Chapter 12:
The south road was chaos incarnate.
Forty goblins mounted on dire wolves circled the caravan like sharks scenting blood. Their crude weapons gleamed with poisoned edges, their riders howling war cries that echoed across the plains.
The caravan's guards were already down—three dead, two dying. The adventurers fought desperately, their formation fracturing under the relentless assault.
Hexia saw it all in an instant as he crested the hill.
And there, in the center of the defensive circle, fighting with dual swords in hand with precision—Lhoralaine.
Her blonde hair was longer now, tied back for combat.
Her face had matured, lost some of its softness. But it was unmistakably her. The girl who'd occupied his heart for years. The girl who'd chosen someone else.
The girl who'd broken him.
"Hexia, wait—" Sirenia started.
He was already moving.
The first goblin died before it realized death had arrived. Hexia's blade opened its throat in a spray of black blood, and he was past it before the corpse hit the ground.
The dire wolf beneath turned to snap at him—he severed its spine with a backhand strike, not even slowing.
Two more goblins charged. He ducked under their weapons, his sword flashing twice. They fell in pieces.
The horde noticed him now. Noticed the crimson-eyed death wading through their ranks like they were nothing.
Twenty goblins turned toward him. Their wolves snarled, foam dripping from fangs the size of daggers.
Hexia's expression didn't change. Empty. Cold. Hollow.
But inside, something dark stirred. The thing he kept locked away. The thing that whispered about rolling heads and oceans of blood.
He raised his right hand, fingers splayed toward the sky. Black energy crackled between his fingertips—not the white healing light, but something else entirely.
Something catastrophic.
"Everyone get behind me," he said quietly.
His voice carried anyway. Cut through the battle noise like a blade through silk.
Lhoralaine's head snapped toward him. Her eyes widened in recognition and something else—shock, maybe awe. "Hexia?!"
"NOW!"
The remaining adventurers didn't question. They grabbed the caravan guards and ran toward Hexia's position. Sirenia was already moving, herding them behind him.
Lhoralaine hesitated for a heartbeat—then followed.
When everyone was behind him, Hexia spoke again. His voice was different now. Ancient.
Resonant with power that made reality itself shiver.
"Lux."
White light exploded from his position, forming a dome that encompassed the caravan, the adventurers, Sirenia, and Lhoralaine. A barrier of pure magical force, humming with energy that made their skin prickle.
The goblins attacked the barrier. Their weapons shattered against it. Their magic fizzled and died.
Safe. Everyone inside was completely, utterly safe.
Hexia stood at the barrier's edge, facing the horde alone. His crimson eyes tracked the circling monsters with predatory focus.
"You should have run," he said to them. To the goblins who couldn't understand him. To the universe that kept forcing him to kill.
He raised both his hands. Black energy gathered—more this time, coalescing into a sphere of writhing darkness above his palm. It grew. And grew. And grew.
The temperature dropped. The ground beneath Hexia's feet cracked from the pressure.
"Chaos Meteor."
He thrust his hand skyward.
The sphere shot into the clouds, disappearing from sight. For three heartbeats, nothing happened.
Then the sky screamed!.
A massive meteor of black and crimson energy tore through the atmosphere, burning the air itself. It grew larger as it descended—impossibly large, blotting out the sun, trailing destruction in its wake.
The goblins riders tried to flee. Too late.
The meteor struck with apocalyptic force.
The impact created a shockwave that flattened trees half a mile away. The ground split open, molten earth spraying upward. The goblins and their wolves were vaporized instantly—not killed, not destroyed, but erased from existence by sheer catastrophic power.
The barrier held. Inside it, they felt nothing but a gentle rumble. Outside, the world ended.
When the light faded, a crater stretched before them. Two hundred feet across. Fifty feet deep.
The edges still glowed molten red. Smoke rose in thick columns. The air stank of ozone and charred flesh.
Forty monsters. Gone. Not even ashes remained.
Hexia lowered his hand. The barrier dissipated. He turned toward the group, his expression still empty.
"The road is clear."
Then he started walking back toward the village.
Behind him, stunned silence. The adventurers stared at the crater, at Hexia's retreating form, at each other. Processing what they'd just witnessed.
"What the fuck was that?" one of them whispered.
"That," another said, his voice shaking, "was the Swordsman of Rolling Heads. The real one. Not the stories. The actual monster."
Lhoralaine stood frozen, her hand over her mouth. Tears streamed down her face—whether from shock, fear, or something else, she couldn't say.
