The wind tasted like iron.
Not the clean kind you get off open water—this was dry, sharp, threaded with smoke and old ash.
The kind that settles into brickwork and never leaves. The kind that says a place has been occupied, not lived in.
I stood just outside the town’s broken eastern gate with my blindfold tight across my face, Gravewake resting against my back like a second spine.
The cloth over my eyes pulsed faintly—divine, steady—anchoring the storm of sensation that never stopped trying to swallow me whole. Hundreds of heartbeats. Thousands, if I reached. I didn’t. I kept my awareness narrow on purpose. Close. Controlled.
The ground beneath my boots, the warmth of bodies near me, the heat of the afternoon sun baking sand into glassy clumps. If I let myself feel too far, the world became noise again—an ocean of fear and mana signatures that would drown even conviction.
Behind me, Jerek adjusted his shield strap. Leather creaked. Metal settled. His breathing was measured, careful in the way nobles were never supposed to learn.
To my left, Rona exhaled, and the air around her warmed a fraction—magma trait simmering under skin like a quiet furnace. Not flaring. Not dramatic. Just there, like a hearth that never went out.
The wind tasted like iron.
Not the clean kind you get off open water—this was dry, sharp, threaded with smoke and old ash. The kind that settles into brickwork and never leaves. The kind that says a place has been occupied, not lived in.
I stood just outside the town’s broken eastern gate with my blindfold tight across my face, Gravewake resting against my back like a second spine. The cloth over my eyes pulsed faintly—divine, steady—anchoring the storm of sensation that never stopped trying to swallow me whole.
Hundreds of heartbeats. Thousands, if I reached.
I didn’t.
I kept my awareness narrow on purpose. Close. Controlled. The ground beneath my boots, the warmth of bodies near me, the heat of the afternoon sun baking sand into glassy clumps. If I let myself feel too far, the world became noise again—an ocean of fear and mana signatures that would drown even conviction.
Behind me, Jerek adjusted his shield strap. Leather creaked. Metal settled. His breathing was measured, careful in the way nobles were never supposed to learn.
To my left, Rona exhaled, and the air around her warmed a fraction—magma trait simmering under skin like a quiet furnace. Not flaring. Not dramatic. Just there, like a hearth that never went out.
We weren’t alone.
Our people—not soldiers, not in the Empire’s sense—moved in small, disciplined lines through the town’s outer streets. Some carried blades. Some carried nothing but bandages and water. A few had cheap shields. Most of them had fear buried somewhere in their chest, because anyone would. But they didn’t freeze when they looked at me anymore.
They didn’t need to.
They looked past me—at the work.
Inside the town, the damage was already done before Torian ever arrived.
Collapsed awnings. A fountain cracked down the middle. A row of homes with scorch marks up the walls like clawed fingers. You could tell where the Empire had passed through, not by flags, but by the shape of the ruin. Wide spells. Excess force. Careless angles.
Somewhere ahead, a child cried, then quieted quickly when someone murmured reassurance. A woman’s heartbeat stuttered, then steadied as a hand pressed to her shoulder.
I kept walking.
A small thing struck my boot—soft, light. It bounced once and rolled in the sand.
A carved toy. Wood. Painted once, long ago. The paint had faded to dull blue, but I could feel the ridges where someone had made the wings by hand—uneven, imperfect, loved.
A little bird.
I stopped, crouched, and pinched it between my fingers.
A tiny heartbeat hovered nearby, rapid like a sparrow’s. The child didn’t approach, but the fear wasn’t of me—fear of losing something that mattered and not daring to ask for it back.
I turned my head slightly toward the sound.
“Hey,” I said, calm. Simple. No grandeur in it. “You dropped this.”
I extended my hand and waited.
A pause. Sand shifted. Small feet. A tiny, trembling hand brushed my knuckles and took the bird gently, like I might crush it if they moved too fast.
The heartbeat eased. Not gone—nothing ever truly went away in a world like this—but softened.
“Thank you,” the child whispered.
I nodded once, like it was the most normal thing on earth, and stood.
Behind me, Jerek didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. But I felt the faintest lift in his breathing, the quiet satisfaction of a man who had once begged for friends in an alley and found something stronger than bloodlines.
Rona muttered under her breath, almost annoyed, “You do that too casually.”
