Aftermath

The sword slipped from Simon’s hand before it ever hit the floor.
 
A sharp clang rang through the throne room, but Allen’s body was already still—silent, cradled in Simon’s arms. His blood soaked through Simon’s tunic, warm at first, then rapidly cooling. Yet it wasn’t the rain or stone-cold steel that chilled Simon to the bone—it was the fading warmth in his brother’s skin.
 
Simon didn’t move.
 
Couldn’t.
 
He stared at Allen’s face—serene now, no longer twisted by pain or fury. This was the face of the man who once carried a kingdom on his shoulders… and now, at last, had been allowed to rest. But to Simon, it was the face of someone he had just killed.
 
The moment echoed endlessly in his ears—the fall of the blade, the final words, that last breath.
 
No cheering soldiers.
No bells.
No salvation.
 
Only the storm outside, and the storm within.
 
He knelt there, trembling, arms locked around Allen’s lifeless form like he could hold back time through sheer will.
 
“You should’ve let me try to save you,” Simon whispered. “You didn’t have to die like this…”
 
He wasn’t sure if he was speaking to Allen—or to himself.
 
Around him, the throne room was deathly silent. Shattered glass, torn banners, and the once-proud throne now stood like relics in a tomb. This place was no longer a seat of power, but a monument to what was lost.
 
Footsteps echoed behind him. Hesitant. Careful.
 
A captain entered the hall, sword lowered, his eyes wide with disbelief.
 
“…Your Majesty,” the man said softly.
 
Simon flinched.
 
His voice was low, hoarse. “Don’t call me that.”
 
The captain stepped back without protest. How could he argue? What did you call a man who had just killed his king… and his brother?


Flashback: A Memory in the Snow
 
Years ago, before blades and betrayal, there was only snow.
 
Simon had been a trembling child, half-frozen outside the palace gates. His home had burned. His family gone—ashes in the wind. It was Allen who found him, still just a boy himself but already bearing the weight of a crown not yet his.
 
“Why would you help me?” Simon had asked, curled up near the hearth that night.
 
Allen had smiled, pulling their shared cloak tighter. “Because I know what it’s like to have no one,” he said. “And if I don’t… who will?”
 
Simon fell asleep to those words, believing that Allen would be the one person in the world who never let him down.
 
Return to the Present
 
Now Simon stood in silence—a man made hollow.
 
He lifted Allen’s body and carried it to the base of the throne—not to place him on it, but to lay him beside it. Allen hadn’t died for power. He had died protecting it.
 
Outside, the skies began to part. Sunlight filtered through the broken ceiling in fractured beams, casting golden light across rubble and ruin.
 
Divine judgment. Or perhaps mercy.
 
Simon stared into the light, hands still wet with blood. A king-slayer. A traitor. A savior.
 
He didn’t know what he was anymore.
 
But he knew this: the war wasn’t over. The kingdom was broken. And Allen’s soul—wherever it had gone—had been claimed by something greater than kings or crowns.
 
He knelt one final time beside his brother.
 
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he whispered, tears tracing down through the rain. “But I’ll carry your burden. I’ll make sure they remember your name—not for how you died… but for everything you gave.”
 
He stood slowly as the soldiers filed into the ruined hall. Some looked at him with fear. Others, with quiet hope. But all bowed their heads when they saw the fallen king.
 
The king was dead.
 
And the future was written in his blood.