Alex slowly opened his eyes to a grey stone ceiling. His body felt numb, and the pain in his chest had vanished. The old man slowly scanned his surroundings and rose from the bed. He was in a closed room with no lighting from the outside. A few simple decorations were in the room: a round table with two chairs to the side of his bed and a closed door on the far wall from him.

  “I’m back at the keep,” Alex muttered, stretching his arms in the air with a tired groan. “I guess that idiot managed to do something after all.”

  “Idiot? Who the hell are you calling an idiot?” Tucker kicked the door open, holding a basket full of fruits in his hands. “Is that how you refer to your lord and savior? Tucker the almighty?”

  “Maybe if I was trapped in hell, I would refer to you as that. But as of now, not a chance. Seeing as how you're still a watchman, I take it you haven't been punished yet?”

  "Oh, I lost eight months of pay and got a bunch of demerit points. Needless to say, my freedom of choice has been heavily restricted as well. But all things considered, it's a slap on the wrist, and I still have enough money to buy fruits, which is nice." Tucker walked into the room and set the fruit basket on the table. The next moment, he reached for an apple and held it in his hand before taking a bite.

  “Wait, those weren’t for me?” Alex asked.

  “No? I didn’t even know you were awake when I went to get them,” Tucker replied, crumbs flying out of his mouth.

  “You...”

  “Relax, I’m just joking.” Tucker chuckled. “You’ve been asleep for a few days, so I just started bringing this in case you randomly woke up.”

  Alex raised a brow. “A few days? How many is a few?”

  “About four, you didn’t miss much. Just the Administrators scrambling while talking to the nobles.” Tucker took another bite of the fruit, the loud crunch shifting the mood in the room.

  “…Scrambling?” Alex grabbed onto the edge of his blanket and pulled it off, but before he could get out of bed, Tucker took an apple from the basket and tossed it towards him. The old man caught it and gazed at the rookie.

  “Take it easy. There’s no need to rush. We’ve got some time before the assembly, and besides…” Tucker’s voice carried a hint of sorrow, and the dark circles under his eyes showed the exhaustion he had been experiencing over the last few days. “You owe me some answers.”

  Alex exhaled a deep, tired sigh. He recalled their discussion with Hemlock and knew there was no point in hiding the truth. Tucker was a member of the Order—he deserved to know. “What would you like to know?”

  Tucker felt his hands tremble as he placed the apple on the table. The soft yet distinct sound filled the room with a hollow thud. “If… if I learned the truth behind our actions and what we’ve done—about what we did in the past… would it change how I see the Order?”

  “I would be lying if I said it didn’t.”

  “Did…” Tucker hesitated for a moment, his heart sank. “Did it change how you saw the Order?”

  Alex chuckled bitterly. “No, it didn’t change how I saw the Order. Not after what I’ve been through. Times were different back then. All I felt was resentment and regret. Hell, even a sense of emptiness after our victory.”

  “A sense of emptiness?”

  “Yeah, looking back, maybe it was because I was still rough around the edges. After all, I was a rookie, just like you back then.”

  Tucker pulled his hood down and brushed his brown hair to the side. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, his lungs shaking as the air left his body. “We didn’t stop at their supply lines in the last war, did we?”

  Alex leaned against the old wooden headboard with a conflicted expression. He paused for a moment and closed his eyes before finally answering, “I’m afraid not. We did more than just burn down their supply lines. We destroyed all of their villages near the front lines and moved further towards their capital. Burning and killing whatever was deemed a threat.”

  Tucker felt like someone had shattered his heart into a million pieces. He fought back the urge to argue and yell at Alex for saying such a thing but knew that he couldn’t—not to someone who lived through that part of history.

  “It was a policy devised by the Head Administrator. A controversial but effective tactic that changed the very outcome of the war,” Alex quietly said, each word weighing heavily upon his shoulders. “Some would say that what we did was unnecessary and cowardly. But most scholars agreed we would have lost otherwise.”

  “But there had to be some kind of line, right?”

