The ruined castle stood in solemn silence, its broken walls casting jagged shadows under the moon's pale gaze. The aftermath of battle lingered in the air, charred stone, the metallic tang of blood, and the scent of something burnt beyond flesh. The floor was uneven with crumbled debris, shattered weapons, and the bodies of those who had fallen, their sacrifices already fading into the cold night. Hector remained pinned to the wall, his breathing ragged, his body a twisted portrait of pain. His spear lay useless at his feet, snapped in half, a cruel metaphor for the warrior himself. Gale had collapsed from exhaustion, her small frame barely moving, her hands still twitching from the last remnants of overexerted magic. Logan stood beside Hector, his knuckles white, staring at his friend's broken form, as if sheer will alone could piece him back together.
And Armand, always indifferent, always watching, stood apart, his expression unreadable.
Valeri stepped forward. The crunch of his footfalls against the debris shattered the quiet. He moved without hesitation, without fear. His breath was heavy, labored from the endless battles before, but his voice was steady. "You always make it look so convincing, don't you?"
Lucien, standing amidst the wreckage, didn't react at first. His crimson eyes reflected the flickering embers of dying flames. His hands were still coated in the blood of those who had stood against him, his own body marked with burns and lacerations, yet he remained unmoved. Valeri took another step closer. "The tortured, righteous warrior. The man who fights because no one else will. You say you carry the burden of others, that no one else can do what must be done. But the truth is, you love this."
Lucien's gaze shifted, his fingers curling slightly as if contemplating a response, but he said nothing.
"You love the blood, the carnage, the destruction," Valeri continued, his voice sharp, cutting through the night air. "And yet you have the nerve to act like this is some kind of duty. As if you're the only one who understands suffering. You think your pain is greater than anyone else's, so it justifies everything, right?" Lucien exhaled through his nose, almost amused. "And what do you understand, Valeri?" His voice was low, carrying the weight of someone who had seen too much. "Do you think words change anything? That your self-righteous observations mean a damn thing in a world like this?" Valeri's fists clenched. "You're still doing it. Deflecting. Making yourself the tragic figure. But let me ask you something, Lucien, who are you really doing this for?"
Lucien narrowed his eyes.
"You say it's for them," Valeri gestured to the fallen, to Hector pinned to the wall, to Gale unconscious on the ground, to the nameless corpses that littered the battlefield. "But you're lying."
Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.
"You talk about inevitability," Valeri pressed on, stepping closer, his voice rising. "You say that people can't be saved, that their fate is already sealed, that the world is cruel and you're just moving along with the tide. But then—" he laughed, but it was hollow, humorless, "—then you go and fight like you want to stop it. Like you actually care. So which is it?"
Lucien's jaw tightened. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying you're a contradiction."
Lucien's fingers twitched, his body subtly shifting, the tension in his stance rising.
"You act like you're detached, like none of this matters to you, but I've seen you. I've fought you. And I know the truth, you care more than anyone. You want to be needed. You need to be needed. Because if you're not, then what are you?"
Lucien's breath came slower now, measured.
Valeri's voice softened, but the intensity remained. "You think you're the only one who's lost? The only one who's suffered? Do you really think your pain is so unique, so special, that it gives you the right to decide how the world should be?"
Lucien exhaled, closing his eyes for a brief moment before meeting Valeri's gaze again. "And what would you have me do? Stand aside? Watch as everything falls apart because people like you still believe in things that don't exist?"
Valeri's lips pressed into a thin line. "Hope exists. Whether you accept it or not."
Lucien scoffed. "Hope is just the delusion of the weak."
"Then why do you keep fighting for them?" Valeri shot back. "Why do you keep trying to protect people if you believe they're hopeless? If you truly believed the world was rotten, you wouldn't waste your time. But you do. You act like you don't care, but every single thing you do says otherwise."
Lucien's fingers twitched again, his body nearly vibrating with restrained energy. His breath came in slow, steady waves, but there was something else in his expression, a crack in the facade, an unspoken thought clawing its way to the surface.
Valeri took another step forward, now standing directly in front of him.
"You want to be the villain. You want to be the one who takes all the blame, who carries all the burdens, because it's easier than admitting the truth." His voice lowered, almost a whisper now. "You're not the monster, Lucien. You're just a coward."
The air between them was electric, charged with something more dangerous than battle. For the first time since the fight began, Lucien's expression flickered, an emotion too fleeting to name before his features hardened once more.
Valeri watched him, waiting, searching for a reaction. But in the end, Lucien did what he always did. He said nothing.
Instead, he turned, stepping away from the confrontation. His footfalls echoed against the crumbling stone as he walked deeper into the ruins, his figure disappearing into the shadows. Valeri exhaled, shoulders sagging slightly. Behind him, Logan was still staring at Hector, eyes dark with unspoken words. Armand remained still, unbothered, unchanged.
And Gale, though unconscious, had the faintest trace of something on her lips. A whisper, barely heard over the wind.
"...why didn't he leave us alone...?"
The Weight of a Name
The castle ruins swallowed them whole, trapping them in the silence of a place that once belonged to history. The wind howled through the broken stones, carrying whispers of the dead, but neither Lucien nor Valeri moved. The others remained in their own corners, Hector pinned, Logan watching, Gale unconscious, Armand indifferent, but here, in this moment, only two men existed.
