Morgan gave it to me on my tenth birthday. It was heavy, thick, and wrapped in paper that smelled faintly of oil and ink. The kind of gift meant to last, the kind of gift that said read this carefully; you'll be expected to understand it someday.

Mother probably approved of it, though she never said as much. She always pretended not to notice when I buried myself in books instead of drills. Still, I think she wanted me to read it — to memorize the lives of knights, to let their bloodstained valor soak into my bones.

I'd wanted that book for as long as I could remember. The Red Mark: A Compendium of the Allied Knights of the Free Cities. It was part history, part legend — a tapestry of names stitched together by sacrifice. From Avaritia to Zaxal, every knight of renown had an entry, each a biography painted in red ink and dry reverence.

The book had weight beyond its binding. It wasn't just paper. It smelled of history, of iron and dust, and something faintly floral — like parchment that had absorbed too many libraries, too many hands. When I held it, I felt older than ten. I felt like I was holding the measure of every soldier who had ever lived and died believing in something.

Car-Car was sitting next to me that day, bruised and bandaged, her elbows scraped and her nose red from a fight she couldn't even remember starting. I remember how she watched me turn each page with the reverence of a priest. I think she wanted to say something about how boring it looked, but she never did. She just watched.

The first story that held me — really held me — was Redgar, the Bloody.

Redgar was the type of knight who shouldn't have existed. A devout pacifist, sworn to peace, yet called "the Bloody" by those who told his story. The contradiction fascinated me. He was known for saying, "If one man can do the work of a hundred, then why send a hundred?" And so, when the Free Cities called for war, they sent him — one man, one lance, one purpose.

The records said he stood alone at the Valley of Veinspire, where the enemy's legions numbered in the thousands. The sky was red that day, painted by banners and blood alike. He didn't fight because he wanted victory. He fought because he wanted endings.

I remember reading how his armor cracked, how his lance shattered, and how his heart was pierced through by a dozen blades. It said his final act was to smile. To smile, because fewer had died than could have.

Even at ten, I knew there was something terrible about that. About dying for the idea of minimizing the cost.

I read the passage twice. Then a third time.

If I can spare them, I must.

That was Redgar's creed. It was noble, they said. But I could see the flaw. The book never said who spared him.

Maybe that was why Morgan gave it to me.

The next story was written more like a poem than a report:

From skies above, and sands below, With griffins' great gale wings he did blow. Dance of sky, serene of heart— Beware Sir Roland, ere his wrath tear you apart.

Roland of Halamar — The Sky Shredder. A knight who flew with the wind and struck like thunder. Brave, witty, charming, graceful. The kind of man who smiled while cutting you down. He and his griffinhad been inseparable, legends even among their peers.

The book said he was beloved by the people and feared by his enemies. But beneath that, there was something lonely about him. Each victory pushed him further from the ground. The higher he flew, the less human he seemed.

His biography ended with one line that I couldn't stop thinking about:

He died as he lived — by the blade, by the wind, and the wing.

At ten years old, I thought that sounded beautiful. At sixteen, when I reread it, it felt tragic.

Because what did it mean to "die as you lived"? If your life was battle, then your death was the only thing left to prove you'd lived well.

That terrified me.

Even now, I can still picture that classroom — gray walls, the smell of chalk and disinfectant, sunlight cutting through the window in dusty stripes. Outside, kids were shouting, running, sparring, already eager to prove themselves worthy of their family names.

I was the quiet one. Always had been.

I wasn't built for combat, not yet. I preferred to read about the ones who were. The knights in The Red Mark felt real in a way people didn't. Their contradictions made sense to me. They fought for ideals they barely understood, and they died for causes that outlived them.

It felt honest.

The world my mother spoke of — of glory and duty — that was propaganda. But The Red Mark didn't hide the blood. It showed how easily conviction became violence, and how every good intention left a stain.

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Maybe that's why I loved it. Maybe that's why Morgan knew I would.

He always said I was too quiet, too thoughtful. That I'd never make a good soldier because I'd hesitate to pull the trigger. But when he gave me that book, he told me something I didn't understand until years later:

"There's more than one kind of war, Alex. The kind outside you — and the kind inside."

At ten, I thought he meant courage.

And somewhere, between Redgar's sacrifice and Roland's fall, I began to wonder which kind of knight I would become — the one who dies for peace, or the one who kills for it.

***

I was staring at my younger self — that small, scrawny boy with ink stains on his fingers and too much hope in his eyes. He was clutching that book. The book. The cursed, blessed, god-damned Red Mark.

