To protect one thing, you must abandon another.
This cruel yet simple contradiction is not easily carried out. But once you take that first step, you cannot stop. The moment you forsake a single thing, you are bound to keep discarding more—because you wish not for a beautiful ending, but to survive, however wretchedly. You must never grow accustomed to it. The instant you do, all the sacrifices made until now will be defiled.
Those who abandon in order to protect must suffer endlessly between justification and reality.
And now, yet again, the time had come for another painful choice.
Beyond the ridge, birds flapped their wings, taking flight from the forest.
Too late.
The veins in his hand bulged as he clenched the reins. He had marched as hard and as far as he could, yet in the end, it had not been enough. And judging by how far the pursuit had reached, Adrianos, who had held the rear…
His vision blurred. Instead of straining to see into the distance, he lifted his head toward the sky.
“I’m sorry.”
And this life you saved—I swear, I will keep it alive.
Just as he made that vow, a familiar voice rang out behind him.
“Not the best news, cousin.”
“I already know what you’re going to say. It’s the Sipahis, isn’t it?”
Francisco had lowered his visor the moment the retreat began, and even now, his face remained hidden behind it. As expected, he gave no answer. Sipahis. Though they had suffered heavy losses from an ambush before, their forces still far outmatched their own. If it was Murad, he would not hesitate to unleash his devoted cavalry to tie them down.
“…At this rate, we’ll be caught.”
“If we stop to fight the Sipahis, we’ll waste time, and the enemy’s main force will catch up. But if we ignore them, they’ll harass us until we’re forced to a halt anyway. Well, that’s checkmate, isn’t it?”
A conversation with no real back-and-forth. Yet within it, Francisco and I were facing a brutal reality.
How could I not understand the meaning behind his lighthearted tone as he spoke so matter-of-factly about their grim predicament?
Slowly, I turned my head to meet his eyes.
Behind the cold iron mask, a quiet fire burned.
Holding that fire within, my cousin spoke.
“This time, it’s my turn.”
“…Then how many must die? Adrianos held the rear to buy us this much time, and for that, thirteen hundred soldiers had to perish. Cousin, how many will you need?”
A deep sense of despair swept over me.
How powerless I was.
How pitiful.
I spoke grand words, but in truth, I was nothing more than a wretched creature, struggling in desperation to survive a single day longer—throwing those who followed me into the abyss.
Adrianos was already dead.
A man who had come to me on my father’s orders, who had trusted me, who had been prepared to lay down his life for me, had bled out.
I now understood that the depth of a bond was meaningless.
What tormented me was the fact that those who followed me knew they would have to die for my sake—
and yet, they chose death anyway.
“Four hundred.”
But my cousin, faced with such a cruel question, merely gave his answer with unwavering composure.
The moment I heard his response, I no longer wanted to think.
I knew it wasn’t the right answer.
I knew better than anyone that it was far from the best solution.
Yet I could not shake my head.
The contradiction of abandoning to protect.
I knew it was the only rope left to cling to in this situation, so I could not refuse.
The only reason I did not nod immediately—was because no matter how many sacrifices were demanded, I refused to become someone who accepted them as a given.
“I’m sorry. I won’t ask you to come back alive—that would be too shameless of me.”
“You don’t need to. I’ll come back alive regardless. Don’t make this into something dramatic, cousin.”
“Instead—”
“I said, don’t make this dramatic.”
Francisco shrugged with a playful smile.
This knight—passionate, cheerful, and fearless—had come from the Iberian Peninsula.
And now, I was giving him a cruel, tangled command.
No, calling it a command would be too much.
A plea, a request—those words suited it better.
Perhaps that made it even more shameless.
Such trivial thoughts ran through my mind as I carefully spoke, one word at a time.
“Hold out for as long as you can.”
So that as little blood as possible would be shed.
I tried to say it firmly, without hesitation, but as the words left my lips, my voice wavered.
Even asking him to return alive was a luxury in a situation like this.
And yet, knowing that—knowing he was willingly stepping into the jaws of death—I still asked him to hold out as long as possible.
How laughable.
It might even seem like mockery.
But despite hearing this, my cousin extended his hand.
When I reached out and clasped it, a firm strength travelled through his grip.
A hand tightly clenched.
My cousin, my knight—with all the brightness he could muster, answered,
“Of course.”
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