Under the Oak Tree - Riftan's POV - Multiverse

Chapter 44: Broken

Paxias settled over Anatol in an unrelenting frost. Snow blanketed the fields and rooftops, the wind howled through the stone walls of the castle, and still Riftan waited.

Every morning he told himself today, her letter will come. Every night he admitted the truth—no message would arrive.

It was not that Maximilian had forgotten him. No, he knew her too well to believe that. The torment lay in the certainty that she had never even received his words. The letter he had poured his heart into, the promises, the plea to wait—lost, intercepted, or left unread in some pile under her father's watchful eye.

She did not know he was waiting.

And that ignorance—that unbearable silence—was his fault.

He had let pride drive him from her side when he should have held on, should have listened, should have fought harder. The thought of her alone in Croix Castle, believing he had abandoned her, gnawed at him until sleep became scarce and every waking hour was spent in restless agitation.

Twice, he had ridden back to the Croix estate. Twice, he had been turned away at the gates. On the third attempt, he had slipped past the guards to their secret tree and waited until his body was stiff with cold. She never came. Perhaps she was no longer in the castle. Did her father retain her in a solitary room? Did she stop looking for the reflection of the mirror that she herself installed long ago? All these questions would eat him alive while waiting for her, but she never came. The memory of their last meeting left a bitter taste in his mouth every time he thought of it. She was gone, and it was his fault. She plead for him to wait for her... and he just left her.

And yet, while his heart withered in longing, Anatol was beginning to bloom.

His stepfather had taken naturally to life within the castle walls. A man who had spent his years in the soil and among livestock, he brought practical knowledge that the people of Anatol eagerly received. Riftan would often pass the barren fields which was little by little becoming alive, and see him working side by side with the peasants, advising on tools, tending to sick animals, even showing children how to care for seedlings in the frost.

For the first time, Riftan saw him not as a shadow from his past but as a part of Anatol's future.

His half-brother, too, was thriving. With winter nearly ended, the boy was eager, bright-eyed, and determined to begin training with the other squires once Paxias was gone. Riftan had watched him one morning, swinging a stick like a wooden sword, and felt something he had rarely known in his youth—pride.

But none of it eased the ache inside him.

So when an invitation came at the dawn of Aquarias to join a campaign in Livadon, Riftan accepted without hesitation.

The summons had arrived under the guise of strengthening ties between allied nations, a call for Whedon's knights to aid in border disputes plaguing Livadon's northern marches. For Riftan, it was more than a duty—it was an escape. He could not linger in Anatol, pacing like a caged beast, waiting for a letter that would never come.

Besides, Anatol was always hungry for silver. Renovations on the keep, repairs to the fortifications, the endless demands of soldiers' wages—coin was always in short supply. A foreign campaign promised spoils, and more importantly, connections. Livadon was rich, and its dukes ambitious. If one day he truly had to spirit Maximilian away from her father's grasp, he would need allies powerful enough to shelter them.

So he gathered his company, tightened his armor, and set out across frozen plains and mountain passes.

The march was grueling. Snowstorms swallowed the horizon, and icy winds bit through steel and leather. For two months they fought skirmishes against raiders and rival lords' bannermen, testing steel in forests and along ridges slick with frost. Riftan hurled himself into every battle with reckless precision, as if by drowning himself in blood and steel he could silence the gnawing emptiness in his chest.

But every night, when the fires burned low and his men slept, he would catch himself staring into the dark, imagining her pale face, her red curls, the soft tremor of her voice. No sword could cut away the ache of her absence.

When at last the campaign was done and the men turned homeward, Riftan led them back to Anatol with little more comfort than exhaustion. He was greeted with cheers upon their return, the spoils of victory filling his coffers, his reputation burnished by Livadon's praise. By all accounts, he should have felt triumphant.

Instead, the news that awaited him cut deeper than any blade.

It was not a herald, not a courier, but his own knights—men who had fought beside him, who had drunk with him around the campfires—who delivered the blow.

"Sir," one began hesitantly, as they unpacked in the stables, "there was... an event. A tournament in Wedon's capital, while you were gone."

Riftan looked up sharply. His gut clenched before the words even came.

"They say Sir Kuehl of the Holy Order won. And when the victor's kiss was claimed... he asked not for Princess Agnes, as custom dictates. He asked for Lady Maximilian."

Riftan went rigid. His hand, still gripping a saddle strap, tightened until the leather creaked.

Another knight shifted uneasily before adding, "We saw it ourselves, my lord. The kiss was... not chaste. And when the tournament ended—when the knights departed—we saw them again. Sir Kuehl and Lady Maximilian. They kissed as if parting lovers."

The world went silent.

Riftan's vision narrowed, blood pounding in his ears until the words blurred together. A public kiss, sanctioned by her father. A private farewell, passionate enough for even hardened knights to speak of it.

It was as if the ground had been ripped from beneath his feet.

Riftan did not flinch. Not outwardly. His men were watching, shifting uncomfortably in the silence. They had followed him into battle, bled for him, and now delivered news they clearly wished they hadn't. He could not allow them to see him unravel.

He forced his hands to release the saddle strap, his voice gravel-thick.

"See to the horses. We ride at dawn to inspect the southern outposts."

The men bowed quickly, grateful for dismissal, and scattered to their duties.

Only then did Riftan move—slow, deliberate, as if his body weighed a hundred stone. He walked the length of the stable, past the steaming animals, past the smell of hay and leather, until he reached the far stall where no one lingered.

There, in the dim shadows, he braced his palms against the rough wooden wall, his head bowed. His breath came ragged, uneven, like a wounded beast trying not to howl.

He had known her father would not yield. He had known the church and court would stand against him. But to imagine her lips beneath another's, her eyes cast toward another man... it was a torment he had never conceived.

The image burned through him—Kuehl's hands on her, the public claim before all of Whedon's nobility, her father's cold satisfaction. And then, the parting kiss. A lover's kiss. Something given freely, not forced.

His fists slammed into the wood with a crack, splinters biting into his skin. He did not feel it.

He had fought armies, faced monsters, survived battlefields soaked in blood. None of it had left him like this—hollowed out, shaking, a boy again, watching helplessly as the world he wanted was stripped from him.

All the battles, the victories, the lands he was building—they meant nothing without her. And now... now she was gone.

His forehead pressed to the wall, eyes squeezed shut, he let the silence swallow him whole.

For the first time in years, Riftan Calypse felt utterly, completely broken.

Writers Note:

Just hang in there... 

Thank you for reading! :)