"...then expect me to just forget about it?"

Aldric’s voice rose sharply now, the exhaustion and restraint from earlier beginning to crack apart under the pressure of what he had just heard.

"To go back to my kingdom and pretend I don’t know where the attack came from?" he continued. "To lie to my own people when I know exactly who did it? It was Percvale!"

He jerked forward in his chair suddenly, trying to point at Darion across the table.

But his hands were still bound.

The movement failed awkwardly. The rope around his wrists tightened and stopped him halfway through the gesture. The frustration of it seemed to make something inside him snap harder.

He struggled again.

And again.

The chair scraped loudly against the stone floor.

"You—"

The words cut off into a growl of anger. His breathing had become uneven now, the controlled exhaustion from earlier being replaced with genuine rage.

Then, realizing he couldn’t properly reach Darion, Aldric drew back his head and spat violently across the table.

The spit didn’t even come close.

It landed uselessly against the center of the wooden table with a wet smack.

Darion didn’t move.

Vera didn’t either. They just exchanged glances, their faces one of:

’He might be slowly going insane.:

Aldric stared at the failed gesture for half a second before laughing bitterly at himself.

"You’re a monster," he hissed.

The words came out low at first.

Then louder.

"This..." He shook his head violently. "This is worse than killing someone."

His eyes had widened now, not with simple anger anymore but with the dawning realization of what the oath actually meant.

"How am I supposed to live knowing that?" he demanded. "Knowing that I could kill you if I wanted to... that I could report you to the Emperor... that I could rebuild and come back stronger..." His voice cracked slightly. "But I can’t."

The last words came out almost desperate.

"I can’t because of some damned oath!"

The room echoed with his voice.

The undead wolf standing near the doorway remained perfectly still, its single glowing eye fixed on him without emotion.

Aldric looked at it and laughed once more, the sound harsher this time.

"That’s insanity," he said. "Actual insanity."

He looked back at Darion.

"You’re sick."

There was genuine disbelief in his expression now.

Not disbelief at losing.

At Darion himself.

"You’re sick in the head."

Darion remained calm.

Aldric had every reason to react this way. He understood that.

In Aldric’s mind, this had gone from defeat to imprisonment of the mind itself.

A normal surrender still left future possibilities. Revenge, retaliation, or appeal to higher powers. Political maneuvering even. Kings lost wars and returned stronger all the time.

But this?

This reached beyond politics.

Beyond military defeat.

The oath Vera used did not care about pride or future opportunity or emotional justification. If Aldric willingly violated the agreement after swearing it, the magic would kill him.

Simple as that.

No loopholes to it, no reinterpretation or "circumstances changed."

Death!

Just death.

Aldric leaned backward suddenly and burst into laughter again.

Not normal laughter.

It sounded unnormal. Too loud and too sharp.

The kind of laugh people made when they reached the point where anger stopped being enough to contain what they were feeling.

"I underestimated you," he said through the laughter.

Then the laughter stopped immediately.

His face twisted instead.

"I really underestimated you."

The words came quieter now.

"If I had known..." He shook his head slowly. "If I had known what kind of person you actually were, I would’ve handled Percvale differently from the beginning."

Darion said nothing.

Aldric leaned forward again.

"If I had known," he repeated, "I would’ve crushed your territory immediately."

The exhaustion was gone from his voice now.

This was pure emotion.

"I would’ve sent more men."

His breathing had become heavier.

"I would’ve prepared properly."

His eyes locked onto Darion with something close to hatred now. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"If I had known what you were capable of..." His jaw tightened. "I would’ve ended Percvale completely the first time I attacked."

That was true, if the two hundred knights that first came to attack Percvale, just killed all of them, like everybody, none of this would have happened. The possiblity of it happening would be eliminated.

Aldric sat there breathing hard, shoulders tense, eyes still burning with anger while the torchlight flickered across the stone walls around them.

Darion looked at him quietly.

Vera did the same.

Then the two of them exchanged a brief glance.

Neither looked particularly disturbed by the outburst.

Honestly, the reaction made sense.

Darion couldn’t even blame him for it.

What Aldric was experiencing now was probably horrifying from his perspective.

At first, the king had believed this was political surrender. Humiliating, yes, but survivable. Sign the terms, return home, rebuild gradually and perhaps one day seek revenge through military force or imperial authority.

That was manageable. Kings had endured worse. But now he understood the truth. There would be no revenge or retaliation, future correction and second attempt.

The oath removed the possibility entirely.

And that was the part breaking him.

Darion thought about it for a moment from Aldric’s perspective.

Every future thought would now carry limits.

Every decision involving Percvale would need caution.

Every moment of anger toward Darion would crash into the reality that acting on it could simply end his life.

That kind of thing stayed in a person’s head.

It changed how they thought, how they slept and how they lived.

Darion understood why Aldric looked half-mad sitting there.

Because in a way, this probably was worse than execution.

Execution ended things cleanly.

This forced him to continue living with the defeat.

Aldric laughed again suddenly, quieter this time, almost under his breath.

Then he looked up at Darion.

"You really are terrifying," he said.

Darion didn’t answer.

Aldric had walked into this war believing Darion was a desperate young Baron protecting farmland out of pride.

Now he sat bound in Percvale realizing he had gone to war against something much worse.

And the realization alone was enough to drive anyone mad.