Chapter 49: The Astral Plain

"Let the void remember."

The words drifted off Miri’s cracked lips, flat and empty, carrying no weight in the damp chill of the underground cell.

Xander stood frozen for a second, his hand still gripping the wooden partition. He expected her to beg, or deny everything, or even cry and curse the military court that condemned her. Instead, she looked straight through him, her blue eyes reflecting nothing at all. She looked hollowed out, like a house whose pillars had been burnt away from the inside, leaving only a shell waiting to collapse.

"You’re not making sense, Miri," Xander said, his voice dropping into a rough, low rumble.

She didn’t answer. She only curled tighter into herself, her chin resting on her knees.

Frustrated, angry at himself for feeling a sharp, burning pinch of guilt in his gut, Xander turned on his heel and stepped out into the night. The heavy iron door slammed shut behind him.

Guilt. Why was he feeling guilty? He was the God of War. He had watched thousands die on open fields, had leveled stone walls, and had buried men who had fought beside him for decades. Yet, standing in front of a starving teenager who had supposedly slit a scout’s throat, his chest felt heavy, suffocated by an invisible weight.

As he walked back toward the command tents, his mind began to race in circles.

Why did this happen right after Vane pointed her out?

For months, Vane had been whispering in his ear. At first, Xander had brushed it off as excessive paranoia. But looking back over the last few weeks, everything had unraveled too perfectly. The evidence against her had been almost pristine.

Xander tossed and turned on his cot for hours, the rough wool blanket scraping his skin. Sleep refused to come. The night felt heavier, dragging its feet across the horizon and stretching the darkness as if the sky itself hesitated to witness what dawn would bring. Worst of all was the strange, alien behavior of his own men. The soldiers who had once shared their rations with her, who had treated her like a younger sister, had turned on her with a rabid, venomous hatred almost overnight.

Unable to lie still any longer, Xander pushed himself up, threw a dark wool cloak over his iron shoulders, and stepped out into the biting wind.

A short distance away, near the edge of the supply ridge where the northern wind swept down from the jagged peaks, a single figure stood alone, staring up at the starless night sky.

Xander walked quietly across the frozen mud. "Can’t sleep?"

The figure didn’t flinch. Vane turned his head slightly, his sharp, fox-like features illuminated by the faint red embers of a dying brazier nearby. "Neither can I, Captain."

Vane gestured toward a small clay jug sitting on a crate. "Want a sip?"

Xander reached out, took the jug, and took a small swallow. The liquor was harsh, tasting of fermented grain and copper, burning a hot trail straight down to his stomach. He handed it back, keeping his dark eyes fixed on his second-in-command.

Vane looked back up at the black sky, his expression uncharacteristically soft. "You know... seeing that girl when we first pulled her out of that burnt-out cellar... she reminded me of home, in a strange way. My younger sister had eyes like that before the northern raiders burned our district to ash. I wanted to save her, Captain. I really did."

Xander narrowed his eyes. *You know it because you suspected her in the first place.*

"Of course," Vane said smoothly, taking a slow sip from the jug. "Because war changes people, Xander. And seeing what she did to Hauer... it opened my eyes. I’ve gained a fierce resolve to fight for this kingdom, no matter what it takes. We can’t afford weakness."

Xander stared at Vane. He looked closer—really looked at the man who had stood at his side through a hundred bloody campaigns.

"Vane," Xander said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, steady register. "When you first warned me about her... you told me you suspected her. Remember?"

Vane paused, lowering the jug. He turned his head slowly, blinking in genuine confusion. "What? I never said such a thing, Captain."

Xander stepped closer, his broad frame casting a shadow over the smaller man. "Don’t play games with me. You stood right there by the supply wagon and told me."

Vane frowned, shaking his head. "Captain, you must be losing your mind from the cold. I never said anything like that."

Xander’s mind stopped.

The blood rushed in his ears. Had he dreamt it? Had the exhaustion of the campaign and the endless tactical reports finally frayed his thoughts to the point where he was hallucinating conversations with his own officers?

He stood there in silence as the grey, miserable light of dawn slowly crept over the eastern ridge. Time slipped away until the camp horns blew a harsh, mournful note across the frozen valley.

---

The execution yard was a cleared patch of mud in the center of the camp.

A heavy wooden stake had been driven deep into the ground, and Miri stood bound to it with thick hemp ropes. Her clothes were dirty, her silver-streaked hair tangled across her face, and her body trembled slightly from the morning frost.

Surrounding the yard, hundreds of soldiers stood in absolute, suffocating silence. Their faces were hard, their eyes fixed on the girl with a cold, hungry hostility that made the hairs on the back of Xander’s neck stand up.

Xander stepped forward, standing at the center of the yard just paces from the stake. He looked at Miri, his expression a mask of cold, exhausted calculation.

"Miri," Xander said, his voice carrying clearly over the silent camp. "I thought about it all night. Nothing was adding up."

She lifted her head, her pale face bruised and worn, her blue eyes staring at him without fear.

"Were you a spy?" Xander continued, his eyes narrowing. "Were you sent here to sabotage us? No. I realized the truth. You’re not an operative. You’re just a kid in immense pain, caught in the middle of a slaughterhouse."

A low murmur rippled through the gathered soldiers, but Xander ignored them.

"And then I realized something else," Xander said, his voice dropping lower, his gaze shifting to look at the angry faces of his own men in the crowd. "You wanted me to be wary of you. You wanted me to suspect you were a traitor, so I would focus entirely on you. And in doing so... you forced my men to look at you differently. I don’t know what you did to them. I don’t know what kind of mental fog or psychological trigger you planted in their heads to make them turn on you overnight."

Miri let out a dry, rattling breath that sounded almost like a laugh. She tilted her head up, looking past Xander at the sea of armed men surrounding them.

"Do you know something, Captain?" Miri’s voice was raspy, but it cut through the morning air like a blade. "All of you are hypocrites. You wage grand wars for power, territory, and gold, while people like those in my village—children who never held a sword—pay the price for your endless hunger."

She pulled against the ropes, her raw wrists scraping against the rough hemp.

"I tried to let things go," she whispered, tears finally spilling over her lashes and cutting clean tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. "I wanted to understand your men, to find a reason why any of this matters. But I couldn’t. Every second spent in this camp, breathing your air, made me sick to my stomach. Did I ever ask you to save me from that cellar? Did I ask to be your ’little sister’? The way you looked at me... I felt dirty inside and out. And now you all stand here in your clean armor, acting like judges."

She spat a glob of blood onto the frozen mud near Xander’s boot. "Who are you to judge me?"

Xander let out a slow, heavy breath. He didn’t flinch away from her anger.

"Everyone has a story, Miri," Xander said quietly. "Look at Vane over there. He watched his entire family and district butchered by northern raiders. That’s why he fights. War is a never-ending cycle for survival. Everyone wants to live, but sometimes there can be no peace without a fight."

Xander stepped closer, his voice softening just enough for only her to hear. "They call me the Immortal God of War, but I despise fighting more than anyone here. Miri... you can break this cycle. Just like the men who didn’t let hate consume them, you can choose to live. You can fight for something better."

Miri stared at him. The fierce, burning defiance in her eyes suddenly melted away, replaced by an overwhelming, heartbreaking sorrow. A bitter smile touched her trembling lips.

"It’s too late for me, Xander," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind. "But maybe... if you open your eyes... you can still save your men."

Xander frowned, a sudden, cold knot forming in his chest. "What are you talking about? It’s never too late for anything."

Miri looked deep into his eyes, her expression turning dead serious.

"Tell me, Captain," she asked, her voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. "Do you actually know what the Astral Plain is?"