Epilogue: Carefully Laid Plans

Several weeks had passed since Kieran had left the Hero’s Party. Long enough for the road behind them to become little more than a memory. Long enough for the empty space where the lancer had once walked to stop drawing attention from Alaric.

Long enough for Lucien to believe the matter was settled.

The camp was quiet beneath the night sky. Their horses shifted occasionally beyond the ring of firelight, leather tack creaking softly whenever one of them moved. The last of the day’s warmth had disappeared from the air, leaving a cold breeze that carried the smell of pine and smoke through the trees.

Lucien sat alone by the fire. Three letters rested across his lap. He picked up the first one. Its wax seal had been broken days ago, but the paper still carried the faint scent of the southern guild where it had been written. He had already read the letter several times.

He read it again anyway as his eyes moved steadily over the page.

“An army, huh?” The words were barely louder than the crackling fire. He lowered the paper, allowing the light from the fire to dance over his glasses. “The spawner was supposed to produce enough monsters to help the lower ranks train.”

His thumb traced the crease along the paper. Carefully, he folded the paper. With a flick of his wrist, it twirled through the air before landing amongst the flame which instantly consumed it with hungry tongues. He hoped no one would be curious and look in the ashes by morning to see the wax still there.

“Controlled growth. Predictable encounters,” he kneaded the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

There was nothing predictable about what had happened. The adventurers assigned to that particular spawner had been overwhelmed. The creatures had multiplied beyond the expected numbers. Then someone had destroyed the spawner itself, opening the mountain and releasing an army. One that marched toward his hometown no less.

Lucien’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “That was not the arrangement.”

The failure could be dealt with later. Someone had made a mistake and he would personally find out who.

For now, there were two more letters. Lucien picked up the second. He hesitated before opening it. Not because he was afraid of what it could contain. He knew far too well already.

His finger traced the edge of the silver wax from his father’s desk before breaking it. He unfolded the paper and began scanning its contents. Then it stopped right before reaching the end.

“A Tengu?”

Lucien’s expression paled almost instantly. He read the passage again. Kieran had defeated it weeks ago. Weeks?

Around the same time the letter about the spawner becoming unstable? Roughly the same time that the last reports from the town had begun making their way through the region. Lucien leaned back on the stump slightly, the paper lowering in his hand.

“So that’s where it started.”

His fingers tightened on the thin paper as he leaned forward and continued. The reports that had been gathered were full of inconsistencies. Some people claimed the monster was nearly impossible to kill. Others insisted Kieran had devised the entire defense himself. Several witnesses had apparently begun describing him as a leader.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed as the paper began to crinkle under his grip. The next paragraph was harder for him to read.

Kieran had gathered adventurers, organized them and directed the defense. And somehow, despite everything that was being thrown at them, they had won. His gaze moved lower.

“A party more fearsome than the Hero’s Party?”

For several seconds, Lucien said nothing. Then the fire popped as another piece of paper fell into its hungry light, a shower of sparks rose into the darkness before disappearing.

“That’s my fault.”

The words escaped his lips before he could stop them. He stared into the quivering flames, then gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

“Well,” he shrugged his shoulders with hands upturned, “Not entirely.”

The spawner was not supposed to produce an army. That much was true.

But Kieran’s reputation? That was a spectacular blunder.

Lucien recalled how it had begun. A conversation with Alaric after a difficult battle. Just a quiet observation about Kieran’s hesitation. A simple question about whether their formation was becoming too dependent on him.

It was nothing more than that. Then another conversation cropped up. And another. Never an accusation, nor was it ever a lie. Just enough concern to make Alaric start looking at Kieran differently.

Kieran questioned orders. He delayed attacks and began making decisions without the Hero.

All of this was true. And that’s exactly why it worked. He simply chose which truths to repeat and to whom.

He remembered sitting around the final campfire. Kieran had argued that the Demon General was baiting them. He had been right, even Lucien knew that. He had noticed the same change in the General’s stance. He simply hadn’t said anything.

The thought made Lucien’s fingers grip tighter on his knees until the knuckles went white. Not because he regretted it, far from it. But because Kieran had made the mistake of proving exactly why he had to go.

He noticed too much. He questioned too much. And people listened to him. That had been the real problem.

Lucien’s purple eyes drifted toward the tents. Alaric’s was closest with him sleeping inside. For six years, Lucien had helped build the party around him.

Alaric was the face. Hadrin the shield. Cedric the healer. And Lucien was the mind behind it all.

That’s how it was always supposed to be. Then Kieran had begun occupying pieces of all of it. Soldiers remembered his orders. Adventurers sought his advice.

Even Alaric had started asking what he thought before making decisions. And when battles became complicated, people increasingly looked toward Kieran.

Lucien adjusted his glasses, glinting the orange firelight as they moved.

“He was becoming too visible. That’s not useful.”

There was a difference in his mind. Being useful was expected. Being indispensable was dangerous to his plans. And Kieran had begun approaching the second one.

So Lucien had corrected the problem. He hadn’t needed to tell Alaric to cast Kieran out. He only needed to make the decision feel inevitable.

By the time that night came, Alaric had already convinced himself. Hadrin needed no convincing while Cedric had been too kind to argue.

