Chapter 181
The loyal attendants and security personnel within the chamber left quietly once Daniel's final words had settled into the air. His father and mother, Duke Aereth and Duchess Elleena, stepped aside with soft but commanding gestures, summoning the head steward. Orders were given in low tones two chambers were prepared for the prince and princess, as it was clear their stay would not be brief.
The royals of Cererindur were not merely guests tonight; they were witnesses to something shifting beneath the surface of their cousin's composure. Daniel stood apart, hands clasped behind his back, his posture unshaken, his presence steady in a way that unsettled as much as it reassured. He had always been sharp, but now there was a stillness about him, an almost disquieting calm that drew eyes and whispered of unseen storms.
Prince Lashrael lingered near the stone-carved table, watching Daniel with a guarded frown. "Cousin," he said at last, his tone straddling curiosity and wariness, "you move and speak as though something inside you has changed. Before, you carried fire, impatience, and restlessness. Now I see restraint. Cold restraint. What happened to you?" His words struck more like a demand than a question, for he was too proud to admit unease openly.
Princess Caerthynna, older and sharper in wit, crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing as she studied Daniel as though he were a puzzle she refused to leave unsolved. "I see it too. There is steel in your silence now, where once there was heat. You do not flare, you do not falter, you measure, you wait, as though you have already walked this path and know where it leads. Do not insult us with half-truths, cousin. You owe us more than shadows."
Daniel met their gaze without flinching, his expression carved in that same unnerving serenity. He weighed his response carefully. He wanted to tell them everything, to reveal the void where he had found balance, the crucible that had stripped away his old volatility. Yet he also knew that too much truth would burden them, or worse, expose what must remain hidden. His lips curved.
faintly, though no humor touched his eyes. "What you see," he said, voice low, "is not change; it is clarity.
The kind that comes only when one has stood too close to chaos and lived to step back. I burned away the noise; that is all."
Lashrael's frown deepened. "Clarity?" he echoed, his voice edged with doubt. "No man burns away his nature so quickly. If you are different, then something forced that difference. Tell me who, or what, reshaped you." His words betrayed his unease, for he feared Daniel might have been touched by powers beyond mortal hands.
Caerthynna tilted her head, her voice sharper, yet laced with an almost protective concern. "We are not children you can pacify with riddles, Daniel. You move like one who has crossed into shadows and returned with secrets. If you cannot trust us with the truth, then say so, but do not pretend nothing has shifted."
For a moment, Daniel let silence stretch, allowing their words to hang between them like a test. He could feel their worry, their suspicion, but also their loyalty. His parents were right; his cousins would not leave without answers, not after seeing what he had become.
At last, he exhaled, slow and steady, and chose the path of partial truth. "I have seen what lies beneath, how fragile the world is, how quickly it unravels when faith turns to fire. I am not what I was, but that is because I cannot afford to be. If I stumble now, we all fall. That is all you need to understand." His tone was final, not harsh but immovable, like a door gently but firmly closed.
The prince and princess exchanged a look, a silent conversation of doubt and reluctance.
acceptance. They had not been given the whole truth of that they were certain, but they also sensed that pressing further would yield only stone. Caerthynna's eyes softened, though her voice carried the faintest warning. "Very well. But know this, cousin: whatever path you walk now, you do not walk it alone. Secrets may shield you, but they can also strangle you."
Daniel inclined his head, acknowledging her words without promising more. "And I will remember that," he said. Then, without another word, he turned, leaving them to their thoughts as the torches along the chamber walls flickered, shadows stretching long across the floor. The night outside was thick and waiting, and Daniel knew his first step into Álfheim's silence would begin sooner than anyone else could imagine.
The chamber had quieted further as servants drifted away, leaving only the faint crackle of torches against stone. Prince Lashrael remained, unable to let go of the weight pressing on his chest. He stepped closer to Daniel, his voice low but urgent, carrying the edge of something that had gnawed at him since the battle.
"I saw you, cousin," Lashrael said, his jaw tightening. "From the throne room mirror, I watched you tear through those arch demons. You bled, you roared, but the one I saw fighting, he wasn't the Daniel I knew. There was no mercy, no hesitation. Every strike was savage, violent… yet precise, as though you were born for nothing else but killing.
