Chapter 42 – The Boy Sent to End a War
The decree came two days later.
Sealed by the Emperor himself.
Its contents were brief. Formal. Devoid of sentiment.
Sirius von Ross, Heir to the Grand Duke, Pillar of the Empire. You are to depart for the Western Front.
No fanfare. No ceremony. Only a letter slipped beneath his door at dawn, its golden seal glinting like a quiet death knell in the morning light.
He read it once.
Then burned it.
Not out of anger. Not defiance. Simply… necessity.
The message was never meant for anyone else.
By evening, the estate stood silent as his horse cut through the courtyard mist. His father stood beside him, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword—not as a Grand Sword Master, not as the Grand Duke, but as a father.
"You'll be gone a year," he said quietly. "Maybe longer. Don't forget to write your mother."
Sirius didn't smile. He only nodded once. But in that nod, his father seemed to understand everything that didn't need saying.
They shook hands.
There was no embrace.
There didn't need to be.
The journey west was unaccompanied.
No guards.
No entourage.
Just him and the cold winds that rolled down from the north, threading through the trees like whispered warnings.
Soldiers stationed along the path bowed low as he passed—some with reverence, others with curiosity.
He looked too young to be what they'd heard.
Too quiet to be real.
A boy of sixteen. Pale hair and darker eyes. And behind those eyes—nothing they could name.
Rumors spread ahead of him like wildfire.
Not myths, not superstitions—just a single, undeniable truth whispered from camp to camp:
"The ninth-class magician is coming."
The Western Front greeted him with smoke and silence.
The capital of the enemy kingdom lay just beyond the ruined ridge—a crown of broken spires silhouetted against the blood-red sky. Tensions had long cracked the fragile peace between the Empire and the western kingdoms, but the war had now ignited fully.
One border skirmish had turned into five.
And then thirty-seven.
A field commander approached, armor dull with ash. He saluted stiffly, eyes flicking toward the faint emblem on Sirius's collar—the mark of a Pillar.
"You're… him?" he asked, voice uncertain.
Sirius only looked at him.
That was enough.
The man stepped aside.
The first battle happened three days later.
No strategy council. No drawn-out tactics. Just a scout's report, a burning village, and the scent of magic clinging to the wind.
Sirius rode out alone.
No orders.
No warning.
By the time the others arrived, the field had gone quiet.
Not one enemy soldier remained.
Only scorch marks in the earth and the fractured remains of a barrier no one had ever seen before.
"A ninth class… this is what it means?" one soldier whispered, half in awe, half in dread.
Another shook his head. "No. This isn't power. This is something else. Something colder."
He didn't offer explanations.
He didn't offer comfort.
He simply returned to camp, hands unstained, expression unreadable.
And the war pressed on.
As weeks passed, the legend of the Grand Duke's heir grew with each city taken, each enemy general who surrendered without drawing his blade.
Some called him salvation.
Others—retribution.
But no one, not even the most veteran officers, dared speak to him beyond what was necessary.
Because Sirius von Ross did not bleed on the battlefield.
He erased it.
And in the stillness of every ruined campfire, when no one watched, he wrote a single word in his journal.
Abylay.
She would never read it.
But the war, like everything else he did, belonged to her.