The last time Zelen had seen his fiancée was just over a year ago.

At the end of another gruelling year of proto-Reiter training, he and his entire class had been granted a glorious one whole week of leave. Even that one week had been planned out for him beforehand, consisting mostly of awkward visits with other Tetrarch families or accompanying his father to council meetings that nearly drained his Psychic Reserves through sheer boredom.

Perhaps the least unpleasant part of that week had been a function held at the Shiranui Estate. It’d been advertised as an exhibit of paintings by the Shiranui clan’s youngest daughter, but when Zelen had gotten there, he sensed right away that most of the attendees weren’t there for the art.

He’d had to navigate clusters of well-dressed people chatting with drinks in hand (and tear himself away from the buffet table), before he reached an open section of the estate’s gardens where the paintings were on display.

15-year-old Asena had stood there next to the largest painting, alone save for a servant at her side. She was dressed in a flowy dress that sagged and dangled from her stringy frame, and had a faraway look to her that immediately reminded Zelen something of himself.

That faraway look snapped into one of mortification the moment their eyes met, and she bowed deeply before stammering something deprecating about her own artwork.

And that had been the first moment Zelen thought he’d learned something of this young woman he was meant to marry someday. Although, looking back on it now, perhaps he’d only projected his own loneliness onto her.

They chatted for a bit about her artwork, with special attention lavished on the centrepiece. It was an expressionist piece (her words, not his) that depicted a duck and a butterfly frolicking upon a pond (all Old Earth concepts he wasn’t much familiar with). He couldn’t recall what he’d said to her, but he remembered trying to be as encouraging as possible. She did look a little cheerier after their chat, so perhaps he hadn’t completely botched his chance to impress his fiancée.

That had been a year ago. And the girl that just arrived at her brother’s funeral had undergone a startling transformation.

The first thing that drew Zelen’s attention (along with a slight rise in his temperature) was that she’d put some meat on her lanky frame, made evident by the contours upon her black dress that wouldn’t have been present a year ago. Zelen tried to rationalize his own rising heat as purely happiness to see that his fiancée was in good health.

The second and frankly far more impressive change was to her demeanour. Despite her youth and fresh tears, she looked attentive and present, performing her duties as a Shiranui with obvious aplomb. She was quick to respond to every condoler and member of the public with smiles, hugs, handshakes, and whatever else was called for. Gone completely was the awkward girl who’d stood beside a painting no one was interested in, replaced by a Tetrarch woman who knew and lived up to what was expected of her.

Watching this version of Asena, Zelen was reminded, not of himself, but of Megha Vakta: a deft socialite who seemed to know exactly what to say and when to say it. Where a year ago he’d seen in Asena a kindred spirit, today he saw the stranger who would be his wife one day—poised to raise yet another Tetrarch family he’d barely get to know.

Today, he saw a reminder of his own inability to evolve and grow in the same way.

“Aren’t you going to say hi?”

Loath to break his posture, Zelen side-eyed his friend, who then did the same.

“I shouldn’t break ranks,” he whispered, though even he knew it to be a feeble excuse.

“Who cares, man? It’s a funeral, and your fiancée is in mourning. Go on. I’ll cover for you if anyone tries to raise a stink.”

But Zelen didn’t move, and didn’t bother to respond to his friend, having already run out of excuses. After a few more seconds and another sidelong glance, Megha too dropped the subject.

Zelen managed to let his mind and eyes wander again, enough to pretend he’d forgotten about Asena’s presence. More ‘family’ filed into the square as the morning wore on: his parents, his brother, his sister and her family… But even when their eyes met, nothing more than nods of acknowledgement passed between them—no more than might have passed between colleagues or acquaintances.

What could he say to them, even if he’d taken up Megha’s advice to head into the crowd? Ask after their health? Exchange stilted words of performative grief? He didn’t know much about how real families behaved, but even he knew that would be well off the mark. He couldn’t even recall the names of his sister’s children, for god’s sake.

After eight years and change as an adopted son of Gerech Athelstan, he felt no more an Athelstan than on his first day—perhaps even less so. Long gone were the lessons his father tried to teach him the first time he’d brought him to the Horsemen’s Square. His bright-eyed ten-year-old self could well have done a better job of mingling with the people of Akropolis than 18-year-old Lieutenant Athelstan.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

For after eight years in Akropolitan high society, his only real competency was in killing Syntropy.

A hush fell over the square, indicating the start to the service proper. A Sehermensch man dressed in the pale blue robe of a high priest took to the dais, and Zelen was happy to have something to distract him from his own thoughts.

That was, until he heard the contents of the speech.

“We are gathered today, with God as our witness, to remember and honour a brave warrior who gave his life in the line of duty. Captain Otaga Shiranui of the Reiter Regiment was not just a soldier. He was a beacon. He was a defender. Most importantly, he was a son and a brother who—”

Zelen listened in disbelief. And as the speech droned on, the temperature rose within him with far greater intensity than when he’d laid eyes on Asena.

He surreptitiously elbowed Megha in the ribs, in an imitation of how his friend had gotten his attention earlier. The nonplussed look that greeted him showed that Megha didn’t share in his indignation.