“It’s a toy,” I replied.
“It’s hope,” she corrected.
Before I could answer, the wind changed.
Not naturally.
The air pressure shifted with intent, folding and tightening like a giant hand closing.
Every loose scrap of cloth in the street snapped taut. Sand lifted and swirled in thin spirals. The heat of the sun dimmed—not because clouds moved, but because the atmosphere itself thickened, heavier in the lungs.
A presence approached.
Not the raw, suffocating dread of Rex.
Not the cold rot of Veran.
This was… clean. Disciplined. Controlled violence held behind a wall of rules.
And beneath it, something human—tight, quiet concern, like a heartbeat that refused to admit it was worried.
Torian Gale.
The townspeople felt him before my people did. You could always tell. Civilians didn’t understand mana signatures, but their bodies did. Heartbeats spiked. Hands trembled. Breaths turned shallow.
My people moved anyway.
A pair of them guided a family into a cellar entrance. Another lifted fallen stones from a doorway so an old man could pass. Someone else—young, shaking—stood between a panicked crowd and the street like a dam holding back a flood, whispering, “Stay low. Stay behind cover. Don’t run into the open.”
No shouted orders. No threats. No “by imperial decree.”
Just choice.
Then Torian’s soldiers arrived.
Boots in sync. Not quite marching—too fast for that—but moving with drilled unity. Steel. Spellbooks. Enchanted plating that hummed faintly against the air, each piece stamped with the Empire’s mark.
They poured into the street like a tide.
And immediately, you could feel the difference between their formation and their intent.
The front line held discipline. They moved like they knew the cost of chaos.
The ones behind them… didn’t care.
One soldier shoved past a woman carrying a basket, nearly sending her to the ground. Another laughed at something private, cruel in tone. A third let a minor wind spell snap outward just to clear sand from his boots—sand that sliced into a passerby’s face like thrown glass.
I didn’t move.
But my fingers flexed once at my side.
Jerek did move—two steps, slight angle, shield repositioned so his body became cover for a cluster of civilians without anyone needing to ask him.
Rona’s heat rose a fraction. Controlled. Angry.
And then Torian stepped into the street.
Everything else seemed to shrink.
He didn’t need to shout to be heard. He didn’t need to posture. His presence did it for him—the way the wind curled around his shoulders as if it belonged there, the way every soldier straightened unconsciously when he passed.
Tempest Grand Marshal Torian Gale, Commander of the Imperial Legions—
I didn’t finish the title in my head. Titles were for people who still believed words could replace actions.
He stopped about twenty paces from me.
Close enough that the pressure of his mana made the blindfold’s divine anchor hum louder, the world sharpening at the edges like a blade being honed.
I felt his eyes on me. Not hatred. Not fear.
Assessment.
And underneath it—something restrained.
Regret, maybe. Or disappointment. Like he’d hoped the rumors were wrong.
He spoke without raising his voice.
“Cade Grimmholt.”
A statement. Not a question.
I tilted my head, listening, feeling. His heartbeat was steady, but just slightly faster than it would be if he truly believed he had full control.
“Tempest Grand Marshal,” I answered. Polite, in the way you were polite to storms.
He took one step forward.
His soldiers tightened behind him.
A few of mine shifted automatically—subtle footwork, hands near weapons, bodies angled to shield civilians first.
Torian noticed. I could tell by the minute hitch in his breath.
“Stop,” he said. Not to me.
To his men.
And for a second, discipline held.
Then one soldier—rear line, eager—cast a low wind pulse anyway, scattering the crowd just to make room.
A child screamed.
Torian’s heartbeat jumped, sharp as a flinch.
He didn’t look back, but the air around him tightened—anger contained behind command.
I exhaled slowly.
“So,” I said, voice level. “This is your peace.”
His silence held for a beat too long.
When he spoke again, it was quieter. For me.
“Peace is what happens when men like you don’t start wars they can’t finish.”
I let my hand rest on the hilt of Gravewake.
“I’m not starting a war,” I replied. “I’m ending a lie.”
The wind around Torian lifted.
The sand at our feet rose into thin rings, orbiting like the world itself had chosen a side.
The storm tightened.
Wind that had been circling the valley flattened inward, compressing into a single axis in his grip. The rain thinned. The lightning stopped branching.
All of it fed one point.