Even from miles away, I felt it your killing intent. It froze me where I stood. I trembled, Daniel. Not from fear, not from panic. It was something else… anticipation. As though part of me wanted to feel that same fire." His eyes locked on Daniel's. "Tell me… what was that? What have you become?"
Daniel regarded his cousin for a long, measured moment. His voice, when it came, was calm, carrying none of the rage Lashrael described. "What you saw was not something I learned in books, nor something taught in drills. It is older than that.
You are a prince, Lashrael. A natural-born warrior trained to lead men, to inspire armies, to win glory through strength and courage. But me…" He paused, his gaze darkening. "I was not born for banners or thrones. I was born, and later molded, as a hunter. It is in my blood, in my bones."
Lashrael frowned, his pride bristling. "A hunter? Then what separates the two of us? Warrior and hunter, both fight, both kill."
Daniel shook his head slowly. "No, cousin. A warrior seeks honor, victory, and the weight of battle songs sung after the field is won.
A hunter seeks only the kill. A warrior charges when the horn sounds; a hunter waits in silence until the prey makes one wrong step. A warrior fights for his name; a hunter survives by erasing his.
That fight, what you saw was not rage; it was instinct. The clarity I carry now is not born from pride or glory, but from necessity.
I do not waste motion, and I do not hesitate, because in the hunt, hesitation is death. Do you see the difference? "
Lashrael's breath caught, his hand tightening into a fist. "And yet… when I saw it, when I felt it, something in me wanted to step into that same shadow. It called to me, as if my blood craved it."
Daniel's eyes softened, but his words were edged with warning.
"That is because you are a warrior. Battle sings in your veins. You crave the clash, the heat, the contest of strength. What you felt when you saw me was not my path, but your own yearning sharpened by its reflection. Do not mistake it, cousin. My clarity is that I know what I am and what I am not. I am a hunter who kills in silence so others may live. You are a warrior who fights so others may see hope."
For a moment, silence stretched between them. Lashrael's breathing was heavy, his face caught between pride and confusion, his mind wrestling with Daniel's words.
Daniel placed a hand on his cousin's shoulder, his grip firm but not unkind. "Do not envy my path. It is not meant for you. But learn from it, as I will learn from yours. Together, warrior and hunter can walk where neither could stand alone."
Lashrael lowered his gaze, finally nodding. "Then let us see if balance can be found. For if what lies ahead is as dark as you claim, the world will need both shadow and steel."
Daniel's faint smile was almost ghostlike. "Then we will see, cousin. In time, all hunts end and the greatest battles are fought long before blades ever cross."
"Very well," Daniel said, the corner of his mouth barely lifting as he stepped into the open square of floor. "Attack me with intent to kill, and don't hold back. You already know what I can do, so don't hesitate.
All your swings must be continuous." Lashrael's eyes flashed part challenge, part hunger and he drew his sword with a single clean motion that sang against the torchlight.
The prince surged first, a brutal, beautiful storm of steel: wide, looping cuts meant to break guard and shred opportunity, knees bent to drive power into every blow.
He moved like a charging hart: headlong, relentless, each strike carrying the weight of a banner behind it. The room smelled of oil and hot metal as blade met air; his boots scuffed the flagstones. Daniel did not mirror the violence he summoned his gun blade on his hand like it was alive and materialize in his hands.
He met the first arc with a small, practiced deflection that turned the prince's edge aside on the flat of his own blade, then slid inward like a hunting blade in the brush economical, almost tender in its precision. Where Lashrael's swings were thunder, Daniel's responses were the silence between storms: redirections that bled momentum, not blood.
