Chapter 985

Torvares squeezed her hand again. Weak. Barely there. But deliberate.

“It is time,” he said, “for you to finally become a person who shapes your own future.”

Viola stared at him. For a moment, she looked very young. Not the Torvares heir. Not the proud girl who stood beside Ludger and argued with commanders and stared down danger with a lifted chin. Just a granddaughter sitting in the mud, hearing something she wasn’t ready to hear.

“What are you talking about?” she asked again.

Her voice cracked this time. Torvares only smiled at her. No answer. No explanation that would make it hurt less. Just that same tired, loving smile. Viola shook her head harder.

“No. Don’t do that. Don’t smile like that.”

Torvares’s eyes softened. Luna lowered her gaze, jaw clenched. Outside, the enemy kept moving closer. Inside, Viola held her grandfather’s hand like grip alone could keep him anchored to the world. But Torvares only kept smiling.

And that silence said more than any lie ever could.

Torvares suddenly drew in a deeper breath. It sounded painful. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just the kind of breath a man took when he knew he had very little strength left and too many words still waiting behind his teeth.

Viola looked up immediately.

“Grandfather?”

His eyes stayed on her. Clearer now. Too clear.

“I lost my parents when I was ten.”

Viola froze. Luna’s gaze shifted toward him, quiet and sharp. Torvares’s fingers remained weak in Viola’s hands, but his voice, though rough, carried something old in it. Not power. Not authority.

Memory.

“I became lord at that time,” he said. “A child in a chair built for men who thought children were tools, heirs, or obstacles.”

His mouth curved faintly, but there was no humor in it.

“I was forced to oversee a large region before I understood how large the world truly was. I had lands to manage. Vassals to judge. Merchants to bargain with. Farmers to protect. Soldiers to feed. Nobles to appease. Enemies to discourage.”

He breathed in again, slower this time.

“For the sake of my family’s name, I worked hard.”

Viola lowered her head slightly, but her eyes never left his face.

“I learned quickly,” Torvares continued. “Because failure was not allowed. Not for me. Not for a Torvares. I made the land prosper. I dealt with difficult men, greedy men, stupid men, dangerous men.”

His smile became sharper for half a second.

“The stupid ones were often the most dangerous.”

Luna almost smiled despite herself. Viola didn’t. She was holding his hand too tightly now, as if some part of her believed she could keep him there by force. Torvares looked past her for a moment, toward something no one else could see.

“I became a respectable figure for many years. A reliable lord. A useful ally. A difficult enemy.” His voice softened. “And I did not care for anything else.”

The rain tapped against the shelter roof above them.

“I had no time for it. No room. Or perhaps I simply told myself that because it was easier than admitting I was afraid.”

Viola’s lips trembled. He looked back at her.

“I only started thinking about having a family of my own after I was past thirty.”

His expression changed then. The hardness left it. Only warmth remained, thin and fragile, but real.

“When I met your grandmother.”

Viola whispered the name before he could.

“Grandma Melody.”

Torvares nodded.

“Melody.”

For a moment, he seemed less like the Bull of Torvares and more like a man remembering spring.

“She was not strong in the way people like to praise in songs. She did not swing a sword. She did not command troops. She could not outlast harsh winters or ride for days.” His smile deepened slightly. “But she had the kind of strength that made rooms gentler when she entered them.”

Viola’s tears finally gathered at the edges of her eyes.

“Just like your mother,” Torvares said quietly, “she had poor health.”

His gaze drifted downward.

“And she loved flowers.”

Viola’s breath hitched.

“She used to complain that my gardens were too practical,” he said. “Too many herbs. Too many useful plants. Not enough color.” His voice grew thinner, but he kept speaking. “So she filled them with flowers. Everywhere. Every corner she could claim. Reds, whites, yellows, purples. I used to pretend it was wasteful.”

A faint, broken laugh left him.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“It wasn’t.”

Viola was crying now. Silently at first. Tears slid down her face and mixed with rainwater still clinging to her skin. Torvares watched them fall with a softness that made Luna look away again.

“Five years after she gave birth to your mother,” he said, “Melody passed away.”

Viola’s shoulders shook.

“The same thing happened to Viollet.”

Her mother’s name landed like a knife. Torvares closed his eyes for a moment.

“When your mother was born, I thought perhaps the world had decided not to take everything from me.” His voice roughened. “Then, years later, when she smiled at me while holding you, I thought that again.”

Viola squeezed his hand. He opened his eyes.

“But I was always waiting.”

She shook her head.

“No…”

“I was,” he said, gentle but firm. “Even though you were born healthy. Even though you laughed loudly and ran through halls and made servants age ten years in an afternoon. Even though you grew stronger than I had any right to hope.”

His thumb moved faintly against her fingers.

“I still thought you would be like everyone else in our family.”

Viola broke then, a quiet sob escaping despite her attempt to swallow it. Torvares’s own eyes shone.

“All those who had ties to me,” he whispered, “ended up leaving me alone.”

The words seemed to cost more than the poison. More than the pain. More than the black veins crawling along his neck.

