The marshal listened silently, breathing heavily. When I finished, he was silent for a long time, looking at the map spread on the camp table.
"Life is pain, captain," he spoke at last. "In pain there is beauty, if you find something to hold on to. The princess—is not just a frightened girl in exile. She is hope. A symbol. A banner under which worthy people can gather. We'll find her—we'll find ourselves anew."
"And if she's not there?" I asked. "If it's really just a myth?"
"Then we'll create a new myth," the marshal said, and steel rang in his voice. "A dead king can't rule. But a living princess can become a queen. And if there's no princess... well, then we'll find someone who can become her."
His voice was firm, but it rang with the fatigue of an old warrior who had seen too much and lost too much. And I understood—the road was not in vain. I sought not only an answer to the question "what to do next?", but meaning. The princess, the knights, Monalia—all this had become more than duty and oath. It had become my will, my choice, my path.
The road to this tent turned out to be a road to myself.
Life really is suffering, but in suffering—if accepted without bitterness—there is its own wisdom. Bitter like wormwood, but real. And a reasonable person moves forward not because they believe in victory—you can not believe in it. But because the path itself has meaning. Even if that meaning has to be gathered in bits from roadside dust.
Autumn, the year of Monalia's collapse
Tomorrow we set out to search for the princess. Or what remains of her. Or what she can become. Time will tell.
We just need to go further.