# Chapter 619: The Veteran's Doubt
The pre-dawn air was thin and cold, clinging to the cobblestones of the training yard with a damp, mineral scent. Mist coiled in the corners, ghosting over the racks of wooden weapons and the sand-pitted circle at the yard's center. In the heart of that circle, Captain Bren moved. He was a silhouette against the faint, pearlescent light beginning to creep over the city walls, his breath pluming in ragged bursts. The only sound was the rhythmic, punishing thud of metal striking wood, a relentless metronome marking the passage of a sleepless night.
His left arm, a marvel of brass and steel articulated by whirring gears and tensioned cables, moved with a fluid grace that belied its artificial nature. Each strike was a study in controlled violence. The prosthetic fist, shaped into a blunt hammer, slammed into the chest of a training dummy. Wood groaned, splintering. Again. And again. Sweat plastered his grey-streaked hair to his forehead, tracing paths through the grime on his temples. His muscles screamed, his lungs burned, but he did not stop. The physical pain was a welcome distraction, a roaring fire to drown out the whisper in his mind.
*You left me.*
The voice had been Soren's, but not Soren's. It had the same gravelly timbre, the same familiar cadence, but it was hollowed out, an echo from an abyss. It had slithered into his head during the fight with the Bloomblight, a serpent of pure doubt coiling around his thoughts. He had pushed it down, buried it under layers of tactical commands and battlefield necessity, but now, in the crushing solitude of the early morning, it was all he could hear.
*You promised you'd always have my back.*
Bren roared, a raw, guttural sound torn from his throat. He pivoted, putting the full torque of his hips into a downward swing. The metal fist connected with the dummy's shoulder, and the entire torso cracked, the head lolling at an unnatural angle. He didn't pause. He reset, his boots grinding in the sand, and began again. The rhythmic thud resumed, faster this time, more desperate. He was trying to beat the memory out of his own skull, to pummel the ghost into silence. The scent of ozone from the arm's overheating coils mingled with the coppery tang of blood from his split knuckles. He could feel the phantom itch of his missing arm, a deep, aching void that the cold metal could never truly fill. It was a constant reminder of his last failure with Soren, the day he'd lost the limb but not the man. Now, it felt like he was on the verge of losing him all over again.
The sun crested the wall, spilling golden light across the yard. It caught the polished brass of his arm, making it gleam. A small figure hesitated at the edge of the training circle, a shadow against the brightening day. Finn. The boy held a wooden practice sword and a waterskin, his brow furrowed with concern. He watched his captain for a long moment, taking in the tremor in Bren's shoulders, the wild, unfocused look in his eyes.
"Captain?" Finn's voice was quiet, almost swallowed by the sound of the next impact.
Bren didn't react. He didn't even seem to hear. His world had shrunk to the space between his fist and the splintering wood. The thud, thud, thud was his heartbeat, his only reality.
*You let me die.*
The voice was clearer now, more accusatory. It wasn't just a whisper; it was a judgment. Bren's rhythm faltered. His next strike was clumsy, glancing off the dummy's arm. He stumbled, catching himself with his flesh-and-blood hand. He stood there, chest heaving, staring at the battered effigy. For a terrifying second, the painted-on face seemed to shift, the blank features twisting into a mask of Soren's agonized disappointment.
Finn took a cautious step into the circle. "Sir? You've been at it for hours. You need to rest." He held out the waterskin.
Bren's head snapped toward him, his eyes wild and haunted. "Rest?" he spat, the word like acid. "There is no rest. There's only the next fight. The next failure." He turned back to the dummy, raising his metal arm once more. "He's out there, Finn. Don't you understand? He's wearing Soren's face, and he's coming for us. And I have to be ready."
"I know," Finn said, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. He placed the waterskin on a nearby bench. "We all have to be ready. But you can't do this alone. You can't break yourself to pieces before the real fight even begins."
"You don't know what it was like," Bren growled, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. He lowered his arm, the metal hand hanging limp at his side. "You didn't hear it. It wasn't just a monster mimicking him. It felt… real. It felt like him. And he was right."
"Right about what?" Finn pressed, taking another step closer. He was no longer just a squire; he was a friend trying to pull a man back from a ledge.
