The gates of Arathor loomed high above them, carved stone lit by rows of lanterns that cast pools of golden light across the cobbled road. The great city spread beyond—alive even at this late hour with watchmen patrolling walls and distant lights glimmering from windows where people lived lives untouched by demon ambushes and blood-soaked roads.
For Adrian, Finn, Edric, Marcus, and Sara, the sight should have been reassuring—a promise of safety after the horror of the forest. Instead, the gates felt like the threshold to a different kind of weight entirely.
The escort knights halted their horses, dismounting with the practiced discipline of warriors who'd ridden through too many nights like this one. Their captain—a weathered veteran whose name Adrian had never caught—turned to face the five squires, his helm tucked under his arm.
"This is where we part," he said, his voice carrying neither judgment nor sympathy, just statement of fact. "Sir Varic will follow soon with the rest. The fallen will be returned to their families. You five—" his eyes swept across them "—find your rest while you can."
The words carried no rebuke, but their weight said everything: the true reckoning would come later. Reports would be filed. Questions would be asked. Judgment would be rendered. But for now, they had a few hours before dawn to process what they'd survived.
The knights saluted once—a gesture of respect that surprised Adrian, given what he'd revealed about his crimson flame—then dispersed into the city streets, their footsteps echoing away into the night.
That left the five of them standing alone beneath the gate's arch, cloaked in torchlight and the kind of silence that came after witnessing too much death.
For a long moment, none moved. The city gates stood open before them, beckoning toward familiar dormitories and beds that suddenly seemed impossibly distant. Behind them lay only darkness and the memory of blood.
Marcus broke first. He'd been the quietest since the battle ended, his white flame never manifesting even once despite the trauma that had triggered colors in others. His face was pale, eyes distant, still seeing things the rest of them had at least been able to process through action.
"I need—" His voice cracked. "I can't—" He shook his head, unable to finish, and simply turned and walked into the city without another word. His footsteps echoed hollowly against stone, growing fainter until the shadows swallowed him completely.
Sara watched him go, her own expression blank with shock. "I should—someone should go with him. Make sure he's—" But she didn't move, didn't follow. Just stood there, trapped in her own processing.
Edric's departure was more deliberate. His hand clenched white around the reins of his borrowed horse until his knuckles showed bone-pale. His jaw trembled as he muttered something under his breath—Adrian only caught Brann's name—before he turned sharply down a side street, away from the direct path to the dormitories.
"Where are you going?" Finn called after him.
"Anywhere," Edric said, not looking back. "Just... not there. Not yet. I can't go back to that room and see his empty bunk. Not tonight."
His footsteps echoed against stone as he vanished into the labyrinth of city streets, and Adrian understood. The dormitory they'd shared with Brann would feel like a tomb now. Going back would make it real in a way that standing on blood-soaked roads somehow hadn't.
Finn's departure was quieter but no less definitive. He pressed a hand briefly to the hilt of his sword—the weapon that had manifested yellow flame, rare and revered yellow that he still didn't fully understand—then straightened with a breath that sounded more like a prayer.
"I need..." He paused, gathering words. "There's a church. Small one, near the eastern markets. My mother used to take me there when I was young, before we moved to the coast." His voice cracked slightly. "I have to light candles for them. For all of them. Brann. The knights. The others. I have to... do something. Say something."
Adrian nodded. "Go. We'll find each other tomorrow."
Finn met his eyes for a moment, and Adrian saw the question there—Are you alright?—but the fisherman's son didn't voice it. Just nodded once and walked away, his back straight despite exhaustion, heading toward the chapel spire that cut against the night sky like a blade pointed at heaven.
That left Adrian and Sara standing alone beneath the gate.
Sara turned to him, her eyes red-rimmed but dry—too shocked for tears yet. "You really told them. About the crimson. I heard you talking to Sir Varic." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "You just... revealed everything."
"Not everything," Adrian said quietly. "But enough."
"They're going to investigate you. Question you. Maybe imprison you." She wrapped her arms around herself despite the mild night. "Why would you do that? Why not just... keep hiding?"
Adrian looked at her—at this girl who'd watched seven of her squadmates die tonight, who'd survived only through luck and the intervention of reinforcements.
"Because Brann died while I was still calculating how to protect my secret," he said simply. "Because hiding costs lives. Because I'm tired of lying."
Sara was quiet for a long moment. "I don't know if that's brave or stupid."
"Probably both." Adrian managed something that might have been a smile if it had reached his eyes. "But it's done now. No taking it back."
She nodded slowly, processing. "I should go. Find Marcus. Make sure he doesn't... do something stupid." She turned to leave, then paused. "For what it's worth? I'm glad you were there. Glad you stopped hiding when you did. We'd all be dead otherwise."
She walked away before Adrian could respond, disappearing into the city's warren of streets.
Adrian stood alone beneath the gate for several heartbeats, the weight of solitude settling over him like a familiar cloak. Then he turned his steps not toward the dormitories—not toward Brann's empty bunk and the questions that would wait there—but upward.
The high roads called to him. The places where stone rose above the common streets, where lookout towers and noble estates perched above the city proper. He'd walked these paths before during his months in Arathor, always at night, always alone, seeking the kind of quiet that only height could provide.
