The revolutionary artillery, drawn by starving horses and commanded by hollow-eyed veterans, had been positioned on the northern hills. Every hour, a salvo. With every salvo, a stifled prayer within the walls. The cannons roared like ancient beasts, spitting iron and fire against the dry stones of the old walls, while the city watched, helpless, as its own legend unravelled.
The soldiers of the Cavalry of the Rising Sun ran from tower to tower, trying to reinforce the weakest areas. There were screams along the walls, contradictory orders, and the acrid stench of sweat and urine from those who already saw themselves buried beneath the rubble. Some wept. Others simply waited, hands gripping their muskets like those who pray with metal.
The hours passed. Slowly. Filthy. Fragments of stone broke off the walls with each impact. The towers no longer looked like towers, but broken teeth in a dying mouth.
Shortly after noon came the shot that changed everything. A dry crack. A groan from the walls. A tremor. And a breach opened like a wound, revealing centuries of pride. Dust rose into the sky, grey.
Across the field, Caelus watched with impassive eyes, standing atop his dark horse. Beside him, Edouard did not shout, did not celebrate – he merely raised his hand, and behind him, thousands of revolutionaries prepared to cross the wound in the city's body.
– Now! – he said, in a deep voice, like the creaking of ancient wood.
And the charge began.
– Pisum! – shouted one of the soldiers, and others cried out behind him.
– For Isabela Pisodorato! – chanted hundreds. The name ran through the ranks like a dry spark in powder.
And they advanced with sharpened bayonets. The breach in the walls was open like a mouth calling to someone. Caelus galloped through the rubble, his horse leaping over broken bodies and loose stones, smoke licking his shoulders. All around him, the sounds of war rose like a funeral choir: musket fire, cries of pain, steel against steel, and the weeping of a child not yet killed or saved.
But, to his surprise, Caelus noticed the citizens. Not hiding, not bowed before their invaders – but armed.
The people of Pisum were fighting against the city's defenders. The Cavalry of the Rising Sun – traitors to the city for capturing its governor and holding its citizens hostage – were now engaged in a confused and filthy battle.
There was no honour there, only survival. A rider fell beside Caelus with a knife driven into his flank, brought down by a boy who couldn't have been more than twelve, his face covered in soot and dried tears.
Caelus pulled the reins, and his horse neighed and turned in a tight circle. He looked around and understood how much Pisum loved its governor – and how much they were willing to sacrifice for her.
– For Isabela! – he shouted with a thunderous voice, raising his father's sword to the sky.
By four in the afternoon, the bells began to ring. Not by a priest's order or as part of a mass, but because an old bell tower had withstood the fire and smoke – and a kneeling craftsman, hands bleeding, had pulled the rope in the name of victory. The streets of Pisum were once again covered in ash and silence, broken only by the groans of the dying and the creaking of windows opened by the curious, with wet eyes and trembling hands.
The city now belonged to Edouard Lefevre's revolution.
The Cavalry of the Rising Sun, once the pride of the Kingdom of Calentia, lay shattered among the cobblestones, the banners of King Rafael Calentiflor fallen like dead leaves. Some had deserted. Others had surrendered. A few – the most stubborn, the most foolish, or the most loyal to the crown – had died with swords in hand and clenched teeth.
Only the Governor's House remained, the last bastion of the city. It stood atop a hill, where the cherry trees had already lost their blossoms and the wind whispered stories no one wanted to hear. The marble façade was blackened with smoke, and the windows closed like blind eyes, as if refusing to witness change.
It was there that Edouard dismounted, with mud and blood drying on his shoulders. Beside him, Caelus, still mounted, watched with the cold gaze of one who know the worst is yet to come.
Edouard took three steps across the gravel of the garden. His men stood silent behind him, muskets loaded, hearts tight. The revolutionary flag now fluttered atop the city's bell tower.
Edouard's voice rose firm and clear, like thunder without lightning.
– Commander of the Cavalry of the Rising Sun! – he called, eyes fixed on the closed door as though he could see him through it. – The city has fallen. Your soldiers have been defeated. Pisum belongs to the people. Return its governor to her city.
– I am Commander Dorian Valmor, and you will address me as the true governor of this city, by order of King Rafael Calentiflor.
– Commander Valmor, surrender with honour. Free Lady Isabela Pisodorato. She is not your prisoner; she is the soul of this city. To imprison her is a crime against Pisum… and against the little time you have left.
Caelus kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, eyes narrowed. There was something rotten in there. Something that refused to come out, even with the walls fallen and soldiers dead in the streets.
– If I walk out that door alone, I won't take five steps before one of the idiots you convinced to fight for you stabs me in the back. I don't blame you. It's what I would do in your place.
– Then what do you propose? – Edouard asked, his tone unchanged.
– I will leave with Lady Pisodorato. I'll take her with me as a hostage. I will release her ten leagues from Pisum, alive and unharmed, on my word of honour. But I demand yours. That I be allowed to go, that I be given a horse, and that no one follows me.
Caelus dismounted and stepped forward towards Edouard, eyes blazing.
– You're mad, Edouard, we can't allow this! He'll kill her or flee and report what happened here to the king.
Edouard, however, simply raised a hand, silencing him. His decisions, as always, were not made by the sword, but with the heavy heart of those who know the intentions of men – even their enemies.
– Do you give me your word, Commander Valmor?
