Chapter 62: The Life of a Weapon

"You monster..."

Those were the last words the man managed to spit at Xavion before the Duke struck him down.

His body collapsed into the mud, joining the countless others scattered across the valley.

Mud clung to Xavion’s boots and the lower edges of his armor. The valley below the jagged ridge of the Ostharian frontier was barely recognizable after the battle. Bodies littered the ground, broken weapons lay half-buried in the dirt, and the marshes had turned dark with blood.

The fighting had finally stopped. Smoke rose from the places where magic had struck the ground, and the smell of blood and burnt soil was everywhere.

"Gods above," someone whispered near the edge of the tree line. "Did you see that? He didn’t even break formation. They just... they just dropped."

"That is no way for a soldier to fight," another man muttered. "Such power should never have been placed in the hands of a lowborn bastard. They say his mother was no more than a servant in the kitchens before His Majesty took her to his bed. Is it not astonishing that a man without a drop of royal blood should possess such terrifying power?"

"Well, keep your voice down, you fool," a third snapped back. "I care not if his mother was a swamp hag. If we’re surrounded at the river bend tomorrow, I’d sooner have him at my side than half the highborn captains drinking wine in their tents."

"Doesn’t change what he is," the first one muttered. "The King only keeps him around because he’s a blunt instrument. A hound with teeth that bite through iron. What happens when the war ends?"

Xavion didn’t turn around right away. He remained where he was, giving the soldiers enough time to realize their conversation hadn’t gone unheard.

When he finally turned, his single violet eye settled on the group. Every man went quiet. The youngest soldier visibly paled, while the others straightened and suddenly found the ground much more interesting.

Not one of them dared say another word.

Xavion gave them no reaction. He simply turned his back and continued walking, his boots crunching over the frozen twigs as he made his way up the rise toward the horse lines. Let them talk. He had heard worse since he was old enough to hold a practice sword. Their words meant little to him now.

Xavion set his sword belt and gauntlets on the camp table before pulling off the remaining pieces of his armor. The fading daylight caught the dried blood smeared across his palms and settled into the creases of his fingers. None of it was his, thankfully. By the end of a battle, it was often difficult to tell friend from foe unless one could identify the uniform beneath the mud and blood.

A copper basin sat on a wooden stand in the corner, half-filled with water already clouded by dirt and soot.

Xavion leaned over it, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the water. He scooped up some water and splashed it over his face, rubbing at the dirt until his skin began to sting. The water quickly turned murky.

He wasn’t bothered by it. He had washed his face in ditch water after battles far less important than this one. It was nothing new.

A sharp whistle came from outside the tent, followed by the familiar heavy footsteps of someone approaching.

"Commander," a voice called from behind him, almost too casually. "The captain sent me to check whether you’ve decided on our next move. He said the men are waiting for your orders."

Xavion took a moment to rinse the remaining grime from his hands before reaching for the cloth. Only then did he glance toward the tent entrance.

"You’ve come a long way."

The man stopped moving. "Just bringing the reports, sir," he replied.

Before the man could say anything more, Xavion moved.

There was no warning. One moment he was standing beside the basin, and the next, he had already turned and raised his hand. A dark mana gathered around his fingers, spreading in a thick haze before shooting toward the tent pole.

Xavion barely moved his feet. He made one sharp motion with his wrist, as though the attack required no more effort than brushing something aside.

The darkness around Xavion’s hand surged forward and seized the man’s throat. A sharp crack filled the tent.

The intruder’s eyes widened. His dagger fell as both hands flew to his neck, clawing at the invisible force crushing his windpipe. His boots scraped against the floor before he was lifted completely off it.

"Wondering how I knew?" he asked.

The intruder’s eyes shifted toward him, but he could only manage a strained gasp.

"I’ve never seen your face before. Not once. And yet here you are, standing in my tent and pretending to be one of my men."

Xavion’s gaze briefly dropped to the dagger lying on the floor.

"Besides, you weren’t particularly subtle. I heard you draw that dagger. You might want to work on that before attempting this again."