His steps carried him past shuttered shops where merchants would wake tomorrow to news of the massacre. Past silent courtyards where nobles slept undisturbed by the blood being washed from roads beyond their gates. Past barracks where guards changed shifts, unaware that two of their knight commanders would never report for duty again.
He climbed until he found what he was looking for—a lonely lookout tower at the edge of the noble quarter, its purpose long since rendered obsolete by better fortifications elsewhere. No guards manned it now. No one stopped him as he climbed the winding stairs to its top.
From here, the city spread before him like a living map. Lanterns glowed beneath him like a constellation fallen to earth—the white-washed walls of noble estates, the sprawling markets already being prepared for tomorrow's trade, the looming shadow of the Academy halls in the distance where his fate would be decided.
It should have filled him with something. Awe, perhaps. Or satisfaction at surviving. Or hope for what came next.
Instead, guilt pressed heavier than the stone beneath his hands.
Adrian leaned against the railing, the cool wind tugging at his hair, and closed his eyes. The fight replayed immediately behind his eyelids, as he'd known it would. The demon's burning eyes. Brann charging forward with that stupid, brave, reckless courage. The sound of claws tearing through flesh. The way his friend's body had crumpled, broken, discarded like trash.
I could have ended it sooner.
The thought was a blade that kept cutting, kept drawing fresh blood from old wounds. His crimson flame was absolute—three hundred years of demonic power compressed into young flesh. He could have obliterated that demon noble the moment it appeared. Could have burned it to ash before it touched Brann, before it killed the knights, before it consumed their blood to become stronger.
But he hadn't.
He'd held back. Calculated. Weighed the cost of revelation against the cost of death and chosen—gods help him, he'd chosen—to preserve his secret a few moments longer.
And Brann had paid the price for that choice.
Adrian's hands tightened on the railing until his knuckles showed white, until stone bit into flesh. The city blurred beneath him, and he wasn't sure if it was exhaustion or tears.
I chose the secret over his life. That's the truth of it. I let him die to protect my cover.
*But another truth whispered at the edges of his mind, colder and more pragmatic: If I'd revealed everything from the start, if I'd shown my full power the moment demons appeared, would I even be standing here? Or would I be in chains somewhere, labeled a threat, imprisoned or executed before I could help anyone?
The weight of both truths crushed him.
He'd been a demon prince once. Commanded armies. Made decisions that cost thousands of lives in service of strategies and goals that had seemed so important at the time. He'd thought he'd grown past that—thought that three centuries of reflection and this second chance at mortality would have taught him to value individual lives over tactical advantages.
But tonight had proven he was still that same demon prince, still making cold calculations, still weighing lives against objectives.
And the cost of that calculation was his friend's broken body cooling on stones while Adrian stood here in safety, contemplating consequences.
He forced himself to breathe. To unclench his hands from the railing before he broke stone or skin. To open his eyes and face the city that would judge him come dawn.
From the Academy's towers to the palace beyond, from the barracks where knights slept to the dormitories where his empty room waited, he could feel the weight of what was coming. Varic would file his report. The revelation of crimson flame—unprecedented, unexplainable—would reach the academy leadership, the crown, perhaps even the king himself.
They would want answers Adrian couldn't give. Explanations for power that shouldn't exist. Assurances that he wasn't a threat despite wielding demon-colored flame.
And he'd chosen to face all of that rather than continue hiding.
Was it worth it? Was Brann's death—was his decision to finally be honest—worth the consequences that would follow?
He didn't know. Might never know.
But as the wind swept through the tower and the city lights stretched endless beneath him, another memory surfaced to counter the guilt. Alice's violet flame blazing with the power of legends. Mira's orange burning with centuries of guardian oaths. Finn's yellow light purifying the demon's stolen power. Edric's green holding firm when others would have broken.
They had all revealed themselves tonight. All chosen to stop hiding in that moment of crisis. None of them could turn back now. Whatever investigation came, whatever questions were asked, they would face it together.
And maybe—maybe—that was worth something.
Adrian straightened slowly, pushing off from the railing. His ribs ached from impacts he'd taken, his muscles screamed with exhaustion, his heart felt heavier than stone. But his eyes were clear when he looked toward the Academy towers.
"No more hiding," he said quietly to the empty air, to the city that couldn't hear him, to the memory of a friend who'd died charging demons while Adrian calculated angles. "No more letting secrets cost lives. Whatever comes, I face it as what I am."
Not quite human. Not quite demon. Something in between that he still didn't fully understand even after three centuries.
But honest, at least. Finally honest about the crimson.
The night pressed on, silent but unrelenting. Somewhere in the city below, Finn knelt in a chapel lighting candles for the dead. Edric walked streets with no destination, trying to outrun grief. Marcus and Sara found whatever solace they could in solitude or company. Alice and Mira remained under guard somewhere, their violet and orange flames now known to those who mattered.
And Adrian stood alone on the high tower, torn between guilt and resolve, between the weight of Brann's death and the strange lightness that came from finally dropping a mask he'd worn too long.
Dawn would come. When it did, everything would change.
But for now, in the quiet hours before morning, he let himself grieve. Let himself feel the full weight of his failure. Let himself acknowledge that he'd made a choice that cost a friend's life.
And swore on Brann's memory that he'd never make that choice again.
Whatever it cost him.
Whatever it revealed.
He was done calculating lives against secrets.