"W-What?"
The porcelain cup in the Baroness’s hand rattled against the saucer, narrowly avoiding a spill. Her face, usually the picture of serene grace, drained of color.
"L-Lumin...?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "He was involved?"
Nusayel reacted instantly. He placed his large, warm hand over hers, stilling the trembling. He gave her a reassuring squeeze, though his own eyes had narrowed into sharp slits.
He turned his gaze back to the Chieftain, his demeanor shifting from a welcoming host to a serious lord.
"You know Mr. Lumin?"
"Mm."
Risha nodded slowly.
"He... was a guest of our tribe."
At the mention of the name, Nusayel didn’t miss the reaction from the silent figure beside the Chieftain.
Uru’en’s fingers, which had been resting limply on her lap, twitched violently. Her breath hitched, and for a fleeting second, the dead look in her eyes fractured, revealing a well of raw, agonizing pain. She bit her lip so hard it turned white, forcing herself to remain silent.
A cold, heavy feeling settled in the pit of Nusayel’s stomach.
If the Salom Tribe, warriors who laughed in the face of blizzards, looked this broken, and if Lumin, a young man of exceptional capability, was involved...
"Please," Nusayel said, his voice low and grave. "Can you tell us what happened? From the beginning."
Risha took a deep breath and began.
"It all started a few weeks ago..."
Chieftain Risha spoke of the day when a young traveler named Lumin arrived at the edge of their territory. She described how her daughter had saved him and how he had become a guest in their hall. She spoke of his unique charm, his healing skills, and how he had quickly earned the respect of the tribe.
Then, the tone of her story shifted.
The shadows in the room seemed to lengthen as she described the sudden, unnatural onset of that dreadful night.
She detailed how they were caught in a web not of their own making, entangled in the schemes of powerful entities far beyond their comprehension. She spoke of the betrayal of the other tribes, of how they had been betrayed themselves, and of how everyone had been used as bait to lure out the Nightmare Devourer.
Nusayel listened in silence, his grip on his wife’s hand tightening with every sentence.
Risha’s voice grew quieter as she reached the climax of the tale.
She spoke of the chaos, the overwhelming darkness, and the final, desperate stand. She described how Lumin, in a bid to save his daughter and a certain someone, had drawn the attention of the calamity upon himself.
"The last we saw of him..." Risha murmured, her voice cracking. "He was swallowed by the darkness..."
She paused, perhaps noticing the Baroness’s spirit dampening at her words. She guessed Lumin was someone important to her, perhaps a relative or a cherished ward, but she still had to continue her tale. The truth, however painful, was the only currency she had left to offer.
She described how she discovered the true mastermind behind the calamity, tried to catch him but let him escape, and how they were cast out of the darkness, barely escaping the immediate vicinity of the nightmare.
However, things hadn’t ended there.
Following the catastrophic encounter, the survivors of the Salom Tribe found themselves in the unforgiving embrace of the frozen wastes. They were alive, but the cost had been astronomical. Chieftain Risha, having burned her very life force to activate a forbidden ancestral art to facilitate their escape, was left a husk of her former self, drained, defenseless, and temporarily crippled.
Fate, however, was not done with them.
In the brutal cold of the aftermath, the remnants of the other two tribes, the very people the Salom warriors had fought beside and saved from that living hell, turned their blades against their saviors.
Seeing the Iron Chieftain in a state of weakness, greed and old rivalries flared.
They sought to claim Salom’s remaining resources and eliminate a long-standing rival in one fell stroke.
It was a betrayal of the vilest nature.
Despite their exhaustion and the crushing grief of losing their benefactor, the Salom warriors fought back with the ferocity of cornered wolves. Uru’en, suppressing her heartbreak, led the charge. Risha had to push herself to the limit again, further destroying her body.
The snow was stained crimson as they repelled the traitors, securing a bitter, pyrrhic victory. But the price was steep. Half of their already decimated forces fell in the skirmish, their bodies left to freeze in the wilderness.
With heavy hearts, the survivors limped through the storm, eventually catching up to the convoy of children and elderly they had sent away earlier for safety. Together, a ragged procession of the broken and the mourning, they made the arduous trek south-east, finally arriving at the gates of the Eclipse Keep only yesterday.
"We are no longer the tribe we once were," Risha said, her voice barely a whisper, pulling the Baron back from the grim tale. "We have no home to return to. The North... holds only ghosts for us now."
She looked at Uru’en, then back to Nusayel, her single eye filled with a pleading resolve.
"I ask for sanctuary, Lord Baron. Not for myself, but for the young ones. I wish for them to settle here, to grow up within your walls."
She clenched her fist on her lap.
"I want them to learn. I want them to see the world beyond the snow, to understand the schemes and powers that govern it, so they are never used as pawns again. So they never have to repeat my mistakes."
"M-Mother..."
The hoarse whisper cut through the heavy atmosphere like a jagged blade.
Uru’en, who had been sitting like a statue carved from ice, suddenly convulsed. Her hands, which had been clenched so tightly they were white, flew up to cover her face.
"It wasn’t you... who made a mistake!"
Her voice rose, cracking under the strain of emotions she had bottled up for weeks. The dam finally broke.
"I-It was me! It was me who was stupid!"
She curled in on herself, her broad shoulders shaking violently.
"I was the one who brought him into our mess... I was the one who was too dumb to let him fall... I... I..."
Tears, hot and fast, streamed through her fingers, dripping onto the pristine carpet of the guest room.
"I let him die... Hick... I let you down... Hick... I let everyone down..."
Her outburst dissolved into heart-wrenching sobs, a raw, guttural sound of pure anguish that filled the room. It was the sound of a warrior who had lost her battle, not with a blade, but with her own heart.
Nusayel sat stunned, his hand hovering in mid-air.
He wore a deeply conflicted expression.
On one hand, the grief radiating from the girl was palpable and infectious. On the other hand, his mind was racing, trying to reconcile the image of the capable, mysterious Lumin he knew with the tragedy being described.
’Is he really...?’
He turned to his wife for support, but the Baroness had already checked out.
She sat motionless, her eyes wide and unfocused, staring at a spot on the wall. She had entered a trance of sadness and confusion, her mind unable to process that the young man who had saved their life, the keep, was truly gone.
’...’
The room felt suffocating.
Nusayel looked back at the weeping girl and the silent, broken Chieftain. He took a deep breath, knowing he had to be the pillar of strength in this crumbling moment.
’I have to...’