And Kieran?

Lucien remembered the look on his face when Alaric removed the silver insignia from his cloak. For the briefest of moments, Lucien had almost felt something.

Pity? Perhaps. But it passed quickly.

Because the moment Kieran walked away, the second part of the plan began. The rumors. Lucien had made certain they traveled faster than Kieran did.

A difficult adventurer. A reckless Lancer. A man who ignored orders when it mattered. Someone who couldn’t be trusted in a formation or would abandon his role, nearly costing the Hero his life.

He never needed to tell the story the same way twice. One would hear that Kieran was difficult while another heard that he was unreliable. A third would tell others that the Hero’s Party had removed him for insubordination.

Each was slightly different but together, they created the same conclusion. Kieran had nowhere to go.

Lucien had expected him to disappear. Perhaps retire or even become a minor adventurer in a land far from this continent. Either way, he would never again be in a position to rival the party.

That had been the plan.

Lucien looked down at the fires as they flared up again from shifting kindling.

Now people were calling Kieran a genius. A leader. A Hero.

The same people who had once so easily whispered that he was difficult to work with were now apparently telling stories about how he had rallied an entire guild against a full army.

His jaw tightened as he slammed the side of a balled fist against the log he was sitting on.

“That part wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Taking a deep breath, he picked up the third. This paper was newer and the ink darker. A fresh report.

Across the sheet were only four names and some minor information.

Akane, the report described her solely as a Swordswoman from the far eastern borders.

Luna, a scout Wolfkin.

Celestia, a traveling Mage.

Seraphina, a heal–

“...Sister?” He paused, his eyes wide. His voice was almost a whisper. He looked at the letter again as if the ink might have shifted.

His fingers tightened around the paper. He could still remember the afternoons spent running through the fields behind their homes. Alaric and Kieran would race ahead, challenging each other to climb the old stone wall first. Lucien and the others would follow with whatever plan they had concocted.

And the entire time, Seraphina would watch them. A few years older and always somewhere nearby. Sometimes scolding them when they came back covered in scrapes and mud. Sometimes laughing when one of them fell over their own two feet.

She had never been part of their games in the same way, simply being the older sister watching over them. The one who made sure they came home before dark.

Nothing more.

She had never trained to become an adventurer. Father had forbidden it. A girl's place was not out there in danger, that was what Lucien was for.

And as far as Lucien had known, she had accepted that arrangement without a second thought.

But now Seraphina was traveling with Kieran. She had joined his party and fought beside him.

Lucien’s brow furrowed. His mind rejected the image before it even formed. His sister in armor on the road fighting monsters.

“That’s impossible.”

He looked toward the dark tents then back at the letter.

He remembered her sitting on the porch while the five of them practiced with wooden swords. He remembered her telling Kieran to stop swinging so wildly. He remembered Alaric bragging about becoming a great hero. And Seraphina watched all of them with that patient smile she always wore.

She had been the person who watched them become adventures. Not become an adventurer herself.

Lucien read the paper again, “Why would you…?” but the report did not hold the answer.

His sister had gone on an adventure with Kieran of all people.

“How?” his expression tightened.

He stood, pacing around the fire. He tried to reconstruct what must have happened.

Kieran left. Seraphina found him. They traveled together by forming a party. And somehow, in only a few short weeks, they had fought an army.

That was the part he couldn’t reconcile.

Seraphina had never trained in her life. And yet, according to the report, she had stood beside Kieran in the middle of a battlefield. Apparently, she had been important enough to be mentioned repeatedly.

Lucien’s fingers slowly curled into a fist. Perhaps because Lucien knew exactly what Seraphina meant to Kieran. Or because he knew what Kieran meant to her. Either way, it was another reminder that there were pieces of Kieran’s life he could never be able to control.

He tossed the final letter into the fire.

The spawner had failed. The rumors had reversed. And now Kieran had raised a new party. One that was rivaling the Hero’s Party after just a few weeks.

One that included his own sister.

Lucien’s expression slowly settled again. He would have to be swift from here on out. Word could not reach Alaric nor the others. Not even for a second.

If Alaric learned about the spawner, questions would follow. And if he learned how badly Kieran’s reputation had changed, there would be dangerously more.

“No,” he fastened his cape around him, “Not yet.”

Lucien looked toward the road disappearing into the darkness. For the first time that night, his expression showed something close to uncertainty. All of those plans. And somehow they fell apart so spectacularly that other factors were still building Kieran up.

Lucien adjusted his glasses. “Interesting,” a faint smile returned but this time, it didn’t quite reach his eyes, “I suppose I’ll have to learn what kind of adventurer you’ve become.”

He turned toward his tent with a huff and his cape billowing behind him. Then he paused in his tracks and let his gaze drift back toward the road.

“Kieran…”

The name lingered in the cold air. Lucien’s smile disappeared.

“I wonder what you told her.”

He stepped into the darkness of his tent. Behind him the fire continued to burn. It crackled once more, sending up sparks into the blackened sky. Amongst the falling embers was a small burnt piece of paper with only one word written on it:

“Kieran” in Seraphina’s handwriting.