Stormheart settled into his hand.
No spectacle. No glow. Just weight.
The air around it bent slightly, like it had learned to stay out of its way.
He lowered it beside him and the ground compacted under his boots.
The cadets shifted behind me.
I didn’t.
His heartbeat was steady. Slower than it should’ve been.
“Grimmholt,” Torian said.
Not loud.
Just final.
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Gravewake slid into my palm.
Purple heat bled into the sand.
“Mr. Gale.”
The wind leaned forward.
Torian moved first.
Stormheart dropped.
The street imploded.
Air folded inward so violently that sound vanished for a heartbeat. Stone collapsed toward the impact point before detonating outward in a flattened ring of force that tore doors from hinges and drove bodies to their knees.
I was already cutting.
Gravewake flared violet and split the pressure seam, carving just enough space to move. Even so, the shockwave hit like a battering ram. My boots gouged through sand as I slid back.
He hadn’t aimed for me.
He’d aimed for control.
He stepped through settling dust and swung.
Horizontal.
I ducked—
Too slow.
Stormheart clipped my shoulder and gravity seemed to spike for a breath. I crashed through the remains of a wooden stall and hit stone hard enough to crack mortar.
Pain flared.
Not broken.
Close.
He advanced without rushing.
Each step reshaped the air.
Each swing compressed space.
I lunged.
Gravewake came low toward his ribs.
Stormheart intercepted with brutal economy.
The collision boomed.
Compressed air detonated between us, splitting the street in a jagged line. He pivoted with the recoil and drove the haft into my sternum.
My ribs screamed.
I hit the ground hard.
Behind him, one imperial soldier released a slicing gust too wide. It tore through a half-collapsed awning and sent debris raining toward civilians.
Jerek moved instantly.
His relic flared as falling beams slammed into his shield. Energy bled into the metal and burst outward in a controlled pulse that redirected the debris sideways instead of down.
Rona was already dragging a woman clear.
No orders.
No hesitation.
Behind Torian, the offending soldier faltered.
Torian’s heartbeat tightened.
“Hold formation,” he said.
Calm.
Sharp.
Most obeyed.
One stepped forward anyway, spell building again.
Without turning, Torian flicked his free hand. The wind shoved the soldier backward into line.
Corrective.
Controlled.
I pushed to my feet.
Blood filled my mouth.
Copper.
Warm.
He came again.
Stormheart rose overhead and fell in a vertical crush meant to end the exchange.
I leapt sideways.
The mace struck and the ground beneath us didn’t just crack—it imploded, forming a vacuum pocket that sucked sand and shattered brick inward before releasing them in a violent outward blast.
The shockwave caught me midair and drove me into the stone rim of the town well.
Something cracked along my ribs.
Manageable.
He closed the distance instantly.
Stormheart drove forward and caught my forearm.
Numbness shot through my fingers.
He saw it.
Pressed.
Behind him, another soldier misjudged spacing and detonated a stabilization spell too late. A nearby wall burst outward.
A child screamed.
Rona dove through dust to pull the boy clear.
Jerek shifted to cover her blind side.
Again.
No command.
Just trust.
Torian felt it.
His pulse ticked up.
Not fear.
Awareness.
Stormheart rose once more, channels along its head humming louder as layered pressure built inside it.
This strike would not be measured.
This strike would decide it.
The town strained around us.
One more high-density compression blast in the wrong direction—
And the eastern block would fold.
Stormheart began to fall.
And the air around us screamed.
Stormheart fell.
The mace struck.
This time the street didn’t just crater.
It gave.
The impact drove straight through fractured stone and into whatever old reinforcement lay beneath the eastern block. I felt the mana lines before I understood them—thin, ancient channels humming under the town like veins.
Stormheart’s compression crushed them.
The ground imploded.
Not outward.
Down.
Stone, sand, and broken foundation collapsed into a widening sink as pressure folded inward, then detonated back up in a violent eruption of debris and raw, unstable mana. Flame burst through cracks in the street. Shards of brick and timber spun through the air like thrown blades.
Screams tore through the dust.
For half a heartbeat—
Neither of us attacked.
Torian pivoted instantly, Stormheart reversing mid-arc. Wind slammed outward from him in a controlled dome, catching the heaviest debris and forcing it sideways instead of down.
