CHAPTER 481: THE MERCHANT OF THE WEST

Netser drew in a long breath, then released it as a low, mournful sigh. His shoulders seemed heavier, his composure fraying at the edges.

"I am all alone now, Shaya," he said at last, his voice roughened, weighed down. "The Finance Minister accused us of rebellion. Lies, forged evidence, layer upon layer until even truth was drowned. The king approved it." His eyes darkened, a flicker of pain breaking through. "My family... was exterminated."

Shaya’s breath caught, her eyes widening. "What?" The single word left her lips like a gasp, torn between disbelief and horror.

The garden around them seemed to fall silent, the morning light suddenly too bright, too merciless, as if the world itself held its breath at his confession.

Netser lowered his gaze to the stone table between them. His hands, clenched loosely, rested there as though steadying himself against a weight too heavy to bear. When he spoke again, his voice carried the cadence of memory—slow, heavy, carved with grief.

"It happened after a night of celebration. A banquet at the palace. My parents had been summoned, as had my sisters, and I... I did not go as I had a slight fever. I thought nothing of it at the time. I thought it was simply an invitation for a banquet." He gave a bitter laugh, hollow and short. "But that night was the beginning of our end."

He drew in a ragged breath, and his eyes seemed to drift far away, past the hedges and into the shadows of memory.

"That night, when the first shouts tore through the barracks, I had thought it was a drill. My father has just taken in a new batch of recruits, and they were training for the last three days." The pounding of boots, the ring of steel—it was familiar music to a soldier’s ears. But then he heard the words: ’Seize the house of traitors!’

Soldiers in black armor stormed in, carrying the king’s decree, their voices shouting ’Treason! Rebellion!’ My father demanded proof, demanded reason—but they already had their evidence, carefully forged and sealed with the royal crest. None of it mattered. They had come not to judge, but to slaughter."

Netser’s jaw tightened, his words faltering for a heartbeat before he pushed them out again.

"I remember the screams. The clash of steel in the halls where I grew up. My mother was dragging my youngest sister behind her as the soldiers broke through the doors. I can still hear the shattering of porcelain, the smell of oil lamps overturned, fire crawling up the drapes." His voice thinned, a tremor running through it. "I wasn’t there to fight with them. I wasn’t there to die with them." Netser’s voice cracked.

"I was dragged away," Netser said now, his voice raw. "The guards pulled me down an alley, half-carrying me while the flames devoured everything I knew. I fought them, but they pinned me, hissing in my ear that if I stayed, I’d be executed before dawn. By sunrise, a royal decree had already branded me guilty by blood. And it was my father’s last words. That I should survive."

His hands curled into fists now, knuckles white against the stone.

"When I woke up and broke free from the restraints of my father’s guards, I returned. The manor... There was nothing left but ashes. Bodies in the courtyard, the crest of my house trampled into the mud. My parents, my sisters... gone." His breath hitched, but his eyes stayed dry, hollow.

He lifted his gaze at last, meeting Shaya’s eyes. For a moment, his mask slipped, and the raw grief beneath it showed.

"I should have died with them," he whispered. "But fate—cruel fate—pulled me another way. That is why I am here. Alone. Stripped of name, of title, of family. I am training in Northem as a soldier because it is the only life left to me and the only way I could avenge my family’s death."

The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the distant trill of birds that seemed mocking in their cheer.

He leaned back, his eyes unfocused, as if the garden had dissolved into another time.

Shaya sat frozen, the breath caught in her chest. Netser’s words hung in the air like smoke, thick and suffocating, as if the fire that consumed his home had followed him here, burning across the years.

Her hand, still resting on Blue Eyes’ soft fur, had stilled without her realizing. The pup looked up at her, sensing the shift in her, and whimpered softly.

"Netser..." she whispered, her voice unsteady.

Her throat tightened. She wanted to reach across the stone table, to place her hand over his clenched fist. To offer something—anything—that might ease the weight he carried. But her fingers hesitated, curled into her lap instead. Words stumbled at the edge of her lips, breaking apart before they could form.

All she managed was a whisper, fragile and halting. "I... I didn’t know."

Then her small hand moved and covered his. Netser’s gaze lingered on the soft, fair hand that provided warmth on his cold one.

She had thought her own escape unbearable—running through flame, drifting on rivers, fighting for scraps of life. Yet hearing his story now, she felt something deeper twist inside her. His pain mirrored her own, but sharper, because he had not even been granted the chance to fight for his family. He had been forced to watch them taken, torn from him in smoke and blood.

The silence between them thickened, but it was different now—not empty, not cold. It was the silence of two people standing at the edges of their wounds, realizing for the first time that grief had bound them long before this morning.

Blue Eyes shifted in Shaya’s lap, then leapt lightly onto the table, nosing at Netser’s hand. The simple gesture cracked the stillness, as if the little creature itself refused to let the weight of loss smother them both.

"Didn’t Father, helped you? How about Nalor? Isn’t he your best friend? He could have talked to his Uncle?"

Netser smiled bitterly. "The massacre of my family was very swift. I haven’t heard a whisper about it. The Finance Minister must have prepared for a long time."

Shaya’s eyes softened. For a moment, she let herself imagine what it must have been like—Netser alone, hunted, carrying a grief that was too much to bear.

She drew a steadying breath."Perhaps... we’ve both carried too much alone."