Chapter 28:

  "From My Own Cowardice"

  Arc 3: Chapter 7

  POV: "???"

  The air in the underground of the Tower of Light was cold, damp, and laden with a silence that was not peace, but suppression. Muffled screams, more like guttural noises of trapped animals, echoed occasionally from the depths, reminders of the dark purpose of that place.

  In the most isolated cell, the light of a single torch danced over rough stone walls. Empty was bound to a thick metal chair, reinforced straps wrapping his torso, arms, and legs. The scene was a study in calculated brutality.

  Before him, Bruce Darking held a short, utilitarian blade—not a ceremonial weapon. The metal was dark, not from color, but from what it had done.

  “Tell me, aberration.” Bruce’s voice was a harsh whisper, cutting the heavy silence. “What brought you back? What did the Stone of the Future do to you?”

  Empty did not answer. He merely watched, his mask an impenetrable enigma.

  Bruce moved. The motion was quick, efficient, without theatrical rage. The blade descended.

  A dull, wet thud. The tip of Empty’s right thumb rolled across the stone floor, a small pale cylinder that did not bleed, more like a piece of chalk than flesh. A sound escaped the mask—not a scream of pain, but a hoarse grunt, a reflex of air forced from a system that no longer functioned as it should.

  Bruce waited. Nothing.

  He cut the index finger.

  Another grunt, slightly louder, a tremor running through the bound body.

  Silence.

  Finger by finger, the ritual unfolded. Each cut was a period, a repeated question without words. Each sound Empty emitted was less human than the last—they were mechanical noises, like a machine under stress.

  But there was no rage in Empty’s posture. No tears, no pleas, not even the silent hatred Bruce expected to see in the eyes of any tortured creature. There was only… acceptance.

  “Persistent to the end, aren’t you?” Bruce murmured, wiping the blade on a cloth. Empty’s right hand was now an irregular stump, digital. The blood that flowed was dark, thick, almost black, and seemed to coagulate almost instantly. “Let’s see how much of your new body you’re willing to lose before you understand the price of silence.”

  Above, in the Tower’s plaza, dawn painted the sky in wounded tones—pale pink and burnt orange. The news of the invasion and capture had spread like wildfire in gunpowder. Soldiers from all Houses crowded in tense formation, their armor and weapons glinting under the new light. The atmosphere was that of a siege against a monster, not a person.

  Luna arrived with firm steps that contradicted the throbbing pain in her temples. The hangover was a physical weight, but the whirlwind in her mind was worse—the report from Raphadun, the destruction in the city, the deafening silence about what had truly been captured.

  Alfredo walked beside her, a silent and vigilant presence. He offered neither comfort nor advice; his role in that moment was to be an anchor.

  They descended the spiral stairs to the underground, the air growing colder and heavier with each step. The sound of their footsteps echoed like funeral drumbeats.

  And then she saw.

  The scene in the cell was a stab to the chest. The figure bound to the chair, the unmistakable silhouette even mutilated. Bruce, with his back turned, hands stained with a wrong dark red. And on the floor, the small pale pieces that did not seem to belong to this world.

  “Stop!” The word left her lips before she could think, a command laden with an authority she believed she had renounced.

  Bruce turned slowly. His cold, evaluating eyes met hers. No remorse, only assessment.

  “Is that really who I think it is?” Luna’s question came out trembling, her mind struggling to reconcile the implacable monster before her with the grandfather who had admitted a mistake in a dark corridor.

  “Depends,” Bruce’s reply was an icy breath. “Is it exactly what you wish to see?”

  “If that really is what I think, I ask you to stop immediately!” Her voice gained strength, fueled by growing horror.

  A thin, cruel smile touched Bruce’s lips.

  “You are no longer queen, Luna. I no longer take your orders.”

  The blow was low and precise. But Luna did not retreat. She took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was not that of a frightened young woman, but of one who carried the weight of a shared secret and a broken promise.

  “Grandfather,” the word was soft, almost intimate. “What you told me in that corridor, when I renounced? That you understood me. That you understood my pain.” She stepped forward, ignoring Alfredo, who tensed slightly at her side. “I ask now, by the ghost of your son, by the memory of my mother, by everything left of our shattered family… understand me. If he does not speak through pain, let me try with something he might still recognize.”