– Before Solarius. If I'm lying, may he come down from his throne in the sky and strike me dead here and now.
Lefevre sighed. He knew that Isabela's life depended on hard decisions and truths that had to be swallowed like poison.
– Take the horse. You'll have a long-march steed, saddled. And you have my word that no one will follow you.
Caelus turned abruptly, muttering a curse, but said nothing more. Honour was a hard coin to refuse, and it was that coin Lefevre had just wagered.
Minutes later, the gates of the Governor's House opened.
Dorian Valmor walked out at a slow pace, Isabela Pisodorato ahead of him. He didn't drag her, didn't push her. But she marched beneath the edge of his sword – her own sword, the one Caelus and his father had made especially for her, with the symbol of her house on the hilt. He slowed when he saw Caelus, sword at his side and hatred in his gaze.
– Just look at you – said Dorian, disdain in his tone. – The little blacksmith, with the eyes of a loyal dog and hands still dirty with soot. You came to save your mother, did you?
Caelus frowned, eyes wide as if struck by an invisible blow.
– What are you saying? – he growled. – What are you insinuating?
– Oh, mummy didn't tell you? – he said, feigning surprise. – What a pity. But you know how noble ladies are… discreet, careful… and very skilled at hiding what ought not be seen. Still, at the king's court… ah, my boy, there they know everything, even the best-kept secrets. Especially those.
The silence that followed was heavy as lead. Caelus's gaze shifted between Dorian and Isabela, who said nothing. She only breathed more deeply. And that was enough.
– You two will have much to talk about. When I set her free, of course. If I set her free. So long as no one follows me… and so long as I reach my destination. Her life – he said, placing the sword beneath Isabela's chin – is in my hands.
He paused. Then he raised the Duchess's sword.
– … along with this beautiful blade. I've always had an appreciation for well-crafted relics. I think I'll keep it.
The horse waited. Dorian mounted with the rigid elegance of a man who still knew how to die with composure. Then he helped Isabela up, always keeping the sword between them, and rode off at a slow trot, like someone leaving behind not just a conquered city, but an open wound – one which time cannot heal, only silence.
Caelus was in a fury. His fingers clenched the scabbard of his sword as if he meant to break it, his eyes fixed on the dusty road where Dorian had disappeared.
– Let me go after him, Edouard – he said through gritted teeth. – We can catch him. He hasn't gone far. With two dozen soldiers…
– … he would kill her, and all of this would have been for nothing. I gave him my word, Caelus, and he gave me his, in front of everyone.
Caelus turned, incredulity and rage in a single gesture.
– He took her as a hostage! He humiliated us! He humiliated me!
– He took her, yes, but he will return her. Despite all my failings, I can tell when someone is lying to me, and I can tell you he did not lie. He had no intention of killing her. Don't forget that if you go after him now, we lose the only person capable of uniting everyone in the kingdom under the ideals of revolution.
For a moment, Caelus looked like a storm about to break. But no lightning fell. Only silence.
The time he had to wait until Edouard told him he could go and rescue Isabela seemed endless. But he didn't wait any longer – he went to fetch his horse.
He mounted without saying a word to anyone and without looking back. When he passed through the cracked gates of Pisum, he passed alone, and rode down the road that led to Calentis, the capital of the Kingdom of Calentia.
The world around him was nothing but ruins and dust. The smell of gunpowder still lingered in the air. But there, on that road, Caelus felt only the scent of regret, of vengeance – and of truth.
In the distance, he saw a silhouette. It was Isabela Pisodorato, walking along the roadside, alone. Her uniform was torn in places, her hair hastily tied back, and her eyes fixed on the horizon like someone returning to a place that was no longer theirs.
Caelus stopped. He said nothing. Nor did she speak. She simply looked at him, then at the horse. He extended his hand to her, and, with a slow gesture, she climbed up behind the saddle, holding onto his waist with hands that trembled more from exhaustion than fear.
Like a blade cutting slowly, her voice emerged:
– This wasn't how I wanted you to find out.
Caelus didn't reply immediately. The tension in his shoulders betrayed his soul.
– Then how? – he said at last, in a dry tone. – With sealed letters and discreet tears?
She sighed.
– No – her voice trembled, but didn't falter. – I wanted to tell you alongside Fausto, when the kingdom's situation was more stable, when there weren't so many enemies and so many people coveting the power of the monarchy.
Caelus turned his face slightly, just enough to glimpse her profile.
– Why did you hide this secret? Why did my father have to raise me alone? And what am I now? The son of a blacksmith and a duchess's bastard?
– You are not a bastard, that you are not, you are my legitimate son… and it was the only way to protect you. If they knew who you were… if they knew your origins… there are people who would use you to gain more power. The courts are poisonous, Caelus. There, secrets can kill you faster than a sword.
Caelus remained silent. The wind made his hair dance, and his eyes were fixed on something she could not see – perhaps the past, perhaps the future. Perhaps the void that lay between them.
Isabela continued, lower now:
– Your father always knew the danger you could face if someone discovered our secret. He agreed to raise you without asking for anything in return – only that I would one day tell you who you were, in person, when the time was right. He wanted to give you a clean name, a safe life. A life far from the claws of the court.
Silence returned, but now it was different – like the moment before rain.
Before they re-entered Pisum, Isabela spoke again:
– Thank you for saving me… my son.