The shouts overlapped, tangled with screams of pain.
Amid the chaos, Jay spared a glance toward the castle. The stone walls still stood but he knew that behind them, a far quieter battle was being fought.
Liv.
Her name pulsed in his mind in time with his heartbeat.
He struck harder. Faster. More recklessly.
The Grand Duke saw it and understood his son was no longer fighting as an heir, nor as a general.
He was fighting as a husband who refused to lose everything.
The monsters came again, like a bottomless sea. Yet the two remaining Zelthars stood firm, becoming a living wall before annihilation.
As long as they still stood,as long as their swords could be raised, Zelthar would not fall.
And that night, the world learned one thing, even when everything seems endless,there is blood that chooses to fightuntil the final breathto protect a single life that has not yet seen the light.
The realization struck Jay harder than any blow of mana ever could.
