The first cut of the sword always came before dawn. Alden swung at the mist until his arms burned, the heavy air of the training field clinging to his tunic. His sword, a battered hand-me-down from his eldest brother, weighed more with every stroke. Blisters split open on his palms, but he kept swinging. For the third son of a poor noble, the pain was a reminder: life had no intention of making things easy.
Behind him, the estate stood in tired silence. Cracks ran through its walls, ivy creeping in where the mortar had surrendered. The great hall's tapestries sagged like forgotten promises. Their nobility wasn't a birthright anymore; it was a memory. Pride held his family together, but pride didn't pay debts, and Alden couldn't stand watching his mother's hands tremble as she counted coins they didn't have.
So, Alden left. The choice had been his, but it didn't feel like one. The mercenary camp smelled of sweat, woodsmoke, and raw ambition. It wasn't home, but it offered something his crumbling estate never could: a chance to matter. Alden found a place there, not just with his sword but with his mind. He wrote letters for the captain, tallied accounts, and noticed things others didn't. Over time, he became indispensable—not through heroics, but through quiet competence.
The turning point came one rainy day, the ground soft underfoot and the air thick with tension. The enemy's line shifted, too smooth, too clean. Alden saw it before anyone else. "Hold," he told his commander, gripping the man's arm. "This isn't a retreat. Look at their left flank—they're baiting us."
The commander hesitated but gave the order to stop. Moments later, the trap snapped shut—on empty air. The enemy's counterattack crumbled, and Alden's company held. On a distant hill, Lord Dunnett watched, his sharp gaze catching the mercenary who had saved the day.
General Blackwood never forgave that intervention. His glory stolen, his pride wounded deeper than any sword could cut. The general's revenge came in whispers and sealed orders, in supplies that never arrived and battles that shouldn't have been fought. Alden watched his friends die one by one, their blood soaking into mud that didn't care about pride or vengeance.
The last battle tasted of copper and bog water. Lord Dunnett fell, not to enemy steel, but to an arrow that shouldn't have been there. Alden saw the archer wearing the general's colors slip away like a shadow at noon. When he tried to speak the truth, they stripped him of his rank and pay. The family he'd found in the company turned their backs, fear of the general's wrath stronger than brotherhood.
Home felt like wearing someone else's clothes. His father's silence cut deeper than any disownment could. His brothers looked through him as if he were already a ghost. His mother's eyes, once warm with pride, now skittered away from his like startled mice. The estate's walls, already crumbling when he'd left, seemed to lean inward, trying to push him out.
He took to the road with nothing but his sword and the truth no one wanted to hear. The forge called to him first - something about shaping metal spoke to his soul. Each hammer blow was a word in a story he couldn't tell, each shaped piece a memory he couldn't share. His hands learned new calluses, his arms a different kind of strength. The workshop he built piece by piece became his sanctuary.
Then came the fever year. The noble who'd given him a chance, who'd seen worth in his work, burned with it like everyone else. His heir was a man who saw coin where his father had seen craft. The workshop's lock was changed before the noble's ashes cooled.
The sea called next, with its salt wind and endless horizons. The warehouse work wasn't glory, but it was honest. He met Sarah there, her eyes as gray as the winter sea, her two children wild as spring storms. Love came slowly, cautiously, like dawn after the longest night. For three years, he had something like peace.
Until Thomas came home. Not dead after all, just lost in a war that had chewed up better men than him. The three of them circled each other in Sarah's small house, like wary cats in an alley. Thomas worked the same warehouse, his silence as heavy as the crates they moved. When the stack fell, it was an accident - everyone knew that. But knowledge didn't stop the whispers, didn't ease the way Sarah's eyes changed when she looked at Alden.
She left with the children on a Thursday. Alden came home to empty rooms and a note that said too much and nothing at all. He found his way to the tavern that night, and most nights after. The regulars learned his story in pieces, each telling flavored different by whatever was in his cup.
They found him on a morning when the fog was thick as memory. Slumped over his usual table, cup empty as promises. Some say it was his heart that gave out. Others blame the drink. But those who knew his story, who'd heard it in all its versions, understood a deeper truth. That's he just had very bad luck.