  The words hung in the damp cell. Bruce watched her, his face a granite mask. For a long moment, only the sound of Empty’s hoarse, irregular breathing filled the space.

  Then, with a grunt of disdain, Bruce threw the stained blade onto a metal tray with a loud clatter. He passed Luna without touching her, his gaze promising consequences. But he left, leaving her alone with the creature in the cell, under Alfredo’s impassive watch from the door.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Luna entered. The smell was metallic and sweet, nauseating. Her eyes traveled over Empty’s body—the dented armor, the cuts, the right hand now a monument to cruelty. And the fingers on the floor. Her stomach churned.

  But then Empty raised his head.

  The mask turned toward her. And in the eyes hidden in shadow, something changed. The icy emptiness Raphadun had described… was not entirely there. There was a faint, undeniable gleam. A focus. On her.

  “Is it really you?” Luna’s question was a whisper, a prayer cast into the cell’s void.

  The answer came, not immediately, but after a pause that seemed to last an age.

  “Yes…”

  The simple, clear word struck Luna like a physical shock. She had grown accustomed to his silent responses, communication through gestures and looks. Hearing his voice—that hoarse, strange, but his voice—made years of grief and acceptance crumble in an instant. It was him. It was real.

  “That’s… strange to hear,” she admitted, voice failing. A storm of emotions flooded her: unconfessed love, remorse, guilt for the Council vote, hallucinatory joy at seeing him alive, terror at what he had become. Everything dissolved when her eyes fell again on the bloody stumps.

  Instinct followed. She approached and knelt without hesitation. With hands trembling only slightly, she took the edge of her own cloak—fine, expensive fabric—and tore a long strip. With care, almost reverence, she began bandaging the wounds, applying pressure where the dark, almost solid blood still seeped.

  Empty did not move. He merely watched, head tilted, studying every movement of her hands.

  Outside the cell, Bruce watched, eyes narrowed. That gesture of compassion, there in the filth and horror, was an affront to all his logic. It was the weakness he despised, personified.

  When Luna finished, the white cloth was already soaked dark red. She looked up, meeting the mask.

  “What happened to you?” The question was inevitable, laden with a year of unanswered questions.

  Empty seemed to consider. When his voice came, it was slow, as if choosing each word carefully.

  “I simply… lived.”

  The simplicity of the answer was devastating. Lived. While they mourned, governed, tried to move forward, he… had been. Somewhere. Like this.

  Luna swallowed hard, sadness and confusion warring on her face.

  “I see, then,” she murmured, forcing composure. “Everyone is out there. Raphadun, Flávio, Fencer… They need to know. I need to know. Tell me the truth, Empty. Is it really you?”

  The silence that followed was absolute. Even Empty’s hoarse breathing seemed to stop. Outside the cell, Bruce stood motionless, every muscle tensed.

  Then Empty spoke. The words were not directed only at her. They seemed a verdict for the world.

  “I cannot change…”

  Luna felt a chill run down her spine.

  “Change what?” Her voice was a thread of hope about to snap.

  He looked at her, and for the first time, his voice seemed to carry the weight of something infinite and terrible.

  “The future.”

  The two words fell into the cell like tombstones. The hope that had been born in Luna died right there, frozen. Outside the cell, Bruce clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened.

  Empty’s final words were not an echo; they were a nail driven into the rotten wood of an already sealed coffin. The future. Two syllables that froze the damp cell air. Luna felt the last remnant of hope die in her throat, turning into a dry, painful knot.

  Through the bars, Bruce Darking did not move, but his stillness now was that of a spring compressed to the limit. His eyes, fixed on the bound silhouette, did not gleam with the hunter’s triumph. They gleamed with the cold confirmation of an anticipated nightmare.

  “Empty,” Luna’s voice came out firmer than she felt, a stubborn thread of authority rising from despair. “Tell me what you saw. Please. Bruce, the others… they won’t hear appeals. I need something concrete.”

  Inside the mask, a slight movement. The tilt of the head, so familiar and now so strange.

  “I understand,” the hoarse voice seemed to rise from the cell stones themselves.

  “Understand what?” She leaned forward, hands gripping the cold iron bars.

  “You fulfilled your promise, Luna?” The words sounded like a clinical observation, but for a fleeting instant.

