Chapter 85: The Truth of Fear, and a Bowl of Hot Soup

Snow began falling heavily over Broken Wind Ravine, laying a white sheet across the pools of black blood and scattered beast carcasses covering the battlefield.

Outside the valley, hundreds of campfires were set up along the tree line. The hundred thousand soldiers of the 4th Legion sat huddled around the flickering flames, the crackle of pine logs mixing with the rich smell of steaming lamb soup.

In a hidden corner of a field medical tent, Lucian sat cross-legged on an empty wooden crate, a dagger in hand, whittling a piece of graphite, quietly recording the salvaged armor-hide count into a small notebook to avoid being tracked down and pestered by the officers outside.

Rustle...

A choked, groaning sound came from the canvas cot pressed against the tent wall.

Lucian looked up.

On the worn canvas cot sat a young soldier — barely eighteen or nineteen — huddled in on himself. His right arm had been bitten clean off at the shoulder by a beast, the white bandage just wrapped around it already soaked bright red. His whole body shook violently with shock, his lips drained of all color.

A medic was trying to pry his remaining left hand open to administer a painkiller, but the soldier refused to let go no matter what.

His one mud-caked hand clutched something tight against his chest: a copy of The Elegy of the Nameless Knight, Volume 1, its spine falling apart, the parchment edges soaked in dried blood and curled up like a torn rag.

Lucian closed his notebook, tucked it into his coat, and stood up, walking over to the cot.

He looked at the tattered book pressed against the soldier's chest, his mouth starting to move, ready to fire off his usual practical grumble: "Put that pile of garbage away, reading it'll wreck your eyes—"

The young soldier suddenly looked up.

The words caught in Lucian's throat.

The soldier's face was caked in mud and soot. His hollow, bloodshot eyes looked like someone who'd just crawled out of hell — but clear tears streamed down through the grime on his cheeks.

Seeing Lucian's familiar ash-grey traveling cloak, the soldier trembled and reached his one bloodied hand forward, not daring to actually touch the fabric. He choked out the words in broken sobs.

"My lord... my little brother... he died by the riverbank this morning..."

The soldier hugged the blood-stained book tighter to his chest, shoulders shaking.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"He was only fifteen... poisoned by one of the beasts, his whole body turned ice cold... but before he closed his eyes, he grabbed my hand and asked me to read him the ending of this book... he said once he heard the story of that knight, he wouldn't be afraid of the dark anymore..."

He raised his tear-filled eyes to look straight at Lucian, voice a fading whisper.

"Thank you, my lord... thank you for writing it..."

Lucian stood frozen where he was.

Cold wind slipped through a gap in the tent, making the magical candle on the table flicker.

He stared at the torn, blood-soaked book that belonged to two brothers.

That was the book he'd scribbled out in early childhood, at night, just to grind vocabulary points for the System. It was full of hollow lines and cheap plot beats that had once made him want to bury himself in embarrassment every time someone brought it up.

He'd written it out of greed for experience points and his own laziness.

But now, in the middle of a snow-covered graveyard from a brutal war, that garbage book had become the only lifeline keeping an eighteen-year-old soldier's last thread of humanity intact — the final lullaby that let a fifteen-year-old boy pass away without screaming in terror.

For the first time across two lifetimes, every calculation of profit, every ledger, every practical joke running through Lucian's head vanished completely, without a trace.

He didn't draw his dagger. He didn't calculate a cost.

Lucian walked quietly over to the wooden table, picked up a plain wooden bowl, and ladled it full of hot lamb soup, thick with meat and steaming broth.

He carried the bowl back, slowly crouched down beside the cot, and set the warm bowl into the soldier's one remaining hand.

Lucian brushed a blood-matted strand of hair off the soldier's forehead and spoke in a steady, unhurried voice.

"Eat."

The soldier trembled as he cradled the hot bowl, warmth from the wood seeping into his numb, frozen fingers.

Lucian looked straight into his reddened eyes and continued.

"Finish this whole bowl. Hold onto your life so you can go home and take care of your mother. The ending of that book... was written for the living to read. Not for the dead to carry with them."

The young soldier looked at the warm steam rising off the lamb soup, then at the ten-year-old's calm, steady face in front of him.

He bowed his head, shoulders shaking in waves, crying as he brought spoonful after spoonful of hot soup to his mouth with trembling hands. Tears fell straight into the rich broth.

Outside the tent flap, the rough canvas curtain shifted slightly.

Eleanor stood leaning against a wooden post outside, hands hanging at her sides over her steel armor.

She'd been standing there the whole time, watching the entire scene unfold through the gap in the curtain. She'd seen Lucian crouched on the cold ground, seen his deep, dark eyes settle into an absolute, silent stillness — none of a victor's arrogance, none of a merchant's calculation.

Eleanor reached out and drew the tent flap closed to block the wind, then tilted her head up to look at the night sky, a soft, gentle smile touching the corner of her mouth.

Rustle.

Lucian stepped out of the medical tent.

The winter night wind carried the season's first snowflakes straight into his face — bitterly cold, but strangely clean.

Across Broken Wind Ravine, tens of thousands of soldiers in black cloaks sat around their campfires, sharing scraps of rations and bowls of hot soup, laughter slowly replacing the groans of pain.

Lucian stood watching the flickering fires against the white snow, letting out a long, faint breath of mist into the air.

He tucked both hands into his coat pockets and murmured quietly into the still night.

"Alright..."

The corner of his mouth curled slightly upward.

"Guess I'd better actually put some effort into Volume 3."