Lord Summoner's Freedom Philosophy: Grimoire of Love-Chapter 507: Royal Final Battle (End)

"Let me," she said, voice still hushed but steadier. Her hands trembled as she cleaned the wound with wine, then pressed the fabric down. Each tie she knotted took two attempts. Lyan watched her brow furrow in concentration, the stubborn set of her mouth. He felt the warmth of her breath on his forearm, the light brush of her hair against his knee.

Griselda’s voice flicked across his thoughts—half tease, half warning. (Little hearts mend quickly after chains break.) He ignored the spark of amusement, focusing on Ara’s face. Smudges of soot marked her cheeks, a crooked streak of dried blood angled across her temple, yet in the soft ritual light she looked improbably luminous. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

Silence pooled between them, heavy but not uncomfortable. Kassia paced the perimeter, testing each ward rune, perhaps giving space while convincing herself they weren’t prison bars. The Queen sat near the cracked orb, eyes closed, fingers running over the vine as though reacquainting with living things.

Finally Ara tied the last knot. She kept one hand on the bandage, the other squeezing her elbow to still its shaking.

"If you’d asked... back then," she whispered, eyes fixed on her hands, "I might’ve followed you instead." Words fell like fragile petals, each one deliberate. "I thought Father’s way was the only way... until you broke it." Moisture pooled, turning her amber irises glassy. She blinked twice, refusing tears their fall.

Surprised, Lyan hesitated. His instincts—honed on battlefields, sharpened by trauma—stumbled when faced with tender confession. He reached, almost against his will, and touched her knuckles. Her skin shocked him: warm, human, not bound by relic greed. Thoughts flashed: the cost of vows, the weight of choice, the thin line he walked between savior and monster.

Softly he replied, words barely stirring dust motes, yet carrying promise enough to shift futures. "Maybe there’s still time for choices."

Ara’s cheeks warmed a shade deeper, as if the line itself laid a gentle kiss on her skin. Kassia looked away, muttering something under her breath that might have been a reluctant prayer. The ritual hall glowed with a subdued hush, runes along the circular wall thrumming in sync with Lyan’s heartbeat—steady but tired. He collected himself, patted Ara’s bandaged arm once, then pushed upright, body protesting. Time to face daylight.

_____

Dawn bled peach-gold across shattered archways as they climbed the last spiral. Fresh air wrapped Lyan in a cold embrace, so clean it made the inside of his nose sting after hours breathing powdered stone. Frost sparkled on the fallen banners like diamond dust—night had been bitter, and already ghosts of steam rose from sun-kissed rubble.

Surena waited at the breach in the palace façade, arms folded across mail, eyes flinty. Her armor was mottled ash-grey, as if she’d rolled through every fire the siege had birthed. Lyan noted she’d lost her left pauldron; the exposed chain under it glittered with recent repair links. Still, her stance was solid—a pillar holding up the sky.

She clicked her tongue, expression carved from granite. "We counted bodies," she said, voice pitched low so the milling soldiers behind couldn’t hear. "You were supposed to be one."

A lesser man might have joked. Lyan only dipped his chin, accepting the rebuke. He glimpsed worry hiding in the taut skin around her eyes. "Sorry to disappoint," he murmured. "I missed the appointment with death."

Surena’s lips twitched, almost curving. "Idiot," she whispered, softer than the wind, then stepped aside.

The next heartbeat brought a blur of copper hair and perfume-sweet sweat. Josephine collided with him, arms clamped round his torso like a vice. Pain lanced through bruised ribs, but the warmth of her trembling laugh—half sob, half relief—made it bearable.

"Don’t ever do that again, you bastard!" she cried, words muffled against his collar. Her hand fisted the fabric of his cloak, as if terrified he’d vanish if she let go.

"I’ll try," he answered, letting his cheek rest against the top of her head for a heartbeat. His eyes drifted—habit again—to the curve where breastplate ended and bodice began, then snapped up to the horizon before guilt could root. He awkwardly patted her back until she let go, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm, regaining that mercenary grin the world knew.

The courtyard beyond was chaos mellowing into order. Fires that had raged at midnight were now smoldering heaps. Buckets lined shattered fountains; soldiers passed them hand to hand, dousing stubborn embers. In the distance, cracked bells rang as healers signaled triage tents. The smell was pulverized stone, burned pitch, sweat—and, beneath it all, the faint sweetness of bread someone tried baking for the first peaceful morning.

Erich and Arnold clattered in on dust-caked destriers, cheeks streaked like bandits. They reined in, dismounted in the same motion. Arnold marched over first, grin splitting his beard. Without warning he struck Lyan’s shoulder with a palm the size of a shovel, almost spinning him.

"You ended the war before we even climbed the stairs. Bastard," Arnold barked, the insult wrapped in laughter. His eyes glittered with the manic light of men who’ve survived too much and haven’t processed it yet.

Erich, prince in name but mud-spattered in truth, clasped Lyan’s forearm in greeting. "I thought you meant to leave us scraps for glory," he joked, then sobered. "You all right?"

Lyan glanced down. His tunic was stiff with dried blood, gauntlets scorched, hair singed at the fringe. He couldn’t feel half the bruises yet. "Better than the alternative," he said.

They laughed—short, breathless. The laughter snagged on the sight before them: the once-magnificent Serpent Palace looked gnawed by giants. Three towers had lost their crowns, stones splayed like rotten teeth. Banners lay in pools of their own dyes, crimson bleeding into dust. Yet amid ruin, life stirred: refugees crept from cellars, children peeked from behind half-collapsed stalls, a baker in soot-streaked apron handed out still-warm loaves to passing infantry.