I moved the other direction.
Gravewake cut in clean, vertical seams, splitting falling beams before they could land. Each strike reduced mass, redirected trajectory, bought seconds.
Seconds mattered.
Rona was already there, magma trait flaring hot enough to soften jagged stone mid-flight. Molten lines crawled across fractured support beams, sealing cracks before entire walls could shear free.
Cadets dove into the dust.
Not toward safety.
Toward civilians.
No orders.
No shouting.
Just motion.
Behind Torian, the imperial formation fractured.
Some soldiers rushed to assist.
Others froze, unsure whether to maintain combat line or shift to containment.
One kept his focus on me.
I felt him before I saw him.
Mana gathering. Focused. Tight.
Not a wide-area spell.
A kill shot.
He saw my back turned as I split a falling support beam in half.
He saw Torian’s attention diverted toward structural containment.
He saw opportunity.
The spell formed like a spear of compressed air and lightning braided together—a narrow, lethal line aimed straight for my spine.
I sensed it.
I did not turn.
I did not block.
I trusted.
The barrier ignited.
It didn’t form from the ground.
It didn’t rise from a planted shield.
It simply appeared.
A spherical shimmer around me—layered, translucent, humming with stored kinetic charge. The spell struck it dead center.
The impact thundered.
Energy rippled across the barrier’s surface like rain across glass. Lightning bled outward, redirected skyward in a harmless burst that cracked against empty air instead of bone.
The sphere collapsed a breath later.
Jerek stood thirty feet away.
Shield grounded.
Relic blazing.
He hadn’t moved.
He hadn’t needed to.
The cadets near him didn’t even look surprised.
Cade protected.
It was simply fact.
I exhaled once.
“Thanks.”
Jerek didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Across the broken street, Torian saw it.
His heartbeat shifted—not with anger.
With something sharper.
Recognition.
Behind him, the soldier who fired the spell staggered back under the weight of his own recoil. Fear spiked in him now. Not fear of me.
Fear of having acted without sanction.
“Hold,” Torian said.
The word cracked like a whip.
Some obeyed instantly.
Others hesitated.
One shouted that we had the advantage.
Another began forming another spell before catching Torian’s glare and aborting it mid-channel.
Discipline was there.
But it wasn’t seamless.
It wasn’t instinctive.
It required correction.
Dust rolled through the street in choking waves. The eastern block sagged but held—for now.
Rona hauled a bleeding man behind a stable wall and pressed heated hands to a wound, sealing it just enough to stop the worst of the bleeding.
Two cadets formed a loose perimeter without being told, backs to each other, scanning for falling debris before scanning for imperial threats.
Jerek’s relic dimmed, but he didn’t lower his shield.
He didn’t look at me.
He didn’t need confirmation.
Torian stepped forward again.
Stormheart rose.
The channels along its head still hummed with residual compression, but he didn’t swing immediately. His gaze flicked past me—over my shoulder—to the rebels moving through smoke.
No one waited for my command.
No one looked to me for permission.
They moved because they had chosen to stand here.
The air tightened again.
He attacked.
Stormheart drove forward in a short-range thrust meant to crush ribs and end the exchange cleanly.
I slipped inside the arc.
Gravewake caught the haft and redirected the momentum just enough to avoid the worst of the compression burst. The shockwave still blasted outward, shattering what remained of the well’s stone lip.
He pivoted, seamless.
But there was a delay.
Not in strength.
In attention.
His senses were split now—between me and the instability behind him.
A cadet stumbled under falling debris.
One of Torian’s soldiers almost stepped back into a collapsing line.
He felt it.
I felt him feel it.
Stormheart came again, horizontal.
I stepped toward him instead of away.
The reduced power in his swing—subtle, deliberate restraint to avoid detonating another structural collapse—left a seam in the air.
I cut through it.
Gravewake hooked the inner curve of Stormheart’s head and slid down the haft, redirecting the mace’s momentum toward the ground at an angle instead of straight through my torso.
The impact cracked stone—but didn’t implode it.
He had pulled force.
That fraction was enough.
I drove my shoulder into his chest.
Not to break him.
To move him.
He staggered half a step.
That half-step cost him leverage.
Gravewake’s pommel struck his wrist.
Stormheart slipped from his grip.
Not far.
But enough.
