(Narrator)
Iliam sat at the edge of his bed with the moon illuminating the fact that he was still in full knight uniform. He hadn't even bothered taking it off. Why would he? It kept him grounded. Kept his mind from drifting back to that moment.
But of course, it drifted anyway.
The room was quiet. Just the faint ticking of the lantern crystals and his own heartbeat, steady but strained. He lowered his head into his gloved hands and exhaled slowly, trying to steady the trembling in his fingers.
How was he supposed to hate Sora after witnessing… that?
He'd gone into the recon mission prepared for danger; they were the esteemed Imperial Knights of the Capital. Iliam was nobility, Sora was royalty. They were prodigies, the most anticipated of the newest generation of knights. Despite only being knighted a few days ago, they were both on par with some of the more experienced knights already. But he hadn't been prepared to see Sora like that. Broken. Ripped open from the inside. Screaming with a voice that didn't sound human.
Iliam squeezed his eyes shut.
The image hit him all over again: Sora's body spasming on the cold floor, his back arching in pain. He clawed at the ground so violently that the tips of his gloves ripped open, and his nails cracked, splintering like fragile glass. Blood smeared across the dark wood. His voice... his voice—shredded with every cry, echoing with an agony Iliam had never heard from another person.
It wasn't normal pain. It wasn't something a blade or spell could cause. It was deeper, more… unhinged. Like something had reached inside him and twisted.
That poison.
Iliam's jaw clenched.
What was in that damn poison?
It wasn't a sedative—Sora was fully conscious. It wasn't toxin—at least not a typical one. And hallucinations? Possible, but…
Thanks to his Father's line of work, Iliam had seen hallucinations before; it wasn't pretty—soldiers raving at shadows, gasping at things not there, muttering nonsense.
But Sora wasn't seeing illusions.
He was living them.
And the way he screamed, it was like he was begging for someone to pull him out of his own mind. As if he was drowning inside it.
Heck, he even asked Iliam to kill him. The thought made him shudder, causing the mattress in his dimmed room to push down from his weight.
Iliam dragged a hand down his face, accidentally smearing dust from his gloves across his cheek. He didn't care. He didn't care about a lot of things right now.
He'd been angry before. Furious. Bitter. Sora was reckless, impulsive, arrogant, dishonorable, too wild for his own good. Iliam had always believed he'd get someone killed one day.
But now?
How was he supposed to keep hating someone after watching them break apart like that?
He leaned back, staring at the faint reflection of himself in the window. His armor looked dull, smeared with dirt and dried human blood. He looked older. Tired. He was forced to kill. It was the only way he could save himself and Sora.
I didn't wanna kill that guy...
Echoing in his skull was Sora's voice.
Stop… stop… please—
Iliam swallowed hard.
But that guy... he had to die.
The first time Sora clawed at the ground, Iliam thought he was trying to get up. Tried to help him stand.
Then he saw the nail tear. Heard the crack. The scrape. The muffled sob that followed.
That wasn't someone trying to escape the enemy.
That was someone trying to escape their own body.
But what irked him even more was how Sora kept regenerating. He had heard the rumors of Sora's Divine ability, but to see it in action was something else; to see him consistently re-injure himself was traumatizing.
He exhaled shakily.
Poison didn't do that. Not the kind Iliam knew, anyway. Warrior poisons were meant to paralyze, silence, slow the heart, and cloud the senses. Assassin poisons killed fast or slow, but always predictably.
But this?
This stripped a person down to their bones and left them screaming until their voice broke.
Iliam had tried to pull Sora up. Tried to hold him down. Tried to keep him from hurting himself. But Sora fought like an animal.
And Iliam couldn't shake the feeling that the nightmare wasn't imaginary.
That it came from somewhere real.
Somewhere Sora had been before.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes, trying to steady the pounding in his head.
He'd almost lost him.
He'd almost watched him die.
And somehow, after seeing all that, after hearing his cries echoing against the walls, Iliam still felt the ember of anger… but it wasn't directed at Sora anymore.
It was directed at whoever had done this.
Whoever had made that poison.
Not the one who stabbed him.
But the one who enabled him to cause this.
Whoever had forced Sora to relive whatever hell he'd gone through.
What hell has he even gone through?
Iliam lowered his hands and let out a long, strained breath.
"How am I supposed to hate you... after seeing you like that?" He muttered.
The room didn't answer.
But Iliam already knew.
He couldn't.