When the prince committed to a second, savage overhead heave, Daniel stepped beneath it—not back, not away, but under the line of power, his wrist a whisper against the prince's wrist to disturb the angle, a calf-swipe with the toe of his boot that unbalanced Lashrael's rear foot. The prince stumbled forward, furious, and Daniel's elbow met his jaw in a careful, controlled tap that was enough to stagger but not to maim; the movement hid a real danger in its restraint. Lashrael lunged again, a series of continuous cuts meant to overwhelm;
Daniel answered with a counterpoint of rhythm, blocking briefly, then slipping a blade-tip under the prince's sword arm where the joint met the sleeve and pressing a pin that made the prince grunt pain and surprise braided in his breath. Each of Daniel's counters was a small calculus: a deflection that converted force to opening, a brief feint that left the prince exposed for a heartbeat.
The duel sharpened into a dance of predator and challenger. Lashrael's breath came harder now, sweat beading along his temple as his attacks grew wilder, his swings carrying that rough, unrefined power Daniel had warned him about. Daniel used the prince's own aggression like a leash, catching a heavy strike on his shoulder, turning the momentum, and guiding Lashrael past him in a circle, then dropping level to sweep the prince's trailing leg.
Lashrael hit the stones hard but rolled, knife-like instinct saving him; he sprang back upright and attacked again, desperation and pride fuelling every move. Daniel's blade, however, never wasted path or time: a press to the inside of the prince's forearm, a twist that forced the sword to the left, a low kick to secure the balance, and then when Lashrael opened his guard in one too many blind blows Daniel's hand closed on the prince's sword wrist and the other hand came over the shoulder to bind it tight.
With a practiced torque that spoke of beds of patience and nights in concealment rather than boasts on training grounds, Daniel locked the prince's arm behind his back, drove his knee between the prince's thighs to subdue any bucking, and leaned his weight forward so the prince's chest met the cool edge of the meeting table. The blade of Daniel's sword hovered at Lashrael's throat, not biting the skin but close enough that every inhale trembled with the reminder of mortal choice.
Silence crashed down like a gavel. Lashrael panted, cheeks flushed, sweat streaking dark across his forehead; he was roughened, bruised on the pride more than the flesh. His eyes, however hot and wide were not angry so much as lit with a fierce, complicated respect.
"You… you bind like a net," he managed, voice raw. "You don't want to conquer only to catch and close." Daniel's grip loosened a fraction; his tone was mild, almost instructional. "A hunt has no hallmarks of glory, cousin. It has patience, economy, and the readiness to end things without spectacle. You fight to be seen. I move so I am not. Both have their merits.
Learn to use the space you stand in; don't let it use you. An open hall is a training ground and a coffin, depending on who reads it first." Lashrael swallowed, a bitter laugh escaping him. "Then teach me," he said hoarsely, not with the arrogance of before but with the hunger of a man who had caught a glimpse of something deeper.
Daniel sheathed his sword with one smooth motion, palms steady, and for a moment the hunter in him softened into something like a teacher: "If you wish it, I will. But understand this what I teach will force you to be patient in ways the throne never asked of you." The prince's nod was immediate, fierce, and altogether different from the restless confidence that had entered the chamber; between them, in that small square of floor, steel had drawn the first clean line of understanding.
Daniel released the bind slowly, not as a man breaking from a duel but as one loosening a snare, every motion measured, deliberate. He stepped back without flourish, his sword lowering but never slackening, its point angled toward the floor, ready to rise again with the ease of breath. Across from him, Prince Lashrael exhaled sharply, rubbing at his arm, sweat clinging like a heavy cloak, his pride burning hotter than his exhaustion.
Yet Daniel's expression did not shift; his calm remained steady, as if their clash had been no more than an exercise in breath control. "Do you see it now?" His voice, soft but edged like steel, carried more weight than the strike that had just ended. Lashrael frowned, confused, unwilling to yield.
"See what? You didn't move faster than me, and you didn't call on any power beyond me. Yet your blade was where mine wasn't… as if the air itself whispered my intent before I moved." Daniel's eyes narrowed, a cold patience gleaming behind them.
He stepped lightly back into the square, no grand stance, only a natural poise standing not as a warrior on stone floors but as if in a forest clearing, relaxed, inevitable. "It is no spell," he said. "No charm, no trick. This is not sorcery.
