Another guard ran in from the side, desperate. I turned my bow and fired before he could take a full step. The arrow went through his chest like paper. His body fell heavily.
Silence.
Just the sound of chaos outside.
I approached Armida's body. Her hands still held the ring tightly. It was black, carved like a centipede. A symbol I knew all too well.
I closed my eyes. My stomach churned.
This wasn't just another massacre. There was something bigger here. Something hidden.
"All of you! Look out! That killer has a bow!" shouted someone from the courtyard outside. The voice sounded loud, almost hysterical.
They were afraid. And rightly so.
They knew that "having a bow" was no small thing. Back then, that was like saying that someone carried a sacred weapon - rare, lethal, decisive. No archer was created alone. No commanding archer came out of nowhere.
And yet, there I was.
No one had seen my face. That was important. Very important.
I stepped away from Armida's body and put the ring away. The centipede symbol.
"How is this connected to Vera... and Nora?" I muttered, feeling the anger burn under my skin.
Why kill over a ring? What did this centipede mean to be worth so many lives?
Outside, the courtyard was in chaos. Screams, cries, orders being thrown to the wind.
"Get the shields! Now! Get the shields!"
"Get the crossbows!"
The sound of orders spread through the courtyard, but I was no longer there to hear them. As soon as I closed my hand over the ring, my legs moved by instinct.
I ran. I jumped on the side wall. My fingers found every gap in the stone and, in an instant, I was climbing.
Two meters. Three meters. In seconds, my feet were on the roof.
The city loomed before me, but this was no time for contemplation. I crept up the sloping structure like a shadow, heading towards the west entrance of the castle.
"On the roof! The killer is on the roof!" someone shouted behind me.
I glanced up. A guard was trying to climb like me. Poor bastard.
I fired.
The arrow entered under his armpit, in a gap between armor plates. His scream cut through the air like a blade. He fell with a deafening thud.
Another guard was running below, trying to keep up with my gun. I fired again. The arrow hit the center of the helmet. I saw his body stagger, his legs twitching in involuntary spasms, and then he fell.
I kept going. I had already passed two towers when a different sound whistled through the air.
I almost felt death pass through me.
A bolt. A crossbow bolt.
It passed less than a meter from my head.
I turned my face away. In a side courtyard, four guards were pointing crossbows in my direction. One of them was already firing again.
I didn't hesitate.
I turned and fired. One, two, three arrows.
Each one found its target before they could even pull the lever. The last of them took the arrow in the heart and fell with his eyes wide open, as if he didn't understand that he was dead.
I kept running. The lookout posts were empty. By now, the screams had spread throughout the fortress like a plague.
I took my horse out back, where I left it tied up among the pines.
There was only one arrow in the quiver.
I didn't know how many I'd killed. Nor did I care.
I went in there to bleed a rotten system. I wasn't there for pity.
I couldn't save my father - he was too far away. But those responsible, the heirs, those who touched my family... those I buried without ceremony.
Did I offend a count? A nobleman? I didn't care.
Anyone who dares to hurt my people has only one end: death.
***
Three hours passed on the road to Volareth Castle. Time dripped from the sweat on my face and the dried blood on my clothes.
When I crested the hill and saw the row of armored knights appearing on the horizon, my heart froze for a second.
And then...
There he was.
My father.
Alive.
Mounted alongside thirty warriors in heavy armor.
Survivors.
My eyes burned and, when I really looked at him... they were filled with everything I haven't said yet, everything I've burned inside until now.
They'll pay.
All of them.
The thirty men marching with my father were in a deplorable state. Some were bleeding openly, others could barely stand on their horses. Each suit of armor looked like a walking tomb.
And then, among them, I saw him.
Rillen.
My father.
Still alive... but with his left arm missing. His empty sleeve swayed in the wind like a symbol of everything we had lost. His gaze was hard, but there was pain there - more than physical.
We stared at each other for a moment, long seconds where time bowed to our shared pain. Then, unable to hold it in any longer, I ran to him.
I ignored the warriors. I ignored the blood. I ignored the stares.
I hugged my father as I had when I was a child - tight, hard, as if that could put the pieces of him back together. My breathing was shaky and difficult. I, who had spent the last few days killing without blinking, could now barely breathe with him in my arms.
"Let's go back." he said, his voice huskier than I remembered. "I managed to survive. Now... I want to know what happened next to you."
There was something dark in his tone. Something that bothered me more than his wound. But I nodded. This wasn't the time for questions. Not yet.
***
In the days that followed the return to the City of the New Moon, the calm turned into growing tension.
Caravans of law enforcement officers, representatives of the Crown, officials from noble houses... all arrived with questions in their eyes and hands ready to search.
The name 'Rolsvince' was now always accompanied by uncomfortable silence or restrained murmurs.
And the truth? The truth was written in blood on the walls of their castle.
Yes, dozens witnessed what I did. But no one survived to tell.
The name 'Philip', the heir - and only son of Count Primavera - caused more commotion than all the other corpses combined.
The city went into a state of silent alert. Nobles began to close their doors, hire more soldiers, and whisper in the taverns. The merchants became as slender as mice, waiting to see which way the wind would blow.
When the official report arrived, spread by the hands of messengers stamped with the insignia of the Crown, the chaos finally took shape:
'House Rolsvince attempted to ambush and assassinate Rillen Udrik, head of House Udrik. The ambush failed. Rillen survived, seriously wounded, and retreated to his castle. Meanwhile, an unidentified third party stormed the Rolsvince fortress. The massacre took place in less than an hour. Guards killed. Philip, the rightful heir, dead. Structures set on fire. The house fell down.'
The political fallout was immediate.
Rolsvince House, once one of the most influential in southern Alvorath, crumbled like wet paper.
The flames burned only a warehouse and the adjoining kitchen, but the real damage was in the foundations: the clan was without leadership, without a line of succession, without prestige.
And most cruelly... no respect.
While the officials were still taking statements and gathering information with faces pale with fear, the distant cousins of the Rolsvince were already fighting each other within the city itself.
Family became enemy. Distant heirs threatened at gunpoint.
No one talked about mourning anymore. Only possession.
The family coffers had been looted on the night of the massacre. Some administrators and concubines had escaped along the northern roads with part of the fortune on loaded horses.
There was no more Rolsvince family.
Only carrion. And vultures.