Vector Chronicle’s Tears
The morning sun streamed through the curtains as dawn broke on another day. Vector Chronicle awakened from his slumber and silently sat up in bed...only for agonizing pain to shoot through his body. Vector closed his eyes and steadied his breathing, and the pain gradually died down. Opening his eyes again, he slowly clambered out of bed.
Slowly but surely, the pain had intensified over the last few years. Fortunately, it hadn’t impeded his daily life yet. It wasn’t entirely unmitigated, though. He had to withstand both the agony and the stench of his flesh decaying alive. But he could still function well enough, so he didn’t forsake his duties as head of the Chronicle barony.
Sadly, the fact remained. Carrion disease was eating away at Vector’s body, little by little, with the certainty and finality of a tightening noose. Some day, in the not so distant future, he would wake up to find that he could no longer leave his bed on his own.
Vector opened the window, breathing in a lungful of fresh morning air. However, not even such a clear morning could lift the haze hanging over Vector’s heart. It did quite the opposite, in fact. The morning brightness only made him feel more melancholic.
“Why am I even still here?” Vector murmured, the words slipping from his lips.
At first it was the nobles’ faction’s tyranny. Then it was King Pharst II’s death. Not long after that, the civil war started. Then the O’ltormea Empire had tried to invade their neighboring country, Xarooda. All of these major events had shaken Rhoadseria. And Vector hadn’t been able to help with any of them, when normally, he would be serving Queen Lupis alongside Mikhail and Meltina.
“If this is how things are going to end, then I...I shouldn’t have cast the sword aside.”
This emotion had brewed in Vector’s heart ever since he stepped away from his life as a knight. He did take pride in his title and the barony he inherited following his brother’s passing, but when his beloved wife and son died a few years ago, the bloodline of House Chronicle had been severed.
There were other ways to continue the line, of course. His relatives had suggested he adopt one of their children. Had it only been about passing down House Chronicle’s headship, he could have let his relatives carry it on. But by that point, it would’ve no longer been the house he’d cast aside his career for. It would still be the Chronicle barony, but a different family and bloodline would pass it down. Vector hadn’t left Lupis’s service just for something like that to happen.
“Queen Lupis...”
Scenes of days past, when he and his friend Mikhail Vanash served a young Lupis Rhoadserians, flashed through his mind. They were the finest days he’d ever experienced as a knight in service to his sovereign. They were better days, when he could say with confidence that he would live and die for his kingdom.
But now, it all feels so hollow.
Vector smiled self-deprecatingly. It was the kind of smile only a man seeking a place to die could make. However, a certain letter would soon arrive that would change his fate in a major way.
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