his time in the library.
"After the trials, I know for a fact that people will start being more open to you. William and his schemes can't undervalue your achievement."
'Did he win something?'
Kali was curious, but she held herself back and didn't barge into the conversation.
"You have to be alert though. These people didn't help you out when you were a nobody, so trusting them now should be out of the question."
In reality, the Perseus house was the only place in the academy that respected his character. Being a commoner champion in the trials, every other house was going to consider him a threat.
"What about the knight expedition?"
His mind went back to the conversation that they had after the first fight. Celia took charge and answered,
"700 kilometers from the capital. The territory of Bellmere."
She looked at her elder sister.
"Our home."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
"I am home, darling."
The ruins of a broken civilization. A testament to the ruthless nature of the tides of time.
A lone figure, resting amongst the bones of the people he once knew. Their carcasses had evaporated into the air of this place a long time ago, but the skeletons of the people that he once called "family" continued to be a reminder of the biggest error of his life.
"Won't you greet me?"
The hooded figure traveled closer to his resting place. He remained silent.
"Are you still angry with me?"
Her voice was enough to enchant any living mortal within a blink of an eye.
"Your mere existence makes me want to tear this world apart, witch."
Fed up with her nonsense, he whispered out his feelings.
Her lips formed a teasing smile.
"I have fulfilled all of your dreams, dear."
"I shouldn't have to remind you. Your husband DIED a long time ago. His dreams DIED a long time ago. When Olympus fell, all that was left was a dead memory that is trapped in this place."
She finally arrived in front of him. The youthful visage and broken spirit of the once intimidating guardian knight hadn't changed.
"That might be true. But I still cherish the existence of this dead memory."
She took off her hood and brought her lips closer to his face.
"Without you, achieving my dream of destroying Olympus would have been difficult."
An endless sea of blood in her eyes, skin as white as the first snowflake of winter, and a smile that mocked the torment suffered by the first victim of her choices.
"As thanks, I will continue to nourish your seed, so that we can spend several more millennia together."
She pressed her lips to his forehead.
"Our vows were for an eternity, Ares."
The Guardian Knight, and the second son of Zeus.
"Under my watch, this kingdom will never fall."
3000 years of suffering. All because of a single mistake.
A new civilization was thriving over the corpses of his people.
And he could do nothing to atone for his fallacy.