Sirenia watched Hexia walk away, her heart breaking. Because she'd seen it. The moment he shut down completely. The moment the emptiness flooded back and drowned everything they'd built over six months.
One word. One name. That's all it took to undo half a year of healing.
She started after him, but Lhoralaine caught her arm.
"Wait. I need to—I have to talk to him. Please."
Sirenia looked at her. Really looked at her. Saw the desperation. The regret. The guilt.
"No."
"What?"
"I said no." Sirenia pulled her arm free. "You don't get to talk to him. Not yet. Not after what you did."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly. You're the one who broke him. The childhood friend who chose someone else and shattered his heart so completely he spent years wishing he was dead." Sirenia's blue eyes hardened.
"I've spent six months helping him remember how to be human again. Six months watching him slowly, painfully open up. And five minutes of seeing you undid all of it."
Lhoralaine flinched like she'd been slapped.
"I didn't mean—I never wanted—"
"What you wanted doesn't matter. What matters is what you did. And what you did nearly killed him."
"I know!" Lhoralaine's voice cracked.
"I know what I did! I live with it every day! Do you think I don't see him when I close my eyes? Don't remember the way he looked at me, the way he smiled, the way he—" She stopped, choking on tears.
"I made a mistake. A terrible, horrible mistake. And I want to fix it. I need to fix it."
"You can't fix it. Some things stay broken."
"Please. Just let me try."
Sirenia stared at her for a long moment. Then she stepped closer, her voice dropping to something dangerous.
"If you hurt him again—if you open those wounds I've spent months helping him heal—I will make you regret it. I don't care if you were his childhood friend. I don't care about your guilt or your regrets. He's been through enough. And I won't let you destroy him twice."
She walked away, following Hexia's path.
Lhoralaine stood there, shaking. Her party members approached cautiously.
"Lhoralaine? You okay?"
"No," she whispered. "I'm not okay. I haven't been okay for years."
"What do we do?"
"We're going to Briarkeep. And I'm going to figure out how to fix what I broke. Even if it takes the rest of my life."
The road back to Korn Village felt longer than it should have.
Hexia walked in silence, Sirenia at his side. Their hands hadn't separated since leaving the tavern—fingers intertwined, grips tight enough to hurt but neither caring. The connection was lifeline and anchor both.
Behind them, three days of road stretched toward Briarkeep. Ahead, home waited with its familiar rhythms and false peace.
Between them hung the weight of what they'd witnessed.
"Are you going to talk about it?" Sirenia's voice was soft, careful.
"About what?"
"Seeing her again. Lhoralaine."
Hexia's jaw tightened. His crimson eyes fixed on the horizon, refusing to meet hers. "There's nothing to talk about."
"Hexia—"
"I said there's nothing." The words came out sharper than intended. He caught himself, softened. "I'm sorry. I just... I need time. To process."
Sirenia squeezed his hand. "Take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere."
They walked in silence after that. But it wasn't comfortable silence anymore. It was the kind that pressed down like storm clouds, heavy with things unsaid.
KORN VILLAGE - SUNSET
Marie saw them approaching from the kitchen window. She recognized the set of her son's shoulders immediately—the way he held himself when walls were rebuilding, when progress was reversing, when the emptiness was flooding back.
"He's home," she said quietly.
Jerkin joined her at the window. Saw Hexia and Sirenia walking up the path. Saw the space between them despite their joined hands. Saw the distance.
"That's not the face of someone who just saved people."
"No. That's the face of someone who saw a ghost."
They met them at the door. Marie pulled Hexia into a hug before he could protest, before he could retreat into formality.
"Welcome home, sweetheart."
Hexia's arms remained at his sides for a heartbeat—two—then slowly, hesitantly, returned the embrace.
"Thanks, Mom."
When she pulled back, she studied his face. Saw the cracks forming. The ice reforming over barely-thawed ground.
"Dinner's almost ready. Why don't you both wash up?"
Hexia nodded, disappeared into his room without another word.
Marie turned to Sirenia. "What happened?"
Sirenia's composure cracked. "Lhoralaine. She was there. At the caravan attack. He saw her and just... shut down. Like six months of progress evaporated in seconds."
"Where is she now?"
"Headed to Briarkeep with her party. We split up after the battle. But Marie..." Sirenia's voice dropped to something worried, desperate. "She looked at him the way I look at him. Like she finally realized what she lost. And I think... I think she's going to try to get him back."
Marie's expression hardened. "Over my dead body."
"I can't compete with their history. They grew up together. They trained together. He loved her first—"
"And she broke him." Marie's voice was steel wrapped in silk. "She made her choice. She chose Fred. She doesn't get to waltz back into his life now that her mistake is convenient to regret."
