For the people... The people—a collective soul, wiser and stupider than any individual. And for this contradictory substance, am I ready to renounce the meaning of life? To make a strange sacrifice: burn the map to warm up, knowing—without it, you won't find the way home.
Gazing into the abyss of choice, where on one scale is my purity, on the other—Monaria's future, I realize: hesitation is an unaffordable luxury. Sometimes, to remain faithful, you need to change. Like a river flows around a stone, finding a new path.
From this day, I'm no longer a knight. It sounds like an epitaph, though I'm burying not myself but my image. I take off the title like an old cloak, worn and smelling of battles. Let me become a dog, not a lion, but a living dog that tears enemies' throats, not a dead lion whose mane dusts in the wind.
When you're betrayed—and we were all betrayed by killing the king—duty demands response. Not knightly honor, which I've buried, but human. That which is older than all codes: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Mercy to a traitor is weakness disguised as virtue. Like leaving a snake in the house, hoping it won't bite.
I look at my palms—rough, calloused, but strong. They can hold not only weapons but hope. Hands accustomed to the sword can take a plow and scythe if it saves Monaria. And I'll do everything so that this hope doesn't die.
Flowers from all fields... That's the name of this chapter of life. You have to gather everything—beautiful and ugly, noble and base. Life doesn't allow choosing only roses, ignoring thistles. You take the bouquet whole, with all contradictions.
In my bouquet of decisions, betrayal neighbors loyalty, revenge with justice, fall with rebirth. Real life is not a garden with manicured beds, but a wild field where everything capable of surviving grows. Let posterity judge, whisper that I betrayed honor. If Monaria endures, if children laugh where now smells of blood—I'll accept any judgment.
Now I know who I am. Not a knight in shining armor, not a hero of songs. Just a man ready to answer evil with evil if that's the only way to protect what's dear. And perhaps there's more honesty in that than in all knightly oaths combined. For I go forward...