He gave the man a brief, humorless look.

"Though I doubt you’ll get another chance."

Xavion let the silence linger for a moment before speaking again.

"So, another assassin?" he asked. "Who sent you? Someone closer to home?"

The man could only manage a strangled gasp. His fingers scratched desperately at his neck, but the darkness held firm.

Xavion watched him for a moment before giving a small nod.

"Right. You can’t speak."

He tilted his head slightly, almost as though he’d only just remembered that detail.

"Well, it hardly matters. You’ll be dead soon enough."

With a slight movement of his fingers, the force around the man’s throat tightened. There was another sharp crack, and the intruder’s body went limp.

Xavion let his hand drop.

The body hit the floor with a heavy, dead thud, rolling slightly onto its side. The man’s tongue lolled out, his eyes staring blankly at the hem of Xavion’s dark trousers.

Xavion looked down at him for three seconds. No pulse check. No search for papers or guild tokens, if the man carried any, they’d be forged or enchanted to dissolve upon death anyway.

He had never been one to spare someone who tried to kill him. If they came for his life, he would take theirs first.

He walked around the corpse, stepped over the outstretched legs without breaking his stride, and ducked out through the tent flap into the evening air.

"Someone," Xavion called out, his voice cutting cleanly across the rows of canvas shelters.

Two soldiers standing near the woodpile immediately straightened and hurried toward him.

"Your Highness," the older sergeant muttered, catching sight of the dark aura still flickering faintly around Xavion’s fingers before it winked out. He glanced toward the tent flap and saw the tip of a foreign boot sticking out from the darkness. "Another one?"

"Clear it out," Xavion said flatly, not stopping as he walked past them toward the open path leading down to the riverbank. "Burn the body."

"Understood." The soldier gave a small nod before turning to leave.

Xavion watched the men go before making his way toward the river, leaving the camp behind. He followed the narrow path down the slope until the sound of rushing water grew louder.

He stopped at the water’s edge, crouching down on a flat slab of slate where the spray hit his boots.

He reached out and scooped up a handful of the freezing water, splashing it over his face again.

The skin was clean now. There was no blood left on his fingers, no trace of the dust from the skirmish, no physical evidence of the man who had just died three hundred yards away behind a canvas wall. But when he stared down into the dark, churning surface of the river, the reflection staring back at him looked exactly the same as it had in the basin, and the basin before that, and the blood-smeared puddles behind the lines years ago.

The same routine repeated itself, day after day.

Get up. Dress in iron. Ride out to some nameless hill. Kill people who had never seen his face until the moment he ran them through. Ride back. Wash the blood off. Kill the man hiding in his tent with a knife. Wash the blood off again.

He stared at his own hands, resting palms-down on his knees. They were steady, the hands of a weapon that had been honed by a kingdom that hated his existence and feared his power in equal measure. They didn’t shake when he held a sword, and they didn’t tremble when he crushed a windpipe.

But what would happen to the kingdom if he did?

The borders would not defend themselves. The enemies waiting beyond them would not suddenly lose their appetite for conquest. And the people living in the villages and towns behind those walls would be the ones paying the price.

He had seen what happened to places that lost their protection. He had walked through the ruins, seen the bodies left behind, and heard the cries of those who had nowhere left to run.

He could not bring himself to let that happen to his own people.

A cold, heavy numbness crept up from his chest, settling behind his ribs like winter fog.

Is this all there is?

There was no anger behind the question, nor any trace of self-pity. It was something he had wondered about for years, a thought that had grown harder to ignore with time. Battlefield after battlefield. Tent after tent. A lifetime spent looking over his shoulder for the next poisoned cup, the next hired blade, the next royal decree telling him which border needed to be painted red to keep the peace for everyone.

For the first time in his life, as the water rushed past his boots in the freezing dark, Xavion found himself wondering if the noise would ever stop.

Would there ever come a day when he could lay the heavy steel down in the dirt, walk away from the blood, and simply live without having to kill anyone just to see the sun come up tomorrow?