It is instinct sharpened until it cuts deeper than steel. My body moves because I already see you before you move. The hunt teaches this. A stag lowers its head before the charge. A wolf shifts its weight before the leap. If you read the space, cousin, you already hold the ending before the strike begins
" His words struck sharper than any blade, but pride was a stubborn fire. Lashrael stepped forward, lifted his sword, and cut not to kill, but to prove. The strike hissed through the air, swift and testing, yet Daniel's response was neither rushed nor hesitant.
He leaned aside, almost casually, the steel brushing his sleeve by a whisper's width. His pommel touched Lashrael's wrist, a light tap that said more clearly than words: I was already there. Another strike came, faster, sharper, desperate to land.
Daniel's boot shifted at the perfect angle, catching Lashrael's footing, tilting his balance before the swing was even half-formed. The third blow came wild, reckless, fire behind the steel, but Daniel turned his blade to meet it with the barest pressure, redirecting the strike so that when the steel passed, it was not their weapons that collided it was Daniel's steady gaze that halted Lashrael cold.
The prince froze, realization dawning. He saw it now: the distance between his intent and Daniel's certainty was not measured in speed but in foresight. Silence hung heavy, until Daniel spoke again, tone even, almost instructive: "It is not about being faster it is about moving earlier.
I do not wait for your swing. I see its shadow in your stance, in your grip, in the way your breath shifts. By the time your blade sings, I have already walked its path and chosen where to stand.
You fight to be seen. I fight for the silence that makes the strike inevitable." Lashrael's lips curved, not in bitterness but in reverence, pride melting into reluctant awe. His chest heaved, his body trembling, yet his eyes shone with a new clarity.
"You… you don't fight as men do," he whispered. "You hunt. You calculate. Every cut I made, you had already measured its death before it was born."
Daniel inclined his head, the faintest shadow of a smile tugging at his mouth, as though acknowledging a truth too simple for pride.
"In the hunt, hesitation feeds the quarry. Patience feeds the hunter. Learn this, and you will not fight with the desperation of one proving himself, but with the certainty of one who already knows the end." The words settled like embers, glowing, enduring. For the first time, Lashrael lowered his sword not in defeat but in acceptance, no longer prince against rival, but student before master.
Lashrael stood in stillness, his breath unsteady, his sword lowered not by command but by understanding. His eyes no longer burned with pride but with the restless hunger of a man who had glimpsed a higher path and could not look away.
"Tell me, cousin," he said at last, his voice quieter, stripped of its defiance. "How long did it take for you to master this? To see so clearly, to move as though the battle had already been lived once before?"
His question did not carry envy it carried reverence. Daniel paused, his blade sliding back into its sheath with a soft ring that echoed against the stone, and when he spoke, it was not with triumph but with reflection.
"It is not mastery, Lashrael. It is survival. Years in forests and mountains taught me not to chase victory, but to recognize it before it appeared. A hunter who sees too late does not eat; a man who moves too late does not live. I learned because I had to.
" The silence that followed was broken not by Lashrael, but by a voice from the edge of the chamber. Princess Caerthynna, eldest of the royal house, stepped forward, her eyes bright with curiosity rather than judgment. Where her brother's pride had bristled, hers leaned toward wonder, and her words carried no sharpness.
"And yet," she said softly, "you speak as though instinct were scripture. Do you truly believe foresight is a thing that can be taught, or is it a gift only earned by hardship?" Daniel regarded her for a moment, his expression calm, unyielding.
"It can be sharpened," he answered. "The gift lies not in seeing, but in learning to watch. Most look only at the blade. Few look at the hand that lifts it, the breath that steadies it, the step that betrays its weight. What is seen depends on what one chooses to notice.
That is the first lesson." The princess's lips curved with a quiet smile, thoughtful and unhurried, as if she were carving his words into memory. Lashrael lowered his gaze, his pride finally surrendered to curiosity, and asked again, almost reluctantly,
"Then could you teach me, cousin? Could you make my eyes see as yours do?" Daniel's answer was neither promise nor refusal. "If you would walk the hunt instead of the hall, if you would accept silence before glory, then yes.
But know this, Lashrael: it is not the strike that will change you, but the patience that waits for it." The weight of the words settled heavily in the chamber, not oppressive but profound, a stillness that drew both prince and princess closer to him, not in rivalry but in kinship.
