CHAPTER 565: RETURN OF THE FUGITIVE

Dawn crept reluctantly over the horizon, its pale light brushing across the ruins like a hesitant hand afraid to touch what had been broken beyond repair. The cold hung thick around the shattered manor, and the wind made a low, mournful sound as it slipped through empty windows and collapsed beams—like the ruin itself was whispering to the dead.

Logan pulled his cloak tighter and exhaled a cloud of white breath. His boots were wet with dew. His patience, thin.

"Hey, Netser. We’ve been standing here since dawn. Aren’t you tired of looking?" he asked, irritation laced through his voice. Netser had hauled him out of a warm bed, tearing him from a dream of Thalia’s soft smile—a cruel exchange for the bleakness now before him.

But Netser didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink, didn’t even seem to hear him.

His eyes, usually sharp, alert, stubborn as iron—were fixed on the ruins with a hollow intensity that made Logan’s annoyance dissolve into unease.

Because Netser wasn’t seeing rubble. He was seeing the past played out before him vividly.

The morning light glimmered across the cracked stones, and in Netser’s mind they knit themselves back together, forming tall walls and elegant arches polished to a golden sheen. The burnt skeleton of the manor breathed once more—alive, warm and whole.

He could almost hear the courtyard fountain bubbling. Hear the delighted shrieks of childhood—himself at eight, racing after his two sisters, their braids streaming behind them like banners. He saw their tiny hands grabbing his sleeves, their laughter echoing off sunlit walls. His mother leaning over the balcony rail, scolding them for running too fast, though her smile always gave her away.

And evenings when returning from a long journey at his father’s side, tired but proud, welcomed by the smell of roasted herbs and bread fresh from the oven. The family gathered at the long table, candlelight flickering over beaming faces, stories traded like treasures.

Those memories pulsed with warmth.

Which made the next memory hurt all the more.

Netser’s breath hitched. The sunlight dimmed, replaced by the orange glare of flames devouring the drapes. The happy din of family became the crash of splintering doors. Steel shouting against steel. The frantic scurry of servants whose names he could no longer remember but whose terror he would never forget.

Smoke rushed through the corridors where he’d once played chase. Hot air burned his lungs again, though the morning breeze here was icy.

Through the thick haze of recollection, he saw her—his mother—pale and breathless, clutching his youngest sister to her chest as she screamed for him to run. Soldiers broke through behind her, shadows with blades gleaming red from reflected firelight.

Porcelain shattered somewhere—he remembered the sound with painful clarity. His mother’s delicate figurines, cracking one after another, falling like tiny bodies to the floor. An oil lamp overturned, coughing flames that crawled up the curtains and licked at the ceiling.

And above it all, the screams begging for mercy. His sisters’ cries had never stopped ringing in his dreams.

Netser’s fists clenched so tightly his nails drew blood from his palms. His shoulders trembled. Tears, silent at first, welled and fell—salt streaks trailing down a face carved by years of trying to forget.

"I wasn’t there to protect you." The whisper escaped him like a broken prayer, hoarse and jagged.

Logan startled, turning sharply toward him.

"I wasn’t there to die with you," Netser continued, each word a struggle through the tightening in his throat. "I let myself be dragged away... while you burned. While you—" His voice collapsed, swallowed by a sob. "Forgive me... Father... Mother... Sisters..."

He bowed his head, shoulders shaking, grief spilling out of him at last—after years of holding it hostage.

Logan had no words. None that would matter. None that would ever be enough.

Instead, he reached out, hesitated, then rested a hand on Netser’s shoulder. The gesture felt painfully small, as though he were trying to comfort a collapsing mountain.

"I’m sorry," he murmured—softly, sincerely, uselessly. He thought of how blessed he had been. He was abandoned by his best friend and his brothers-in-arms in Mount Marnubes. That was his darkest hour, but he was lucky because he had found Lara Norse—a beacon in his chaos—and because of her, he had found Thalia, the love who completed the broken places inside him. He had been granted miracles.

Netser had found nothing but ashes—ashes, and the unbearable agony that came with being the sole survivor of a massacre. He carried the weight of an invisible burden that bent his spirit far more than any wound of war ever had, the kind of pain that carved itself into a person’s bones.

What words could possibly reach such a deep wound? None that Logan knew.

So he stood quietly, shoulder to shoulder with the man who had once fought beside him on the blood-soaked shores of Estalis, blades drawn against the pirate hordes. The man who had held the line when others faltered, who had hauled Logan back to his feet more times than he could count when they saved Lara from Zura’s grasp.

They stood there together as the sun slowly climbed, light spreading across the wreckage like an apology the world had waited too long to give. Dust glittered in the golden glow, rising from the ruin like the departed refusing to rest.

At last, Netser drew in a slow, hollow breath. The tears had dried, but a deep emptiness remained in his eyes—a quiet, enduring ache no time could mend.

"Let’s return to the inn," he said, voice steady but stripped bare. "We still need to escort the envoys to enter the palace this morning."

He turned toward his horse, the weight of memory dragging behind him step by step.

Logan watched him go, a knot tightening in his chest. He had fought beside Netser against the pirates that had threatened Estalis. They had bled together when they saved Lara from Zura’s grasp. Logan had come to think of him as an older brother—unyielding, unbreakable.

But here, in front of what once was home, Logan saw the truth.

Some wounds don’t scar. Some stay open.

And standing before these ruins had not just reopened Netser’s.

It had forced him to walk back through the fire.