I walked through the door of the workshop prepared to finally confront Elm on his past only to find him taking his time inspecting a burner.

“Hey kid, you’re late. Isn’t this supposed to be the big night for preparations? Did one of the gua-”

“Galen told me everything.”

Elm’s face immediately darkened. The simple frown on his face most likely betrayed the amount of emotion that he was feeling inside. He moved over to the vent to close it.

“If he asked you to make a deal with me, ignore it. It’s not like it matters when we’re going to revolt tomorrow.”

“No!” I was shouting. I didn’t care at this point. I needed answers and I couldn’t just let him avoid it for any longer. “I need to know if he was telling the truth.”

Galen placed down the burner and turned to me, leaning against the table. He was still trying to keep up that cold front that he always had. I’d been reluctant to push for answers because I was scared he wouldn’t help, but I was too far in. Out of all of the things I needed at that moment, it was trust.

“He did. Everything that he probably told you I did for the empire was true.”

“Even these?”

I pointed a finger down to the cuff on my ankle.

“Yes. I created them.”

Even though I’d tried to prepare myself for those words, it still hurt. I’d promised to myself that I would punish anyone who helped these camps to exist, and one of them was a person who I called a mentor. I wanted to save him from the camps because I believed he was a victim just like the rest of us, but Nicole’s words of venom were ringing throughout my head.

“Do you truly believe that?”

I was stuck in between two ideals, and the man in front of me conflicted with both of them.

“Why?” It was the only question I could think to ask him. Elm was currently unable to look at me, his eyes focused on some other part of the room. “Elm, look at me.”

When he turned to me, I could see a frustration which he was desperate to hide.

“Why what? Why did I create the cuffs? It’s because I wanted to help Arlin. I loved my nation. I wanted to be a hero for it, to help it grow and thrive into the future. I truly believed that creating it would be the best way for me to be a part of something much larger than myself. I invented it out of love for Arlin, not the hate of others.” He had now matched my yelling. The workshop was good at blocking out sound, but it wasn’t perfect. Neither of us cared at this point whether we were heard or not.

“Then why did you destroy it? What made you stop?”

When he heard those words, he let out a pained laugh.

“Because I saw it. I went to a mining camp for the first time. They never told me what they were like and when I asked to see how my creation was doing, they happily brought me along. It was in Irebor. I can remember it like it was yesterday.” Elm gave up on looking at me and finally turned his eyes towards the ceiling and into his past.

“When I first saw the camp, you know what I did? I laughed. I fucking laughed. Because when I looked down on the people with their emaciated bodies, shackled to the tool that I had spent years of my life working on I realized that my sins were much fucking grander than I ever could have imagined.” His sight returned to me, and it looked as though he were on the verge of tears. “You are here because of my work, and the only thing I can do to punish myself is to wear the same shackles as the children taken from burned villages wear.”

I could barely respond. There was a deep well of self-hatred which I had just dredged up from a man who had spent years of his life attempting to shove down into the deepest pits of his soul.

“The sad part is that there is still a disgusting part of me which still loves Arlin. No matter how much I try, there’s that tiny voice in the back of my head that tells me to love the nation who used my work to inflict so much suffering. So go ahead. Hate me. I deserve it.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“When we talked, that night when I said I was going to tear this place to the ground, you said sorry. Why?” I asked, my voice wavering. I remembered that word so clearly in my head, and I never had a full guess as to why until now.

Elm paused, and I could see as his mind turned through time and back to his past deeper than before. Whatever point I had touched on, it wasn’t a comfortable one. I didn’t care at this point.

“Because Marlisle or Corith wouldn’t have been taken if it weren’t for me. The Empire was about to stop expanding because of how difficult the process of Magore mining was. It required so much labor simply to watch over the slaves. You couldn’t use normal penal laborers because being inside the mines without protection would kill them within an hour, and they weren’t able to mass produce the armors yet. The plan after the 7th campaign was to strengthen our borders, not continue expanding. For at least a time, we would have stopped, but with the cuffs, we didn’t have to. I killed Marlisle. I killed all of them.”

His guilt was palpable now that it was all finally in front of me. He blamed himself not just for the camps, but for all of the wars that followed in their wake. He was carrying a burden so much heavier than I had thought. I’d heard enough to finally ask him the question that Galen had pushed on me.

“Galen said that if you went back to the Empire, he’d get citizenship for both Sera and I.” I paused to watch his reaction. He simply looked at me with his guilt ridden face. “If we weren’t doing the revolt, would you have taken that deal?”

He sighed, staring down at the cuff on his own ankles. “Yes. I would. Saving the two of you would be enough for me to go back to them. It wouldn’t change too much. They’ll figure out my work within a few years without me.”

Galen wasn’t wrong. He cared.

“When this is all over, I don’t care what happens to my life. I’ve been running away from my sins for a while now. If you want to kill me when this is all over, do it.”

***

Forgiveness was not something that had come to mind a lot during the months after Sera was condemned to death. The beauty of the camps was how black and white it was. There was the Empire, and then there was us. I knew who I would be fighting and who would be fighting against me. That was enough to steel my resolve and push forward into the unknown, even during the times when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or how I was going to help others. There were enemies, and there were friends. That was how my world had worked for the past 41 days.

Elm was a paradox. An enemy and a friend. Someone who loved and hated the empire. A soldier and a slave. But he was my mentor and a person who helped me down a path which he believed would kill him. My trust with him was always limited but from the day he had declared he would help me, I believed that he was a good person. I didn’t know that now. Indirectly or not, he helped to spread the empire across the continent to commit further atrocities and to destroy more lives. Without the cuffs, Corith would be as inhospitable and as worthless as it had always been to invaders. Without him, so many of us wouldn’t be here.

Yet he was still a man who was willing to work for the Empire he hated just to save me and Sera. At his core, all he wanted to do was to protect others. Giving up on him would put me on the same level as Nicole or Galen, and I refused to be like them. Even with all of his sins, he mattered to me, and I needed him to know that.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as I collected my thoughts.

And then I hugged him.

***

Elm’s initial response was shock as he couldn’t figure out what to do. He was still leaning slightly against the table, but the hug had nearly caused him to panic and almost fall backward on top of it. I held on tight, refusing to let go.

“I’d never do that. If you believe you need to pay for your actions, then live and fight. Letting you die here and now would be just another victory for them.” I held on even tighter. “I’m just some kid from Corith. I’m not that big or strong, nor have I ever seen true combat. I’m not a genius strategist or a well-spoken aristocrat. I barely even know what the maps look like. What I do know is that the best thing I can do to lead others is to surround myself with people who are better at those things. I need people to help me if I want to save the other camps, and you’re one of those people.”

Being close to him like this really showed the difference in size. The malnourishment of the camps had limited my growth, which meant that Elm was over a head taller than me. I finally took a moment to look up at him.

“I’m not throwing away the best teacher I’ve had.”

Elm took a deep breath, and I could hear him let out a soft chuckle.

“For a dumb kid from Corith, you can give a good speech every once in a while.” He patted me on the back, still confused by the gesture. “You mind getting the hell off of me?”

I relented and backed up, taking a bit of time to reorient myself. It was a moment of weakness, but it was a moment that I think I needed.

“You really want to save the other camps? Are you prepared for that?”

I shrugged in response.

“Not one bit. But I will be when the time comes for it.”

The only thing my mentor could do was laugh.

“Thank you North. Now, don’t we have a revolt to prepare for?”