They did not announce the sentence.
Aerun learned it by absence.
The Sentinel barracks stood silent as he approached at dawn, the courtyard empty, the banners lowered. Where order and discipline once ruled, there was now only vacancy—as if the place itself had been abandoned in anticipation of his arrival.
No guards stopped him.
That unsettled him more than chains.
Inside, the halls echoed with his footsteps. Doors that should have been sealed stood open. Lockers were bare. Records missing.
They were already erasing him.
Aerun reached his quarters and stopped.
His nameplate was gone.
The wood beneath was scraped raw, as if someone had worked carefully to remove every trace. Even the nail holes had been filled.
He stood there for a long moment, breathing slowly.
So this was how it ended.
A shadow moved at the far end of the corridor.
Talrek Vos approached alone, his armor dim in the morning light, the sigil above his brow rotating lazily. In his hands he carried a scroll bound in white cord.
"You should be grateful," Talrek said as he stopped a few paces away. "They debated execution."
Aerun did not look at him. "And lost?"
Talrek inclined his head slightly. "Exile was… sufficient."
He held out the scroll.
Aerun took it.
The parchment was warm to the touch.
"By decree of the High Chorus and assent of the Karveth Throne," Talrek recited, "Sentinel Aerun Kaelthar is hereby stripped of rank, oath, and record. Effective immediately."
Aerun read the words once. Then again.
Stripped of oath.
"You can't," he said quietly.
Talrek's gaze sharpened. "Oaths exist within the system. You have been removed from it."
Aerun looked up at him. "Then what am I?"
Talrek hesitated.
"Unclassified," he said at last.
Aerun exhaled.
That word carried more weight than any sentence.
"You are to depart the Dominion by nightfall," Talrek continued. "Beyond the boundary stones. Your movements will no longer be protected. Nor recorded."
Aerun's grip tightened on the scroll. "And the people I saved?"
Talrek's expression softened—just barely. "They will be resettled. Quietly. Assuming they remain quiet."
A warning.
Aerun nodded once.
Talrek stepped aside. "You have until dusk."
As he turned to leave, Aerun spoke.
"Why didn't you stop the execution?"
Talrek paused.
"Because," he said without looking back, "mercy is not rewarded."
Aerun left the barracks carrying only what he could wear.
His cloak. His boots. The wrapped sword across his back.
Everything else had already been claimed by history.
The city watched him go.
Some citizens bowed instinctively, then froze, unsure whether the gesture was still permitted. Others turned away. A few whispered his name—quietly, as if afraid it might already be forbidden.
At the Hall of Records, the great stone doors stood closed.
Aerun stopped before them.
He did not know why.
Perhaps part of him hoped—irrationally—that truth might still exist inside.
The doors did not open.
A faint shimmer passed across their surface instead. Runes shifted, rearranging themselves.
He read the new inscription.
AERUN KAELTHAR — STATUS: NULL
Aerun felt the word settle into his bones.
Null.
He turned away.
The boundary stones lay east of the capital, half a day's walk through barren land scarred by old wars. Ancient markers rose from the earth there, etched with laws no one remembered writing.
Aerun reached them at sunset.
The sky burned red behind him, the capital's towers silhouetted against dying light. Ahead lay wild land—unmapped, unprotected.
He stepped between the stones.
The moment he crossed, the air changed.
The pressure he had lived under all his life—subtle, constant—vanished.
Aerun staggered.
Not from pain.
From absence.
It felt like standing in a room after a sound had stopped, the ears still ringing from what was no longer there. The world felt wider. Sharper.
Real.
He caught himself, breath uneven, hand braced against the hilt at his back.
The cloth around the sword fluttered.
Aerun froze.
He had not moved it.
Slowly, cautiously, he steadied himself.
The sensation passed—but something lingered.
A quiet.
Not peace.
Awareness.
Aerun straightened and took another step forward.
Nothing stopped him.
No pain. No barrier. No voice.
Behind him, the boundary stones flickered—and dimmed.
Night fell quickly beyond the Dominion.
Aerun made camp beneath a twisted tree, its bark scarred by lightning long past. He sat with his back against the trunk, staring into the small fire he had built.
For the first time since childhood, there were no prayers to recite.
No reports to file.
No authority to acknowledge.
He felt lighter.
And unbearably exposed.
"What now?" he asked the darkness.
The fire crackled.
Then—
Silence.
Not the quiet of night.
Something deeper.
Aerun's breath caught.
The flames guttered, shrinking inward, as if reluctant to exist. The wind stilled. Even the insects ceased their sound.
A presence made itself known—not by weight, but by its lack.
"You have been erased."
The voice did not echo. It did not press.
It simply was.
Aerun did not reach for his sword.
"I know," he said.
"You are outside the law."
"Yes."
"Then you are dangerous."
Aerun's jaw tightened. "So I've been told."
A pause.
Not hesitation.
Consideration.
"Do you regret it?"
Aerun thought of the village. The fire. The lies carved into stone.
"No," he said.
The silence deepened.
"Then walk."
Aerun rose slowly to his feet.
"Who are you?" he asked.
There was no answer.
Only the night.
The fire flared back to life.
Aerun stood alone beneath the stars, the path ahead dark and uncertain.
But for the first time—
Unwatched.