CHAPTER 139: CHAPTER 139: I WILL BE FREE...

The corridor was cold that night.

Not the ordinary chill of stone and air, but a creeping, deliberate kind of cold — one that crawled beneath armor, sank into marrow, and whispered the same truth to every man that dared walk it: something was about to break.

The Blood Commander’s boots struck the ground like war drums.

Each step was a hammer blow echoing down the narrow hall, iron ringing against the weight of his own fury.

His gauntleted hand clutched a letter, crumpled and damp from the sweat of his palm. The wax seal was broken, but the words still burned like acid in his mind.

The Earl’s signature.

The words of temporary release.

The beginning of collapse, his collapse.

"Two days," the Earl had said earlier, his voice shaking not from age, but from fear. "Two days before the hearing. We’ll let the council decide."

Council. He almost spat the word now.

He didn’t need a council — he needed obedience. He needed silence.

Aiden had been in the cells for barely forty-eight hours, and already his name was on every tongue.

The guards whispered it when they thought their captain couldn’t hear.

The kitchen maids giggled it behind their aprons.

The knights — his knights — muttered about justice and honor and how the "white-haired bastard" didn’t deserve chains.

He’d seen it before.

Rebellions began not with swords, but with stories.

And Aiden was writing one — a dangerous one — line by line, whisper by whisper.

The Blood Commander’s jaw tightened. "Not again," he muttered, his voice low, like a growl trapped behind his teeth. "Not this time."

The torches that lined the corridor spat and hissed as he passed, their flames warping against the draft that followed him. The light carved his red armor into jagged planes of shadow and scarlet. His men — six of them, all chosen for loyalty and silence — followed at his heels, their paces rigid and unbroken.

They said nothing. They didn’t need to.

They could feel the storm in him.

He stopped once — outside a window slit that overlooked the garrison courtyard.

The moonlight painted the stones below in silver, and there, in the torchlight, he saw it: soldiers standing in small circles, whispering. The guards who should have been watching the gates leaned close to each other instead, heads bowed as if in prayer.

His hands clenched.

This wasn’t prayer. This was infection.

Aiden’s infection.

He tore his gaze away, his reflection flashing briefly in the glass — the scar that ran from his brow to his cheek like a brand of shame, his eyes the dull crimson of rusted steel. He had been called many things in his life: butcher, zealot, dog of the crown. He didn’t care. But to be forgotten, to be undermined by some silver-tongued mongrel from nowhere — that, he would not allow.

He turned to his men.

"Ready yourselves," he ordered, voice gravel-thick. "No hesitation. No witnesses. If the Earl caves, then we act before the ink dries. The knight dies tonight."

The men nodded. No questions. No mercy.

And with that, they marched — down the last corridor, through the stone arch that led toward the undercells.

The dungeon greeted them with its usual stench — rust, damp, and despair. But beneath it lingered something else now. Something sharp and metallic that made the Commander’s skin crawl.

Blood.

He couldn’t place it. Not death — not the tang of slaughter — but something older, deeper. Like incense burned on forbidden altars.

He dismissed it as paranoia.

The cell block was quiet. Too quiet.

The guards stationed outside Aiden’s cell stood at attention, but their eyes flicked up as the Commander approached. That alone was enough to set his teeth on edge. They should have been stone, unblinking. Instead, he saw unease — worse, doubt.

"Report," he barked.

The first guard straightened, helmet gleaming under the torchlight. "Sir— prisoner’s been quiet. No resistance. No disturbances."

"Quiet?" the Commander repeated. "He doesn’t look like a man who’d stay quiet."

The guard hesitated. "Sir... he’s just been sitting there. Smiling."

The Commander’s teeth ground together. "Smiling?"

"Yes, sir."

For a long moment, the Commander said nothing. His hand flexed around the haft of his weapon — a great crimson halberd, edge etched with sigils of blood-oath and conquest. Then, without warning, he slammed the base of it into the ground.

The clang was thunderous.

The guards flinched.

"Open it," he commanded.

The younger of the two guards blinked. "S-sir?"

"Open the damned door," he snarled. "You think a smile saves him? I’ll carve it off myself."

The keys rattled. The hinges screamed.