  She swallowed hard. The memory of the promise made in the ashes of the Infernal Zone burned in her mind.

  “I did,” she confirmed, voice contained. There was no way to explain the price, the blood on her hands, the vote that condemned her. This was not the place.

  “Good.” The reply was a cut-off signal, final.

  “Empty, please, be clear. What was the price? What did the Stone do?” The plea was a risk, she knew. The being before her carried the form of her friend, but its essence was a dangerous green mist.

  “I was… here. And also, not.” The answer was a labyrinth without an entrance, a living contradiction. In the corridors of her mind, Luna glimpsed a paradox: a simultaneous existence, a consciousness suspended between the cell and some other ineffable plane.

  Confusion mingled with exhaustion. “I don’t understand! I want to understand, Empty! I want to help you!” The cry came out low, laden with frustration bordering on physical pain.

  Then he spoke. And this time, the words were not evasive. They were a declaration of purpose, naked and raw, that crossed the cell like a blade.

  “I am here to save you all.”

  Luna shuddered. “Save us? From what?”

  The pause that followed was more eloquent than any scream. When the answer came, it was a low blow, straight to the center of everything she thought she knew.

  “From my own cowardice.”

  The air fled Luna’s lungs. Cowardice? The word was an insult to the memory of the being who had thrown himself in front of blows for them, who smiled while his body came apart. She frowned, mind in confusion of loyalty and terror.

  “No… don’t speak in codes! Answer me truthfully!” Her voice broke, a final plea before the abyss.

  Bruce moved then. Not with violence, but with the silent urgency of an imminent disaster. A firm hand landed on Luna’s shoulder, pulling her back, away from the bars.

  “That’s enough.”

  “He was almost speaking!” she protested, allowing herself to be guided, eyes still glued to the motionless figure.

  “No,” Bruce’s denial was cutting and dry. “He was playing. Taking advantage of your… feeling.” The word was chosen with disdain. “We must proceed with extreme caution. This is bigger than a cell.”

  He turned to the Shadow Guard captain, posted like a statue in the corridor.

  “Double the watch. No sound enters or leaves. No one approaches without my direct order.” His gaze then met Luna’s, and in it there was no usual fury, but a gravity worse. “The Council. Now.”

  Outside, under a gray sky that seemed to share the general foreboding, a restless crowd seethed before the Tower of Light. The news, distorted into ten different versions, created a cauldron of rumors. Nobles in expensive cloaks spoke in tense groups, voices anxious whispers. Soldiers from all Houses held a thin line of order, expressions severe.

  At the center of the agitation, three figures stood out for their contrasting stillness. Flávio, usually a volcano of nerves, was pale and motionless, eyes fixed on the main entrance as if waiting for a familiar ghost to emerge. Fencer, beside him, adjusted his glasses repeatedly, a tic betraying the speed of his thoughts—calculating probabilities, analyzing risk, fearing the conclusion. Raphadun leaned against a column, arms crossed, face a mask of internal conflict where insane hope fought against the terrible knowledge of what he had witnessed on the cliff.

  In the Great Hall high in the Tower, the air carried funereal solemnity. The magical lights seemed colder. Ver?nica of Science already occupied her place, fingers drumming silently on the ebony table, purple eyes absorbed in some internal equation. Aldert Fingard of Exploration sat with the rigidity of a veteran in enemy territory, eyes scanning the room as if seeking escape routes or weak points. Luka Graymon had arrived moments earlier, cloak still slightly disheveled from haste, face a controlled study of professional concern.

  The silence was broken by resonant footsteps echoing in the vault. Bruce Darking entered first, his presence filling the space like a pressure wave. Right behind, Luna Lighting entered the hall. Her chin-length haircut, green-tipped, was a symbol of defiance under the cold light. She looked at no one as she walked to her chair at the head of the table. She sat, and the gesture was not a queen reclaiming her throne, but a general taking her post on a battlefield about to be razed.

  All eyes turned to her. The question needed no voicing. It hung in the air, heavy and urgent: What emerges from the shadows, Luna? And what will we do with it?

  The kingdom’s fate once again hung over that circle of power, but the enemy was no longer beyond the walls. It was captive in their basements, and its last words echoed like a self-fulfilling prophecy: a savior who confessed cowardice, coming from a future no one dared imagine.