For a long moment, the hall seemed caught in that hush, the kind that lingers after revelation. Then the spell was broken by the sound of a door opening, the creak deliberate, the interruption soft yet inevitable.
The head steward, Custodia, entered with the measured grace of one accustomed to timing her presence with care. Bowing low, her voice carried a gentle firmness as she spoke: "Your Highness, my lady, Master Daniel… the hour grows late. The tables are set, and dinner will soon be served." Her words did not shatter the silence so much as guide it toward its end, grounding them once more in the rhythm of courtly life, even as the embers of Daniel's lesson still glowed in the hearts of those who had listened.
The dining hall glowed with soft candlelight, shadows stretching long against the stone walls as servants laid the final touches upon a table heavy with silver and crystal. Daniel entered with the quiet composure he always carried, though a flicker of surprise touched his eyes when he saw Melgil already seated among them, her presence unexpected yet woven seamlessly into the evening.
He opened his mouth to question it, but before the words could take shape, his mother the Duchess Elleena caught his gaze and discreetly turned her wrist, revealing the slender bracelet he had crafted and entrusted to her. The subtle gleam of its surface was answer enough. Daniel said nothing aloud, but inwardly he understood: she had called Melgil here, and she had done so in secrecy. To the prince and princess, it would appear only as a trinket of fashion, but Daniel knew better.
That simple band of silver could channel mana into whispers and thoughts, carrying voices across distance with the intimacy of breath. Only a handful in the realm bore such a treasure—Melgil among them, and Siglorr Bouldergrove, the stalwart ally. Its power, if known, would ripple through the region like thunder, and the Duchess, wise in her caution, shielded its truth even from their royal guests.
Melgil rose gracefully as Daniel approached, her crimson dress catching the light, simple in cut but exquisite in its ability to draw the eye to her beauty, the subtle curve of her figure, the quiet strength she carried. She smiled with poise, offering a bow both elegant and unhurried, then greeted the Duke and Duchess as though she had always belonged at their table.
Her words, formal yet warm, held the lilt of charm that made even the most seasoned courtiers soften. Daniel, watching her, caught the faint pulse from his bracelet a silent confirmation of her choice to come and he received it not as intrusion but as a gesture of elegance, as though she had answered him without words. He liked it, more than he cared to admit.
Princess Caerthynna's eyes brightened at the sight of her, a smile blossoming not with the guarded grace of royalty but with genuine delight. "You look lovely, cousin-in-law," she said warmly, her tone carrying no trace of formality, only sisterly affection. Melgil's smile deepened as she dipped into a courteous bow, her voice steady and refined.
"Your Highness flatters me," Melgil replied, before greeting both royals with a composure that mirrored their own rank yet carried a softness that was entirely her own. The moment, delicate as glass, did not fracture but expanded, as laughter and stories soon filled the hall.
The simple dinner became a festive gathering, wine flowing, the warmth of shared bread easing the earlier edges of steel and silence. Lashrael spoke with sudden ease, recounting youthful hunts and training bouts, his pride now tempered into camaraderie. Caerthynna added her own tales of court and travel, polished yet sprinkled with humor that made the chamber glow with more than candlelight.
Daniel sat among them, answering with measured nods, his voice calm, his replies perfectly in step with the life that had been written for him. And yet, within himself, he felt the strange duality of truth and fiction intertwining. Each story that painted his past as noble heir, each memory they recounted as though it belonged to him, he knew it was crafted, rewritten into being. Still, he wore it like a cloak, responding as though it were truly his, for such was the role he now inhabited.
But as the laughter rose and the evening carried forward, his gaze drifted, and the mirage began to waver. His father, Duke Aereth Rothchester, lifted a cup in toast, his features noble and resolute, yet beneath that visage Daniel glimpsed the fading outline of Edward Lazarus, the man who had once raised him beyond this world.
At the Duchess's side, Elleena's grace and presence seemed a perfect mirror of her station, yet as she leaned into the candlelight Daniel caught the fleeting reflection of Miyako Azai, the mother who had shaped him before this life was rewritten. The images overlapped, then slowly unraveled, like mist thinning beneath the sun. Edward's smile dissolved into nothing. Miyako's eyes, once warm and steady, dimmed and slipped away.