And then the door opened.

Aiden sat inside, cross-legged on the floor, a book in his lap — one of the old ledgers from the garrison archives, its pages yellowed and fragile. He looked up slowly, as if he had expected them all along.

"Well," he said, voice calm, smooth. "I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me."

The Commander’s vision tunneled. The sight of that expression — that smile — scraped at something primal in him. That infuriating calm, the quiet confidence of someone who already knew how the story ended.

"You think this is a game?" the Commander growled, stepping inside. "You spread rot with your words, poison my men, and you sit here reading like some scholar?"

Aiden closed the book gently. "Better than sitting here seething, don’t you think?"

The Commander’s hand lashed out before thought caught it. The back of his gauntlet cracked across Aiden’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground.

The sound echoed through the cell.

Even the guards outside shifted, uneasy.

Aiden didn’t strike back. Didn’t even look angry. He lay there a moment, then touched his lip, smearing a line of blood across his thumb. When he looked up again, his smile had only grown.

"Careful," he murmured. "You might enjoy it."

The Commander’s pulse roared. "What did you say?"

"You heard me." Aiden stood, slow and unhurried, brushing the dust from his armor. "I said you might enjoy it. Anger suits you, Commander. It makes you... honest."

He stepped closer, and for the first time, the Commander hesitated.

It was slight — barely a breath’s worth — but it was there.

Because something was off.

The air around Aiden shimmered faintly, a distortion like heat on desert sand. It wasn’t magic — not the kind that could be traced or broken — but it was power all the same. A pulse of charisma, of will, that pressed against the skin like invisible fingers.

The guards outside shifted again. One rubbed the back of his neck. Another blinked, frowning as if trying to remember what exactly they were doing there.

"Stop that," the Commander snapped.

Aiden tilted his head. "Stop what?"

"You—" He broke off, realizing he couldn’t put it into words. Couldn’t name the thing he was feeling. The creeping warmth beneath his armor. The faint edge of uncertainty.

He gripped his halberd tighter. "You think your tricks work on me? You think your filthy commoner blood scares me?"

Aiden’s eyes glinted in the low torchlight. "No," he said softly. "I think it tempts you. Falters you."

The halberd’s blade was at his throat in an instant.

"Enough," the Commander hissed. "You’re done. You’ve infected this place long enough. The Earl—"

"The Earl is cracking," Aiden interrupted.

The words landed like daggers.

He continued, voice quiet, deliberate. "He’s pacing his chamber as we speak, wondering how every conversation has turned into mine. Wondering why his men hesitate to follow his orders. Wondering how you, his loyal dog, have started to bark a little too loud."

The Commander froze.

How could he know that?

Aiden leaned in. "Do you want to know why, Commander?" he whispered. "Because rot spreads from the inside. And you— you’re part of the rot."

The Commander’s gauntlet slammed into his chest, shoving him back against the wall. "You shut your mouth, you filth—"

"No," Aiden said, calm again, almost gentle. "You came here to shut me up. But you can’t. You can kill me, yes. But by tomorrow, they’ll call me innocent. By next week, they’ll call me a saint. And by next month, they’ll call you a tyrant."

He smiled — slow, easy, maddening. "So go ahead. Finish it."

The Commander’s grip faltered.

For a heartbeat, for a single, cursed instant, he saw it — his men turning their backs, the Earl condemning him to preserve face, his legacy reduced to whispers of brutality.

He saw it.

And he couldn’t breathe.

"Sir?" one of the guards called softly from the doorway.

The Commander blinked, jaw locking. He tore his hand from Aiden’s armor and stepped back. "You think you’re clever," he spat. "But you’re nothing. When the council arrives, they’ll see you for what you are. I’ll make sure of it."

Aiden tilted his head. "Maybe," he said. "But until then... enjoy your walk back. You might find fewer eyes willing to meet yours."

The Commander turned sharply, motioning for his men. "We’re done here."

But as he stepped into the corridor, the whispers followed him.

They came from nowhere and everywhere — the guards, the stones, the shadows.

"...did you hear? The knight might be innocent..."

"...the Commander’s gone too far..."

"...Aiden..."

"Aiden..."

"Aiden"