Chapter 52: Death comes to everyone.

The road seemed endless. The cold seeped into the corners of the carriage, and the rhythmic sound of the horses’ hooves gave a false sense of security. But all false security, sooner or later, is shattered.

The sun was beginning to rise over a dim horizon, tinting the sky a sickly gray. Mist crept low to the ground, covering the road with white veils that swallowed the vision. The carriage’s rocking motion faltered for a moment. A harsh, creaking sound echoed beneath the wheels.

“Damn it…” Garrick growled, tugging on the reins. “This wheel won’t last much longer.”

The carriage slowed to a stop with a sharp screech.

Damon opened his eyes immediately, straightening in his seat. His instincts flared, but the insolent smile didn’t appear this time. Only a watchful, sharp gaze that followed the movements outside through the small gap in the curtain.

“What happened?” His voice was strained.

“Wheel,” Garrick replied from outside, without looking back.

Caelan climbed down soon after, adjusting his cloak around his shoulders, blowing the morning chill from his hands. The young man still looked tired, but he tried to summon energy he lacked. He approached his veteran companion, kneeling beside the front wheel.

“Maybe it cracked from the impact of that rock…” he said softly.

Garrick ran his calloused hand over the wood, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Hm… it’ll hold for a while longer, but we need to stop at the next village for reinforcements.”

Damon, inside, didn’t relax. His eyes didn’t blink. His breathing seemed heavy, every muscle tense, as if the road concealed something invisible.

And Ester, beside him, remained motionless. But her blue eyes reflected the same uneasiness—not from the wheel, but from the silence of the forest.

It was Caelan who felt it first.

He rose slowly, his eyes fixed on the line of mist-shrouded pines. The wind had died. There was no birdsong, no snapping of branches. Just… emptiness.

“Something’s wrong…” he murmured, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Garrick turned away, confused. “What?”

Caelan opened his mouth to respond.

And then, the world ended.

An arrow cut through the silence with a sharp, accurate whistle. The sound was so fast there was barely time to react.

The tip pierced Caelan’s skull from side to side.

The crack of the bone breaking echoed in the gray morning, dry, horrible. The young man’s eyes widened in utter shock, frozen in an expression that would never fade. He fell forward like a puppet without strings, his body collapsing with a dull thud against the mud of the road.

The blood spread quickly, a bright red against the soaked ground.

“CAELAN!” Garrick’s scream rent the air, desperate, losing the military control he had always possessed.

He fell to his knees beside the boy, trembling hands trying to pull the limp body away. But it was too late. Caelan’s eyes were glassy, ​​lost in nothing. There was no breath, no warmth. Only the cold of death, abrupt, without warning.

Damon leaped from the carriage, spear already in hand, his pink eyes blazing. His heart pounded like never before.

He stared at Garrick in shock, holding his companion’s body. The old soldier trembled, his mouth open in disbelief.

And then, the second whistle.

This time, Damon saw it.

He saw the arrow tear through the air toward him, saw the world slow down, every detail expanded as if time had stopped just for him. The metallic tip reflected the pale, cruel sun.

But before he could move, before he could react—it struck Garrick.

The impact tore through the veteran’s chest with a horrible crack.

Garrick’s body arched, a hoarse, choked sound escaping his throat. Blood gushed, hot and thick, staining the cloak and splattering Damon’s face.

“N… No…” The old man’s voice broke into pieces. His wide eyes fixed on Damon, as if pleading for something. As if seeking salvation.

But there was no salvation. Garrick fell backward, his heavy body slamming into the mud.

The silence after the impact was deafening.

Damon stood still. Frozen. Blood pounded in his ears. The metallic taste of death permeated the air.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t accept it.

Two men. Two he knew. Two whom, in their own twisted way, he respected. Men who carried swords, who had strength, who laughed and talked. Men who seemed unbreakable.

Now… nothing.

Fallen like rag dolls, torn apart by shards of iron hurled from the darkness.

Something inside Damon broke. The incubus, who always laughed in the face of pain, who mocked death as if it were a game, felt his throat dry. For the first time, his fear wasn’t for his own end—it was for the certainty of finitude that loomed before him.

Death.

Irreversible.

Definitive.

And cruelly banal.

His fingers trembled on the wood of his spear. His eyes burned, but not with anger—with disbelief.

“Garrick…” His voice came out in a whisper, almost a sob, something so human it would have sickened Damon himself in any other situation. “Caelan…”

Another whistle.

Another arrow.

This time, aimed at him.

Damon saw death coming toward him, slow, cruel, inevitable. His body didn’t react—there was no strength. Only the growing emptiness of someone staring into the abyss.

But at the last moment, an arm grabbed his cloak.

Esther.

Her strength pulled him violently into the carriage. The door slammed shut, and soon the curtains were drawn, one by one, plunging the interior into suffocating darkness.

Arrows slammed against the outer walls, piercing through the wood, cracking like thunder.

Inside, Damon fell to the ground, breathing heavily. His eyes were wide, the spear lying loose at his side, forgotten.

He trembled.

Trembling like a child.

His mind couldn’t erase the image: Caelan’s body collapsing, his eyes lost; Garrick’s chest being pierced, his blood gushing hot; the final, pleading look that faded in seconds.

“They…” he tried to speak, but his voice faltered. “They’re… dead.”

Ester, motionless, watched him. The cold around her was intense, but her eyes held something else: not surprise, but calculation. She knew death. She accepted it as an inevitable part of life. But seeing Damon like this, stripped of his insolence, devastated by shock, was something she had never witnessed.

He lifted his face to hers. His red eyes trembled, his cynical mask shattered.

“They’re gone…” he repeated, his voice choked. “I… I couldn’t…”

Her breath faltered again, turning into a nervous, desperate laugh that sounded more like a stifled sob.

“I couldn’t do anything.”

The arrows continued to hit the carriage, one after the other, echoing like funeral bells. But inside her, the true silence was that of Damon, kneeling, destroyed by the reality he had always pretended to ignore.

Death, finally, was no longer a distant spectacle.

She had a face.

She had a scent.

And it was etched forever in her eyes.

“Pull yourself together,” Ester said, looking out the window. She saw eyes in the distance watching the carriage. “We’ve entered an area controlled by elves. Stay low and wait for them to approach us. Don’t make any funny faces.” Ester spoke coldly…

As if Garrick and Caelan’s deaths… weren’t a problem.

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