  Tucker’s eyes lingered on the old man but soon dropped his head while clenching onto the fabric of his green pants. His nails dug into the palms of his hand, drawing tiny droplets of blood. He closed his eyes. The veteran’s silence was enough of an answer, and with it, Tucker could feel his body grow numb.

  They didn’t spare anyone.

  After a moment of silence, Tucker asked, “Couldn’t we have spared the children? Did we really have to kill them too?”

  “They died by proxy,” Alex replied softly. “It wasn’t intended, but they were an unavoidable causality. If the events had unfolded as expected, then perhaps the outcome would have been changed, but it didn’t.”

  “Shit…” Tucker muttered under his breath.

  Alex’s voice grew faint, his words heavy with regret. “Believe me when I say this. If I could, I would’ve tried to do something different. We just didn’t know how great of an impact our actions would have down the line. We didn’t know that this would lead to the events of the famine in the Avalon Empire.”

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  “All those stories, all those deeds,” Tucker said, his voice trembling. “Were those tales of how the watchmen infiltrated deep behind enemy lines, destroying supply lines, killing generals—were they lies? Just propaganda to cover up the raids on the villages?”

  “No,” Alex said, shaking his head. “That much is true. We just left out the grimmer details of it all.”

  Tucker bitterly shook his head and fidgeted with the apple, spinning it in place. “Is that why you told me not to bury myself in my books? Because we left out what was deemed as unnecessary details?”

  “Correct, whether it’s our history or the Empires. Both sides paint a different narrative of each other.” Alex threw the apple back at Tucker. “We didn’t intend to create a famine, but it happened as a consequence of our actions, of what we’ve done.”

  “But surely, after the war, we did something to help them, right?”

  “Don’t be na?ve, Tucker. They started the war by invading our lands and slaughtering our people. Would you try to help those who murdered your family?” Alex asked.

  “That’s…”

  “Don’t think with just your emotions,” Alex cut him off. “Look around you, if the previous watchmen didn’t do what they did back then. Our kingdom wouldn’t exist. It would just be another record within the Empire as one of their conquered territories. We didn’t do what was right—we did what was necessary.”

  “By killing children!” Tucker shouted, his voice cracking.

  “By crippling their economy!” Alex snapped back. “They were on a warpath to conquer the surrounding nations.”

  Tucker clenched his fists and struck the table, wanting to deny what Alex had said. Blocking out the image the old man’s words had painted. He wanted to scream and deny it, but on what grounds? They were supposed to be heroes—saviors of the Kingdom who turned the tide of battle. People who sacrificed themselves for the greater good, yet the truth left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  “I take no pride in what we did during the war,” Alex said, his voice heavy with sorrow and regret. “But after seeing the result, I knew the administrators were right in their decision.”

  “How can you say that when you’ve seen what happened to their people after the war?” Tucker whispered. “It wasn’t just soldiers and knights that died, but citizens who had nothing to do with the conflict!”

  “If that’s what it takes so that our people can live to see another day, then so be it,” Alex firmly said. “You weren’t there when the Empire invaded. You don’t know the choices and decisions we’ve had to make so that we would survive. Each hard-fought victory. Each coffin we buried. Back then, everyone in the Order knew. We knew what we were doing, and we knew it was wrong, but that didn’t mean we could do nothing but watch! Losing the war meant our people would have been reduced to mere slaves or sent to the gallows.”

  Tucker bit his lips and kept his head down. It was a concept that used to be practiced widely in the past by the empire but had been outlawed before he was born. He couldn’t argue back because he was fully aware of their treatment. But still, it didn’t make the truth any easier to accept.

  “I… I just can’t believe it,” Tucker said.

  “I know… it’s a difficult subject to stomach,” Alex replied.

  No matter how much Tucker tried, he couldn’t believe it. He wanted Alex to say it was all a lie, a joke but knew that the veteran wasn’t the type to make such comments. In the end, he asked in a voice that seemed to fade into the distance. “What happened to the Administrators who gave the order? Back then, the Chivalious King was leading the Kingdom, so when he found out about it, something must have happened, right?”