“I am sorry, Viola.”

She shook her head harder, tears falling freely now.

“I am sorry for thinking that way for so many years.”

“Grandfather…”

“For loving you while preparing myself to lose you.”

Her face crumpled. He smiled at her, terrible and tender.

“I thought it would make the pain easier when it came.”

Viola held his hand against her chest now, crying openly.

“It didn’t.”

Torvares’s breath trembled.

“It only made me steal years from myself. Years where I should have simply watched you live without fear hiding behind every happy moment.”

Viola bent over him, her forehead pressing against his hand again as sobs shook through her. She understood. Finally. Not everything. Not the full shape of a lifetime spent surviving loss after loss. But enough. He wasn’t just apologizing for spoiling her.

He was apologizing for the wall he had kept around his own heart while pretending it was wisdom. For protecting her so fiercely because he had loved her, and because some wounded, terrified part of him had always believed love ended in being left behind.

And now he was telling her not to inherit that fear. Not to let loss define the shape of her future. Not to wait for the world to take everything before deciding what kind of person she wanted to become. Viola cried while holding both of her grandfather’s hands. Her tears fell onto his cold fingers.

Torvares watched her, breathing roughly, eyes filled with more love than strength.

“I wanted you to have a normal life,” he said.

His voice was barely above a whisper now.

“But if the world will not allow that…”

He swallowed, face tightening with pain.

“Then make it regret trying to decide for you.”

Viola lifted her tear-streaked face. Torvares smiled again. This time, there was pride in it. Not sorrow. Not apology. Pride.

“My little flower,” he whispered.

Viola sobbed harder at that. Luna closed her eyes for a second, jaw tight, knives resting uselessly in her hands while the enemy searched the rain outside.

Silva lowered his massive head beside them, silent and watchful.

And in the cramped earth shelter behind the hill, while war moved around them and death waited far too close, Viola Torvares held her grandfather’s hands and finally understood the message he had been trying to give her.

Do not spend your life waiting to be abandoned by the people you love. Torvares’s breathing grew rougher. For a moment, no one spoke.

The rain kept falling outside the small shelter of earth. Heavy footsteps moved somewhere in the distance, runic golems still searching through the dark fields, but inside that cramped space, the world had narrowed to one old man, two girls, and the kind of silence that came before something broke.

Torvares looked at Viola with tired eyes.

“I will not become a nuisance to my family in my final moments.”

Viola’s head snapped up.

“Don’t say that.”

His smile was faint.

“Someone has to.”

“No,” she said, voice shaking. “No one has to say that.”

Torvares ignored the denial gently. He had spoiled her, protected her, argued with her, guided her, and loved her too much to let her win this argument through tears.

“Ludger is in the capital fighting because I was caught off guard.”

Viola froze. Luna’s fingers tightened around her knives. Torvares closed his eyes for half a second, shame passing over his face.

“And that deeply embarrasses me.”

“Grandfather…”

“I should have seen it. Not all of it, perhaps. No man sees every knife before it moves.” His voice thinned, but the bitterness in it stayed sharp. “But enough. I should have seen enough to prevent a child from having to throw himself between me and a capital full of enemies.”

Viola shook her head hard. “That isn’t your fault.”

“It is partly my fault,” Torvares said. “Do not cheapen me by pretending I have never failed.”

That made her go silent. He drew in another breath, rough and wet.

“I wished I could apologize to him one last time.”

Viola’s lips trembled.

“For this,” Torvares said. “And for all the problems I caused him.”

Despite everything, a weak hint of amusement touched his expression.

“He would probably tell me I was being dramatic.”

Luna looked down.

“He would,” she said quietly.

Torvares smiled a little more. Then pain took the smile away.

Viola leaned closer, panic flashing across her face. “You can’t give up. There is still time. We’re close. We can reach Lionfang. Aronia can…”

Torvares lifted his hand. It moved slowly, weakly, but Viola stopped talking the instant his fingers touched her face. His palm was cold. Too cold. She caught his hand against her cheek like she could warm him through sheer refusal.

“The poison has been circulating through my body for a while,” he said.

“No.”

“I can feel it.”

“No, you can’t. You’re just tired. You’re hurt and cold and…”

“Viola.”

Her mouth shut. The sound of her name, spoken that way, cut through every frantic lie she was trying to build. Torvares’s thumb brushed her cheek once.

“I can feel my organs starting to fail.”

Viola’s eyes widened. The words struck her harder than any enemy could have.

“I will not go down easily,” he continued, voice quiet but steady in a way that made the truth worse. “You know me better than that. I take pride that I woke up to tell this before the end.”

Her face crumpled.

“But it is unavoidable now.”

She shook her head again, smaller this time. Weaker.

“No…”

“Even Aronia cannot stop this anymore.”

The shelter went silent. Luna looked away first, jaw tight enough that it hurt. Viola stared at her grandfather, tears falling freely now, unable to understand how the world could keep moving after hearing something like that.

Torvares watched her with all the softness he had spent years hiding behind duty.