Chapter 6 #2
The bazaar was a riot of elbows and barter—cloth stalls snapping in the wind, the smell of roasting meat, vendors hawking their wares like they could drown out grief with noise.
A gust ripped through the stalls, flinging colors like torn flags and tugging at my hair with clawing fingers.
My ghosts tightened their grip; their whispers became a howl beneath my ribs.
“Pull it tighter, damn it!” a man bellowed. His boy flinched, hands trembling as if he might shatter. Disposable. I’d once been that boy.
My father’s voice came back to me, bright and cold—Hold the little bastard still. The memory slammed into me so hard my hands clenched.
Two boys sparred at the market edge with wooden blades, laughing like nothing had ripped the world open. They had each other. I had a graveyard of brothers and a name that tasted like ash.
I pushed through the crowd, past the stink and the coin-clink, until the market’s clamor fell away and the noble quarter opened before me—wide streets, clean flagstones, a colder air that felt meant to keep men like me out. Each step toward my father’s house felt like a sentence read aloud.
The last turn always choked me. Beyond it lay a world that had never wanted me—halls that had spat me out and labeled me a mistake.
The estate loomed, a block of stone and shuttered windows. Lions carved in basalt flanked the gate, mouths hard with contempt as if even inanimate things knew I did not belong. The sand at the entrance was tramped flat by other men’s comings and goings; their footprints made a map I hadn’t earned.
My shame rose like bile, and the dead circled close, voices thin and accusing—You led us to slaughter. You wore glory like a mask while our blood fed the sand. You killed us.
I sat the horse a moment at the gate, the animal’s breath steaming in the chill. My legs ached from the ride; my hands still shook. I eased down, sandals whispering on stone. The sound was small and ridiculous—the only honest thing I owned.
I crossed the threshold.
He was waiting in the center of the foyer—tall, rigid, draped in a robe the color of dried blood. Lord Lorian. My father. His fists were clenched, the veins in his forearms rising like cords, his eyes honed to strike.
“You fucking son of a bitch,” he hissed. “You got demoted. Demoted. After everything I’ve done for you. You pathetic fucking waste.”
His words struck harder than any sword on the battlefield.
I froze. Every muscle locked. My body was a bowstring ready to snap.
“You reckless piece of shit,” he snarled, stepping closer. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The name of House Lorian lies in ruin because of you. You’ve shamed every soldier who ever bled for this kingdom.”
“Father, just listen to me—”
“Oh, I’m listening. I’m listening to the same fucking excuses I’ve heard since you could talk. You lost ten thousand men, and now you want sympathy? You want redemption?”
He advanced, breath heaving, fury crackling around him like a storm brewing over the sea.
“Julian died a hero. And you?” His lip curled. “You’re just a fucking disappointment wrapped in pretty lies.”
I tried to keep my voice steady, but it pulsed with fury. “We won the war. We were victorious.”
“A victory built on a mountain of corpses you led to their deaths.”
He jabbed a finger into my chest—hard enough to bruise.
“No matter how many times I beat you, shaped you, bled you,” he spat, “I knew. Deep down, I knew. This day would come. That you’d fucking break.”
He leaned in, his voice a blade pressed to my throat.
“You’ve done it, Salvatore. You’ve completed your fucking failure.”
For a second, I thought he would strike me. Gods, I almost wanted him to. A blow would have been easier. Simpler.
But instead, he only stared, his gaze colder than iron, as if he were looking at filth scraped from his sandal and couldn’t believe it had dared speak his name.
“You’re a worthless motherfucker,” he said at last, his voice steady, every word striking bone. “I strip you of your title. Of my name. Of everything that ever made you more than the dirt beneath my feet.”
He circled me like a vulture, eyes glinting with disgust. “You are no lord. No son. No heir. I revoke your lands, your gold, your bloodline. You’ll have no home, no power, no roof to crawl beneath when the cold comes. You’ll eat with the rats you’ve become.”
He paused before me, his gaze cold. “You always envied that peasant boy you call a friend,” he said, a bitter smile twisting his mouth. “Now you are his equal—poor, nameless, and crawling in the dirt. You’re finally worthy of his friendship.”
His voice dropped to a hiss, quiet and cruel. “You have nothing now, Salvatore. No coin. No command. No legacy. Only shame that bears my name.”
The brazier spat and threw his face into relief—every line a canyon, every canyon a verdict. My throat burned. My hands ached from holding myself rigid. Rage and shame knotted until breathing was a fight.