"But what if Hexia wants her back? What if seeing her made him realize—"
"Then we'll deal with it. Together. As a family." Marie squeezed Sirenia's shoulder. "But I don't think that's what happened. I think seeing her reminded him why he built those walls in the first place. And he's terrified of tearing them down again only to get hurt worse."
Sirenia's eyes filled with tears. "I've worked so hard. Six months of patience. Of showing him he's worth caring about. And one glimpse of her undid all of it."
"Not all of it. Look—he's still here. He didn't run to Briarkeep after her. He came home. To us. To you. That means something."
"Does it? Or is he just running away again?"
Marie didn't have an answer for that.
HEXIA'S ROOM - NIGHT
Hexia sat on his bed, staring at his hands. The same hands that had slaughtered forty goblins without hesitation. The same hands that had healed Sirenia's wounds. The same hands that had trembled when he saw Lhoralaine's face.
Why? Why does seeing her still hurt? I'm supposed to be over this. I spent three years getting over this. I found Sirenia. I found something better. Something real.
So why does it feel like I'm drowning again?
A knock at the door.
"Come in."
Sirenia entered, carrying two plates of food. "Your mom thought you might skip dinner. She was right, wasn't she?"
Hexia managed a small smile. "Maybe."
She sat beside him, handed him a plate. For a while, they ate in silence. Not the comfortable kind from earlier, but not hostile either. Just... heavy.
"I'm sorry," Hexia said finally.
"For what?"
"For shutting down. For retreating. For undoing six months of progress because I saw someone I used to know."
"You don't need to apologize for having feelings, Hexia. Even painful ones. Especially painful ones."
"But it's not fair to you. You've been patient. You've been kind. You've shown me I can be more than empty. And the first time my past shows up, I fall apart."
Sirenia set down her plate, turned to face him fully. "Do you want to talk about her? About what you felt when you saw her?"
Hexia was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I felt nothing."
"What?"
"When I saw her face. When I recognized her. I felt... nothing. No anger. No pain. No longing. Just emptiness. And that terrified me more than anything."
He looked at Sirenia, and his eyes held raw vulnerability.
"Because if I feel nothing—if I'm that numb—then what does that say about me? About us? How do I know what I feel for you is real and not just... another coping mechanism? Another way to avoid feeling the real pain?"
Sirenia reached out, cupped his face in her hands. Made him look at her.
"You want to know how I know it's real?"
He nodded.
"Because you're terrified right now. Because you're questioning it. Because you care enough to worry about hurting me. People who don't feel don't worry about that. They just... exist. Use people. Move on."
"But I did feel nothing when I saw her—"
"No. You felt empty when you saw her. There's a difference. Emptiness is what happens when old wounds reopen and you don't have the tools to process them yet. It's not the same as not caring."
She leaned closer. "And you know what else? You came home. To me. To your parents. You didn't chase after her. You didn't try to reconnect. You came to the people who make you feel safe. That's not nothing, Hexia. That's everything."
"But what if she comes back? What if she tries to—"
"Then we'll deal with it. Together. You and me. And your parents. And anyone else who actually loves you and wants you to be happy." Her voice firmed. "But Hexia, you need to decide something. Right now. Before this goes any further."
"What?"
"Do you want her back? Is there any part of you—any small, hidden part—that still loves her? That wants to try again?"
Hexia closed his eyes. Searched inside himself. Past the walls. Past the emptiness. Past the fear.
And he found his answer.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." He opened his eyes, met hers. "I loved who she was. Or who I thought she was. But that person—that girl I knew—she's gone. We're both different people now. And even if we weren't... what we had was built on a foundation that doesn't exist anymore. You can't rebuild that. You can only build something new."
"And do you want to build something new? With her?"
"No. I want to build something new with you. If you'll have me. If you're willing to be patient with someone who's still figuring out how to be human again."
Sirenia smiled—warm and genuine and full of fierce love. "I've been patient for six months. I can be patient for six more. For sixty more. For as long as it takes."
She leaned in, pressed her forehead against his. "But Hexia? You need to tell her that. When she comes back—and she will come back—you need to be clear. No ambiguity. No room for hope. Because leaving that door open? It's not fair to any of us."
"I know. And I will. I promise."
They sat like that for a while. Foreheads touching. Breathing synchronized. Two broken people choosing each other despite—or maybe because of—their damage.
The next day sirenia left for quest but left a message crystal so they will stay connected even if she's on a quest. A silver storm is comming to briarkeep.
To be continued....