“What about Captain Vasseur?” He whispered, then watched realization dawn and discomfort grow on Megha’s face.

“Come on, man,” Megha whispered back. “Do I really need to say it?”

“Say what?”

“You know how these things go. Shiranui was Tetrarch. Vasseur was Sehermensch, and a minor one at that.”

A sharp intake of breath from somewhere behind them made both Lieutenants shut up and straighten themselves, and Zelen was left to stew on his own.

How could he have been blind to this before? He saw now that only one coffin sat between the high priest and the congregation. From the beginning, this grandiose ceremony had been intended for only one of the dead men.

Almost as if to spite Zelen, the service proceeded with remarkable efficiency. After the high priest’s preamble, Colonel Yuito Shiranui, the family’s patriarch and the only one among them to be dressed in the tan uniform of a Kurator, took his place on the dais. This was followed by the mother who, sobbing and unsteady on her feet, needed to be supported onto the stage by Asena.

As the mother struggled through her speech, Zelen found himself watching the daughter beside her. At some point, Asena stole a glance in his direction, and gave a small smile when their eyes met. He tried to return the gesture, and found that he couldn’t. He then averted his gaze, and avoided looking in Asena’s direction for the rest of the ceremony.

After several more speeches, the high priest returned to lead the congregation in prayer. By now, Zelen’s anger had cooled enough that he managed to mumble along to the words, and even felt a measure of shame about his earlier petulance. Otaga Shiranui was a fellow Reiter who’d paid the ultimate sacrifice, and therefore deserving of Zelen’s respect, the snubbing of Captain Vasseur notwithstanding.

The ceremony ended, and most of the crowd—as well as the cadets from a new year of proto-Reiter training—began to file out of the square and toward the reception area. Zelen realized then that he’d been one of these cadets not long ago: unabashedly happy for a meal that wasn’t canteen food, and blissfully ignorant of the second memorial service that was about to take place.

It also didn’t escape his notice that among the early exits was the entire non-Reiter portion of the Shiranui clan—including his fiancée, who still held her mother by the shoulder.

In the end, the only people who remained in the square were the high priest, the commissioned officers of the Reiter Regiment, and a woman with two young children. Seeing this, Zelen’s heart ached anew.

He’d never known that Captain Vasseur was married with children—mostly because he’d never bothered to find out. And it felt especially cruel to him that this young family had just sat through that preceding ceremony.

The widow had the haggard but calm look of someone who’d grieved aplenty in private and was now determined to represent her husband with dignity. The younger child, a girl that couldn’t be older than three, simply held onto her mother with a mystified frown.

What drew Zelen’s attention was the older child: a boy about the same age as Zelen when he’d been adopted by the Athelstans. This boy stood slightly apart from his mother and sister, posture rigid and with both hands balled up into fists by his sides. His solemn gaze was directed, not at his family nor the priest that walked over to pray with them, but at the men of the Reiter Regiment that now stood in neat rows at the stone feet of Ernst Athelstan, the First Reiter.

The boy took his time, scanning one by one the faces of his father’s former comrades, until his eyes fell upon Zelen’s, and lingered there.

Zelen met the boy’s gaze and held it, even as a growing disquiet rustled his chest. He imagined, as unlikely as it was, that the boy somehow knew him to be the Reiter that had been nearest his father’s death—the one that had stood and watched him die. His instincts told him again to look away, but he forced himself to stay still, knowing he owed that to the boy—and to Captain Vasseur.

After the priest was done with the family, the Reiters too were dismissed. As the group began to file out of the square, many of the older officers, including General Duodecim, walked over to the mother to offer brief words.

Zelen knew that nothing was expected of him, but he still found himself slowing, hanging back as if he too wanted to talk to the family. It was a ridiculous notion. He wouldn’t know what to say them, any more than to his own family. And when Megha called to him to hurry up, he was almost relieved to obey.

“Did you know my father?”

Zelen froze, then slowly turned to the voice.

In that moment, he felt as though there were just the two of them inside the whole square: a grieving son and the young soldier who’d watched his father die. It was just the two of them, surrounded by four stone statues that had borne witness to a century and more of the same grief, the same anger, the same guilt.

“Yes.” Zelen’s voice sounded faraway even to himself.

The boy fixed him with eyes that were still as dry as they were solemn, but Zelen saw that his balled-up fists were now trembling.

“Did he kill lots of Syntropy?”

Taken aback by the question, it took Zelen a second or two before he nodded, slowly but emphatically.

“I’m going to kill them too. Just like Father did.”

Zelen said nothing.

“I’ll have my Ascension Standard this year. Then next year, I’ll be a proto-Reiter. And then a Reiter. And then I’m going to kill lots and lots of Syntropy, just like Father! I’m going to kill the Syntropy that killed my father, and I won’t stop killing them until… until…”

The words trailed off as the tears flowed. As Zelen watched the boy’s scrunched up face, he also saw another’s: a faintly smiling one that had once said to him, chin up and work up an appetite, greenhorn. We’re about to genocide us some Syntropy.

The disquiet within Zelen’s chest grew and grew, until he could no longer hold the boy’s gaze. He then turned and left without another word.