A Good Man Awakens

Chapter 27: No More Fight

The clatter of iron wheels on dirt grated against my ears, but it was nothing compared to the crushing weight that pressed down on my chest, suffocating me. Every jolt of the cart sent a fresh wave of pain through my body, but I welcomed it—embraced it even. Physical pain was easy, simple. It paled against the torment that gnawed at my soul. Sophia's face swam before my eyes, always there, always just out of reach. That moment—her last moment—played on a cruel loop in my mind. The way she fell, her golden hair catching the sunlight one final time, and the way her eyes had widened in shock, just before the light went out. Gone.

I had done that. I had killed her. Maybe not with my hands, but it was still me. The burden of that truth was heavier than any chain binding my wrists. I couldn't escape it. Couldn't run from the truth that it was my choices, my failures, that led her to die in the dirt, with her blood staining the ground.

I could still hear her voice, light and full of life—so full of life. She'd been more than a friend; she was my anchor. The one person who never looked at me like an outsider. But I had torn that away from her, ripped her from this world because of my cowardice, my stupidity. I couldn't save her. I had all the power in the world, and yet, when it mattered, I had failed.

Ged's face flashed next. Ros, too. Their deaths were on my hands as well. Every heartbeat throbbed with guilt, pounding in my ears, as though trying to crush me from within. But it was Sophia's death that haunted me most. The weight of losing a child—of losing her—was unbearable. She was a light, a pure light, and I had let it be snuffed out.

And now there was Reece. Sitting there, staring off into the distance, the space between us filled with everything unspoken. His hatred was justified, his pain deserved. What could I say to him? What could I do? I had taken everything from him, left him broken in ways no amount of time would heal. I had failed him, too.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw at my own skin, to tear open the grief that was choking me, to feel something other than the endless void swallowing me whole. But there was nothing. No absolution. No forgiveness. Only this hollow ache, this endless sea of guilt that I would never escape.

The cart jolted to a halt, the sudden stop jerking me forward, rattling the chains that bound me. Rain had started to fall, a light drizzle at first, but now it came down harder, soaking the earth beneath us and turning the path into thick mud. The smell of wet soil mixed with the pungent stench of horse sweat and unwashed bodies—an acrid, sour odor that clung to everything. The air felt thick, oppressive, as if the storm clouds above weren't just holding back a thunderstrom, but something darker.

The horses snorted, shaking their heads and stamping their hooves into the muck, their breaths visible in the cool, damp air. The enforcers, Greydan, our captors, dismounted with heavy thuds, their boots squelching in the mud. Laughter echoed behind the cart—coarse, vulgar laughter that sent a shiver down my spine. It was the kind of laughter that stripped away any humanity they might've had left. The kind of laughter that promised cruelty.

"Did ya see the look on the old bastard's face when we took him down?" one of them crowed, voice thick with drink. "Like he couldn't believe it. All that talk of loyalty, and for what? A farm? A handful of worthless crops?"

Another chimed in, slurring his words as the flask made its rounds. "Should've burned the lot of 'em sooner. Farm went up like dry kindling. Saw it in the rearview the whole way back—flames licking at the sky." He let out a bark of a laugh, the sound thick and rough. "Bet even the livestock's ash by now."

The rain hissed as it hit the fire they spoke of, leaving only the smoldering remnants of my life. I could almost smell the charred wood, the smoke mixing with the fresh rain and the damp earth, the bitter taste of loss coating my throat. They were laughing at the destruction of everything I had tried to protect. Of everything Sophia, Ged, and Ros had died for.