Valeri's gaze did not waver. His voice was calm, but laced with something heavier. "What do you want, Lucien?"
Lucien, who had begun to turn away, stilled. His back was to Valeri, but his fingers curled slightly, as if grasping something that wasn't there.
A question too simple to be answered.
Valeri stepped forward. "You move, you fight, you kill, you lead. But for what? What's left in you?"
Lucien exhaled through his nose, a slow and deliberate breath. He did not answer.
Valeri's voice sharpened. "You always talk about moving forward, about how there's no turning back. But what the hell are you walking towards? Do you even know anymore?"
The words hung between them.
And then—
A memory.
Lucien as a boy, standing at the edge of a grand estate, staring at a garden he had no desire to walk through. The heir to the Aurelius name, the boy who was meant to inherit an empire soaked in crime. He had been dressed in silk, shoes polished to a fault, hair combed back just the way his father liked it. A stranger in his own skin, even then.
A voice, his father's, behind him, speaking of duty, of legacy, of a future already written, false promises that cant ever be fulfilled.
But Lucien did not care for futures that had been decided for him.
Back in the ruins, he clenched his fist.
Valeri was still watching him, waiting, listening for the answer Lucien refused to give.
Lucien did not look back. "Why does it matter?"
Valeri let out a breath of amusement. "Because you don't even know yourself, do you?"
Another memory.
Lucien, older now, standing among a group of fighters. MS, the fastest rising group in history. He was no longer the heir of Aurelius, just another soldier in a cause greater than himself. He had burned his name, his lineage, his identity, and for the first time, it had felt freeing.
He had trained, fought, bled, and risen. He had been nothing, then something, then something more.
They had carved their own history into the world, but history had a way of erasing the ones who tried to rewrite it.
The scent of gunpowder and ash. The echo of orders given in the dead of night. The sight of comrades falling, nameless but not forgotten.
Back in the ruins, Lucien's shoulders tensed.
Valeri did not let him escape. "You wanted to matter. You wanted to build something, to be something. And then what? You let yourself burn it all to the ground?"
Lucien's voice was quiet, but sharp. "I didn't let anything happen."
Valeri scoffed. "Didn't you?"
Another memory.
Lucien, facing down his own father, his own blood, as judgment was passed upon him.
Disowned. Cast out. Stripped of the name that had once meant everything, and yet, in that moment, meant nothing at all.
A verdict not for betrayal, but for disobedience.
The weight of a surname that once bound him, severed.
It should have been freedom.
But it was not.
Back in the ruins, Lucien exhaled slowly.
Valeri's eyes bore into him. "And then you climbed back up. You took everything they tried to take from you. You built something again, and for a while, it looked like you had finally found something to live for. But even that wasn't enough, was it?"
Another memory.
Lucien, standing at the helm of the company he had once been cast out from. Leilani Winona Sullivan stepping down, handing him the reins.
She had given up the post, and he had taken it, as if fate had come full circle.
He had led. He had made them stronger.
But power was an unkind thing. It did not forgive mistakes. It did not allow weakness. It only demanded more.
Until there was nothing left to give.
The late nights spent at the desk, the endless reports, the meetings, the strategies, the wars fought not with swords, but with words.
The quiet moments where he realized he had lost something along the way.
Back in the ruins, his fingers twitched.
Valeri did not relent. "And then you fell. And when you did, you didn't even try to stop it, did you?"
Lucien's breath was steady, but the silence that followed spoke volumes.
Another memory.
Lucien, standing before the wreckage of what he had built. His downfall, his exile, his final collapse.
The weight of it all crashing down, leaving him with nothing.
And for the first time in his life, he did not know where to go.
Lucien, standing before the council, accused of crimes he did not commit. Frederick's lies woven too perfectly, the weight of power tipping against him before he could even speak. He had built an empire from the ashes, only to be cast into the fire once more—this time, not by enemies, but by those he once trusted.
The whispers of betrayal. The cold certainty in their eyes. The chains tightening, not around his wrists, but around his very existence.
Stripped of everything, left with nothing.
And in that moment, Lucien understood—power was never about strength. It was about control.
Back in the ruins, his voice was quieter than before.
Another memory.
Blood. It clung to him like a second skin, soaked into his bones, his breath, his very being. The cold winds of the north howled as he stood amidst the ruins of another battlefield, the remnants of the once-great Skaars-gaard family scattered in broken bodies and smoldering ash. Six months of war, of endless slaughter. The longest, bloodiest rampage in history.
Lucien limped through the wreckage, the deep gash in his leg refusing to heal. Every step was pain. Every night was torment. He had become something else, something unrecognizable.
He lifted his blade, only to feel bile rise in his throat. The stench of charred flesh, the sight of raw meat, it turned his stomach now.
There was no victory here. Only destruction. Only silence.
"I was tired."
Valeri's eyes narrowed. "And now?"
Lucien finally turned. He met Valeri's gaze, the embers of something unreadable in his expression.
Valeri studied him, his voice lowering. "You lost your purpose, Lucien. You lost everything. So what the hell are you even doing here?"
Lucien said nothing.
But another memory surfaced.
A figure, faint, blurred at the edges, but unmistakably her.
The only person he couldn't forget.
Even after everything.
Even after the ruins, the blood, the battles, the loss.
Even after he had lost himself.
His voice, when he spoke, was softer than before.
"And the one person I can't forget… is her."
And then, there was silence