Chapter 100: The Morning That Bled Grey

Cherion’s eyes snapped open, blinking rapidly as he tried to process everything at once. Cherion lay stared at the sloped ceiling of the tent, still half-lost in that blurry space between sleep and reality. For a few glorious seconds, he let himself float there. The blankets were warm, the air sharp, and for once, everything felt calm.

Then, he rolled over.

Cherion reached out without thinking, looking for the warmth he’d grown ridiculously used to, but all he found was cold, empty sheets.

Cherion’s eyes snapped open. He sat up, the movement a bit too fast, sending a dull throb through his temples. He looked at the other side of the bed, and his heart did a queer little stutter. The bedding was pristine. Not only was it empty, it was suspiciously neat. The furs were straightened, the pillow fluffed, as if no one had ever slept there.

Zarius hadn’t slept there.

Maybe he’d come back for a change of clothes? Or maybe he didn’t come back at all. He tried to rationalize it, Zarius was a Duke, a General, a man whose life was essentially one long series of crises punctuated by the occasional murder attempt.

That knight who had come barging into their tent, eyes wide, voice trembling like a leaf in a storm. The one who had looked like he’d just seen a dragon wearing a crown.

Clearly, there was something going on. Something urgent. Something that meant Cherion probably shouldn’t ask too many questions yet.

Still. The emptiness felt loud.

Inevitably, his brain drifted back to last night... that other thing he probably shouldn’t be thinking about. The tension in the tent. The way Zarius had held his hand, that gaze...

And then... the ruffle.

Instinctively, he rubbed the top of his head, remembering how Zarius’s hand had been... there. Blunt, firm, and somehow disarmingly gentle.

"Stupid," he muttered, scowling at the empty bed. "Absolutely ridiculous."

He tried to frame it through a modern lens to protect his ego. Maybe it was a power move? A ’good boy’ pat you’d give a particularly obedient golden retriever or a junior who finally figured out how to do his job properly? Yeah. That had to be it. Zarius probably treated all his subordinates like that. He probably ruffled Elios’s hair too, right?

The mental image of Zarius ruffling the stoic Elios’s hair was so absurd it actually made Cherion feel worse. He groaned, flopping back onto the pillow for a split second before the sheer restlessness of his own thoughts forced him upright again. He couldn’t stay here. The tent felt too small, too filled with the ghost of a conversation that had ended on a question mark.

Before even thinking about clothes, he grabbed the basin and splashed icy water on his face, letting the shock of it ground him. He then got dressed as fast as he could, struggling with the buttons. When he stepped outside, the cold hit him like reality itself, sharp, dry, and smelling faintly like frozen wood.

He stopped.

On the surface, the camp looked normal. Fires were being stoked, the smell of burnt porridge was wafting through the air, and the distant clatter of steel suggested morning drills. But the rhythm was... off-beat. It was like a song played just a fraction too fast.

The patrols had clearly been upgraded. Groups of four had become groups of eight. There was no idle whistling, no one swapping dirty jokes by the supply wagons. The usual morning noise had disappeared, leaving an uneasy hush over everything.

Cherion started walking, keeping his head down but his eyes wide. He needed a familiar face. He needed someone who wasn’t currently looking like they were waiting for the sky to fall.

He spotted Reiner near the western perimeter, leaning against a post. To an outsider, Reiner looked relaxed, one hand on his hip, watching the treeline with a casual air. But Cherion saw the truth, the man was basically a human spring, ready to catapult at the first sign of trouble.

"Morning, Reiner," Cherion said, aiming for ’breezy’ but hitting ’strained.’ "You look like you’re waiting for a carriage that’s three hours late. Is everything okay? Or did the Duke finally ban smiling in the camp?"

Reiner turned. Usually, he’d have his smile ready. But today, there was a beat of silence. A delay. His eyes flickered toward the forest before settling on Cherion.

"Ah, My Lord. You are awake," Reiner said. He sounded normal... boringly normal. Like someone had hit the "fun" off switch.

"Yes. But, Reiner. Look at me. Why is everyone acting like they’re expecting a ghost to walk through the front gate?"

Reiner sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked older in this light. "Protective measures. Nothing to worry your head about, truly. We adjusted the patrol routes overnight. Some of the beasts in the lower valley are being... rowdy. A few units took the long way back. Standard Northern winter stuff."

"Standard?" Cherion pressed, stepping closer. "Then why do you look like you’re counting the seconds on a clock?"

Reiner hesitated. He bit his lip, a tiny crack in his armor. "One unit hasn’t reported back yet. It happens. The snow can mess with your senses. But don’t worry, they’re probably just laying low."

For a brief second, the corner of Reiner’s mouth twitched into a small smile. Cherion nodded, mirrored it with a small, awkward smile of his own.

Internally, a cold dread began to pool in his stomach.

Did it already start...

But before he could finish the thought, a sharp voice cut through the morning chill.

"MAKE WAY! MOVE IT!"

It all went from zero to chaos in a heartbeat. Snow crunched under running boots, metal clanged, and every sleepy whisper in the camp got stomped into silence.

Cherion quickly ran. He pushed past a group of startled archers, his eyes fixed on the commotion near the entrance. A small group of scouts had staggered through the gates, uneven and wobbling like tipsy dancers rather than soldiers

And they were carrying someone.

The guy in the middle wasn’t splattered with blood, which somehow made it worse. He was ghostly pale, practically limp, his head flopping against the guy holding him like a ragdoll. And his uniform? Torn to bits, not by swords, but by something that apparently really liked claw marks

Then, the scouts shifted, and the man’s face was revealed.

Relief hit Cherion in a strange, guilty little wave.

Thank the stars it’s not Zarius.

It was Ezek.

The same Ezek who had sneered at Cherion. The man who had mocked him back home, who had treated Cherion’s presence in the North as a personal insult to the Duchy. The man who would, quite literally, probably rather die than owe a single heartbeat to the "disgraced" healer.

It had already started.