One by one, the threads connecting Daniel to the world he had known unraveled, until the last faint tether, the name Damon Lazarus, echoed and vanished, its weight lifting but leaving behind a hollow ache.
The hall still glowed, laughter still spilled like wine across the long table, and Melgil's hand remained near his, warm, steady, a quiet anchor in the swirl of festivity. Yet within Daniel's heart there was no mirth, only a silence deeper than any duel, heavier than any blade he had borne. The old world had loosened its grip at last, not in violence but in the quiet fading of shadows, and with its departure came a strange stillness. His stoicism, once a shield, now held him like armor too finely wrought to remove. Where others might have wept at the loss,
Daniel felt only detachment, as though the ache of grief had been dulled by years of endurance until it left behind nothing but clarity. The last shadow of his earthbound parents faces that had once defined his every breath had faded into memory's edge. Edward's voice no longer whispered in his ear, Miyako's gaze no longer lingered in the corners of his mind. Damon Lazarus, the final tether, had vanished like smoke caught in the wind. Around him, the Duke and Duchess laughed with their royal guests, Melgil's beauty drew admiring glances, and the hall brimmed with life as though nothing in the world could touch it. Daniel sat in their midst, his face calm, his manner unbroken, speaking when spoken to, smiling where it was expected, but within him he carried the silence of a man who knew the cost of letting go.
He was no longer bound by the weight of who he had been, yet he also understood that this new life, gilded with titles and bonds, had not erased the truth of what was lost. In the stillness behind his eyes, he bore both worlds the vanished and the present yet allowed neither to rule him. For such was his way: patience, restraint, and the quiet certainty of a hunter who had seen the end long before the rest.
Before him sat a family, a future, a rewritten life gilded with beauty and power. But within him lingered the solemn truth: to embrace what stood before him, he would have to accept that what once was had truly gone.
Yet as silence pressed within him, Daniel found himself drawn outward by the life that surrounded him. Melgil's laughter chimed like glass struck gently by silver, her presence weaving warmth into the hall with every word. She spoke with the Duke and Duchess as though already their daughter, her voice elegant, her manner graceful, and when she turned to the prince and princess, her charm folded into poise so refined it made the evening feel more celebration than supper. Princess Caerthynna leaned toward her with genuine delight, asking of gowns, gardens, and music, the kind of courtly talk that could feel shallow in colder mouths but in hers rang sincere, almost sisterly. Lashrael, his pride tempered into admiration since the duel, listened more than he spoke, yet his eyes often drifted to Daniel with that same half-wary, half-respectful look of a man seeing something he had no choice but to honor.
Daniel answered when addressed, his words steady, his composure unbroken, but slowly the mask of stoicism eased. The hollow weight in his chest, though still present, did not silence him; instead, it guided him. He laughed once, soft, restrained, but real, when his father, Duke Aereth, recalled a hunting story that painted Daniel as a boy who had once fallen headlong into a stream while chasing a stag. The memory was false, woven into the tapestry of his rewritten life, but Daniel treated it as if it had always belonged to him. He shook his head with wry amusement, playing the part of the embarrassed son, and to his own surprise, the laughter felt less foreign than he expected. The Duchess Elleena smiled at him, her eyes shining not with secrets but with maternal pride, and Melgil, catching his glance across the table, gave him that subtle smile of hers—the one that said she knew when he was pretending, and when he was not.
In that moment, Daniel felt the shift. He had sat down at the table as a man burdened by silence, tethered to fading shadows, but here among them, he was learning to wear the life that had been given to him not as a disguise but as a role he could shape. The prince and princess did not look at him with suspicion, but with fascination.
His parents did not seem the ghosts of another past, but the anchors of this one. And Melgil, her presence steadied him more than any blade or shield, reminded him that bonds, even new ones, could hold weight equal to memory. Daniel spoke more freely as the night went on, his voice carrying not just detachment but conviction, until the hall was filled with a harmony of laughter, stories, and the quiet certainty that he, too, belonged at that table.