After Gabriel Solarius’s departure, Domvoro Castle became a hive of bronze and oil. Through the stone corridors, the footsteps were no longer those of men, but of functions: generals carried maps like shields, intendants muttered ration numbers, blacksmiths worked with soot-stained arms. It was the sound of a war machine being engaged.

  In the midst of that flow, Philip moved with the precision of one who was already a part of that machine. At five-foot-nine, he wasn't the largest, but he had the compact density of a clenched fist. At thirty, his brown skin was marked not by the sun, but by long hours under a helm and by sparks from the field forge. His shaved head was pure practicality. His eyes, usually so steady when analyzing terrain, were now fixed on a distant point, glimpsing not strategy, but a farewell.

  He left the buzz behind, crossing the empty courtyard under a sky the color of charcoal ash. His direction was not the barracks, but the officers' residential wing. A row of identical stone houses, as functional as tents. His was the third.

  He pushed the heavy wooden door, and the world outside collapsed. The smell was of fresh bread, burning wood, and homemade soap—the violently normal aroma of peace.

  In the stone kitchen, Lia had her back to him. Her long red hair, a shade of ember that seemed to hold all the warmth missing in Domvoro, fell like a curtain over her shoulders as she stirred a cauldron. Her face, turning to him with a smile upon hearing the door, was a constellation of pale freckles over porcelain skin; her lips naturally rosy, like the rare apples he saw at the market. She was twenty-five, but her moss-green eyes sometimes carried the shadow of one who had learned to count the days between campaigns.

  “Darling, you’re home early...” her voice was a soft melody, muffled by the cozy room. “...the stew is almost—”

  She stopped mid-sentence. Something in his silence, in the way he stood in the doorway still dressed in his heavy traveling gambeson, killed the words in her throat.

  Philip closed the door. The click of the lock sounded like a blow.

  “Love...” his voice tried for softness, but came out raspy from a dry throat. “...I am going to Sulkar.”

  Her world stopped. The wooden spoon slipped from her fingers and hit the stone floor with a sharp crack that seemed to echo forever. Her rosy lips trembled, trying to form a word. No sound came out. Only tears—silent, heavy, rolling over her freckles in shimmering paths—began to fall.

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  “But... but... you said...” her whisper cracked, turning into a choked sob she tried to swallow. “Father always told me not to marry a soldier...” The sentence was that of a wounded child, an old and feared truth that reality had just spat back at her.

  Philip crossed the room in two steps and enveloped her. Not in a romantic embrace, but in a cuirass of flesh and wool against the world. He felt the convulsive tremor running through her slender body, the scent of rosemary in her hair. He whispered against her ear, his voice now forcing a barracks-firmness he did not feel:

  “I will be fine. It is a general’s promise, not a husband’s.” It was the only currency he had to offer.

  He let go, his heart tight as if under a mail shirt that was too small. He ran his thumb, rough with calluses, over the line of a tear on her cheek, erasing it. Then, he went down to the cellar.

  Here, the atmosphere shifted. The air smelled of linseed oil, damp leather, and the metallic tang of polished steel. On the shelves, his other lives: the halberd “Raven’s Voice,” the longsword in its simple scabbard, the misericorde dagger with its worn hilt. He touched each one, not with love, but with recognition, like a craftsman picking up his tools. Then, the armor. The dark steel plates of Domvoro, cold to the touch. He put it on piece by piece; every buckle, every adjusted strap was a piece of Philip being buried under the General’s shell. His breathing grew heavier, his field of vision narrower. He was someone else.

  When he came up, he was already the imposing and threatening figure of a Domvoro commander. His son, little Kael, was playing on the floor. Seeing his father transformed into that statue of dark steel, his eyes widened. Not with fear. With pure awe.

  Philip knelt. The act was awkward, creaking. He pulled the leather glove from his right hand and ruffled the boy’s brown hair.

  “Look after Mommy while I’m gone, alright, soldier?” The voice came out muffled by the gorget.

  Kael bit his lip, mimicking seriousness, and nodded. Then he threw himself into a clumsy hug against the cold, hard breastplate.

  Philip stood up, the metal groaning. His gaze met Lia’s. She stood still, hands gripping her apron, her eyes red but now dry. There were no more tears. Only a deep and terrible resignation. He held that look for a second—a silent pact, a map of all things left unsaid—and turned away.

  As he left, he did not look back. To look back was weakness. The door closed, cutting off the smell of bread and the sound of his family’s breathing. The cold wind of Domvoro hit his face full force, washing away the last vestige of domestic warmth. Ahead of him, the cavalry barracks, where the black banners snapped like whips in the frozen air.

  He walked toward them. Each step was firmer than the last. Philip—the husband, the father—had been left behind, locked in the stone house. The one marching now was General Philip, the spear of Domvoro. Ready to bring fire and steel to Sulkar. Ready to die for his kingdom. And, in the deepest silence of his armored soul, terrified that the promise he had made to the woman with hair like fire would be the first one he would break.