“I’m your son,” I whispered. The words shredded me. “Your only surviving son.”
His lip curled like I’d spat in his face.
“I buried both my sons in battle,” he said, flat and final, as if closing a book.
“Father—”
“Get the fuck out of my sight,” he said, voice rising, and trembling with fury, not grief. “Before I kill you myself.”
“Please.” My voice scraped the air. “Just listen. I—”
“Ten thousand souls!” he bellowed, arm cutting the air like a blade. “Ten thousand men marched under you. You led them to the slaughter like a child chasing sparks. You fed them to the enemy. You burned their names with your vanity.”
“I can explain—”
“You will explain nothing!” His roar rattled the plastered walls. “You want forgiveness? You want understanding? Julian died a hero. You are a curse in my bloodline. A mistake I failed to strangle in the cradle.”
Something inside me broke then—not a cry, not a sound it could name, only a fissure that would widen for the rest of my life. I did not fall to my knees. I did not beg. I felt the world sharpen and split.
He pointed—the gesture small and final—toward the door. My punishment was spoken without words—exile to the dust, disgrace in every whisper of my name, and the silence of a house that would never again claim me.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
My voice stuck. “I fought. I killed. I slayed, Father—”
He did not wait. His sandaled foot slammed into my ribs; the air was punched from me.
I folded like old parchment under pressure.
Another strike—my face—another to my side, my belly.
I clawed at the floor, hands scraping grit, crawling toward the threshold like a wounded animal. Every movement burned.
“How about you go to Helena now?” he spat, voice full of bile. “Cry to your dead brother’s widow—maybe fuck her again for comfort.”
I shoved myself to my feet, breath catching painfully. My knees nearly gave out beneath the weight of it. He knew about my affair with Helena.
“You thought you could hide your filthy secret,” he spat, each syllable a stone. “You thought fucking your dead brother’s widow would go unseen. I have men in every courtyard and ear in every room. Servants talk when the coin clinks. Your little fucks don’t stay a secret.”
His hand struck the pillar beside him, the sound echoing through the hall like a blow.
“You fucked your brother’s wife like an animal,” he snarled. “And then you come into my hall and call yourself my son?”
His words were red-hot blades, cutting through the ragged stitches of pride I’d been clutching.
“Father—” I began, but the word died under his fury.
He seized my hair with one hand—and hauled my head back. My cheek met the wall with a sick crack. Stars burst behind my eyes. He shoved again, harder, and my shoulder struck the stone.
“You were swiving your dead brother’s widow while he bled for this city!” he thundered, voice breaking the rafters. “You desecrated his name. His memory. With your filth.”
My knees went weak. The floor tilted. Breath came shallow and sharp, shame and fury slugging at my throat.
“You were always the weak one,” he spat. “Julian fought like a lion. You… you slither. You crawl between legs when men need honor.”
“I love her,” I choked out, the words ragged and useless.
“Love?” His voice caught—just for a heartbeat—before it hardened again. “You dare speak of love to me?” He took a step forward, his eyes burning with something older than rage. “Your mother was love. She was light itself. And the gods took her the moment they gave me you.”
His breath hitched, though his tone stayed cold. “Every day since, I’ve carried her death like a chain around my neck. Every time I see your face, I see what she lost—what you cost me. Her laughter. Her warmth. Her life.”
His jaw tightened until his voice dropped. “What you and Helena had was not love. Don’t you dare call it that. She pitied you—let you crawl into her bed like a stray seeking warmth. You mistook mercy for love, the same way I mistook your life for a blessing.”
He turned away then, shoulders stiff, breath shallow, forcing control back into himself. “I loved your mother more than the gods themselves,” he said quietly, each word heavy with grief. “And every time I look at you, I remember what love cost me.”
It felt like a hand inside my chest, tearing from within. The air left me in one long, hollow breath, and I stood there crushed by grief that had outlived her.
“You were born to disgrace me,” he said, voice low and coiled. “All I beat into you, all I bled into you—You pissed on it.”
“I’m still your son,” I whispered. The sentence was as fragile as parchment.
“No,” he denied. “I buried both my sons in battle. One with honor. The other with shame.”
He watched me as he spoke the last words, as if carving them into stone. “And now I bury your name.”
He leaned close, his whisper a promise of ruin.
“If I ever see you again,” he hissed, “I will inflict my fury into your flesh. The gods may have spared you on the battlefield—I will not.”