You remember the letters.
The veiled threats disguised as royal invitations. Promises of protection, cloaked in entitlement. The request was simple: surrender your sovereignty, bend the knee, and let the City of Bhuddha serve under the crown.
But Bhuddha was a city of pacifists. A haven built by those who had walked away from war, from the blood-soaked legacies of their ancestors. They didn't raise blades. They raised children, prayers, and temples.
So the city said no.
And the king answered with fire.
You don't remember the sound of the explosion only the wind that followed it, and the way the sky turned black. One moment, you were sweeping the temple steps, listening to the laughter of children in the distance. The next, you were digging them out from under collapsed stone and shattered statues.
The scent of incense was replaced with the stench of smoke and burning flesh.
You'd buried your past so deep. Covered it with years of silence and prayer. But your hands didn't hesitate when they found the broken bodies. They moved on their own steady, precise. The hands of a man who had dug graves before. Too many.
You didn't cry. You couldn't.
All that peace you'd fought to protect… it slipped through your fingers like ash.
You wandered the city that night, stepping over what remained of homes, friends, memories. Every face you recognized lay still. Every alley echoed with the cries of those who didn't die fast enough.
And then you reached the center.
Where the temple once stood.
There, half-buried under rubble, was a child's toy. A wooden bull. You remember carving it, handing it to a boy who always watched you with curious eyes. He'd asked if bulls were real. You'd said yes, but they were beasts that lived for war, not peace.
And yet, now…
You grip the toy tighter than you should. It cracks. Splinters bite into your skin, but you barely notice.
Because now, there's only one thing left to do.
You walk home or atleast what's left of it. The fire hasn't reached your old room yet. Your robe is torn and smeared with soot, but you wear it anyway. Out of habit. Out of mourning.
Beneath the floorboards, you find it.
Wrapped in old cloth. Cold to the touch. The weight is familiar.
The Hollowed Spine.
The weapon, ancient and shrouded in mystery, has not seen the light of day for generations. Your ancestors, long gone, had once claimed it from the body of a great beast that ravaged their land. They forged it into something more, something sacred, a weapon that was meant to remain dormant, sealed under the weight of sacrifice, for those who would never use it for violence. Yet here it is, calling to you, as though waiting.
You stare at it for a long time, until dawn starts to bleed across the sky. Until silence replaces the screams. And when you finally take it in your hands, the cloth falls away, and the past rises with it.
You place the Hollowed Spine at your side. Not because you want to.
But because peace died with the city.
And now, there is no room for peace. No room for mourning.
Only one truth remains.
The king will pay.