"About everything," Bren whispered, the fight draining out of him as suddenly as it had appeared. He slumped, the weight of the prosthetic arm suddenly immense. He looked down at the intricate machinery, the gears and pistons that were now a part of him. "I failed him. In the wastes, when he lost his family… I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't smart enough. I got him out, but I couldn't save them. I couldn't save him from that pain. And now… now that pain is a weapon. A weapon pointed right at my heart."
He sank to his knees in the sand, the grit digging into his trousers. He ran his good hand over his face, his shoulders shaking. "How do you fight that, Finn? How do you raise a sword against a ghost? Every time I close my eyes, I see him. Not the Soren we knew, but the thing the King has made of him. And it's looking at me, and it's asking me why I wasn't better. Why I wasn't stronger."
Finn knelt beside him, the silence stretching between them, filled only by the distant sounds of the waking city. He didn't offer platitudes or empty reassurances. He simply sat with his captain in the wreckage of his composure. "You were the best he had," Finn said softly. "You still are."
Bren laughed, a harsh, broken sound. "The best? I'm a cripple who talks to himself. I'm a soldier who's afraid of his own memories." He looked at his metal hand, clenching it into a fist. The gears whirred softly. "This arm… I thought it made me whole again. I thought it made me strong. But it's just a reminder. A heavy, cold reminder of what I lost. What I cost him."
He pushed himself to his feet, his movements stiff with a new kind of resolve. It wasn't the resolve of a warrior, but of a man cornered by his own demons. He stalked over to the weapons rack, his gaze sweeping past the swords and axes until it settled on a heavy, iron-bound maul. He hefted it with his good arm, the weight familiar and comforting.
"I have to be stronger," he said, more to himself than to Finn. "I have to push harder. I have to drown it out. If I'm strong enough, fast enough, it won't matter what face it wears. I'll just end it."
"By killing yourself in the process?" Finn's voice was sharp, cutting through Bren's self-destructive spiral. "Is that what Soren would want? For you to break yourself trying to outrun a shadow?"
Bren froze, his back to the boy. The question hung in the air, a shard of ice in the morning warmth. He didn't have an answer. All he had was the fear, a cold, coiling thing in his gut that told him he wasn't enough. That he had never been enough. He had spent his entire life training, fighting, leading, and when it had mattered most, it hadn't been enough to save the one person he'd sworn to protect. How could it possibly be enough now?
He turned, his face a mask of torment. "Don't you see, Finn? This isn't about strategy anymore. It's not about tactics. It's personal. That thing… it knows me. It knows my every doubt, every failure. It's using Soren's face to tear me apart from the inside out." He gestured wildly with the maul. "How can I lead men against his ghost when I can't even face my own reflection, Finn?"
The last word was a roar of pure, unadulterated anguish. He swung the maul not at the training dummy, but at the polished steel shield that hung on the wall for target practice. The impact was deafening, a clang of tortured metal that echoed across the yard. The shield buckled, denting inward, the reflective surface warping into a funhouse mirror of his own twisted, enraged face.
He didn't stop. He brought the maul down again, and again. Each blow was a confession, a release of a lifetime of guilt. The shield rang like a battered gong. The training dummy, already weakened, finally succumbed to a stray glancing blow and exploded into a shower of wood and straw. Sand kicked up around his feet. He was a whirlwind of fury and grief, a veteran fighting a war against the only enemy he could never defeat: himself.
Finally, his strength gave out. The maul slipped from his numb fingers, landing with a soft thud in the sand. Bren stood panting amidst the wreckage he had created, his body trembling with exhaustion. He looked at his reflection in the ruined shield, at the shattered man staring back. The whisper in his head was silent for the first time in hours, but the void it left behind was even more terrifying. He was hollowed out, broken.
Finn slowly approached, his expression unreadable. He didn't touch him, didn't speak. He simply stood there, a silent testament to his unwavering presence. In the quiet aftermath of the storm, as the sun climbed higher and the city came fully alive, Captain Bren finally broke. He sank to his knees once more, not in defiance, but in utter defeat, and the veteran's doubt consumed him whole.