The mace hit the ground and skidded across fractured stone, wind snapping and dispersing without his hand to anchor it.
Silence fell.
Not complete.
But heavy.
Imperial soldiers froze.
Rebels held position.
Dust drifted through late afternoon light.
Torian stood upright.
Unbowed.
Breathing steady.
Wounded along the forearm where Gravewake had grazed him. Blood darkened the fabric beneath his armor.
He didn’t reach immediately for Stormheart.
His gaze moved again—past me.
Jerek, still standing.
Rona binding wounds.
Cadets forming protective arcs without being told.
Civilians alive.
His own soldiers watching him instead of acting.
Waiting.
For order.
For direction.
For permission.
I didn’t press the advantage.
I didn’t strike.
I stood there, chest aching, ribs cracked, blood at the corner of my mouth.
Waiting.
He looked back at me.
Really looked.
“You surround yourself well,” Torian said.
It wasn't an accusation.
It wasn’t envy.
It was a fact.
Behind him, a soldier shifted uncertainly.
No one moved to retrieve the fallen mace.
No one moved to strike me.
The battlefield held its breath.
And something inside the Empire—small, invisible, but real—
Split.
The dust didn’t settle all at once.
It drifted in slow sheets through the broken street, catching sunlight and turning it into something dull. Ash clung to the air. Smoke threaded between cracked buildings like it belonged there now. The eastern block sagged but held, held only because too many hands had decided it would.
No one cheered.
No one spoke.
Stormheart lay on the ground between us, its storm-currents unraveling in thin, aimless spirals without Torian’s grip to anchor them. The weapon looked wrong sitting there—too quiet, too still, like a crown dropped in mud.
Torian didn’t reach for it.
He stood with his hands at his sides, breathing steady, blood darkening the fabric beneath his armor where Gravewake had grazed him. His heartbeat had slowed. Not battle-slow. Not predator-calm.
Heavy.
Behind him, the imperial soldiers didn’t know what to do with that stillness. Their heartbeats were sharp with uncertainty, spiking and dipping like a flock that had lost its lead bird. Some stared at Torian. Some stared at me. Some stared at the civilians still alive—still being carried, bandaged, lifted out of rubble.
One soldier shifted as if to step forward.
Stopped.
Because there was no order.
On my side, no one moved toward Torian either.
Jerek remained where he was, shield grounded, relic dimmed but ready. His breathing was controlled, tight at the edges from strain. Rona knelt beside a wounded man, palms glowing faintly with heat as she sealed torn flesh just enough to keep him from bleeding out. A cadet—one of the younger ones—held a child behind a cracked stone trough, his own hands shaking but refusing to let go.
Choice.
It was all choice.
I stood where the fight had left me—ribs aching, blood on my tongue, Gravewake humming low in my palm. I didn’t advance.
I didn’t retreat.
I waited.
Torian turned his head slightly.
Not toward me.
Toward his own men.
I felt the shift in his breath. A small inhale, like he was deciding whether to keep something inside or let it out.
His hand rose to his chest.
Not to a wound.
To the mark of his rank.
The Grand Marshal sigil.
He unclasped it slowly.
No tearing. No anger.
Just the deliberate unfastening of something he’d worn for too long.
The metal made a small sound in his hand as it came free—soft, almost nothing.
But the entire street heard it.
He held the sigil for a moment, turning it once between his fingers, as if checking whether it still meant what it was supposed to mean.
Then he spoke.
Not loud at first.
Not meant to impress.
Just… said.
“You ever hear the myth of Rasputin?”
Every heartbeat around us tightened.
Even the imperial soldiers.
Even the civilians who didn’t understand why that name mattered, only that a Grand Marshal was speaking like a man instead of a weapon.
Torian’s gaze stayed forward. Past me. Past the dust.
As if he was talking to the town itself.
“They called him a myth,” he continued, voice steady. “A story parents told their children. A warning. A joke.”
A beat.
“They said he was poisoned.”
His fingers flexed around the sigil.
“Shot.”
Another beat.
“Beaten.”
His tone didn’t change.
“Drowned.”
He let the words hang there, not as drama, but as inventory. Like a report. Like a list of measures taken.
“And still,” Torian said quietly, “he didn’t die.”
The wind around him shifted, not storming—just moving, uneasy, like the air itself was listening.