It lay open across his knees, the gold lettering on the spine flaking away with age, the corners worn soft from being read too many times. He mouthed the words like a prayer. He didn't just read those stories — he lived them. Every name, every duel, every bloodied lance was a hymn to a world that felt noble and orderly. I hated how much I envied that version of me.

Sure, I had asked for the book. I begged for it. I remember seeing it once in Morgan's study — the heavy red binding, the seal of the Free Cities impressed on the cover — and thinking that it must have contained every answer the world could offer. And for a while, I treated it like scripture.

Car-Car and I had spent afternoons pretending to be the knights from those stories. Redgar the Bloody. Roland the Sky Shredder. Selene the Silent. We'd duel with wooden poles, swinging until our arms ached, shouting mock battle cries that echoed across the courtyard. We weren't fighting wars; we were playing at them — just like the real knights did now.

Wars had ended by then. The Knights' Orders turned their blades inward, into sport. Their blood feuds became games of prestige. "Fauxbattles," they called them. "Honors of lineage." We all thought that was beautiful — a way to preserve valor without death. We didn't yet understand that it was just a cleaner way to sell violence to a watching crowd.

I'd wanted so badly to be one of them. A real knight, gilded in armor, astride a griffin. And I'd gotten close. When Basaroiel hatched from his egg I thought that was it. That was the sign. I'd finally taken a step into Roland's sky.

I'd spent nights whispering to him about Roland's legend, how his griffin, Auria, split the clouds with a single cry, how he died flying higher than any other knight dared. I thought that if I could love my griffin the way Roland loved his, I'd be part of something eternal.

Gods, I was a fool.

"There's more than one kind of war, Alex. The kind outside you, and the kind inside."

I heard the younger me whisper it aloud, the way Morgan had once said it to me.

"Yes," I answered quietly, stepping closer to him. The air between us shimmered with that same dreamlike heat that hangs between pages of a book — that delicate threshold where story and memory blur. "You believed it meant courage. That's what you wanted it to mean. But it wasn't. It was never about bravery."

My younger self blinked, as if hearing a ghost.

"It's about choices," I continued. "About agency. About deciding who you want to be when no one's watching. Morgan wanted us to be brave, yes — but not in battle. He wanted us to be brave enough to speak. To challenge. To talk to the people around us instead of hiding behind books or orders."

The child-me turned another page of The Red Mark, his fingers trembling slightly. He lingered on Roland's illustration — the knight mid-flight, eyes closed, one hand reaching toward the heavens, the other holding a spear shaped like a lightning bolt.

"He also wanted us," I said softly, "to read between the lines. To see how every knight — every hero — chose their ending. None of them were bound to fate. They all stepped toward it."

The boy didn't answer. His eyes flicked up toward me — toward the older version of himself, who looked more like his father than he'd ever wanted to — and then back down at the book.

"Where's our name?" he asked. His voice was small, uncertain.

That question struck deeper than I expected.

"We'll never be in a copy," I said, my tone breaking just slightly. "We didn't choose the path of the knight."

The boy frowned, not yet understanding.

"In four years," I went on, "you'll learn the truth. You'll see what it really means to serve under her — to wear the colors of the Duarte line. Being a knight doesn't mean freedom from Mother. It means submission. Ceremony. Chains that shine so brightly you forget they're still chains."

The boy tilted his head, confused, maybe frightened.

"There was only one way to be free," I murmured. "And she supported it — pretended to, anyway. She cheered when we spoke about becoming a Walker. She said it was noble, that it was the one calling that answered to no throne. But she hindered us the entire time. Because she couldn't bear the thought of us walking beyond her reach."

He closed the book. The sound of it echoed louder than it should have — like the crack of a seal breaking.

I stared at him. My younger self. The boy who thought the world was a story, and that stories were meant to be lived.

It was strange — how much I loved and pitied him at once. How much I wanted to warn him, to shake him, to tell him that heroism was just another costume. That valor and obedience wore the same face. That even freedom could be orchestrated.

But I didn't.

Because deep down, I knew he wouldn't listen.

And maybe he shouldn't.

If he hadn't believed in The Red Mark, if he hadn't dreamed of Roland's wings or Redgar's final smile, he might never have become me. And I might never have learned the truth — that war isn't fought on the battlefield, but between who you were and who you choose to be after you finally see through the illusion.

The boy looked at the cover of the book again, running his hand over the words. His lips moved soundlessly.

Then, slowly, he stood, and began to walk away — the book clutched against his chest, like armor.

And I was left staring after him, realizing that the child I was still believed in heroes.

And that the man I'd become was still trying to decide whether that was a strength or a wound.

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