Darion walked out of the castle and into the courtyard.

Garren was there, standing with a group of knights near the stable. They had been talking in low voices and serious expressions, but they stopped when they saw him. Seren was nearby too, leaning against the wall with her bow across her lap, an arrow in between her fingers. She looked up as he approached.

They had all been stylishly waiting for him to come out.

"It’s done," Darion said. "Aldric swore the oath."

Garren’s shoulders dropped slightly.

"It was an hard one but I managed to pull it off," Darion said.

The knights beside him exchanged glances. One of them let out a breath he had been holding for what looked like a long time.

"Yes!," someone muttered from the back of the group.

Seren smiled at the positive news.

Darion looked at Garren. "Now for the next step."

---

They brought Aldric out an hour later.

His hands were tied behind his back. Not painfully tight, but secure. The simple clothes they had given him hung loose on his frame, a far cry from the heavy robes and fine fabrics he had worn that morning. His face was pale. His eyes were red at the edges. He walked without resistance because there was nothing to resist with. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Ten knights surrounded him. Garren rode at the front. Seren rode beside the prisoner, her bow across her back now, her hand resting on the horse’s reins. Darion took the rear, watching the procession move through the castle gate and onto the street.

Percvale was still rebuilding. The burned houses along the market row were blackened shells, some of them already being taken apart for salvage. People moved through the wreckage carrying timber and pulling nails from scorched beams.

They saw the procession coming.

They stopped.

A woman holding a child froze in the middle of the road. A man carrying a hammer lowered it slowly. An old man sitting on a barrel near what used to be his house pushed himself to his feet and stared.

Darion raised his hand. The procession stopped.

"People of Percvale," he said. His voice carried across the street. "This is King Aldric of Valdenmoor."

The crowd grew. People came out of houses, out of alleyways, out of whatever shelter they had found since the attack. They gathered at the edges of the road, watching and whispering.

"The same Aldric who sent two hundred knights to burn your homes," Darion continued. "The same Aldric who slaughtered your livestock. The same Aldric who killed half of our knights."

A man in the crowd spat on the ground. He was disgusted at the sight of the man named Aldric.

Darion looked at Aldric. The former king stood there with his hands bound, his head lowered slightly, saying nothing.

"I captured him," Darion said. "I brought him here. And I am not going to kill him."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Some of them looked confused. Some looked angry.

"But," Darion said, louder now, "He won’t trouble us anymore. He has cancelled the debt. He has given up all claim to our farmland. He has sworn that Valdenmoor will never attack us again."

He paused.

"And I told you I would get vengeance for what was done to you. I kept my word."

The crowd was quiet for a moment.

Then someone shouted: "Lord Darion!"

Another voice joined. Then another. Then more.

"LORD DARION! LORD DARION! LORD DARION!"

The chant built quickly, spreading through the crowd like fire through dry grass. People were crying now, not loudly, but the tears were there. A woman pressed both hands to her face and sobbed into her palms. An old man put his arm around his wife and pulled her close.

They had thought they were finished.

After the attack, after the fire, after watching their homes burn and their animals die, they had thought Percvale was done. That the Baron would be killed. That Valdenmoor would come back and finish what it started.

But the Baron was standing here. The king of Valdenmoor was standing here with his hands tied.

And Percvale had won.

A child ran forward and threw something at Aldric. A tomato, overripe and soft. It hit him in the chest and burst, red pulp spreading across the cheap fabric. Aldric flinched but didn’t move.

Then another tomato came. Then a rotten apple. Then a handful of mud.

The crowd surged forward slightly, but the knights held the line. The people threw what they had (vegetables, dirt, insults) and Aldric stood there and took it.

His hands were bound. He couldn’t protect himself. He couldn’t wipe his face. He just stood there with his head down and let them throw.

Darion didn’t stop them.

They deserved this.

---

Seren watched from her horse.

She had seen Percvale when she first arrived. A dying place. Starving knights. Pale, cracked soil that crumbled to nothing between her fingers. People who moved like they had already given up.

Now those same people were throwing rotten vegetables at a captured king.

She didn’t join them. That wasn’t her role. But she understood it. The release of it. The way the shouting and the throwing and the chanting let out something that had been trapped inside these people since the attack.

It was justified.

She looked at Darion.

He was standing at the edge of the crowd, watching, not smiling, not frowning. Just watching. Like he was making sure it didn’t go too far.

Aldric stood in the middle of the street and took it.

A cabbage hit him in the shoulder. A clump of dirt caught him in the face. Someone threw a shoe. It bounced off his chest and landed in the mud.

He didn’t speak, didn’t beg and idn’t try to hide.

His hands were bound so he had no choice.

And he was standing in the ruins of a town he had ordered destroyed, being pelted with garbage by people he had tried to break.

He had been a king this morning.

Now he was just a man with wet cabbage on his chest and nowhere left to run.