“He became something larger than a man in their minds. A curse. A devil. A thing that refused to go away.” He paused again. “They called him a monster.”
A slight tilt of his head, almost like a question he didn’t want answered.
“Because monsters are easier than failure.”
That line hit like a blow.
Not to me.
To them.
I felt it ripple through the crowd—through civilians and cadets and imperial soldiers alike. Heartbeats stuttering. Breath catching. The sudden weight of recognition pressing down on people who had lived under the Empire long enough to believe its labels.
Torian’s thumb ran along the edge of the sigil.
“But it was never about whether he could die,” he said.
His voice rose just enough now that it carried.
Not shouting.
Clear.
“It was about why he wouldn’t.”
His hand lowered slightly, and the sigil caught a glint of dull light through the smoke.
“When something refuses to die—when it survives poison and blade and drowning—you stop asking how.” His jaw tightened, the only crack in his control. “And you start asking what created it.”
Silence stretched.
Even the wounded stopped moaning for a breath.
Even the imperial soldiers seemed to forget they were holding weapons.
Torian exhaled slowly.
“And if the answer frightens you,” he said, voice calm again, almost gentle—
“You call it a myth.”
One of his soldiers finally found his voice.
“Grand Marshal—”
Torian didn’t look back.
“No,” he said.
Not loud.
Absolute.
He stepped forward half a pace, still not facing me, still not acknowledging me as the center of the world. His focus was somewhere else now—on the line he could no longer pretend wasn’t there.
He opened his fingers.
The sigil fell.
It didn’t clang.
It didn’t echo.
It hit cracked stone with a small, flat metallic sound and rolled once before stopping in the dust.
And that was the loudest thing on the battlefield.
No one moved to pick it up.
Not the soldiers who’d worn that symbol on their chests their whole lives.
Not the civilians who’d been crushed under it.
Not my cadets, who watched it like it was a dead thing.
Torian stood over it for a moment.
Then his gaze finally shifted—just slightly—to where Stormheart lay.
He bent.
Picked it up.
The storm didn’t surge. It didn’t roar back to life. It simply gathered into the channels again, obedient, quiet, restrained.
He didn’t raise it.
He didn’t point it at me.
He didn’t threaten.
He just held it at his side, like a burden.
Then he turned.
And started walking.
He walked past his soldiers.
They parted instinctively, bodies moving out of his way as if the rank was still there—muscle memory refusing to accept what their minds couldn’t.
One reached out a hand, as if to stop him, to grab his sleeve, to demand an explanation.
The hand froze in the air.
Because no one had permission.
Torian didn’t acknowledge it.
He kept walking.
Down the ruined street.
Through smoke.
Through ash.
Leaving his badge behind like shed skin.
Leaving the Empire behind in front of witnesses.
I stood where I was, listening to the shift in heartbeats as it spread like contagion.
Imperial soldiers: confusion, anger, fear—fear of what they’d just seen more than fear of me.
Civilians: shock, fragile hope, disbelief.
My cadets: stunned silence, some trembling with adrenaline, some staring at the abandoned sigil like it might bite.
Jerek’s breathing loosened a fraction, like he’d been holding it since the first swing.
Rona swallowed hard, hands still pressed to a wound.
Stormheart’s footsteps faded.
Not rushed.
Not fleeing.
Leaving.
I didn’t call after him.
Didn’t offer alliance.
Didn’t speak his name.
Because the moment wasn’t mine to claim.
It was his to survive.
I turned my head toward my people.
Toward the wounded.
Toward the civilians still standing in the rubble.
“Get them inside.” I said just three words.
Not a victory speech.
An order—not born from power, but from responsibility.
The cadets moved.
Rona stood, lifting a child into her arms as if he weighed nothing.
Jerek stepped around the fallen sigil without touching it, shield angled to cover the crowd, guardian presence reasserting itself without fanfare.
And behind us, the town breathed—shallow, broken, alive.
The wind rolled through the street once more, carrying grit and ash.
It passed over the Grand Marshal sigil.
It didn’t lift it.
It didn’t honor it.
It didn’t answer it.
The metal sat half-buried in dust, dull and abandoned, like a promise that had finally run out.
And the battlefield, bleak and torn open, held the shape of what came next.
Not peace.
Not yet.
But the end of pretending.