Lyan’s gaze roved—soldiers limping to water barrels, a healer braiding a little girl’s hair while wrapping her ankle, two rival captains laughing about dice owed. The city was raw, but breathing.

"How many soldiers lost?" he asked, the question grave as a dirge.

Arnold’s mirth faded. He rubbed his jaw, eyes flicking to a scribe unrolling casualty lists across a broken table. "Fewer than I feared," he said, voice gentle. "Because of you." He didn’t say numbers; he didn’t have to. Lyan felt the omissions press at his ribs.

A breeze carried the tang of smoke and baking flour. They found a toppled column, still warm where dawn heated marble, and settled. Josephine produced a loaf blackened on one side. She ripped pieces, handed them round. No butter, no salt, but hunger made it feast.

Erich chewed thoughtfully, watching sunbeams climb the gutted battlements. "You keep this up," he said, crumbs sticking to his moustache, "and I might actually offer you a title again."

Lyan snorted, a sound half laugh, half weary cough. "I’ll keep refusing unless you give me more freedom."

Arnold elbowed him. "Then we’ll keep forcing you into all the hard work." His eyes twinkled. "You, my friend, are cheaper than siege engines."

They shared a muted chuckle—the kind forged in foxholes, brittle but honest. Above them, clouds parted enough that a shaft of sunlight gilded Josephine’s curls, haloing her like a saint of tavern tales. Lyan’s gaze lingered; she caught it, rolled her eyes, then smiled anyway.

_____

Smoke rose in lazy twists when Lyan slipped back toward the hidden wing an hour later. The main corridors were busy now—squires hauling debris, mages sketching glyphs to stabilize cracked arches. Lyan let conversations blur, feet carrying him by memory. He cracked the secret latch; violet wards shimmered, recognized his mana, parted.

Inside, quiet reigned. Torch crystals glowed steady amber. The Queen lay on a wool cloak against a stone pew, breathing slow, lips curved in a whisper of dream. Without the crown’s weight, she looked years younger. Lines remained, but they seemed stories now, not chains.

Kassia stood guard near the entrance, arms folded, mirror-sword leaning on the wall beside her. The blade’s surface was spider-webbed with fractures; in its reflection Lyan saw her fractured, too—three wary versions of the princess overlaying each other. She met his eyes, chin set, neither welcoming nor hostile. A soldier’s neutrality.

Ara knelt on the dais, legs folded under her, palms upturned, fingertips touching in silent meditation. Her bandaged arm rested in her lap. Each breath lifted her chest slowly, rhythm syncing with the tiny bronze orb’s residual hum—as though she drew calm from the chamber itself.

Lyan’s gaze dropped to the ruined gauntlet lying beside her. Its fingers were warped, palm blackened, sigils now brittle scars. He picked it up, turning it over. Once, it had been an instrument of forced obedience. In his hands it felt oddly light, like a husk after a cicada’s metamorphosis.

He closed his fist around a fractured knuckle joint. Could he melt it down, recast it? Not into another weapon—into something else. A crest? A clasp for a cloak of her choosing? Freedom hammered into metal.

The notion stirred something warm beneath his sternum. Yet hot on its heels came unease: once the smoke clears, another tyrant rises. He had lived too long, fought too many dragons—literal and metaphorical—to believe peace stayed kindly for long.

He set the gauntlet back. A sigh escaped him, heavy.

Memories unspooled—friends buried under demon sands, lovers lost between worlds, the cavern echo after slaying Tiamat. Always victories tasted bittersweet. He rested a forearm on the cold rim of the dais, closing his eyes just a moment.

Cynthia’s voice, gentle as snowfall, drifted across his conscience. (You chose mercy. You broke the leash. That’s enough for now.)

He exhaled. Shoulders unknotted a fraction. Even the ever-simmering tension in his gut—the itch to scan every shadow for threats—settled to a throbbing ember.

Enough for now.

He patted the stone once, as if sealing a pact with himself, and rose. Kassia watched, eyes narrowing, but when he passed she gave a small nod—acknowledgement, perhaps even the seed of trust. He nodded back, careful not to let his glance trail below her collarbones no matter how the lamplight traced elegant lines of her posture. Progress, however small, begins with restraint.

The corridor outside smelled different now—sun-warmed mortar, fresh sawdust from repair scaffolds. Workers’ voices echoed, carrying the lilt of ordinary problems: where to fetch clean water, which corridor was safe. Life had reentered the corpse of the palace.

Lyan wound through them, boots crunching over fallen plaster until the yawning gates of the grand entry framed the world beyond. Morning had advanced, sky awash in pastel hues. Smoke plumes rose but now they were outnumbered by rising banners—his own expedition’s black wolf, Surena’s blue boar, Josephine’s scarlet lily. Below, townsfolk dragged broken stalls upright, discovered cabbages still edible, haggled in low voices. Laughter—tentative but real—fluttered up like sparrows.

He stepped over a shattered lintel into sunlight. Warmth stroked his cheeks, painted the filth of battle bronze. For an instant, with cloak flaring and glaive in hand, his long shadow slithered up the palatial steps. It split around cracked mosaics, jagged and proud—a silhouette crowned by fractured pillars. He looked like the very tyrants he’d toppled, like the frescoes of serpent kings still clinging to soot-stained walls.

But the sun rose a finger’s breadth higher. Light flooded cracks, filled them with gold. The shadow fractured, lost those ancient angles, became merely a man-sized outline—scarred, slightly stooped, carrying a weapon because peace was always fragile, but free.

Comforted slightly, Lyan stepped out of the palace ruins into the rising sun. His silhouette briefly resembled the ancient Serpent Kings—but only for a moment, until the morning’s warm light dissolved the illusion, leaving only a man seeking peace.

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