The cold wind howled through the narrow alley, its biting chill seeping into the bones of the two figures huddled against the damp stone wall. A boy—just twelve winters old—clutched his knees to his chest, his small frame trembling not just from the cold, but from the hollow ache in his heart. His whispered words were swallowed by the darkness, a fragile sound lost in the uncaring night.
"Ahh... why do Mom and I have to suffer like this? Why did Dad abandon us? I hate you..."
His voice cracked, raw with grief. Tears welled in his sunken eyes, but he wiped them away fiercely with the back of his dirt-streaked hand. Beside him, his mother lay curled on the ground, her breathing shallow, her skin burning with fever. She was fading, and he knew it.
"Mom, how long are we going to suffer? If Dad hadn't... hadn't done that... we'd still have a home."
The words spilled out between choked sobs. The memory of flames devouring their small house, the glint of a sword, his father's blood staining the earth—it all haunted him. He had been too young to understand then. Now, all he understood was loss.
His mother stirred weakly, her eyelids fluttering before she forced them open. Her lips parted, but only a ragged cough escaped. Still, she reached for him, her fingers—once warm and gentle, now skeletal and cold—brushing his tear-stained cheek.
"Baby... don't cry... Mommy will... do her best..."
Her voice was a threadbare whisper, barely audible over the distant clamor of the city. She pulled him into her arms, her embrace frail but desperate, as if she could shield him from the world with the last of her strength.
"Sweetie... please... don't hate your father. He... tried to protect u—"
Another cough wracked her body, violent and wet. Her arms tightened around him for a fleeting second before they went slack. Her weight sagged against him, sudden and heavy.
The boy froze.
"Mom? Mommy? MOM!"
Panic clawed up his throat. He pulled back, shaking her shoulders, pressing his ear to her chest. The faint, thready pulse beneath her fevered skin sent a sliver of relief through him—but only for a moment. Her forehead scorched his palm, hotter than any flame. She was alive, but barely.
His small hands trembled as he carefully laid her head against their tattered bag, the only semblance of a pillow they had. His tears fell silently now, dripping onto her ashen face.
"Mom... I don't understand. Dad protected us, but he left us..."
The contradiction tore at him. He wanted to scream. To curse the world. To curse his father. But all he could do was whisper into the void.
"I'll get medicine. I'll be back soon."
He stood on unsteady legs, forcing himself to walk away. The streets of the neighboring town were unkind to a boy like him—dirty, malnourished, dressed in rags. Merchants sneered as he passed, their eyes skimming over him as if he were nothing more than a stray dog. He dug into his pocket, fingers closing around the meager coins inside.
Ten bronze.
Not even half of what he needed.
His stomach twisted. "Being a commoner is a curse."
The thought came unbidden, bitter and sharp. He remembered the warmth of their home, the smell of bread in the oven, his father's laughter—before the soldiers came. Before everything burned.
"Dad... you didn't have to die. I hate you... but I miss you."
The admission shattered him. He choked back another sob, wiping his face with his sleeve. He searched every stall, every apothecary, begging for even a scrap of medicinal herb. But the world had no mercy for a beggar.
Defeated, he trudged back to the alley, his heart a leaden weight in his chest.
Then he saw her.
His mother lay exactly as he had left her—but too still. No rise and fall of breath. No shiver from the cold.
His blood turned to ice.
"No... no, no, NO—"
He crashed to his knees, hands flying to her chest, his ear pressing against her ribs. Silence.
Nothing.
"MOM! MOMMYYYY!"
His scream tore through the alley, raw and broken. He clutched her lifeless body, shaking her, begging her to wake up. But the woman who had sung him lullabies, who had held him through storms, who had starved so he could eat—she was gone.
And he was alone.
...
The alley was silent.
No wind. No distant chatter of merchants. No clatter of hooves on cobblestone. Just the hollow, suffocating quiet of death.
The boy clung to his mother's lifeless body, his small fingers digging into the tattered fabric of her dress as if he could will warmth back into her. His tears fell freely now, dripping onto her pale, sunken face—washing away the grime but not the stillness.
Memories flashed behind his closed eyelids like fragments of a shattered dream.
His mother's laughter as she kneaded dough in their tiny kitchen.
His father lifting him onto his shoulders, pointing at the stars.
The scent of fresh bread, the warmth of their hearth, the safety of home.
Then—fire.
Screams.
The glint of steel.
His father—a common man, unarmed, untrained—standing between them and the soldiers of Letterune. His last words before the blade pierced his chest: "Run."
And now, his mother—starved, sick, abandoned by a world that had no use for the weak—gone too.
The boy's breath hitched. His grief twisted, coiling into something darker. Something furious.
"I hate you, Dad... but I hate him more."
The Viscount of Letterune. The man who had ridden through their village like a storm, his soldiers cutting down anyone who stood in their path. The man who had looked at his father—at them—like they were nothing.
His tears slowed. His fists clenched.
Gently, he laid his mother's head back against the worn bag, his fingers lingering on her cold cheek.
"Mom... I'm sorry." His voice was raw, barely more than a whisper. "I wanted to protect you too. But I was too weak."
A shuddering breath. Then—
"I promise you... I'll get stronger."
His next words came out choked, thick with tears.
"I'll kill that Viscount. Every last soldier who followed him. Every noble who thinks they can burn us like trash—"
His voice cracked. His body trembled. But his eyes—
They burned.
"I'LL ERADICATE THEM ALL!"
The scream tore from his throat, echoing through the empty alley. It was the cry of a child who had lost everything. Of a boy who had nothing left but rage.
"I'll conquer this wretched world if I have to! I'll end the wars! I'll break the ones who started them!"
His chest heaved. His vision blurred. But the fire inside him—
It didn't waver.
The alley was still silent. The street beyond, once lively, now a graveyard of memories. The war between Sanen and Letterune had taken everything—homes, families, futures.
But in its ashes, something new had been born.
A vow.
A reckoning.
A ruler of the world in the making.
And so, with a heart forged in fury and grief, the boy carried his mother's frail body far from the stench of death, far from the city that had abandoned them. He walked until his arms burned and his legs trembled, until he reached the towering oak his father had planted decades ago—their sanctuary, their only remnant of peace.
With nothing but a sharpened stick, he dug.
The earth resisted, hard and unyielding, but he clawed at it like a beast, his blistered hands staining the soil with blood. He would not let her rot in some nameless alley. She would rest here, beneath the roots of their past, where the wind still carried echoes of laughter.
As he laid her in the grave, his tears fell not in weakness, but in oath.
This world would kneel.
The nobles with their gilded swords, the kings with their armies, the emperors who thought themselves untouchable—they would all learn the price of their cruelty.
And he, a boy with nothing but a stick and a heart full of fire, would rise above them all.