Violet
I can't say exactly when reality stopped fitting inside my body — whether it was the moment the soldiers surrounded the tavern, or when Rulio smiled like an executioner and gave orders as if calling animals. Everything felt liquid, as if I were watching through a fogged window. One reflection of me held Draven's hand, another was already pushing me away. I wanted to believe this was a nightmare; to close my eyes and wake up in the warmth of the cabin, with the scent of herbs and wood, with him laughing at something silly. But the lamp on the table flickered, the sound of boots was metallic and real, and I felt fear fall on me like a heavy cloak.
There was room for so many feelings in a single minute: gratitude for having him by my side; shame for having grown attached to an enemy; anger at being trapped there; and a fierce, freezing certainty — I could not leave him alone. His skin trembled beneath his clothing when I squeezed his hand harder. His eyes met mine, and everything fit into that look: fear, decision, love, a fierce will to see me alive. Before I could answer, I heard the dry clang of steel being drawn — a sound that cut deeper than any bell.
"Run, Violet!" Draven's voice tore through the air with the urgency of an order that was at once a plea and a command. "Go as far as you can. Stop the war. Don't let my death be in vain!"
When he spoke like that and sprang up, turning from man to blade, the whole world seemed to bend to watch him. Draven was not just a soldier; in that moment he embodied everything I loved and everything I feared losing. He lunged like a bolt splitting the silence, and the table where we had sat became merely a large obstacle between us and what came next.
Around him, the veteran — the king of Espadaris' executioner, people whispered — moved like a satisfied shadow. His actions were precise and cold: each blow he dealt felled one of Rulio's henchmen, as if he were cleansing the hall of vermin. He seemed to dance with death — a step forward, a spin, and another man fell. Draven, meanwhile, did not dance: he fought with the hunger and urgency of someone who has nothing left to lose, consecrating every movement with his life.
"Go, Draven!" I shouted without thinking, not knowing whether I was begging or commanding. "Come, let's run!"
My voice was swallowed by a sea of steel and voices. There was no time for anything else. He deflected a thrust, forced a surprised gasp from an enemy, and for a moment, I swear, hope flickered like a candle in the wind. He was alive. And I had that tiny, guilty thought that maybe, perhaps, everything would end well.
But the battle spared no one. There were so many around, so many blows, so many faces full of hatred that seemed to multiply. Draven ebbed and flowed, cutting a path for me and for escape, each step a promise broken and renewed. His movements were fierce, beautiful, terrible — as if tragedy itself were a choreography only he could perform. I saw him fell a man with a single blow to the arm that disarmed an imminent threat, catch a thrown dagger midair and, with its tip, deflect the face of a soldier coming up behind him, drawing a choked groan. His eyes, between strikes, hunted mine as if asking permission to continue, to hold on a little longer.
When he approached my horse it wasn't to mount and flee — I thought so for a second — it was to prod the animal, to trigger its flight instinct. He slapped the horse's rump sharply. The horse bolted, cutting through the snow like a comet, and I watched it rear, me pulling the reins, trying to make it obey. The urge to scream for it to stop cleaved my throat, but the horse was already wind. Distance opened brutally between us; the image of him standing amid spears and bodies shrank, became small, and yet every strike he made seemed to echo inside my chest.
"Stop!" I screamed, but the voice died in the cold air.
As the horse carried me away, I watched Draven in the distance clearing the path along which I fled. He pressed forward with exhaustion sewing itself into his body, and there was no theater in it, no pose: it was all sweat, ragged breath, clenched teeth. An arrow skimmed my shoulder; another lodged in the wood of a fence that separated us from the clear path; a spear sliced the air beside Draven. With each stride the horse took, I looked back and saw the enemies shielding each other, forming a wall that slowly closed around him.
I saw the veteran cross the hall and approach like a shadow between men, swallowing space. I saw him position himself between Draven and the rest of the world, dancing with his blade, and for a second my heart believed nothing could stop him — but there were so many, and hope is always indulgent. I saw Draven fall to his knees, rise, be seized by the arm by two adversaries, still spitting blood and defiance. I saw the behemoth that surrounded him — fierce and relentless — bind his wrists and, finally, topple him. It was swift, brutal, and absolute. The weight of men upon him was like a wave. It choked his breath. The blade slipped from his hand.
The silence that followed was louder than the whole battle. I was on horseback, hurled forward by the flight, yet everything unfolded there in slow motion: the snow staining with dark spots I couldn't name; Draven's breath already slowing; his eyes finding mine one last time with a light that consumed me. There was so much life in that gaze that it hurt to places I didn't know could hurt. I tried to turn back. In a flurry of movements and sounds I pulled the reins and forced the horse into an almost-stop, but my legs shook like curtains in the wind and the animal obeyed its nature to run.
I could not reach him. Not at that distance. And he, on the ground, raised his face with a strength greater than pain. He lifted his hand as if to bless me, smiled with his eyes, and said something I heard as a whisper: "— Go, Vio…" and the rest dissolved into a clamor of steel and voices.
The enemies seized him, imposing. I saw the faces masked by violence, and the scene split my soul so concretely I could not hold back my sobs. I called his name, hurled every vow at him, swore I would die for him, promised I would return. But in that instant I learned a cruel truth: if I went back, we would both die. His life was the central point that guaranteed the possibility of telling the world what I had seen, of stopping the war with truths we had yet to gather. If I died with him, there would be just two more silenced mouths.
The horse fled. The snow fell behind, and I carried on my shoulders the burden of being forced to choose between love and history. When I went far enough that the scene became a map of shadows, the figure of the man I loved was bound by enemies, carried off as a trophy, mocked, and I knew with certainty that the war would begin there, in that growing silence I left behind.
I wept as if my crying could open a hole in the sky. I screamed, promising vengeance, swearing that his death would not be in vain. Then I buried my face in my hands and moved on, leaving Draven's footprints in the snow, carrying with me a name that had caught fire in my throat.
I don't know what I did in the hours that followed. I only know that each kilometer the horse and I traveled tore pieces from my heart, and at the center of everything I kept the image of him — standing, fighting, smiling with his eyes — as if it were a forbidden reliquary.
And as the forest grew and the world grew quieter, a promise formed in my mouth, bitter and resolute: I would survive. I would survive so his sword would not be in vain, so his cry would make the war measurable, so the lover I had lost could, in some way, live in every word I spoke about him.
Finally, when night fell and the wind washed my tears with cold, I whispered to myself, both a prayer and a curse: "— Don't die in vain, Kael. I will make the world know who you were."