Every ceremony, every proceeding, every dinner night, my eyes would always drift toward the same thing: the peculiar hole in the chair of the family head.
It was a ruined throne, carved from old oak and cushioned in faded scarlet. Once regal, now weary and splintered. I used to wonder why we hadn't replaced it, why this pathetic relic still stood at the center of our grand hall.
But it was always there.The throne where the head of our family would sit.A rusty, dirty old chair that mocked our prestige.
Even during the most important of gatherings, my grandfather would rest upon that accursed seat, as did his father before him, and the one before that.
He would gaze down at us from his ragged throne, the flames from the chandeliers casting his shadow long and cruel. But what unsettled me was not the state of the chair itself. It was the strange hole at its center.
A thin slit, just wide enough for a blade to pass through, where the fabric had taken on a deeper shade of red — almost brown. You couldn't see it from afar, but once you noticed it, you could think of nothing else.
"Why do you sit on that chair? Why does every Head sit on that chair?"
I had grown tired of it, so I asked my father once. He laughed softly, without humor.
"I don't know,"
He said.
"I suppose I'll find out when I become the Head."
That answer lingered with me for years.
But I stopped thinking about it when Father began to… fade.
He slept enough, he ate well, there were no dark circles beneath his eyes — yet he looked tired in a way that sleep could not mend. The bright cerulean eyes I once admired lost their luster; the brilliance, the confidence, the warmth — all dimmed into something cold, something hollow.
Everything else was perfect. Our lands were prosperous, our name untouchable. Yet with each passing day, Father's eyes grew duller, until even the light seemed afraid to reach him.
I tried not to think about it. I trained — at dawn, at dusk, beneath the rain, beneath the sun. Not only that, but I did all I could to become worthy of the title that would one day fall upon me.
Years passed like a dream I could not wake from. I learned, explored, lived — or at least pretended to. And then came my eighteenth birthday.
There was no banquet that year. No celebration, no laughter, no music echoing through the halls. Only a quiet summons from my grandfather.
I remember the feeling — the curiosity, the naïve excitement.
Would he gift me a new sword?
Grant me my first campaign?
But when I entered his study, all such thoughts died.
For the first time, I saw it. The dullness that had consumed my father's eyes haunted my grandfather's — deeper, older, eternal. I was foolish. It had haunted my Grandpa for far longer.
'Were his eyes always like this?'
I wondered.
No. This was not the gaze of the Archduke Rakis — this was the stare of a man already half a corpse.
He said nothing. Neither did I. The silence was complete, broken only by the soft crackle of the hearth.
Then, without a word, Father entered the room. I hadn't even sensed him — though even if I'd tried, I doubt I could have. A Paragon Knight knew how to be unseen when he wished.
His armor barely whispered as he approached.
And then, he plunged his sword into Grandfather's heart.
No cry, no struggle. Just the faint clink of metal, and a soundless breath escaping old lips.
For a fleeting instant, the dull gray in Grandpa's eyes flared bright, blue as the sky I had loved as a child. And he smiled.
Not in pain. Not in regret.But in peace. Freedom, perhaps?
As his body slumped from the chair, I found my gaze drawn, not to the blood, not to the sword, but to the chair itself.
The ancient, splintered oak… and that familiar, terrible hole.
'So that's what it's for,'
I thought.
That was what the darn hole was for.