Chapter 183

Alaria

The snow fell quietly that morning, soft, white, and endless.

It covered everything: the charred soil, the broken weapons, the blood. By sunrise, the battlefield was gone, buried under a blanket of silence that almost felt merciful.

We buried Darius at the edge of the valley, where the pines grew thick, and the mountains cast long shadows across the frozen earth.

Bianca stood a few paces away, her arm wrapped protectively around Riley, who clung to her side in quiet confusion. The child didn’t cry; she only stared at the simple wooden marker standing over the grave, her small hand twisting the hem of her coat.

There were no prayers. No words that could make sense of what he’d done or what we’d lost.

Just the wind.

And the memory of a man who had once wanted to change the world before the world changed him.

Bianca stepped forward first, her movements slow, deliberate. She placed a single pine branch on the mound of snow th