  Alex gave a slow nod. “The King would have never approved of it. That’s why the administrators acted without his consent.”

  “What? But that’s treason!” Tucker exclaimed.

  “They knew what they were getting themselves into and accepted all responsibility for their decision.”

  “Then what happened to the old administrators?” Tucker asked in disbelief. “The King wouldn’t have let them walk away unscathed. Did they get exiled to some foreign country? To live the remainder of their days in peace despite what they’ve done?”

  Alex grew quiet as his tone shifted. “They were executed, all five of them along with their families.”

  The air seemed to thicken as Tucker heard this. He leaned back in his chair with a pained expression, and every breath felt harder to take.

  “They requested for the highest possible punishment to be carried out as an example for the rest of the officials to see. To demonstrate the fate that awaited those who defied the King’s orders.” Alex held onto the wound on his chest that had fully healed and gazed at the ceiling. “You’re right. The King wanted to banish them, but that’s not what the administrators wanted.”

  Tucker sat there in silence. His fists tightened at his sides, with his nails digging into the palms of his hands.

  “Maybe it was because they didn’t want the nobles to drag us common folks into a battle of politics or some other blasted reason. But because of their actions, not a single watchman received blame for carrying out their duty, and the Administrators shouldered all the responsibility.”

  “I don’t get it… if that’s the case, why were the Watchmen viewed as heroes? The King and the other nobles who knew of this could have covered this story, hid it from everyone.”

  “Because only a selected few of nobility knew the truth and most importantly… because it won us the war.”

  “Wouldn’t the Empire try to use this against us?”

  “They did, but it didn’t matter since they didn’t keep their slate clean either. Their hands were just as red as ours.”

  Tucker looked down at the apple in his hand, spinning it idly with a tired look in his eyes. “Then what happened to the rest of the watchmen?”

  “After the execution, only twelve of us remained out of the original eight hundred members that joined the war. Some retired, others went on with their lives, but a handful of us stayed in the Order to lead the future generations—to make sure we wouldn’t make the same mistakes as before.”

  “So we didn’t kidnap women and children then?”

  Alex scoffed and shook his head. “It would have been impossible for the remaining members to kidnap anyone, given the circumstances.”

  “What do you mean?” Tucker asked.

  Alex’s expression darkened. “The four members that left the order… took their lives shortly after the war. They couldn’t live with the guilt of surviving the war, and the ones that retired were crippled or far too old to move normally. Even those who stayed in the Order couldn’t move freely because the Royal Guards and the nobles were always waiting for them to make a mistake.” He rose from the bed, his wrinkles looking years older than when Tucker first met him. “Now, does that answer your questions?”

  Tucker closed his mouth and nodded, stopping himself from speaking the moment he saw the pain etched on Alex’s face. He could tell from one glance that the past events still hurt him. That his heart had suffered a wound that never recovered.

  Everything made sense now. The reason Alex was so careful with each mission and why he meticulously planned each operation. He wasn’t just a veteran but a man haunted by his past. One of the few remaining members who carried the burden of truth on their shoulders.

  “It’s quite a bit to think about, and I’m sorry to burden you with this, but right now, we don’t have the luxury of discussing the past.” Alex walked towards Tucker and patted his shoulders. “We’re in a state of war, and now we must prepare ourselves for what lies ahead.”

  “Wait, but you aren’t in a state to—”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Alex cut Tucker off and grabbed his equipment at the end of the door. “In times of war, every watchman that can move has a duty to fulfill.”

  Tucker watched in silence as Alex slung his gear over his shoulders. The old man gestured for him to leave the room, and the rookie couldn’t help but sigh.

  “Help yourself to the fruits,” Tucker said, walking to the old wooden door and opening it. He shut the door behind him and shook his head, thinking about what Alex had said before driving his fist into the surface of the rigid stone walls.

  A disheartening pain swelled in his chest, even though so much was on his mind. He didn’t know what to do. His dreams were built on lies, and maybe…just maybe… being a watchman wasn’t suited for him after all.

  It's dark in here... and maybe... just maybe I'll be able to forge another chapter.

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