Chapter 18—A Knight's Memories

We weren't in the Penalty Dungeon anymore.

Stone walls stretched around me, but they were not bone and flesh.

They were marble, carved with the insignia of a house crest—a lady in profile, veiled, her eyes closed as if forever silent.

This place was...

House Odelia.

I knew it not from memory, but because her memory was becoming mine.

Slowly I felt it, like ink bleeding across wet paper, her past unfolding in my mind.

***

The Knight—no longer a hollow, armored phantom—stood there whole.

No smoke, no sorrow. A woman of flesh and blood, tall, draped in the sigil of her house.

Her sword gleamed bright silver, untainted.

She trained in the courtyard of a keep, her blade cutting through the morning air. Dozens of retainers watched. Some whispered admiration. Others' jealousy.

She ignored them all.

She was driven by a singular desire.

Purpose.

***

Through her eyes, I saw a younger self—hers, not mine—kneeling before a veiled woman upon a throne.

The Silent Lady.

A noble sworn to silence, clad in black robes, mouth hidden by crimson silk.

The Knight pledged her life to that Lady’s cause.

“Your silence will be my voice. Your shadow, my sword. Your name, my breath.”

And so, she knelt.

She became the sword that cut, the fist that struck, and the shield that defended. In the name of that Silence, the Knight fought wars in distant lands, put down uprisings, and slaughtered enemies.

The Knight knew neither love, family, nor joy. All that existed for her was service.

She had found her purpose at last.

***

I felt her battles as though they were mine.

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Wars fought for Odelia, with only one rule:

Leave the innocents untouched. Let no civilian bleed or burn in a conflict that was never theirs to begin with. For her, there were uncrossable lines. She refused to allow anyone, including herself, to cross those lines.

Her name was sung by soldiers and hated and feared among nobility, but she cared little, even less so for any fame she got out of it.

The Knight found no fulfillment in those empty battles.

There was loneliness beneath it all.

So, she prayed for that which was forbidden.

The Knight desired...companionship, the touch of family, the embrace of friends, and the joy of belonging.

And thus began the true tragedy of her tale:

In the midst of battle, the knight found her comrades dying, slain by treacherous assassins, the blades dripping in their venom.

The first thing she felt...was relief.

Her oath would finally be absolved, for the death of the Silent Lady would free her from all vows.

Then, in a moment that could have been an eternity, she witnessed the dying faces of those around her. Those who shared their lives, who she had failed to save. The pain they carried and the love and loyalty for one another that they had demonstrated again and again in each battle were on display in those last moments, as each sought to defend their brothers and sisters-in-arms from their enemies’ weapons.

The knight, alone and untouched, killed a wave of foes.

But nothing would undo her failure. Never had she experienced such crushing guilt. Never had the pain of her loss overwhelmed her. It consumed her from within. How many comrades had died before she had ever acknowledged how much they mattered to her?

The knight ran to her mistress, who was lying in bed with a spear in her belly and another at her throat, bleeding to death with each drop while still clinging to life.

In that moment, she committed an unthinkable act, thereby breaking her very first Oath.

She held the mistress, cradling her in her arms, watching as life faded from her Lady's eyes. Seeing her die. Then something strange happened:

She cried.

She cried like she hadn't since she was a child. Her lips quivered, her face twisted in pain, and tears streamed down her cheeks in endless rivulets that poured out into nothingness as everything blurred together—the world spinning wildly beneath her—and still, the Knight wept until there were no tears left inside her.

At first, the Knight didn't know what exactly was causing these emotions to flood through every fiber of her being.

But then she understood.

It was not the vow, not the Lady, not even the cause she had served so devoutly.

It was the faces of those who had fallen beside her.

The warmth she had denied herself.

The love she had cast aside.

She wept because she had desired all along—

and never admitted it.

She brushed her Lady's face and kissed her gently upon her lips, feeling them grow cold beneath hers as the light in their owner faded. Then, when it was time, when it became too painful to remain by the side of such a corpse any longer...

She completely shut her heart off.

She stopped feeling altogether.

And her soul burned away until nothing but hatred remained for herself and everything else in this world of hers that could hurt someone she loved ever again...

She picked up her fallen Lady and walked through flames of burning debris.

No one could tell how long she carried that cold corpse. Time had frozen for both mistress and knight. Finally, they arrived in the middle of nowhere—a lonely, quiet tomb carved by ancient stones. There were no flowers, nor did any birds sing. All that lived was her grief, her hate...her desire for punishment. To the tomb she descended.

And then, she placed down her lady's body on an empty pedestal and bowed.

And she remained there, motionless in a kneeling position, until she could no longer move.

This was the story of Alicia, the former Knight Captain of House Odelia.